As conditions for the hospitality sector in Lebanon remain stagnant, more and more entrepreneurs in the field are exporting their concepts to greener pastures abroad. While successful restaurant concepts have been expanding to the Gulf and Europe for the past decade, mostly serving the Lebanese community there, these past few years have seen nightlife venues also make this growth.
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“We are beer lovers here,” says Jamil al-Haddad, his hands playing with a mock-up bottle for the lager he is creating. “In Batroun, if you go and visit someone in his home, he will not invite you to drink coffee, he will offer you a beer. We have the highest consumption of beer here in all of Lebanon.” “So this is part of why I started to think, I’m from Batroun and I need to brew beer. Khallas, this is how it started,” he says. Slightly sunburnt and full of raw energy and barely contained excitement about the months to come, the 30-year-old is the man behind not one, but four thoroughly ambitious projects: a microbrewery, a restaurant, a bar and a bed and breakfast.
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Product design student Sherif Maktabi made a lurid entrance into the realm of software development when he came up with an application called “Sex with Glass” for the Google’s new eyewear technology. Maktabi, 22 and a Lebanese student at London’s Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design, caught the attention of British media this month for developing a playful Google Glass application that would spice up things in the bedroom. The app allows couples wearing the glasses to see themselves in the act from their partner’s perspective.
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So, Forbes has released its list of “The Hottest Global Startups of 2013” and the top two were founded by Lebanese folks! So, keep going at it all you Lebanese entrepreneurs! But remember, you probably won’t make that list if you stay in Lebanon, unfortunately.
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Whether through ‘accelerators’ start-up loan companies or business incubation, potential entrepreneurs multiply. Lebanon, which has long suffered from its Internet speed, among the slowest in the world, is experiencing a boom in start-ups with the emergence of a new generation of entrepreneurs.
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The Gambia on Friday banned imports of frozen chicken legs after expelling one of the country’s most powerful business magnates for stocking groceries months past their sell-by dates. Lebanese-Gambian multimillionaire Hussein Tajudeen, a former close friend of President Yahya Jammeh, was kicked out of the country this week for “engaging in undesirable business activities”.
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As part of Wamda’s vision for connecting entrepreneurs in the Arab world to experts in the diaspora, Wamda has signed a partnership with LebNet, a network of Lebanese-American professionals working in the technology sector in the U.S., mostly in Silicon Valley.
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Beirut-based incubator Berytech is attempting to launch a local version of a cluster for Lebanese companies in the information communication technology (ICT) sector. This cluster, is essential to increase productivity, drive innovation and encourage new businesses in the field.
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Bit by bit, the Lebanese entrepreneurial puzzle is coming into place. A startup in Lebanon now can have access to incubators, accelerators and associations supporting entrepreneurship as well as financial backers.
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Rise of the startups” was a gathering that took two years to plan. Celebrating the ideas and execution of eight startups that were selected among 436 applicants from six continents. Those selected received $78,000 of funding to get started and will go through the Seeqnce Accelerator program, that provides training and advising for these entrepreneurs. Startups such as “Bayt Baytak”, “elManshar”, “Kaktus” are some of the ventures that Seeqnce chose to pursue, fund, and monitor
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Voices From the Periphery
leo bites 