Tag Archives: Entrepreneur

Ki, Seedstars Beirut Regional Winner

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Ki, Seedstars Beirut Regional Winner

Ki, the winning startup will be flown to Geneva, Switzerland, to participate in a 3 day bootcamp and the Seedstars Final Event representing Lebanon as they compete for “Seedstars World Best Startup.” The winner will secure a $500,000 investment while pitching in front of a wide panel of European investors, in addition to receiving $20,000 worth of hosting services from Softlay and $60,000 work of global prize partners.

Ki, the only password manager that interacts with you, is basically an app that logs you in to your accounts and keeps you safe from hackers. For example, you get to work and you get to a close proximity to your laptop, Ki will access all your accounts for you. If you step away from your laptop, Ki will send you a notification asking you if you want to stay logged in or not. Moreover, it will change your password for you on a scheduled basis and takes the hassle out of two-factor authentications. The passwords are saved on your phone which simply logs in via location.

Seedstars World is an exclusive worldwide startup competition that has been taking place in over 30 cities in 2014 and Beirut was one of them. The aim of the competition is to find the best startup in emerging and fast-growing startup scenes such as Lebanon. The pitching event was exclusively sponsored by Banque du Liban and hosted by Lebanon’s first international startup conference, Banque du Liban Accelerate 2014. Banque du Liban has been supporting startups in Lebanon during the past couple of years, which in return has provided startups with a boost and made Beirut a strategic hub for them.

25 startups were selected to participate in the Lighting Round Pitch on the main stage on Thursday in addition to having a startup exhibition stand throughout the 2-day conference. The top 8 were selected to enter the Finalist Round on Friday during which they had 6 minutes to pitch. Ki was selected by the jury after a very tough round as “Seedstars Beirut Regional Winner.”

 

 

 

BDL Accelerate Conference Schedule Overview

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Agenda Overview

Lebanon’s first international startup conference, Banque du Liban Accelerate 2014 kicks off tomorrow! We have put together an awesome schedule for the upcoming 2 days. The agenda features 7 keynotes, 2 firesides, 5 interventions and 8 panels.

BDL Accelerate 2014 will showcase 53 influential high profile speakers, 33 of which are flying in from over 20 countries from Singapore to San Francisco. The speakers will share their Blueprints for Success in the keynotes and panels. They will share their insights into developing and expanding startups, emerging trends, disruptive innovation, accelerators, investment strategies, opportunities and challenges faced in the different ecosystems, and more.

In parallel to that, there will be 8 workshops that feature small group sessions with some of the key speakers, throughout the 2 days. The workshops will cover many specialized and focused topics educating entrepreneurs every aspect of the start up industry from concept to fundraising to branding to expanding and more.

Speaking at the Opening Ceremony will be Governor of Banque du Liban Riad Salameh, UK Ambassador Tom Fletcher, Francois Bassil, and Mohammad Chouceir. The Opening Keynote will be delivered by Alexander Asseily, the Chairman and Co-Founder of State and founding CEO of Jawbone. Other speakers and panelists include CEOs, investors, and seasoned entrepreneurs.

Seedstars World will host a competition at Banque du Liban Accelerate 2014 to find the best entrepreneur. 30 exceptional startups have been selected from over 100 applications to pitch. They will partake in the lightning round on the first day where they will each have a minute to pitch their startups. The finalists will be announced following the lightning round and proceed to the finalists round the next day for a chance to be “Seedstars Beirut Regional Winner” and represent Lebanon at the global competition in Geneva, Switzerland.

Darius Cheung – 99.co – Singapore

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Darius Cheung,
Founder & CEO, 99.co
Singapore

Renowned technology startup veteran and serial entrepreneur Darius Cheung is the Founder and CEO of 99.co, a Singapore-based online rental portal. Prior to that, Darius was CEO and co-founder tenCube, a mobile security company, which was later acquired by McAfee. He is also co-founded BillPin, a bill-sharing app. In 2008 he was recognized as one of BusinessWeek’s Best Young Entrepreneurs in Asia and has also won the Singapore Youth Award in 2010. In addition to being a serial entrepreneur, Darius is also an angel investor, a venture partner at Golden Gate Ventures and serves on the steering committee for Action Community for Entrepreneurship. Darius is an alumnus of NUS Overseas College and has a National University of Singapore graduate with a minor in Technopreneurship. The university was a seed investor in tenCube.

Darius’s first startup was tenCube, an anti-theft software for mobile platforms called WaveSecure, and was acquired by McAfee for an estimated $25 million. This deal gave hope to many startups in Singapore that they could make it globally and Darius supports that wholeheartedly. He constantly explores consumer demands and tries to provide and deliver a flawless solution. This is how BillPin came about. Darius and the remaining co-founders of BillPin had come to realize that when sharing a household with others, problems can arise from shared expenses – both big and small ones. The solutions available on the market were not ideal for them so they developed BillPin to help consumers keep track of shared expenses while keeping their friendships intact.

It is that very same mindset that motivated Darius to found 99.co. As renter for many years, his personal experience of facing the pain of dealing with the rental market has lead him and the rest of the founding team to find a more optimal solution. The portal is easy to use and provides users with relevant information much faster than any other platform would. Besides providing updated, accurate, and reliable search results, the portal provides information on the neighborhood such as commute time, guides to neighborhoods, food options in the area, and the general feel of the area.

It isn’t a surprise that Darius received numerous accolades and recognition for his work. He is a true inspiration for startups in Singapore and emerging markets.

 

Q&A with Yasser Akkaoui

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Q&A with Yasser Akkaoui

Yasser Akkaoui,
Editor in Chief of Executive magazine & Founder of KConcept Holding
Beirut, Lebanon

 Yasser Akkaoui is the founder of KConcept Holding, the mother company of Capital Concept, Prime Job, News Media and the Center for Strategic Studies. Yasser has become one of the reference names in Corporate Governance activism in the Middle East. He has been a committee member of Human Rights Watch in the Middle East since 2010, a member of the Organization of Economic Development and Cooperation’s taskforce for MENA stock exchanges, and the regional consultant for the Center for International Private Enterprise. In April 2010, he was invited to Washington by US president Barack Obama, along with delegates from around the world invested in advancing entrepreneurship, to discuss the state of entrepreneurship in the MENA. Since 2011, he has been the chairman of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies. From 2008 to 2012, he has been a board member of the Lebanese Transparency Association (LTA), Transparency International’s Lebanese chapter and through LTA, he has co-founded the Institute of Directors in 2010 which aims at promoting good governance in Lebanon. Yasser also created PrimeJob, a headhunting agency working alongside some of the biggest companies throughout the Middle East. He is the founder of the Center for Strategic Studies, a non-profit organization engaged in awareness creation for employment concerns and resource development strategies for the 21st century. Yasser has been representing the interests of Executive Magazine since 2001, a media platform he uses to advocate reforms in the Middle East. Executive, established in 1999, is dedicated to providing its readers with in-depth and forward thinking analysis, solid reporting and punchy opinion on Middle Eastern business, economy and public policy. Yasser is the Vice Chairman of Young Arab Leader, and is also a Business Ethics instructor at the American University of Beirut. Since its inception in 2010, he has been a strategic partner for the Beirut Art Fair.

 What kind of policies or regulatory frameworks Lebanon needs to work on in order to facilitate investments? Is there anything that’s currently being done in this regard?

In the absence of a modern private equity legal structure and a functional Beirut Stock Exchange, and without deeply rooted corporate governance principles, investors will shy away from our entrepreneurs. We are confident that the Capital Markets Authority is aware of its mandate – let’s hope they will be up to the task.

 Is there something unique about Lebanese ecosystem? What is it and how can the country use it to up its startup game and compete with other ecosystems?

Educated and creative entrepreneurs together with skilled and hardworking craftsmen is our competitive advantage. When provided with the right framework that allows them to discover each other and cooperate towards achieving their ambitions all while satisfying investor’s expectations is the only strategy that will – without comparing to other ecosystems – serve the nation building exercise.

 

 

Q&A with Alexander Asseily

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Q&A with Alexander Asseily

Alexander M. Asseily
Chairman/Co-founder, Jawbone & State
London, UK

Alexander Asseily is the founder and Executive Chairman of London-based startup, State. State is an opinion network for the world: a kind of global town square, where people can connect to each other through what they think, rather than who they know. Prior to State, Alexander was the founding CEO of Jawbone, the largest venture capital-backed consumer electronics company in the world, where he currently maintains the role of Chairman. Jawbone is the industry leader in mobile lifestyle products including the award winning ICON wireless headsets, JAMBOX speakers, and UP wellness solutions. Alexander also serves as Chairman and Co-founder of Chiaro, a London-based personal wellness technology start-up, whose first product Elvie will be unveiled in November 2014. Alexander grew-up in Beirut and London before receiving his BSc & MSc in Engineering Design at Stanford University. He advises a number of startup technology companies and charitable organizations in the US and Europe.

Your story is about success, but the road to success is often studded with mistakes, or even failures. What was your biggest mistake and what did you learn from it?

Not knowing how to hire great people from the beginning.

As a Lebanese entrepreneur who has had his big break outside Lebanon, what advice can you give to Lebanese entrepreneurs who are starting up businesses in the country?

Think Big. The local market is not big enough and often unstable. Aim for regional or global markets and leverage the location-agnostic nature of the web. It’s not easy to start a company anywhere—even in California—and although Lebanon definitely has some drawbacks, most of them are minor in comparison to the challenge of creating an amazing product. It adds overhead but you can work that into your operating model. It also has some advantages: for the internet, your market is what you make it but your costs could be considerably lower and your retention rate for partners/team is likely to be much greater. Leverage the best practices from other places like Silicon Valley and London, apply them judiciously to your own situation in Lebanon and leverage the key things that Lebanon has to offer: smart people, good education, good global connections, etc.

Do you think Jawbone would have reached its heights had you started it out of Lebanon? What do you think Lebanon needs to do to up its startup game?

Probably not in 2000 but maybe today. Hardware is tricky because sometimes you need some rare skills like PCB or firmware or DSP design that only thrive in dense eco-systems like Silicon Valley or Southern China. That said, it’s far from being clear cut. You could hypothetically outsource to other countries the things that Lebanon doesn’t have locally and ultimately take advantage of global connectedness to reach markets and suppliers that might have been impossible to reach 15 years ago.

Lebanon needs fast and reliable internet before it does anything else. The government should create incentives for people to start and operate companies painlessly: tax cuts, paperwork, etc.

 

 

Q&A with Thijl Klerkx

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Thijl Klerkx
Founder, Thijl.nl
Amsterdam, Netherlands

Thijl Klerkx is a 20-year-old entrepreneur from Amsterdam, the Netherlands. At the age of 12 Thijl started a webhosting company which he sold at the age of 13. After this first entrepreneurial adventure Thijl started working on his current company which he started at 15. With help from an investor, Thijl started doing deliveries of organic groceries by cargo bike.
 Now, 5 years later, he is working on fine-tuning his business model and scale his delivery company.
 In addition to that, Thijl advises corporates like Randstad on the use of technology and the internet.

 What was the biggest mistake you’ve done as an entrepreneur? What did you learn from it?

You do not want to know how many incidents come to mind. However, the biggest mistake was probably that after running my business for about a year I thought I knew exactly what needed to happen to make it grow faster and I spent a year fixing that issue. Only then I realized other underlying issues were the actual issue. So I basically spent a year on fixing an issue that did not need any fixing… So from now on I try to spend a little more time analyzing the situation.

 What is the most critical phase in a startup’s lifecycle? How did you navigate the tides of this cycle with your own startup?

To me this would be the phase after launching but before scaling where you get the chance to use the feedback from your first customers to really improve your product and get it ready to scale. Many successful startups change their entire proposition in this phase. Efficiently using the feedback of your first customers is absolutely necessary to get your startup ready for successful scaling.

 What does it take to build a great product and scale it across the world?

I have no real experience scaling startups across the world yet. However, I am personally a big believer in the fact that in most cases you should first take time to make your startup successful in your region, before scaling very big very fast. A good business model, hard work and a couple of good people are not enough to really scale across the world. You will have to create a fluid machine that launches your product in a very structured, efficient and uniform way.

 

Q&A with Marianne Hoayek

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Q&A with Marianna Howayek

Marianne Hoayek
Director of the Executive Office, Banque du Liban
Beirut, Lebanon

Marianne Hoayek has a degree in Business Economics from the Lebanese American University, a degree in Law from the Lebanese University and obtained her Masters in Laws of Banks and Capital Markets from the Saint Joseph University. She is currently the Executive Director heading the Executive Office at Banque du Liban since its establishment in July 2007. The office directly reports to the Governor of the Central Bank.
 Marianne is member of the official Lebanese delegation to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Annual Meetings and member of several committees such as the Investment Committee and the Open Market Committee.

What has been the feedback/reactions to the Circular 331?

Since we issued circular 331 in August last year, we have had very positive feedback from all participants in the Entrepreneurship Ecosystem.

For the first time in Lebanon and I think in the Arab World, an innovative approach has been used by a Central Bank to create a platform dedicated to providing equity finance for Entrepreneurs through commercial banks.

Lebanese banks can invest in the capital of startups, incubators, accelerators, and funds. The Central Bank will guarantee 75% of that investment up to 3% of each banks’ capital.

This scheme made available around $400 million USD. Some were saying that the Circular will pave the way for Lebanon to become the Silicon Valley of the Middle East. We are keeping our hopes high… In all cases, once fully utilized we believe that this scheme will contribute to economic growth by 1%.

How is the selection process like? What are you looking for?

Well in terms of what we are looking for, as I said earlier, we are looking for investments in companies that will help foster the knowledge economy. The world we live in is directed by technology, and Lebanon has a big potential in this sector. We believe that the digital sector is a very promising one along with other sectors that are based on innovative and creative ideas. Supporting sectors where Lebanon has a comparative advantage could help increase competitiveness and create new job opportunities in particular to the talented youth.

The text of the circular specifies the conditions and the selection process; most importantly, the company should be a Lebanese joint-stock company with nominal shares, not a financial or an offshore company. Its work should rely on knowledge economy and aims at supporting creative intellectual skills. It has to have a positive impact on the economic and social growth in general and on job creation.

To date, we have had quite a number of companies that benefited from the circular. Presella through Al Mawarid Bank, was the first pilot project (June 2014). Since then we have approved the disbursements of funds for several venture capital and we have some other applications in the pipeline.

What are the next steps with the Circular?

In Lebanon in the past few years, we have been facing challenging circumstances that are putting a heavy toll on the economy’s ability to grow. The need to help the economy to face those challenges was one of the main reasons behind issuing the Circular 331. We will continue our efforts to help stimulate economic growth that can be translated into increased job opportunities and a better socio-economic position.

As for what’s next, we have been keen from the beginning to engage all stakeholders in a constructive dialogue regarding what we can do to help the economy. Last year in December we introduced the new platform to the banking sector and entrepreneurs alike in an event that we called: INNOVATE – Banking Outside the Box, and this year we believe that BDL Accelerate will help us shape the next steps needed based on the presentations of the prominent speakers regarding their experiences and best international practices. I believe that the discussions and interactions that will take place will be very useful to assess what more can be done… I am looking forward to learn from those interactions… 

What does Lebanon have to do to up its startup game?

I think we need to work on improving the business environment in general. In the World Bank’s latest report Doing Business 2015, which measures ease of doing business in 189 economies, Lebanon unfortunately slipped from the rank 102 in 2014 to 104 in 2015, a sign that we did not make any serious effort to cut red tape or introduce new regulations to improve the business climate. In the ‘starting a business’ category, Lebanon ranked 119 out of the 189 countries. If we would like to encourage entrepreneurs to start a business we need to make it as simple as possible and to decrease administrative costs. We also need to invest more in upgrading our educational systems and include entrepreneurial learning as part of school curriculum.

As for what concerns the Central Bank, we need to continue the work on improving access to finance for startups. Some work still has to be done on not only decreasing cost of capital for SMEs—this we have been doing for some time, and will keep on doing it for next year through our stimulation package—but we also need to make it more competitive and less burdensome.

We need to encourage banks to innovate in the tools they make available to SMEs in general and entrepreneurs in particular. We also need to work on encouraging the creation of incubators and accelerators in Beirut and outside the capital to be able to reach the largest number of entrepreneurs.

 

Q&A with Mark Haidar

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Q&A with Mark Haidar

Mark Haidar
Founder & CEO of Vinli
Dallas, Texas, USA 

Mark Haidar is a serial entrepreneur who combines advanced technological skills with astute business knowledge. Throughout his career, Mark was able to build more than 42 different notable products and grow several technology-based businesses. Mark started his first technology company in Lebanon at age 17. By the age of 21, he had built the first fully integrated web-based university management system in Lebanon, the first 3D game engine built locally in the Middle East, the first wireless application protocol based internet-to-home remote control system in Lebanon, and won a People’s Choice Award for Best Web Product in the Middle East for transforming municipality records from paper to digital. In 2006, Mark moved to the US and led the development of a state of the art research and development project for the US Army Tank Automotive Research Development Engineering Center (TARDEC). He was able to successfully create an original service-oriented intra and inter-vehicle communication system for transportation, robotic, and military systems that enhanced each vehicle’s situation assessment and awareness in military combats and have the potential to help create safer and more efficient highway systems.

With a huge demand for innovative and scalable technology solutions, Mark co-founded Dialexa, a global product-focused technology innovation and development company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Dialexa has been growing at an exponential rate with clients ranging from venture-backed startups to Fortune 20 companies and governments around the world. In 2014, Dialexa started a division under the name of Dialexa Labs, a self funded venture lab that develops internal products or services that spins out new companies. In September 2014, Dialexa Labs launched Vinli, the first connected car technology platform at Techcrunch Disrupt. Mark is currently serving as the CEO of Vinli.

Mark has numerous journal publications, pending patents, and is a regular speaker at global technology conferences. Most recently Mark founded Peace.Report, an online news aggregator that focuses on current conflicts around the world. It collects news articles that promote peace and expose atrocities. Peace.Report is scheduled to go live early 2015. Mark is also working on launching LISA (Lebanese International Startup Association), which helps Lebanese startups launch and scale their companies in international markets.

As a Lebanese entrepreneur who has worked in Lebanon and also had a big break outside Lebanon, what advice do you give to Lebanese entrepreneurs who are starting up businesses in the country?

It will be hard but you can make it.

Here is why it is hard:

  • Instability: In Lebanon we have no idea when a war is going to erupt or when you are going to have electricity. This poses a real struggle in maintaining a stable operation.
  • Lack of capital: A lot of rich people and banks but no traditional VC or angel investment.
  • Small market size: The whole country of Lebanon is smaller than Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and the Lebanese GDP is smaller than some companies in the USA. So building a startup that scales to its potential is very hard when the local economics do not support it.

Here is why you can make it:

  • The most important capital for a startup is human capital. Lebanon has some of the most talented and educated people around the world in a really high percentage. People are what make a startup successful and not money. Startups are all about execution and Lebanese can execute.
  • The Lebanese mastered the most important art a startup should possess: survival. They don’t teach survival skills at schools; in Lebanon we live it every single day. Everything is an uphill battle and somehow we manage to make it. Yes building a startup is hard but managing to stay alive, go to school, go through poverty, and get a university degree in a country that has continuous sectarian and regional wars, high poverty rates, no electricity, and no public support is much harder!
  • In a country and a region that doesn’t have much advancement in technology, you have less competition.
  • The world is a global village. With technology, your startup can reach global markets and customers without the need for you to be there. The Internet and new business models broke the barriers.

Here is my advice to the Lebanese youth:

Do not give up and settle for a boring corporate job because it gives a steady salary. Do not join political parties whose sole job is to keep the status quo. Shatter your glass ceiling. Do not wait for your government or political leader to do you a favor. You are better than all of that. Join or create a startup and change the world and discard the noise that is telling you that you cannot make it. Don’t be afraid to fail because you will be facing failure every single day until you make it. Fear is a choice. And what is the worst-case scenario? Your company fails completely and shuts down. In which case you have gained experience and connections that allow you to leapfrog anyone else who in the corporate world. If you have the guts to create a startup and the stamina and persistence to pursue it to the end, you will always end up winning.

What are the limitations of the Lebanese ecosystem? What do you think Lebanon needs to do to up its startup game?

I think I covered the limitations in the previous question. But to summarize it: lack of capital, small market size, and the inexperience in launching and scaling a startup.

To be realistic, you cannot depend on the Lebanese government to fix this. This is wishful thinking; with all the politics involved nothing will happen. I think that for Lebanon to up its startup game, you need to focus on the strengths that Lebanon has and take advantage of them instead of dwelling on the weaknesses.

Lebanon is the probably the largest exporter of human capital in the world relative to its population. We have 12 million Lebanese living abroad and 4 million inside Lebanon. I can’t think of any other country whose 75% of its population is dispersed around the world. That’s the number one export from Lebanon. The Lebanese diaspora contributes directly to 20% of Lebanon’s GDP. So Lebanon is by definition geographically located in the Middle East but dispersed globally around the world. This effectively makes Lebanon a global country; and we need to apply the same mentality to our startups. Startups need to start local and then go global. This is part of the Lebanese DNA. We need to put the mechanics in place to connect the Lebanese technology ecosystem to the rest of the world and allow startups to grow beyond the boundaries of Lebanon and also connect talent and expertise from around the world to Lebanon.

That’s why I think what BDL is doing is a spark of genius. With the Circular 331 and BDL Accelerate, BDL became the catalyst for establishing this ecosystem and established itself as the epicenter of progressive change in Lebanon. Now, it’s time to build on that!

You are currently working on launching the Lebanese International Startup Association. Can you tell us a bit about this?

As part of building on top what BDL is doing and in line with solving the need for Lebanese startups to have global reach, we created LISA (Lebanese International Startup Association).

With the entire world coalescing into a single global village and the U.S.A. being the epicenter for startups, a global strategy and framework that is complimentary to Circular 331 is not only ideal, but also necessary. Lebanese startups cannot depend strictly on the Lebanese or MENA markets for big, continuous and/or sustainable successes. LISA will be an entity whose purpose is to enable the success of Lebanese startups in the global market in general, but with a particular focus on the US market, and will have the following mission:

  1. Educate the Lebanese youth and entrepreneurs on starting a startup that is positioned for success in the global market.
  2. Communicate with the Lebanese startup community and maintain statistics and data on what is happening in the Lebanese startup scene.
  3. Promote Lebanese startups and the community globally­­­—specifically in the US.
  4. Assist Lebanese startups with coming to and staying in the US.
  5. Help Lebanese startups in business development and introduce them to people in the US who may be able to help.
  6. Create a framework that will enable Lebanese startups to pursue and hopefully obtain capital from US investors.

In order to successfully access the US market, LISA will need to create a robust ecosystem and market demand engine to support the landing of new entities in the US. The key attributes here are as follows:

  • Awareness: Marketing and PR activities in the US that promote the great things going on in Lebanon and how technology startups are being born.
  • Advisement: Creating an ecosystem of advisors and mentors with a focus on the US for market development activities and to help these startups adapt to and operate in the US culture and market.
  • Office Space: Bring select startups to the US and provide a physical office space for them to work from.
  • Professional Services: Provide companies with services that all businesses need from credible service providers, such as legal, accounting etc.
  • Introductions: Connecting and introducing select startups with VCs, media and people who may be able to help.
  • Launch: Business Development and Marketing activity to help these startups with introductions and positioning of their solution to meet market demand and generate initial revenue.

LISA will start accepting applications from startups as early as December 2014.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Q&A With Jean Nehme

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Q&A with Jean Nehme

Jean Nehme
Founder & CEO 
Touch Surgery, United Kingdom

Jean Nehme is a plastic surgeon, CEO and co-founder of Touch Surgery. Having completed his undergraduate medical training in London he embarked on a career in academia and surgery, where he experienced firsthand the limitations of healthcare. During his surgical training he undertook a part-time Masters in Surgical Technology at Imperial College London. His work awarded him a distinction, academic papers, awards and presentations at a multitude of international meetings. His research at Imperial included the application of virtual reality simulation to surgery and robotics. This was a natural marriage of his greatest passions, technology and healthcare, driven by a desire to build globally scalable solutions. Upon completing his degree and whilst a resident in plastic surgery, he began building with Andre Chow the technology that was to become Touch Surgery. In early 2013 they were awarded a position at a leading accelerator program in New York City to build out a vision for Touch Surgery. Since then Jean has raised funds from leading venture capital groups in the US and UK. In 18 months Touch Surgery has grown to over 40 people, with diverse expertise from world class animation to game and data technology. The Touch Surgery Lab is based in London and New York City. Jean has raised an undisclosed amount of funds to build out technology that has the potential to change surgery and ultimately improve patient outcomes globally.

Touch Surgery is a really innovative idea. How did you come up with it? What were the challenges you faced in turning it from an idea to a real startup, and how did you overcome them?

I am a surgeon and so is my co-founder Andre Chow, so we are somewhat experts in the problems of our field. Touch Surgery was born out of experiencing these problems firsthand. Surgery lacks standardization, objective evaluation, and tools that can disseminate best practices efficiently and globally. Working with a Andre, we set out to use our knowledge of technology to build a solution that would address these problems.

 What was the biggest mistake you’ve done as an entrepreneur? What did you learn from it?

Turning an idea into a functional startup was really hard especially when I had spent 8 years of my life training to be a plastic surgeon. I had no real business knowledge and a wanting to build technology with the aim of improving surgical practice and patient outcomes. As you can imagine there was skepticism and resistance from surgical mentors and family when I said: “I want to build technology that can improve global patient care.”

 What advice do you give to Lebanese entrepreneurs who are starting out today?

Overcoming your fears is the first step. We have a great photograph in the Lab that we took in New York which says, “Remember whatever you believe imprisons you.” We did not believe we could build a company, we did not believe we could ask the right questions, let alone find the answers. Early on we sometimes hired out of fear, not fully understanding what roles we would be filling, but making ourselves feel better because we had someone with an MBA in the Lab. This was a mistake.

My advice to entrepreneurs is to be fearless. You are imprisoned by what you believe in and you can achieve what you want once you overcome these fears. Believe in the problem you are trying to solve and then the solution. Be your greatest critic, ask lots and lots of questions. Don’t believe in your own hype, and in those that love you find both the support and the grounding. That helped me through a lot of the challenges, as did having a co-founder that I have been lucky to work with. We complement each other and fill in each other’s’ weaknesses. Finally, I recently heard a great saying: “Love going to work but also love going home.” I am still struggling with the going home part.