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.