Fir

1. Welcome to StartupQ8 Event :)
StartupQ8 1st Event
Speaker: Abdullah Alshalabi
Date: 26/9/2012

2. Why the event is in English!!!
1. This event is not only for Kuwaitis (Diversification =
innovation)
2. We need non-Arabic speakers (Most talented people in
Kuwait don’t speak Arabic)
3. We need to stay connected with the world (Share and
learn from other countries experiences)
4. English is the “Learning Language” (Stay update or die)

3. And the winning Logo is…………

4. Let’s learn from each other

5. What is StartupQ8?

6. First, who am I?

7. Who am I?
A guy in love with
entrepreneurship

8. Who am I?
Mechanical Engineering
Kuwait University (2002-
2007)

9. Who am I?
Kuwait (Jul 2007-May 2010) Hong Kong (Jul 2010-Jun 2011)

10. Who am I?
Hong Kong (2010-
Uruguay (Summer 2011)
2011)

11. Who am I?
Spain (Sep 2011 – Jun
Uruguay (Summer 2011)
2012)
Barcelona(Sep 2011- Dec 2011)
Granada(Jan 2012- Mar 2012)
Barcelona(Mar 2012- Jun 2012)

12. Who am I?
Spain (Sep 2011- Jun 2012) Kuwait (Jun 2012 – Now)
Kuwait (Jun 2012- current)
Kuwait (Jul 2012- current)

13. Fishfishme team
Pescao - Designer Krishna - Programmer
Jose - Co-founder

14. What is StartupQ8?

15. Wait, what is a Startup?

16. What is a Startup?
“A startup is a temporary organization
designed to search for a repeatable and
scalable business model”
Steve Blank

17. Startups vs Small Businesses
Startups Small Businesses
Fully committed to support and boost
Small Businesses are companies built to make
Startups are companies with founders that businesses and innovation
entrepreneurship, small have a
vision to become big and world class companies enough money to feed their families. Usually their
and usually these companies are considered very founders prefer to stay small and let their family
innovative members manage the business for generations
Startups: Small Businesses:
- New product - Known
- New market product/service
- Unknown - Known customer
customers - Low risk
- Seeking to create a - Want to keep it
big company with small within the
high potential of Key Characteristics Key Characteristics family
growth • Create 1,000s of jobs • Create 10-100 of jobs - Have small
- Very risky, but very • Attract international talents • Attract cheap labor potential to grow
rewarding • Revenue > US$100M • Revenue < US$1M
• Change the world to a better place • Want to feed their family
What do they need? (Ecosystem elements) What do they need? (Ecosystem elements)
• Mentorship and advice • Late stage investors • Initial investment
• Talent and skills • Global network • Grants and Loans
• Incubators • Education • Land
• Early stage investors • Regulations that support their products

18. What is StartupQ8?

19. What is StartupQ8?
A blog and a monthly event that gathers
people interested about entrepreneurship
and innovation

20. Why do we need StartupQ8?
Because we need to establish a
Startup Ecosystem in Kuwait

21. What is a Startup Ecosystem?
Is a friendly and healthy place to start
a company
Silicon Valley, USA Amman, Jordan
Berlin, Germany
Singapore
Dubai, UAE
London, UK
Santiago, Chile
Barcelona, Spain
Bangalore, India

22. What are the elements of a Startup Ecosystem?
We need to work together to make Kuwait a great place to start a new
business

23. What will happen if we a have a healthy Startup
Ecosystem?

24. This is what StartupQ8 is all about, is to
help in building successful Kuwaiti
Startups

25. We started StratupQ8 just 100days ago

26. And we already had some great results

27. 1- Made friends in Finland and Estonia

28. 2- A special weekly coverage about Kuwait in
Wamda.com
I joined Wamda team last week to cover entrepreneurship scene
happening in Kuwait
Wamda is a platform designed to empower entrepreneurs in the MENA region.
The first post will be about StartupQ8 event :)

29. And the best thing about StartupQ8, it’s a
great way to meet like minded people

30. It’s still a long way to transform Kuwait to a better
place for entrepreneurs and Startups

31. We still have a lot of work to do

32. But, let’s start with something simple….

33. Let’s learn from each other