First of all, what the hell is a “startup”? This term has been bandied around with increasing frequency over the past few years, but what does it mean?
A startup is a young company that is just beginning to develop. It offers a product or service that is not currently being offered elsewhere in the market, or that the founders believe is being offered in an inferior manner. A scrappy young venture, that sums it up.
Richard Madison of The Brighton School of Business and Management set forth an infographic highlighting the best startup cities to launch your startup, and guess which city showed up on the list? Our one and only Cairo.
Well, that’s not a bolt from the blue; Egypt’s startup industry is one of the fastest growing in the region, if not the world.
The mass of young, educated and enlightened graduates/change-makers in Egypt are now turning out an array of startups, refusing to make the governmental bureaucracy stop them from moving forward. They are aware and ready for the curve balls life will undoubtedly throw at them.
In spite of challenges from battling beasts called multinational companies, to obtaining funds, not to mention the strain of driving social change, those entrepreneurs are exploiting the birth of many new accelerators and crowdfunding campaigns.
Among them, some have before now set up to the plate and captured some traction such as accelerator Flat 6 Labs. They founded Instabug, an in-app feedback for mobile apps. As a goal, they guide startups to define their product and their core value propositions, establish a steadfast business plan, and profit-orient their enterprise in order to receive follow-on funding. Egypt also boasts an exceptional engineering talent, the best in MENA for Engineering Consultation & Development.
To make a long story short, these startups are the very proof of the growing pool of talented developers, techies, and aspiring entrepreneurs who are hungry and eager for work. They refused to be ruled with a rod of iron, and started a lead that must be followed.
Stop looking for the downsides to start your own business and take a leap of faith; it’s not a foreign ground anymore. You can simply take a leaf from someone’s book and launch your own startups.
If you made up your mind, Seedstars World is coming back to Cairo on 13-Dec-2015. The 12 best startups will be invited to pitch in front of local and international jury. You can look forward to an event filled with disruptive tech, inspirational keynote, networking sessions and one flight ticket for the winner to come to Switzerland to compete for at least $1.5m in investment.
And remember yesterday’s underdog might be tomorrow’s champion.
