Leap Ventures - The MENA growth fund Menu Leap Ventures The MENA growth fund Primary Menu Skip to content Opinions News Portfolio Team Committees About Contact Search Search for: Entrepreneurship after Oil in MENA: 4 Hard Truths Posted on July 12, 2016 Author Henri Asseily When I was a kid, we were taught in school that oil would be drying up, and so would revenues from oil. At least they got one thing right: oil revenues are drying up, albeit for vastly different reasons. And those governments that used to rely on oil revenues for income are going to have to switch to the good old taxation systems. But taxation systems only work in economies that have a thriving private sector, since a governement that takes back money that it gave away in the first place cant last very long. So the oil problem boils down to Read More Categories Entrepreneurship Tags economy, MENA, oil The difference between a CEO and a COO Posted on April 25, 2016 April 25, 2016 Author Henri Asseily The difference between a CEO and a COO is surprisingly easy to understand, but it is also surprisingly misunderstood by too many entrepreneurs who start as CEOs and devolve to COO roles. At Leap Ventures we have had to explain these roles enough times that I feel compelled to write about it, in the hope that we can simply point to this post in the future. So what is a CEO, how does she differ from a COO, and wheres the problem? A CEO does what he wants to do. A COO does what he has to do. Hervé Read More Categories Entrepreneurship, Talent Management Tags CEO, COO, culture, leadership, management Why Now Is The Time For The Middle East To Invest In Youth And Innovation Posted on March 16, 2016 March 16, 2016 Author Hala Fadel I am a big fan of Chappatte, the Lebanese-Swiss cartoonist who often draws for the New York Times. I find a lot of wisdom in his drawings. When I saw this recent comic above, I thought it illustrated a moonshot opportunity for the Middle East. Current oil prices have put all Arab countries on an equal footing: whether oil producing or not, they are oil-poor given current oil prices. The moonshot opportunity is to reach 30% of GDP coming from the digital economy in any Arab country within 10 years. Leaders in these countries should start this process today by Read More Categories Entrepreneurship Tags economy, MENA Startups: Valuing equity, cash, and the team Posted on November 2, 2015 February 29, 2016 Author Henri Asseily Valuing equity can be very hard in startups, but so is valuing cash and the team. I gave a talk a few days ago at the TechWadi Roadshow powered by Google For Entrepreneurs, that took place in the UK Lebanon Tech Hub in Beirut. I was asked to discuss the importance of teams when launching a startup, so I decided to explain the relative importance in time of the triumvirate: teams, equity and cash. A major error by many first time entrepreneurs is to misprice the value of equity and cash, and generally assume theyre constant over the life of Read More Categories Entrepreneurship, Talent Management Startup payroll: stay lean Posted on October 29, 2015 November 17, 2015 Author Hala Fadel Back from a trip to Silicon Valley, I thought a few lessons from there on CEO and founder salary in a startup would be most beneficial to our middle eastern startups. I had the chance to interview a few CEOs and venture capitalist, and discussed with Quanergy founder Louay Eldada his 3-year without salary and then 50% salary cut in paycheck in year 3 when he started his company, despite a recent closing on a $30 million dollar-round. Louay left a position as CTO at SunEdison to found Quanergy. His effective salary the first 3 years was negative as he Read More Categories Entrepreneurship, Talent Management Youre on stage: entertain! Posted on October 22, 2015 February 29, 2016 Author Henri Asseily Im talking to you, the boring person on stage behind the mike, looking at your screen or notes, reading a speech with long sentences and big words in a monotonously boring voice, clicking a device to move forward an endless stream of badly edited PowerPoint(TM) slides. What is wrong with you? No, really. I mean it. What is wrong with you? Youre given a (somewhat) captive audience. You have the opportunity to impact the next 2, 5, 20 minutes or hours or years of dozens of people. And you squander it all away. Why? Do you really think youre actually good Read More Categories Entrepreneurship Tags tips Determining The Value Of Your Company Posted on October 15, 2015 November 3, 2015 Author Henri Asseily I was asked by Entrepreneur ME recently to explain how I valued companies, and as I was thinking about writing a post here on Leaps website about it, Ill just instead link to the article. Ill just quote myself I am in no camp whatsoever regarding valuation, and, to enrage all philosophy teachers out there I have to state that the answer is it all depends. Categories Entrepreneurship Dont start a startup alone Posted on October 12, 2015 November 6, 2015 Author Henri Asseily Image caption: Leap partner Henri Asseily (right) and Farhad Mohit eating dinner in Farhads parents dining room while starting Bizrate.com in 1996. Their office was the greenhouse just outside. I got a call the other day from a young entrepreneur whod heard we had started Leap Ventures, and that wed invest in companies like his. Mistake #1: dont call someone, send an email. In the email, you can structure your thoughts correctly, and you wont be bothering that person whos probably in a meeting and probably will want to send your info to the right analyst anyway. At Leap, send your pitches to businessplan@leap.vc. Read More Categories Entrepreneurship Tags early stage, startups, team building, tips Categories Entrepreneurship (8) News (4) Talent Management (3) Twitter Email LinkedIn Tweets by @LeapVC © Leap Ventures Beirut Dubai Scroll Up Opinions News Portfolio Team Committees About Contact