Ammon News - * Gathering highlights challenges facing start-ups

by Waseem Dia | The Jordan Times

Amman — At least nine out of every 10 new companies in Jordan are bound to fail, an investor said on Tuesday.

"The success rate for a start-up company in Jordan is anything between 5 and 10 per cent,” Maher Kaddoura told The Jordan Times in an interview on the sidelines of the Amman Tech Tuesdays (AmmanTT).

During the event, entrepreneurs cited issues such as scalability, team dynamics and the inability to define responsibilities at start-ups as some of the main reasons behind their failure.

Wizards Productions CEO Suhaib Thiab said one of the main challenges his company faced when it first started was "communicating with the partners".

Gaith Kawar, CEO of Taktek Games, echoed the same sentiment, saying that communication is one of the biggest challenges for a new company.
"Employees in a start-up do not feel the start-up environment,” he said, explaining that they do not feel the challenges or the growth the company is undergoing.

He said that is one of the biggest challenges a start-up faces, emphasising the importance of treating employees as partners and keeping them informed “to keep them motivated”.

Thiab advised new businesses to learn to manage their expectations and not to spend money on “assumptions”.

“If you want to fail, fail quickly, fail fast,” he told the gathering, urging them to minimise the damage and get out with minimal losses.

During the event, which marked AmmanTT's third anniversary, three young entrepreneurs talked about the reasons behind the failure of their companies, to serve as anecdotes for the audience, and to share experiences and lessons learned.

Wheels Express CEO Ibrahim Manna said that one problem that faced his company was customers' concern for price more than quality.

"We opened in a small market. We tried to focus on quality while customers were only interested in low prices," he said addressing the gathering through a Skype video call, citing that as the reason why his company was spending more than what it was generating.

AmmanTT is held on the first Tuesday of every month, bringing together experts, local technologists, entrepreneurs and idea generators to meet and discuss ideas and projects in the ICT industry.