Software Business in the Middle East

After graduation from the university I thought many times about getting another degree, like PhD or MBA.

But always these thoughts ended up with understanding that further studying would only be for getting a cool title and for having nice words written on my business cards. That’s really bad motivation to spend a few years of your life for further education.

Several years ago I suddenly found myself in situation when after years of programming I would need to manage a team of 7-12 people working in different countries separated from each other by 9 hours flights. The first thought was to go to some management training. My chief was wise enough to suggest me waiting until I make my own mistakes trying to solve daily management problems, and only then go to the training. That was really smart decision. Later on the training I was looking for the answers to my questions. If I went there just for getting a nice looking piece of paper that confirmed I’d successfully finished the management courses, I guess the result would be much worse.

Now I feel it’s time to start studying again. I have a lot of questions in my mind I need to find the answers for. There are also a lot of new knowledge that I need to discuss with others and formulate properly – hopefully in my next diploma.

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Time to time I read articles that discuss what the best choice is – to get employed or run your own business.

There is no silver bullet for this question. Business and employment are much related to each other, otherwise business owners would never find employees and employees would never get a job. It’s a matter of your personal taste. It’s like a choice whether you want to work in small or large company.

I guess it would be interesting to talk about my own experience of working as employee and then as small business owner.

Your personal time

Employment – normally, you work from 8 am to 5 pm with one hour lunch break. The rest is your own personal time that you can spend however you want. I was working long hours, but that was my personal choice. Excepting several times, nobody ever asked me to stay late or come to work on week-end.

Own business – during the first year I had no personal time at all. Then, after my son’s birth, I started to spend 1.5-2 hours each evening having a walk with my kid. Also, my wife won the battle of having Saturday as a family day when I try not to even starting up my computer.

My normal working day now is 12 hours. I took my first two-weeks vacation 20 months after we had started the company. During my vacation I checked and replied all my e-mails daily, and I was working for a few days as it was needed.

Independency

Employment – yes, you have kind of dependency on your employer. But, it’s not very clear who depends on whom. In Sweden, you cannot get laid off easily – probably only in case if you come drunk to the office, or you turned down the company network downloading porn movies, or your company gets closed. It’s also kind of winning a lottery to be laid off in Sweden – you get enough money to live your normal life within several months until you get another job. Also don’t forget about pretty powerful social support from the government.

Own business – as my ex-boss said before I quit, he was the only one I reported to when I was employed. In your own business you will report to and be responsible for a lot of people: customers, partners, sub-contractors and so on.

In addition to the politics inside your organization, you have to learn the politics your customers play with. Last year one of the officials asked for the shares in our business promising sales and public awareness about our product. We rejected the offer, and recently it came to my knowledge that several large contracts haven’t been closed last year thanks to him. Enemies can kill your business, but sometimes you have no other way rather than getting more enemies.

Mobile Phone

Employment – I used to switch off my mobile phone before I went to bed.

Own business – the phone is always on as customers or colleagues can call any time complaining about the eventual issues. Such night calls happened only once or twice for the last year, but still phone is on as you never know what happens next.

Risks

Employment – probably the most risky thing is to get laid off. You also get depression together with eventual financial troubles as it’s not funny at all to get laid off.

Own business – in case your business fails, you might pay your debts back for many years. And you get depression too.

Lifestyle

Employment – you get a paycheque regularly. The amount in your paycheque defines your lifestyle.

Own business – since the majority of income comes back to business, we spend only reasonable amount of money for living, buying things we really need. It’s kind of downgrade for me comparing to my lifestyle when I was employed. Sure, in case of successful business you will probably never remember the financial difficulties, but nobody can guarantee the success.

Career and Power

Employment – there is for sure the fighting for better position, better salary and more power.

Own business – probably, no career issues if you are the only one in your company. If not, then you might face difficulties if you haven’t carefully discussed and signed your partnership agreement.

Knowledge and Experience

Employment – it depends on your job, but it depends even more on how you feel about your job. Even at boring work of making and fixing setup programs you can find something funny to learn and new ways to implement it.

Own business – new experience and knowledge is the most exciting part in running your own business. You learn how to deal with customers, how to keep your accounting in order, how to negotiate and a lot of other stuff.

My company is kind of game for me – it’s funny, it’s risky, and it’s scary. But I like it

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Or European, preferably British. Historically, it happened that territory of the modern United Arab Emirates was under British protectorate until 1968. Later, after UAE creation in 1971, UK still played very important role helping UAE to establish oil production, police force and so on.

US played similarly important role in Saudi Arabia. One of the largest results of this cooperation is Saudi Aramco company, which is acronym for Arabian American Oil Company.

Services and products from US and Europe are very well appreciated in UAE and Saudi Arabia. As my partner said once, “We, Arabs, do not trust east other.” Although he didn’t mean literally that nobody trusts each other in Arab world, his sentence is very important to understand that having American and European company will help you to run your business because you would gain more trust from your customers just because of your company origin. For some reasons, people in this part of the world tend to think that services and products come from US or EU are of better quality and you most likely get what you’re asking for.

Couple months ago our development partner from Egypt started sales in Saudi Arabia and we introduced them to our agent there. The agent rejected the offer simply based on the fact that this company was Egyptian and much more efforts would be needed to sell their products. At the same time the agent said that if the same products were distributed on behalf of US or European company, they would start distribution.

It’s clear that company origin will not help you to run your business if you don’t do anything else, but it will surely help you opening some doors easier.

Having non-US or Non-EU company doesn’t mean you cannot get customers – you can find a lot of companies in UAE from India, China, Russia, or other counties. It only means that you might spend more efforts to establish your sales. And finally, your product and its quality will talk, not where your company is from.

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