As Sim [Whatley] and I wrap up our eight and a half year journey of running Dubizzle’s operations; from sleeping in bunk-beds and working out of our living room, to leading a team of nearly 200 brilliant people across the region, I wanted to leave some parting words for entrepreneurs just starting their journey. Some of you reading these words are in the same position as we were so many years ago – chasing an idea on no budget with nothing but the stubborn determination that somehow you will find success. Undoubtedly, years from now, many of you will have created massive value and your adventure will have led you to where Dubizzle is today. Hopefully, these words can lend a bit of guidance and inspiration along your path.
Over the years, Dubizzle has faced a lot of challenges. We’ve made some mistakes, and had even more wins. Along the way, we’ve learned a few things that we didn’t know when we started. Because of this, I’m often asked to give my advice to budding entrepreneurs in the region.
Always be solving a problem.
As an entrepreneur your job is to pick a problem and solve it in a better and more efficient way than before. The bigger and more widespread the problem, and the better you are at solving it, the more success you will have. Ideas come second. They are the solutions you come up with to solve the problem. If you start with an idea, and then go looking for a problem, you’re in trouble.
A lot of people assume that when we started Dubizzle we had moved here with the intention to start a “Craigslist” in the Middle East. That would have been a bad idea, and, had we done that, we probably would have failed. Instead, we came here looking for jobs, setting up our lives, and along the way discovered how inefficient the marketplace was. Everyone seemed to have this problem, and everyone was aware of it, we were just the first ones to decide we should solve it.
Start with the “why.” Not the “what.”
If you haven’t seen Simon Sinek’s TED talk on How Great Leaders Inspire Action, please Google it now. The message is simple: People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. The answer to “why?” is your vision. It’s what you as an organisation stand for. It’s the impact you intend to have on the world and your reason for existence. Why, beyond the sales pitch, should customers connect with you emotionally and brilliant people pick up your flag and join your cause?
At Dubizzle, our vision has always been about making the world fairer, disrupting exploitation, and having some fun. When we started in the UAE (and still in many of our newer markets), exploitation of consumers was everywhere. Trade only happened through middlemen. Buyers were getting ripped off, people had no place to sell their things, job seekers were forced to go through recruiters, etc… The marketplace was opaque and unfair for the everyday consumer, and it made us angry. Dubizzle started, and exists today, for one reason: to disrupt consumer exploitation and have some fun doing it.
Every viable business needs revenues and profits, but those come as a byproduct to creating immense value in pursuit of your vision. To attract great people, achieve great things, and be loved by your customers, you must have a strong and emotional understanding of the answer to the question “why?”
Define your values and live by them.
I’ll let you in on a little secret, it took me a long time to figure out: your values are your culture, and your culture is your brand. It’s really that simple. If you were to think of a company like a person, that person’s “brand” is the set of values others perceive them to have. Not what they say their values are, but by what they exhibit through their actions. For a company, it’s no different. The decisions and actions you take as a company will define the values you are perceived to have. To have the culture and brand you want, you must define the values you believe in, and live by them…. see more
source: arabianbusiness
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