Khazen.org congratulates  Loulou el Khazen Baz!!

 

 

Loulou is the winner of the reality TV show The Entrepreneur last night for her start-up Nabbesh.com, an online skills marketplace aimed at the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region.

After the gruelling shortlisting process and four weeks of filming Ms Baz was finally announced the winner and awarded Dh1m (US$272,260) to develop her business idea.

Nabbesh is a website that helps to connect skilled individuals with those interested in hiring them either on a short-term or long-term basis. Users can list their skills and services while recruiters can post their requirements.

The website helps to connect them together using geo-location services.

 Ms Baz was one of two women in the final 10. Her socially aware, digitally focused idea caught the attention of the four judges.

"I could see them nodding during my pitch. They loved it." After the show, two of the judges told her it was a fantastic concept and "they wanted to support me beyond the show".

The 31-year-old UAE resident of Lebanese descent funded the project herself which she began in August last year after leaving her job at a venture capitalist firm.

"I wanted to be part of something bigger and create something that had social benefit. I became very bored and demotivated. I had all this work experience but there was no channel to say these are my skills and I can do some consulting for a fee. There was no skills marketplace and so I decided to create one."

The numbers supported her quest. With one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world, the Middle East is in need of such a service.

"Labour force participation is 50 per cent in Mena compared with 65 per cent in the US. Among women it is 25 per cent in Mena, so there is a massive opportunity," said Ms Baz.

Since April the website has racked up 3,000 subscribers, with thousands more expected thanks to the exposure it has achieved on the show.

One of the biggest hurdles is to find the right talent. "We had a whole fiasco [in the beginning], trying to find the right people for the job. I am not from a technology background so it was very challenging," said Ms Baz.

The prize money will go towards building up her team and presence in the region. There are currently 10 employees, all recruited via Nabbesh.com.

"We need to grow the technology and marketing team if we want to make an impact and be regional."

She is also concentrating on social and digital media, marketing the brand and the idea through various networks. Nabbesh has signed up with Microsoft to create a Windows 8 app, but Ms Baz also plans to have an offline presence to reach out to those in remote areas or without internet access.

Currently the platform is available only in English, but plans are already under way to launch an Arabic version.

"It has the potential to change the lives of millions. The time of entrepreneurship is now. It has a role in creating jobs, improving the economy and politics," said Ms Baz.

 

Mark Summers catches up with the UAE’s latest business sensation Loulou Khazen Baz…

Last year Loulou Khazen Baz quit her full-time job to strike out on her own. It was a move, that initially left, the budding start-up boss, feeling “useless” and “pointless”.

Today she wakes up as one of the most hotly-tipped business hopefuls in the UAE after being crowned the winner of televised contest ‘The Entrepreneur’ last night – and bagging a prize worth Dhs2 million.

 

Having seen off 2,000 other applicants to emerge victorious on the eight-week Dubai One show, which follows a similar format to Donald Trump hit ‘The Apprentice’, she now has Dhs1 million to invest in nabbesh.com, the online portal she created with the aim of linking freelancers with work opportunities across the Middle East.

Thanks to telecoms firm du – creator of the show – and its other partners, she also has a year’s free office space, and expert marketing and accounting help. It’s all a far cry from early this year when – about six months into her entrepreneurial life – she blogged that she had been “to hell and back”.

Having reached her 30th birthday and started pondering “what life is all about”, she had something of an epiphany and came to the conclusion it was “now or never” if she wanted to start her own business. In the beginning, things were not easy.

“I did go to hell and back,” she tells 7DAYS. “When I quit my job it was one of the toughest years of my life. I had a lot of challenges – confidence and financial and career. I had no idea of what I wanted to do,” she adds.

Fortunately the Lebanese national, who is about to mark a decade living in Dubai, is an avid user of social media and she saw a tweet from du promoting ‘The Entrepreneur’.

When she saw the prize money up for grabs she immediately entered – and du would later tell her she was the sixth applicant for the show.

“Even if I didn’t win, I thought the exposure I would get would be great and it would be a good experience overall, to be on TV,” she says. Loulou soon had cause to reconsider that attitude when she found herself facing The Entrepreneur’s panel of four judges with 99 other hopefuls during a 16-hour day to identify the best 10 ideas submitted to the show.

“It was scary as hell. I was shaking from head to toe. It is very intimidating, because you think: ‘what if my pitch is stupid?’ and ‘what if they think I am an idiot?’” she explains.

By the time she made the final 10, she admits she thought she had “a massive chance to win”. She did – and today nabbesh.com lives, creating a regional talent pool of people who have given up the 9-to-5 to try and make a living from their particular skill – be it photography, website development or dozens of others.

She says her site has a greater purpose than other e-commerce start-ups selling the latest discounted fashion. “OK, fine, these are very cool concepts but I felt that what I am working on is not a luxury. It is actually a basic human need. You have a basic need to work.” And that’s what she’ll be doing in the months and years ahead as she looks to make her business “regional and profitable”.

The once-terrified hopeful who worried she was “useless” is now The Entrepreneur.

Visit the winner at www.nabbesh.com.