Basel: So a question about also getting noticed, what's your advice to start-ups in Arabia, and how do you think they could go get exposed to this vertical and, and then those big companies and open up their eyes to small start-ups and other . . .
Sami: So, at the end of the day is create value, target a global market when you can, and the last thing is this is something I've observed whenever I visit the Middle East and I reach out to entrepreneurs, a lot of people tend to be very secretive, which I find quite odd, especially when you're a startup.
If someone can copy your idea by you virtually describing it to them, it's probably not an idea that's worth pursuing and is not protectable and is not a large-enough idea. And anyone who's been through the entrepreneurial journey knows that taking an idea and executing on it is very, very, very difficult. It doesn't happen overnight, it's not magic, it's a lot of hard work, a lot of blood, sweat and tears. So my advice to them is sell to anything that moves when they can and get out there. I mean, especially if you are looking--I mean, this is actually one of the bigger challenges for entrepreneurs in the Middle East is the lack of exits because there aren't very many people within the region that, that are willing to, to acquire.
Most of the acquirers tend to be outside of the United States and that requires some investment to get out there and go to the conferences and go to the meet-ups and go to the whatever and just remind people that you exist. This is just general entrepreneurial. I'm based out the Boston office which is a satellite office, the mothership is California. There's no if, or buts at Google. I go out there once a month just to remind them that I exist. So when things happen, so that's kind of one thing is just get out there, remind it, talk about what you're doing, and it also gives you good feedback, and then the second, and like I said before is create something that's impactful and valuable to users and, and just really focus on building a great product with a great team.
About the Guest:
Sami Shalabi is a software inventor and entrepreneur. He has 10+ years of experience building world class software at both small and large business environments. A highly creative hands-on, energetic, people-oriented leader with proven ability to quickly build innovative results-oriented teams. His strong technical, interpersonal, and business skills are equally effective with customers and partners as with employees.
Sami has been working at Google, Inc since October 2007 as a Member of Technical Staff. At Google, he co-founded Google Friend Connect, a service that allows site owners to easily add social features to their site. He is now leading the engineering team and the service is now being using on millions of sites around the world.
Sami joined Google after they acquired Zingku, a company he co-founded in 2006. Zingku was a venture backed software company that built a variety of multi-channel (mobile, IM, and web) consumers services. At Zingku, Sami single-handedly architected and coded the product that lead to their first funding round. Post funding, he lead the development of Zingku’s entire platform and product line. The products included zingku.com (a mobile social network), ripple9.com (promotion and merchandising for musicians and artists), and skyjar.com (multichannel interest sharing).
Prior to Zingku, Sami had architecture and leadership responsibilities for a number of products at Lotus, Iris Associates, and IBM. These include Lotus Domino (web search), Lotus Quickplace (server and developer platform), WebSphere Portal (composite applications), WebSphere Application Server (plugin architecture), and Lotus Connections (activities). While at IBM he frequently spoke at conferences.
Sami has a strong track record of innovation. He has over 30 patents and has been awarded the 2009 MIT ASO Young Professional Award.
Sami received his SB, and ME from MIT, where he did research at the MIT Media Lab, MIT IS, and the MIT Computer Graphics Group.
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Getting Startups Noticed
Sami Shalbi talks about what startups should do in order to get noticed by investors.
