Participants complete an exercise during QBIC’s LeanStartup Programme. The LeanStartup focuses on providing entrepreneurs with real world, hands-on experience and knowledge on how to successfully transform their business idea into a thriving startup.
Qatar Business Incubation Centre (QBIC) kicked off the fourth wave of its LeanStartup Programme on October 4 with 42 participants from 29 startups enrolled in the 10-week entrepreneurial journey.
Founded by Qatar Development Bank (QDB) and Social Development Centre (SDC), QBIC’s LeanStartup Programme will help the centre achieve its mission of developing “the next QR100mn companies in Qatar.”
The LeanStartup focuses on providing entrepreneurs with real world, hands-on experience and knowledge on how to successfully transform their business idea into a thriving startup.
The programme runs twice a year and follows a non-traditional approach by excluding the necessity of creating a business plan in advance and instead follows a practical approach by developing products and services that are needed by the target customers.
This year, the fourth wave of the programme was conducted for the first time in Arabic.
QDB chief executive officer Abdulaziz bin Nasser al-Khalifa, who is also QBIC chairman said: “With the fourth wave taking place in Arabic, we’re confident that the strength of our unique programme will further produce a wide and impressive range of projects.”
He added: “By providing all means of support and unifying our efforts to help Qatari entrepreneurs, we would be fulfilling our duties in developing the local small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector.”
Some of the potential ideas that could turn into prosperous startups include those in the field of development, technology, and education. Out of 29 ideas, six were related to tourism. If incubated, these will fall under the first specialised incubator, the recently soft-launched “QBIC Tourism,” guided by Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA).
QBIC chief executive officer Aysha al-Mudahka said: “We’re very pleased to introduce the first Arabic LeanStartup Programme at QBIC. The last three LeanStartup waves were very effective in transforming ideas into startups that are now quickly thriving. However, we realised that there are many more ideas out there that remain uncultivated, which deserve to be brought to light and developed to their maximum potentials.”
She added: “By reinstating QBIC’s flagship programme in a new light and in our country’s native language, we’re expanding our reach to those entrepreneurial minds who also seek to build successful startups, but feel more confident and efficient doing so in Arabic.”
Two specialised instructors are currently conducting the fourth wave of programme and are “heavily experienced” in the entrepreneurship field. In the remaining nine weeks, the aspiring entrepreneurs will learn more about the lean methodology and will test their products and services using the customer validation technique.
QBIC entrepreneur Khalid Hamad al-Thani, who is part of current programme said: “My intended business project is called ‘Doobee’, which is a mobile application that acts as a platform to all of Qatar’s laundry and dry cleaning vendors. By ‘uberising’ this concept, users will be provided with a delivery laundry service.
Similarly, Hamda al-Naimi said: “My startup idea includes the recycling of palm tree remnants to create raw materials such as fertilizer and coal.”
Based on customer feedback, entrepreneurs are urged to develop prototypes that act as a reflection of their customers’ needs. These will be showcased while pitching their refined business ideas to a judging panel and potential investors during “Demo Day,” marking the end of the 10-week journey.
