Bahij Demachkie is co-founder and general manager of Mizalla.com.He graduated with a Computer Science degree from the Lebanese American University in 2003.Bahij got the idea of a shareable e-commerce platform for local businesses during the summer of 2009 and started working on a business plan soon after. The goal was to be able to cover all types of merchandise; hence the project was called Mizalla.In 2010, he left his job in Qatar and sought longtime trusted friend Haytham El Khoja – the only person capable of making the Mizalla platform a reality. On July 29th, Mizalla GTS was born.
What do we know about Bahij? Well he is a private man, petrol-head, audiophile, videophile, sportsman, movie and music fan, technology enthusiast, chocoholic, meticulous and calculating, and now knows you like to read other peoples’ biographies.
You can follow Bahij on twitter.com/bahijdemachkie.
Haytham Elkhoja is co-founder and technical partner of Mizalla.com.Haytham Elkhoja is one of the founders of Mizalla. An acclaimed SaaS and Internet Infrastructure expert, with passion for Linux and OSX. Haytham joined forces with long time friend and neighbor Bahij Demashkie after coming back from Saudi Arabia and Ghana where Haytham worked as a consultant for telco giants on managed services applications.Haytham, a long time systems engineer got back to his coding roots and developed the entire Mizalla systems/software infrastructure while helping Bahij in business development duties.Haytham loves animals and has one huge always-hungry-sleepy cat that keeps him company throughout the nights as he enjoys constantly hacking Mizalla’s code ignoring all principles of code versioning and over-engineering disciplines. Haytham received a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the Lebanese American University in 2007.You can follow Haytham on twitter.com/haythamelkhoja
Two weeks ago Seeqnce had an opportunity to talk to Mizalla (the region’s first online shopping mall) Founders, Haytham Elkhoja and Bahij Demachkie. They shared with us Mizalla’s story, how it all started, who is behind it, what market Mizalla serves, and what stage the company is at. We also found out that the company is looking for funding for two reasons: one is to increase the marketing budget and the other one is to expand in other MENA region countries.
The company is also looking to hire as it is growing faster than expected. Further, the Founders were talking about the biggest challenge and fear they faced while working on this project. In the end Bahij advised entrepreneurs to carefully study their business plans, secure some funding before launching and to talk to people like Seeqnce, people who can help them develop their ideas and move towards successful realization of the same. You can find the full interview transcript below.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Seeqnce: What does Mizalla do?
Haytham Elkhoja: Mizalla is an online mall. We provide shopping stores the ability to open an online branch and sell their products online without the hassle of designing a website, developing a shopping platform, maintaining the products catalogue and delivering the goods to the end customer. So in fact we handle your store, inventory, payments, and we also do some advertisements for your store.
Seeqnce:What sparked the idea?
Haytham Elkhoja: We saw a wave, a forthcoming e –commerce trend in the region. In fact Lebanon and MENA region in general are always 5 years behind European and US trends. Thus, after the big success of e –commerce at a global level, we saw this trend booming slowly in the region and we wanted to be the first, the leaders in this niche. At that time I was in Saudi Arabia and my partner was in Qatar. We decided to come back to Lebanon and start the business. And this is how it started.
Seeqnce: Who is the Mizalla team?
Haytham Elkhoja: The team consists of many loyal individuals, namely the following: Joan Nassif, Amine Atallah, Bahij Demachkie and Haytham Elkhoja.
Seeqnce: What is your market and target audience?
Haytham Elkhoja: Mizalla is a company dealing with two types of clients, two types of markets: B2B and B2C. Since we are a shopping mall we try to sell everything. By everything I mean electronics (at the moment this is what we mostly sell), and in the next few weeks we start with clothing, beauty products, jewelry and so on. In fact you can find all the departments we plan to open soon on our website. Thus the market is everybody who is online, and wants to shop online. Moreover, Mizalla is also trying to absorb the market, or people who are scared to buy products online. In order to capture this market, we decided to allow people to pay on delivery. So you can pay online with credit card or you can pay upon receipt.
Seeqnce: What stage are you at?
Bahij Demachkie: This is a soft launch phase. We are getting feedback, testing the market, we are testing the site itself, we are monitoring the way users experience the site, if there are any problems, any bugs there, or anything the users don’t understand. Based on that we are trying to remove different stuff so when we fully launch we won’t have any problems, obstacles and won’t lose sales because of some small technical stuff.
Seeqnce: Are you looking for funding?
Haytham Elkhoja: We are always looking for funding. Right now we are looking for funding to increase our marketing budget and to make the development faster. This will help Mizalla to grow faster since we are planning to launch very soon in other MENA Region countries such as Saudi Arabia, Emirates, Kuwait, and so on.
Seeqnce: Are you looking to hire?
Bahij Demachkie: Yes, definitely. We didn’t post it yet but we are looking for developers and some marketing people.
Seeqnce: What is the biggest challenge in your business?
Bahij Demachkie: In the beginning, when we started approaching stores, retailers within Mizalla concept, the biggest challenge was credibility. As a new, small company they didn’t take us seriously at first. E – commerce in Lebanon is very new yet and when you go to a manager, especially if you go to an older manager with older techniques, they don’t see the full potential of e-commerce at first. So it was a challenge to convince them that e commerce has a huge potential in the future. And most of them wanted us to just go ahead, start, and prove the concept before they would like to join.
Seeqnce: Any regrets so far?
Bahij Demachkie: I think the only thing I would have changed was developments. We did our entire site and platform from scratch. We did the whole thing. We did not use something already made. We had some delays with the platform. The only regret maybe would have been to start developing before launching the company itself. That would have saved us some money.
Seeqnce: What’s next?
Bahij Demachkie: We are planning to fully launch at the beginning of 2012. For now we are just testing, it is a soft launch. At the beginning of 2012 we are planning to launch a full campaign. This will become our first business year. Hopefully, if everything works out we would like to expand in the Middle East and keep on providing new features on the site and new services for our clients.
Seeqnce: What was your greatest fear while working on the idea?
Bahij Demachkie: Since we, me and Haythem, started the company with our own funds, I guess the biggest fear is having even more delays, lack of funds and eventually stopping the business. So far, we have developed a very good platform, we have many clients, and we are constantly improving.
Seeqnce: What is your view on startup accelerators like Seeqnce?
Bahij Demachkie: The main think they can do for startups is connections. Connecting them with big decision makers in whatever field they are trying to reach. For example if you are going to clothing retail it would be nice if they connect you with the managers of some big chains and further help you to grow and develop. Without connections it is getting pretty tough to get to the people.
Seeqnce: What advice can you give to fresh entrepreneurs?
Bahij Demachkie: They have to really study their business plans, secure some funding before they launch and hire people. This is very important because it is a shame when you have a great idea and six months down the road you run out of funds and you have to stop because you didn’t secure it at first. So it would be great if they can talk to, for example people like Seeqnce who can help them to develop their plans, study the market with them, help them to get some market research, surveys, and of course introduce them with some maybe venture capitalists, angels, investors.