Those who know me enough, know that my day job these days is to launch a first of a series of best-in-class business incubators, which will be within the campus of KFUPM.

This morning I met with a number of students who were eager to join our incubator and make big things happen, have the capability and drive, but lack the idea or direction. I find that to be exceptionally interesting given the untapped market that Saudi Arabia represents.

We live in a country that has the second highest smartphone penetration rate globally and the strongest purchasing power in the region. Add to this the weak infrastructure, unique cultural challenges, and sickeningly traditional business models. What you get is a goldmine for creative IT entrepreneurs.

Here are a few hints I hope to inspire you:

1. Payment Systems: the Kingdom have exceptionally difficult to manoeuvre regulations with regards to payment solutions. We all know of the effect which PayPal had on home businesses. The opportunity here is to build a similar infrastructure with the support of decision makers and banks, and that which is less dependent on credit cards, but a combination of debit accounts and smartphones.
2. White Labeled Solutions: small businesses always seek to present themselves in the most professional way and in a most cost effective manner. There might be a demand to develop a white-labeled solution for events, posters, catalogues, brochures, etc.
3. Accounting Solutions: small businesses in the Kingdom rely on one of two brands of software (cashier) systems. They suck big time. These systems are super expensive (the software alone is SAR 6K and with the hardware goes up to SAR 30K). They created a monopoly in the region because they are among the few which have Arabic interfaces. The recent regulations to Arabize receipts boosted this sector by insane magnitudes. These systems offer no intelligence reporting and almost none of them leverage the power of the cloud.
4. Big Data: this is an area that none AFAIK have capitalised on in the region. There is an enormous amount of unstructured data which can be mined for intelligence or as an inventory. Checkout the databases of GulfCloud, Zawya, and Kooora. These are traditional examples of businesses which anchored themselves as an authoritative source for data. The challenge here is to do something similar but in a less traditional way: think of the social interactions, car traffic, seasonal events, etc.
5. Augmented Reality: there’s a big opportunity here to be leveraged for real estate, regional tourism, education, life style, etc. Think of Google Glasses; how will this impact our daily lives?
6. Niche Markets: what are the pains and gaps faced in niched communities, such as university students? They have users with similar interests and in close perimeters. They present opportunities for craigslist-like markets, fiverr, and other peer-to-peer models.

The next person to tell me of his plan to create a real estate website will be stabbed with a spoon. Same goes for car-selling websites.

Having the drive and passion is %90 of the equation, however, choosing the right problem at the right time is also a make-it-or-break-it factor. Think outside the box and study the models out there.

If you have other ideas you’d like to share with the aspiring entrepreneurs, leave a note in the comment.

In software architecture, one of the best advice you will be told is to name things properly. A golden rule towards maintainable systems.

The craftsmen out there will plead you to fight the urge to name your class a “manager” or “utility”. These names tend to mask objectives within black boxes. The code becomes less readable and the exact functionality will require unnecessary digging. Instead, use actions for functions with sanely consistent prefixes (such as get/set/read/write etc.) and nouns for classes to reflect objects and models.

Same goes for divisions within companies: whenever you have a “Support Group” you will find people stepping on each others toes, unclear accountability, and an escalating need for meetings to define roles and responsibilities.

A good name for a sub-organization should be a reflection of its KPIs. If a group is expected to train customers, that group would be called “Curriculum & Training Group”. If it was to acquire customers it should be called “Customer Engagement Group”, and so on.

Unclear accountability can be dreadful to companies. Always curate names around metrics and consider lack of ownership as a sign of unclear purpose.

Programming has for so long been a craft for the few. In the late 1950s, scientists used to program using front panels where operators poke a board of lamps and toggle buttons. We now refer to that method of programming as a 1st Generation Programming Language.

The crave for more practical means gave birth to 2nd Generation Programming Languages (assembly) which allowed us for the first time to type on a keyboard rather than turn a knob. Around the same time, punch cards played a big role in storing data and NASA are known for operating their first lunar landing missions with a heaping stacks of these cards.

As years progress we started to tackle more complicated problems, and for that we invented the 3rd generation of the craft, riding on elaborate philosophies of object oriented design, encapsulation, and code separation.

But what’s next? As a new Android user, I find my self overwhelmed by the power of the OS and apps. Most impressive of these apps is Tasker.

Tasker allows you to extend the capabilities of your Android phone or tablet by “programming” tasks which will be executed by user-defined events. It allows non-programmers to create scripts by choosing commands and triggers from a pre-defined set, all by tapping a screen; no editor, just icons. This, in my opinion, is the first meaningful step towards a Forth-Generation Programming Language.

How’s that real-time syntax checker going for you?

In 1946 American Research & Development Corporation (AR&D) was formed by Georges Doriot with the intention of investing in other companies. One of its famous investments was a $70,000 funding for Digital Equipment Corporation in 1957. Eleven years later, DEC went public with a valuation of $355 MM, or a return of over 500 times.

Doriot, who was a French immigrant and a Harvard professor, is much regarded as the father of venture capitalism and the first to teach entrepreneurship. In 1937 he taught a strangely named Manufacturing class which had nothing to do with manufacturing. Instead, he preached the principles of entrepreneurship, though he have always avoided that word. In his classes he would tell you how to dress, how to read a newspaper in less than a minute, and even what kind of a women to marry! Many would say that he taught a philosophy of life.

Despite all the investments that were happening at the time, many say that Arthur Rock was the first to coin the term Venture Capital. One of his first investments was when Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce approached him with the idea of creating a semiconductor company which we now know as Intel. At that point Arthur Rock was the business guru of the group so he wrote the business plan – a one page, double spaced business plan with few misspellings. They were seeking $2.5 MM for 50% equity. Rock was so well-networked in the business world that he secured the funding in two days. Two years later they went public, coincidentally the same day that Playboy went public.

Couple of years later and venture capital firms started to takeover Sand Hill Road (pictured above). Firms like Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia were some of the first purposefully structured efforts in that region. In 1977 Steve Jobs was working for Atari when he and Wozniak created Apple One. They offered Nolan Bushnell (founder of Atari) one third equity for $50,000 but he refused. Don Valentine (founder of Sequoia) was the first venture capitalist to meet the couple. He was very uncomfortable with the unkempt looks of the two, so he passes on their offer, only to join them in later funding rounds.

Fast forward to 1997 and 2000 and you get the dot-com bubble. At this stage the Silicon Valley is saturated with all kinds of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. It was reported that during the dot-com madness many venture capital firms were automatically placing a pre-money valuation of $5 MM on startups so as to avoid the tedious ordeal of due diligence and valuation. They called this the “standard offer”.

Today, we are swamped with venture capitalists, angel investors, and screaming entrepreneurs. The term sheet have evolved into uncontrollable complexity and competition have never been more fierce.

In the future, my bet is on crowd funding platforms gaining even more popularity with an exponential maturity and spread of prototyping machines and collective innovation platforms. Can’t wait!

The story begins with Asano, a samurai in the year 1701 who was invited to the court of a Japanese Lord. Everyone was hustling for an exaggerated reception of the Emperor’s envoy, when a court official insulted Asano by calling him a country boor with no manners. Asano was enraged and attacked him with a dagger, only to wound the court official in the face.

Drawing a sword in the castle is utterly forbidden, and for that Asano was ordered to kill himself by performing seppuku, making forty-seven samurai he mentored masterless, and craving for revenge.

Asano’s forty-seven ronins (the name for masterless samurai) were infuriated. They plotted to assassin the court official. After two years, they attacked him in his home. In the fierce struggle, one of the ronins was killed, and the battle ended with the decapitation of the court official’s head.

They rinsed the head, took it to the grave of their master and payed their respect, then took it back to the Lord’s court.

In the castle, and as they expected, they were all ordered to kill themselves by performing seppuku, ending the lives of the remaining forty six… (real story)

How’s that for revenge?