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The Prince of start-ups Khalifa Al Misnad, a young entrepreneur, is a firm believer in trying out new ideas for the experience value
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halifa Al Misnad is, in one word, busy. The CEO and founder of Coreo is about to launch his latest business venture, a corporate law firm, Al Misnad & Rifaat. It will be his seventh major project in the last one and a half years. In his words, the motivation to start up businesses is ‘genetic’. “I’m just wired that way really,” he says. “My background is in engineering and law. I like to solve problems and see things come together. Business is the same way; you have all these issues to deal with, to work efficiently” Al Misnad attended university in the US and founded his real estate business there before moving back to Qatar and creating Coreo. The experience gave him R&D experience and exposed him to different business conditions. “The intial setting up phase of a company here is a lot more difficult than it is in the States. There are a lot more hoops you have to jump through. In the US, you could set up a company in a day for $300, but here you need a little more capital; you need to push a lot of paperwork through the Ministries and for expats it may be harder because not everything is so transparent,” he says. “But once you set things rolling, there is a lot more opportunity here than anywhere else.”
Expanding real estate
Coreo facilitates residential sales and leasing, primarily in the West Bay area. 44
Qatar Today JUNE 10
Because a large majority of customers are expats, the business also provides relocation services for those who need settling in services such as setting up a bank account, getting a driver’s licence, or mobilise their resources in a new city. Real estate marketprice reductions has been helpful, observes Al Misnad. However, Al Misnad didn’t stop with Coreo. He has transformed the idea of working in the real estate market into other business ventures. Besides the other Coreo branch he established in Bahrain, the 30-year-old is also a partner in ‘Wheels of Arabia’, a Segway retailer. Although the market for Segways in the Gulf region is not particularly prominent, Al Misnad believes the electronic scooters are perfect for property tours or for residents of the Pearl development. Al Misnad is also developing ClickFilm.com, an Internet DVD rental service, for tower residents at the Pearl – a concept he and his business partner picked up from American company Netflix. “I experienced and enjoyed the idea and brought it back. Whether or not it’ll work here is a matter of time. It’s a fun little project and it ties into the real estate aspect,” he says - a firm believer in trying out new ideas for the experience value. Al Misnad’s start-up fever doesn’t stop there. He co-founded a bus service, ‘Yalla’ which has a contract with Vodafone and other companies to provide employee transportation. “It’s just something that I kind of just fell into when the opportunity presented itself,” he says. The service
works with companies who have centralized employee housing, transporting company staff from home to either work or other places of interest.
For entrepreneurs
Perhaps it’s also fitting that Al Misnad just founded a group for other people who have the entrepreneurial spirit in Qatar. “I’m essentially spearheading a Qatar Chapter of an international organisation known as The Entrepreneurs’ Organisation (EO). I think that young entrepreneurs bring new ideas and creativity to the economy, especially in a market like Qatar which has a lot of room for fresh ideas. In addition, since about half of the population is currently under 25 years of age, young entrepreneurs are in a better position to understand and cater to this market.” EO is an international organisation with 116 chapters in 42 countries and more than 7300 members. The group advocates for peer-to-peer learning and connections with experts. Although EO is more US centric, the organisation has been growing in the Gulf region with chapters now in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and UAE. With such a whirlwind of projects and ventures, Al Misnad believes in systemizing his companies to the point where he can partake in other projects. Otherwise, he runs the risk of spreading himself too thin. “As long as you put the right systems in place it should all run on its own,” he says. ” n