VOICES OF YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS IN THE MENA REGION
SAUDI ARABIA: A Platform to Help Women and Other Customers Run Errands
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aif is the cofounder and chief executive officer (CEO) of a delivery service firm in the e-commerce sector that assists families and individuals in completing their day-to-day errands. Naif has an engineering degree in architecture and urban design from King Saud University. In 2015, when Naif launched his app, women faced mobility restrictions in Saudi Arabia—a law since repealed. Naif often received requests from family to run errands, interrupting his work schedule. Thus, he created an app to address the widespread societal need for inexpensive and accessible errand runners. Many well-off families hire migrant drivers (mainly from Southeast Asia) to run their household errands. However, for most families, hiring a migrant driver is costly and inconvenient due to visa requirements. Naif says his app is like Uber except that it focuses on completing household tasks and delivering household items as opposed to providing transportation services. Naif’s app and website give clients the power to manage, monitor, and evaluate the services they receive and rate the quality of services and drivers’ performance. This enforces good behavior and gives the client the power to choose between different drivers and monitor services as they are occurring—an aspect that is significant in such a conservative society. Naif’s app was one of the first movers in the e-commerce industry introducing a creative household delivery service through a user-friendly app. The company eventually became a hub for testing new technology, including artificial intelligence, to analyze consumers’ preferences and build an effective logistical system to better utilize drivers’ time. Naif’s platform has served about 8 million customers in Saudi Arabia. Annual revenue grew by 300 percent from 2016 to 2019 and jumped to 400 percent in 2020. The number of full-time staff with benefits has grown 30 percent per year over three years. It is Naif’s belief that the main obstacle in Saudi Arabia’s entrepreneurial ecosystem for information technology (IT) companies is that the government has not been able to keep up with digital transformations. Furthermore, Naif feels the business registration process needs to be smoother, especially given the need for rapid start-up development in the IT sector. Funding is a challenge. In 2016, Naif applied to the Badir Accelerator in Riyadh and was accepted. “Having Badir as a resource was invaluable. We were provided a physical office and basic business training, most notably how to pitch the business idea to investors in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and abroad,
108 | Jobs Undone: Reshaping the Role of Governments toward Markets and Workers in MENA
