Bootstrapping to Exit from Saudi Arabia: Emad Daghreri, Co-Founder CEO of Autobia (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How did your journey evolve in that 2012-17 period. How far did you get from a revenue growth point of view?

Emad Daghreri: Until 2017, the demand was high, and we started getting million dollars contracts. I had to open a technology hub in Bangalore and Jordan just to be able to keep up with the demand.

We started to help the government to experiment with their first internal system to complement their offering. We somehow entered the domain of being a software house for ourselves and the government, creating those apps based on our experience in TAM.

This didn’t go well because we realized that it is a hit-and-run project rather than a sustainable project. They may receive the a finished project from our side, but they might never use it because they realize that the project was not aligned with their goals. We almost went bankrupt in 2018 because of that. After all of that hype and growth of TAM, in 2018, the government started to pause all the projects and recalculate and make sure they have the right numbers in that project.

I remember in December 2018, I had to close the Jordan office, an Indian office, and half of our team went to more attractive jobs. It was a really bad time for us. It was a shock because we realized that if for any reason, the government starts to cut anything, we will be the first to be cut because we are a nice-to-have project, not a must-have project. We’re lucky we had cash reserves.

In 2019, the story changed. The government started to send requests for proposals again after they restructured the budget for its 2030 vision. Since a lot of the players were out, we had more projects than we can manage. That’s when we switched from doing competitions and hackathons only to shift to infrastructural issues. We looked at how we can help the government with sustainability and tourism projects and important infrastructure projects that they cannot get off on their own.

Sramana Mitra: You were doing more software development and just kind of managing their core infrastructure for the different government agencies.

Emad Daghreri: Yes. When we opened an office in Jordan and Bangalore, we were working too hard for two years on what we think is the right software for us to help us in the next phase. Based on the five years of projects and trends, we created an amazing product to help us in the next phase. Because of that investment, we were capable of meeting almost all of the demand coming to us because we can scale very quickly. We can launch a project literally in 24 hours from the time they ask us. This was unheard of in the government sector. We became the preferred suppliers and the portfolio of governmental entities started to widen. We made sure that we are not capitalizing on only one type of customer.

Sramana Mitra: At this point, you do not have the Bangalore office or the Jordan office anymore. You’re working from the office in Riyadh?

Emad Daghreri: Yes. We actually went public with only four engineers in our team because we worked hard on our product to the extent that it’s extremely dynamic. We can configure it the way we want. We are covering every single aspect of the demand from the government until exit.

Sramana Mitra: What were you offering by way of actual solutions? What were you selling to the government at this point?

Emad Daghreri: In 2019, we started to classify them as three verticals – Digital Solutions, Consultation, and Project Management. The idea is to help entities create the infrastructure related to their public engagement program. For example, we worked with Misk Foundation, which is one of the biggest foundations in Saudi. They started to have programs to help students work abroad or create their own startups. As the ecosystem started to get bigger in terms of interoperability and all the projects, they needed time to build that infrastructure for them from a technology point of view, from operation point of view, and from a consultation point of view. So we co-created with them, handed over, and exit. This is exactly what we are doing with every single governmental entity in the public engagement sector.

The software suite was usually an initiative builder where they can come and create whatever initiative they want. They have the full control on the content and the design. The filtration system called Razin is really dynamic and can accept millions of applications. You have the freedom to create your own forms and flow. You can invite third party judges to come and judge particular stages and you can reward the students or whatever the application is winning.

We created ticketing systems. We realized that the government has started to do a lot of events and they need the infrastructure to manage their events. So for the announcement of the events, the ticketing system, for accepting people coming in, and to manage grants.

Government gives a lot of grants to help filmmakers, to help students, to help new startups, and they need a medium to manage those grants to make sure they are spending the right way. So we did the infrastructure for grants where people will get rewarded. We have the ecosystem to manage the flow of the grants – how they spend the grant and whether they are hitting the milestones or not. However, it’s still under the public engagement sector, and you still need to engage with external people. You need to have a relationship, but in a different capacity than when we’re doing competitions or challenges. The ecosystem was around that in terms of consultation and project management.

This segment is part 5 in the series : Bootstrapping to Exit from Saudi Arabia: Emad Daghreri, Co-Founder CEO of Autobia
1 2 3 4 5 6 7