Barbara Walters chats with Forward Syria
Swaying between art and seduction
Discussing monetary policy with the man in charge
Where the earth screams in horror
08/03/2010 - Issue 42
Medium ME: Syria’s portal to E-Commerce
A senior at Mamoon University’s Communications Engineering Faculty, Salim Akil has long focused his efforts on e-commerce businesses relying solely on his knowledge and ambition which led him to his success with searchinsyria.com and Medium ME LLC.
Akil shares with Forward his experience and expands on the activities of his businesses throughout this interview in his HQ within the SEBC Business Incubator.
The idea for searchinsyria.com first came about when the Junior Chamber International (JCI-Syria) made The Best Business Plan competition, which led Akil to search for projects in order to participate. He stumbled upon a friend, Tony Nassour, who had an idea for a website that wasn’t executed well, so they convened and brainstormed the idea.
“We started working on searchinsyria.com in 2007 when E-Marketing was yet a remote concept in Syria, and we succeeded in our exclusive B2B approach which today has managed to increase the numbers of its enlisters to over 3,300; the process being that enlisters would send us their info instead of researching ourselves.”
After the success of searchinsyria.com, Akil decided upon a private venture; Medium ME, which is currently his main company, offering internet services in the fields of business and communication technology; such as e-marketing and facilitation of electronic commerce, by enabling companies to sell online through their websites with electronic payment methods such as credit cards and such.
“E-content is weak in the Middle East; we need to invest in this field, for the purpose of increasing business flow for local companies. We need to raise awareness to the importance of marketing as well; selling and marketing online is cheaper than advertising.”
After searchinsyria.com and Medium ME, Akil is planning a searchinmena.com, planning to gain strategic partnerships in additions to the ones he already has, believing that partnerships add to the overall experience of the management of any project, to overcome any obstacles that might be faced.
“Sponsorships and partnerships are necessary for startups as they secure liquidity and connections. With searchinmena.com, we already have partners from the Gulf and planning on finding more.”
Currently, Medium ME is working with Kompass.com—an international B2B search engine—for the purpose of promoting Syrian companies in Europe.
Asked about the effects of venturing into many businesses at a young age Akil answered, “I’ve gained experience in how to get to companies and institutions so that I could learn and help the people who work with me. But most importantly I learnt about myself, matured and developed socially. I started looking differently at the world, and recently I’ve started caring about helping startups, developing the community, and backing up youth who have ideas in need of support, as I went through the same experience.”
Before ending, Akil stressed on one thing: “You have to be patient when venturing into any business. Many websites start and fail to continue, despite the large amounts of capital investments, expecting fast and easy profit. They failed to realize that companies need time to mature, develop and become profitable.”
