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MEET Alumni Profile: Samer Al Jabari of Jordan
By Emily Meyertholen, Beyster Institute Staff
Samer Al Jabari of Jordan, a graduate of the Beyster Institute’s Middle East Entrepreneur Training Program, is a true entrepreneur. Having established a successful IT company from scratch, he is now helping others with their ventures through his involvement with the Young Entrepreneurs Association of Jordan. We had the opportunity to get to know Samer when he came to San Diego, and we wanted to share some of his story here.
Samer comes from a family of entrepreneurs. When his father was 24, he started what is now the oldest and one of the largest brokerage firms in Jordan. His family undertook many ventures in the region, some successful and some not, but their courage and perseverance inspired Samer to decide that someday he would start a company of his own.
“I always knew I wanted to start off alone without the support of my family, because I wanted to prove to them that I can do it without being their employee,” he says.
After college Samer began working for an information technology company. Much to his family’s dismay, after just three months and without a plan, he knew that he wanted to quit and start his own company. He wasn’t sure what kind of company it would be, but he did have a business partner who was willing to make the effort with him. For two years, the two worked from their homes, trying to find the right opportunities within Jordan’s IT market. Eventually credit application processing seemed to be a promising direction for them.
Samer knew he needed advice from others and interaction with the business community to get his company off the ground, so he turned to the Young Entrepreneurs Association (YEA) of Jordan, with which he had been involved since his college days. This time as an entrepreneur, he was matched up with a YEA mentor who introduced Samer to some of his very first clients. Samer and his business partner, now as "Focus Solutions," established relationships with three clients while still working from their homes. When they moved into offices at a business incubator, their client list grew to ten. Focus Solutions now services 12 banks and seven other clients in the region, operating from a 15-person office in Amman. Today, Samer is a member of the YEA board and its public policy advocacy committee.
“I believe the entrepreneur is like the Special Forces,” says Samer. “The most important things are well-trained people, a focused and very specific goal, and the knowledge that you don’t fight a war, but instead fight battles. The successful entrepreneur is the one who knows how to stay alive, even if he or she exits from the battle – exit strategy is an important part of the entrepreneur’s life. There is no reason to keep fighting in the same zone, because you cannot face the continuous competitors and new trends.”
In 2007, Samer participated in the Beyster Institute’s Middle East Entrepreneur Training (MEET) program in San Diego. Already a successful entrepreneur, Samer says the experience introduced him to American business models offered great opportunities to meet other successful businesspeople in the U.S. and the Arab world, with whom he hopes to create lasting friendships and partnerships. He says MEET also drew his attention to improvements he could make within this company, such as revising his business plan and considering exist strategies.
Through his work in YEA, Samer hopes to encourage others to have confidence in the entrepreneurial potential of the Middle East and North Africa region.
“Many people I know in the Arab world told me I should work in the U.S. and believe in the American dream. I know that many young Arab men and women want to go to the U.S. because of the great opportunities there, but I want to tell to those people that there are more opportunities in the Arab world, and that if we believe in our country and our strength we can achieve many things."
©2007 The Beyster Institute and its authors and their entities. All rights reserved.
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