Just Past 70% of 2024
2024 can be split into two major chapters for me. The first part was about my startup journey in the Middle East, and the second part is about my new venture.
Part 1:
Unfortunately, my startup in Saudi Arabia didn’t go as planned. In a previous post, I wrote:
Similarly, my SaaS startup recently pivoted to the MENA market. This strategic shift was influenced by my participation in an AI accelerator in the region. The experience unveiled the untapped potential of MENA, a market burgeoning with opportunities and eager for technological advancement.
But the reality is, a successful business depends on both internal and external factors. Internally, you can control your decisions and efforts. Externally, it's much harder to steer things, especially for a small, early-stage team.
Saudi Arabia is indeed a market with less competition, and the government is working hard to push AI-related industries. But there are factors I couldn’t control that made it tough for someone like me to succeed:
1. Early-Stage Investment Environment: For seed and pre-seed stages, the ecosystem isn't fully developed yet. Most investors I talked to were more like financial investors, focused on revenue projections. It’s not wrong, but it’s not ideal for early startups looking for more strategic support.
2. Government Efficiency: Anything involving the government or banking takes a lot of time and energy. People are generally helpful, but you often need to find the right person to get things moving. It’s a slow process that can drain a small team’s resources.
3. Cultural Differences: The culture is very different from what I experienced in Taiwan and the U.S. It’s definitely worth a full blog post to explain, so I won’t dive into it here.
In short, I was too young and too naive. It was a failure, but a valuable one. I learned a lot, made some great friends, and got to visit countries I’d never been to before.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both...
We never know how things might have turned out with a different decision, but I don’t regret this one.
Part 2:
Around Q2 2024, I got lucky. I teamed up with a friend on something really exciting—building foundational models for processing brainwave data. Of course, it's a tough challenge, but I’m more than happy to have my co-founder Michael by my side. He consistently overdelivers on the technical front.
I’m not sure where this will go, but fingers crossed, we’ll create something the world really needs.
