Viaka Newsletter: A look back at 2022 (Part 1)
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A look back at 2022 (Part 1)
Before kicking off 2023, I wanted to take a look back at Viaka’s inaugural year, 2022, and share our story along with some key takeaways.
The initial phases of a new project are all about validating the assumptions or institutions that led you to launch the project in the first place (and pivoting away from those institutions, if necessary). I’ve broken our first year into 4 stages, during each of which (I realized in retrospect), Viaka was trying to validate an initial assumption.
For each stage, I’ve written a brief summary of Viaka’s activities and bullet points of key takeaways.
This post will focus on the first 2/4 stages in 2022. I’ll follow up with a Part 2 in a few days.
Viaka at the end of 2022
Partners
9 startups worked with
82 introductions made
70 Founder NPS
Network
160 Members
61% Current or Former Founders
40% VC or Angel Investors
10 Average Years of ExperienceStage 1: Is Viaka Solving a Real Problem? (January - April)
Towards the end of 2021, drawing mostly on my experiences as a Venture Partner with plus.vc, some consulting work I did with a Palestinian startup, and advising GrowHome, I pulled together the problem statement that I wanted to address:
“Most emerging market startups, and their support organizations, struggle to consistently obtain high quality mentorship, capital, exposure, and expertise from more mature ecosystems.”
Before bringing even an MVP to market, I wanted to confirm that this was indeed a “real” problem beyond the few pieces of anecdotal evidence I had seen the previous year. These first couple of months were research intensive. Looking back at my notes, I have a list of 70+ articles, research papers, interviews, etc that I consumed at the beginning of the year (many of which I’ve since added to Viaka’s growing reading list). We also gathered survey data and conducted interviews with 30-40 startups, VCs, and accelerators working in MENA.
Also during this stage, I circulated a simple google signup form titled “MENA and its Diaspora in Startupland,” which garnered 80+ respondents, and constituted v1 of what has become the “Viaka Network.”
I generally consider the “end of this stage” to be the Arab Conference at Harvard at the beginning of April, where I pitched Viaka as part of the conference’s startup competition.
Takeaways:
Connecting to developed ecosystems was a real problem for startups in MENA. From my own conversations, 97% of MENA respondents were looking for new ways to connect with resources outside of their region, 83% were specifically struggling to connect with investors and 66% were struggling to connect with expert advice.
The solution to this problem, however, may not come in the form of a traditional, venture-backed startup. Solving this problem would likely require things that don’t scale too well and can’t be addressed solely with software - community building, personalized services, and deep, trusting relationships.
Startup professionals in the MENA “diaspora” want to connect with each other just as much as (if not more than) they want to connect with the MENA ecosystem. I was really heartened by the quality of signups we had for the “MENA and its Diaspora in Startupland” form, but was surprised to find that more folks joined out of a desire to “network with folks connected to the region” than those who joined to “learn more about MENA’s ecosystem.”
Viaka could come into the market and compliment existing organizations, rather than compete with an entrenched incumbent. Entities existed that circled this problem statement, whether in the form of nonprofits, NGOs, accelerators, or VCs themselves, but there was definitely room for a new approach, and the possibility to partner with those organizations.
Stage 2: Will real people & orgs actually work with Viaka? (April - May)
At a certain point, theoretical research could only take Viaka so far. In early April, we started floating the idea of a free pilot program to some of the MENA organizations and startups that participated in our research. We seriously explored the possibility with 4 organizations, and ended up narrowing down to pilot programs with 2 of them (plus.vc and IM Fndg).
At the same time, we started putting the Viaka name out there. On April 27th, we shared with those who signed up to the “MENA Diaspora in Startupland” form that we were launching Viaka with the mission to:
“Connect MENA’s startup ecosystem with human and financial capital in North America and Europe (the West) and turn ties with MENA into a competitive advantage for individuals working in the West.”
We launched our weekly newsletter on April 29th.
We spent most of May chatting with our “Network Members,” working out an operating model with our pilot partners, and setting up the internal tooling/process to support these pilots. May also saw the (expected) departure of two early collaborators on Viaka - one to graduation and the other to a new full-time role.
Takeaways:
People were willing to give Viaka a shot: What started as an idea at the top of the year actually had legitimate VCs ready to test it out, and real-world individuals in developed markets signed up as Network members.
This would be alot of work, especially alone: Viaka had to scale back some early ambitions after recognizing just how much work it would take to do everything we dreamed of. I cut back on our content, community strategy, and pilot group size to ensure that our first 2 partners had good experiences. I also had to face the fact that it would be tough to keep talented people working with me on Viaka at this pre-revenue, exploratory phase.
To be continued… Stay tuned for Part 2 in a few days.
Thanks,
Hani
That’s it for this week. Thank you!
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