My Startup World speaks to Nour Al Hassan, the Founder and CEO of Ureed.com about the freelancer economy in the region
Please tell us about your startup journey. How did the idea come to fruition?
The idea behind Ureed.com came from my experience of working in the field of linguistic and editorial services for more than ten years, through Tarjama. During this time, I spotted a gap in the market for quality, cost effective solutions, to create content in multiple languages across all sectors.
We knew that companies across the region were searching for quality linguistic providers, and Ureed as a platform connects businesses to independent professionals, allowing them to collaborate remotely, thus enabling growth in a fast-paced globalised market.
It is the ideal place for savvy businesses, entrepreneurs and professional freelancers to work together, with a number of options throughout the platform including blogging, copywriting, legal documentation, editing, proofreading, as well as translation.
Nour Al Hassan, the Founder and CEO of Ureed.com.
What prompted you to work on such a concept for this region?
I felt that there was a need for a marketplace to address the volume of work for startups, ecommerce platforms and content sites. The feedback we were getting was that the traditional agency model wasn’t always the best solution because of high margins which don’t necessarily work for startups.
At the same time from my experience, writers and translators often enjoy the flexibility of freelance work and therefore a marketplace such as Ureed is able to help people earn a good income whilst still having a full time job and a family.
Did you come across any challenges when starting up?
There are always challenges when you start a new business as you need to work even harder to gain people’s trust, and being a small company is never easy. Clients often want to keep working with big, well-known names, and therefore you have to work even harder to prove your worth. However this is changing slowly, and there is definitely more support for startups across the region.
Which markets will you focus upon?
Our key markets are UAE, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Lebanon, but Ureed is accessible across the globe.
What are your plans in terms of marketing and reach for 2018?
We’re focused on educating the region on the platform so they understand what we are able to offer in terms of content creation and linguistic services. We also want to broaden awareness for the freelance economy – there are so many ways to earn more money using the web – and being a freelancer is a really good viable track for economic growth for talented people. We want to empower them.
What do you plan to achieve as a milestone by end of this year?
We have lots of milestones in place but the ultimate goal is for Ureed to become the largest marketplace for Arabic content writers and translators across the world.
Do you have any advice for budding entrepreneurs in this region?
Study the market very well and validate your idea. Have the right team in place and work super hard. It won’t happen without your full dedication.
