Eyewa was founded in 2017, with a purposeful intent to offer an advanced and easy-to-use platform to purchase high-quality eyewear at affordable prices, creating a unique, efficient, and memorable shopping experience to all. Ever since, we became the largest and most trusted online eyewear store in the Middle East to provide the finest brands of prescription glasses, sunglasses, blue light glasses, color contact lenses, and corrective contact lenses.

Key Takeaways:

0:00 Intro

1:02 Anass talks about why they decided to leave their jobs and be entrepreneurs 

2:05 Mehdi shares a little background on their first venture in food delivery as entrepreneurs and how their journey in the tech world started

6:14 Anass also explains what he thought was unique in Saudi Arabia in 2015 that caused the significant growth of the Foodpanda 

7:55 Anass talks about the demand that was there in Saudi but the supply was less which gave them the opportunity 

8:38 Anass also talks about how profitable the business of food delivery is in the Saudi Arabia as compared to other regions 

11:33 Anass shares a little background of the Eyewa company and how it all started and why they decided to be in the eyewear space

12:46 Anass also shares the reasons that made them decide to be an e-commerce company and focus on the online sales 

14:11 Anass also talks about the ecosystem they were operating in while growing Eyewa in raising the capital 

15:30 Anass also talks about how they made sure that they had the right talents in their team and the right culture in their business

18:40 Mehdi talks about what he feels has been the most significant challenges in the ecosystem of building a company

20:18 Anass talks about what it would take to cultivate local talent in their region rather than having exported talent 

21:56 Anass shares what he thinks needs to be done to encourage and push more people to entrepreneurship 

23:33 Anass also shares his thoughts on why there is less unicorns in their region in the business world 

24:56 Mehdi explains how having significant access to scale funding, would it make your journey a lot easier to scale especially in overcoming laws and regulations 

27:33 Anass and Mehdi share the impacts that Covid has made in their business and how it has impacted the macro of e-commerce

31:16 Anass talks about the future of retail and how they are going to be different from other retailers 

35:39 Mehdi talks about the ways they are creating innovation in their company, how they’re using virtual reality Try-on, how they're using A.I., how they're using machine learning

39:09 Anass and Mehdi explain why they were able and successful in hiring so many women in Saudi Arabia and why women and not men

42:34 Anass talks about if we're going to see more women moving up to the C Suite and to boards as the entrepreneurial landscape continues to increase

45:23 Mehdi and Anass talk about the next big investment trends where people should put their money specifically in the region

Shows Mentioned:
Bain & Company: is a top management consulting firm.

Rocket Internet: incubates and invests in internet and technology companies globally. 

Foodpanda is a mobile food delivery marketplace owned by Berlin-based company Delivery Hero SE and operates in about 50 countries. 

HungerStation delivers your favorite food and grocery nearest to you in Saudi Arabia.

Otlob is the number one online food delivery in Egypt. 

24h.ae is active in the UAE and provides a convenient way to order food in seven cities - Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah and Ras Al Khaimah.

Quotes Mentioned:
“In Saudi, we have a very young population, very...