Business | Technology
eTech Design looks to create 3D content for growing local market
Company trying to expand using geo-based advertising
- By Scott Shuey, Business Features Editor
- Published: 00:00 December 4, 2010
- Image Credit: VIRENDRA SAKLANI/Gulf News
- Khalid Al Awar, managing director of eTech Design, at his exhibit in the Dubai world game expo. Al Awar says the company has helped to develop 3D content for local brands and is working on a few mobile phone applications that they plan to release next year.
Dubai: Khalid Al Awar has a dream job, at least among those who are into technology.
At 30, Al Awar is the managing director of eTech Design, a Dubai-based company that formed this year and looks to specialise in 3D content, especially where it involves video games and applications for smart phones.
But the young entrepreneur faces a problem: a lack of understanding among investors of what his company is capable of doing.
Al Awar and his partner, Amir Jananlou spent most of last week at a gaming conference in Dubai looking for investors. With a team of just six, they have designed a video game in less than three months, which currently has about 15 minutes of game play. He says he has a hard time convincing people it was built locally.
"I've had to argue with them all week," Al Awar told Gulf News. "They look at the screen and say ‘no way was that built in the UAE'."
Al Awar says the company has also helped develop 3D content for local brands and is currently working on a few mobile phone applications that they plan to release in 2011.
The second problem is that digital content, whether it is video games or mobile phone applications, is still viewed as a non-traditional (meaning high-risk) business. He says getting people to invest in a non-tangible is a hard sell.
Awareness
There is also a lack of understanding about digital content, he says. He says many people think his company is only trying to produce a single game, but Al Awar says the company's goals are to develop into a publishing house for digital content, and equally importantly, local content.
"We have Western countries bringing in content like Prince of Persia," he says. "But this is our culture, and we should be leveraging it." But the price tag for developing such content is not cheap.
Matthew Beckner, the co-founder of Me360, a company looking to bring geo-based advertising to the mainstream in the Middle East, estimates that he has raised $500,000 (Dh1.8 million) and so far has spent half of that on development. The company launched its application on the App Store last month.
"Probably we could have done it cheaper if we had known things then that we know now," he told Gulf News. "But overall it is an extremely low investment to get into a space that is going to be huge."
Geo-based advertising first gained notoriety thanks to mobile phone apps like FourSquare and Gowalla, and combine GPS-location with in-store promotions.
That type of business model hasn't worked well in the Middle East, where businesses are more interested in bringing in new customers than catering to existing ones, Beckner says, but adds he discovered that geo-based advertising was a sustainable niche after talking with businesses.
"I was surprised how much businesses were engaged in social media, understood social media and understood how important media was," he said.
But no one in the region has done it well, he says, leading to Me360, which allows businesses to promote themselves over the applications while providing social networking features to its users.
Money
"Everyone thinks there is going to be a lot of money in location-based advertising, but no one has done it well yet."
There are some companies looking to help the likes of Al Awar and Beckner, such as AppsArabia, which invests money on behalf of its sister company, twofour54, an Abu Dhabi-based media company.
AppsArabia does not provide venture capital in exchange for equity. Instead, potential entrepreneurs bring their ideas to AppsArabia, which considers the viability and potential revenue from the application. After creating a budget, AppsArabia then pays for the development of the application and acts as the publisher. Any revenue the apps earns then goes to pay off AppsArabia's cash investment. Any revenue earned in excess of the initial investment (profit) is split between the entrepreneur and AppsArabia, with 70 per cent of the profits going to the original author.
AppsArabia announced on Monday that its first app, a word game called Kalimat, would be available on the iPhone in mid-December.
The man behind the app was Fares Fayad, a Dubai-based entrepreneur.
According to David Ashford, the company's managing director, an entrepreneur who comes up with an idea doesn't have to pay any out-of-pocket expenses. "We take all the risk. If the app fails, it all on us," Ashford told Gulf News.
"People are starting to realise there is a growing apps market and realising that there aren't enough local apps with local content," Ashford says.
Ashford says the company has two rules about investing. Any entrepreneur looking for funding must be based in Mena (including expats) and all development funds must be spent in Mena.
Al Awar says he has talked to companies like AppsArabia, but is still in discussions with the company. But as for government and bank loans, he and his partners prefer to find private investors.
"We don't even want to go down that road," he says.
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