Maqtoob itself is an online platform for entrepreneurs to search, rate and review business apps. Being an entrepreneur means having your hands full at all times. You are going to have to deal with everything from creating a website to managing your social media and finances. Juggling so many tasks can be quite stressful and daunting. Luckily, there are plenty of cost-effective solutions to help you build and grow your business! But which of them are better than one another? What do entrepreneurs outside use? Maqtoob tells you.

Kristyna Zapletalova(The Founder) and Adil Gherib(Co-Founder and COO)

They started a tour since April, that they called: MAQTOOB on the Move 12 countries in 12 months. They are going to talk to entrepreneurs in countries (developing/emerging) beyond US/Europe, such as Lebanon, Iran, India, Nigeria, Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia etc. and present them with the best tools to grow their businesses. Iran was their third stop after Lebanon and Morocco.

Iran Startups and Dmond Innovation Group were the organizer of this workshop that took place on June 24, 2015 at Dmond Startup Accelerator in University of Tehran. They have not organized this event one time. They also organized the same workshop in other cities of Iran like Kish and Zanjan. It is good to know that their next stop is Kenya. Interested? Check this out.

In three days, participants acquire skills needed to identify, test, and eliminate the barriers to a viable business model. With focus on validation and fail fast succeed faster, our attendee’s progress more in three days than most others do in six months.

Lean Startup Machine has held 150 workshops in 50 cities, across six continents, for over 25,000 aspiring entrepreneurs around the world… and now it’s time for San Francisco to see the largest workshop ever.

In Iran, we had two LSM events so far. In the first event which took place on May 14, 2014 in Tehran, eighteen ideas were pitched and nine of them were selected. Furthermore, this event hosted some international speakers like Andraz Logar, the founder of 3fs from Slovenia and also Grace Ng, the founder of Javelin.com, had a talk via skype. The winners were ‘Sepas(Healthcare System)’ in 1st place, ‘Q-Pay’ in 2nd place and finally ‘WeNote’ in 3rd place.

A couple of months later, the second event of LSM took place on January 21, 2015 in Tehran. Like the previous event, 27 ideas were pitched and 12 of them were selected to organize their team and start their own businesses. The winners of this event were ‘Payapay’ in 1st place, ‘Kodom Bank Beram’ in 2nd place and ‘Offyar’ in 3rd place.

Sponsors and supporters of previous events were Ayandeh Bank, Monetary and Banking Research Institute, eFarda E-Commerce Company, Startup Engine, Iran Startups, StartupTV.

Maybe you noticed that all of previous events have taken place in the capital of Iran. How about other cities? The good news is Lean Startup Machine comes to Shiraz, the capital of Persian Art, Culture and Literature on April 22, 2015. Take a look at the official website in Persian. In a case you cannot read Farsi, you can check the global website or Iran Startups website to know more about previous organizers, speakers and agenda.

If you liked this article, take a look at my previous article:

Clickyab Makes Your Ads More Beneficial

Ponisha: The Heaven of Iranian Freelancers‏

Shafajoo Wants To Be Your Healing Angel

Top 12 Iranian startups were selected among 27 startups by Slush team and only 9 teams sent their presentation.

At the beginning, Martin Talvari, Chief Strategy Officer at Slush started his talk about their history and mission of Slush event. Right after his talk the teams started their pitch (in English).

Slush Tehran, Photo by StartupTV

You can watch all pitches one by one in English here:

The first pitch, Far.si:

The second pitch, Faralams:

The third pitch, Taskulu:

The fourth pitch, Naji:

The fifth pitch, Game In City:

The sixth pitch, TheatreJS:

The seventh pitch, Kikojas:

The eighth pitch, NFC:

The nineth pitch, Thought of Earth:

And the winner:

The judges were Neda Amidi, Investment Analyst at Plug & Play Ventures, Ehsan Golabgir, Founder & CEO of Albasco.com, Reza Hashemi, Co-founder of PersianBlog and CEO at Persian Commerce and Nasser Ghanemzadeh, Founder of Iran Startups, Techly and Startup Engine.

The winner of this event was TheatreJS, who had the great and interesting pitches. You can see a demo of TheatreJS here.

The winner team of Slush Tehran, Photo by Ali Farmad

The winner of Slush In Tehran is invited to Slush 2014. The finals will be held in front of a worldwide audience at Slush 2014 in Helsinki on November 19th.

This event was held by the help of Finnair, Persian ICT Company, Iran Startups, Techly, StartupTV, Altoe University and Transfluent.

Now Slush is on the road! On September 17th Slush comes to Tehran: There will be a pitching competition. The winner of Slush In Tehran is invited to Slush 2014 and receives:

• Flights by Finnair
• Accommodation
• Exclusive access, including the opportunity to take part in the Slush pitching competition

Startups should open to early-stage tech oriented product or service in all sectors. Less than 3 years in operation and has received fewer than $3M of fundings. Eight pre-selected startups, each having 3 min to pitch plus 5 min for Q&A, will face a judging panel.in Addition, Entrants will be judged on the uniqueness of their idea, their level of development thus far, and their potential for future growth.

Techly, Iran Startups, Finnair and Iran ICT Organization are the partners of this event that help the international team to make this happen.

You can attend as an Startup or as a Guest.All these are free of charge.You can use this link.

The finals will be held in front of a worldwide audience at Slush 2014 in Helsinki on November 19th.

Nick Stevens as a Facilitator started the event by introducing startup weekend to all attendees. After 31 pitches, 12 ideas got selected and 10 teams gathered to start “No talk, all action”.

Nick’s presence was a great opportunity to all attendees, mentor, staff and also the liveblog team. By his advice, all teams got out of the building and evaluate their ideas.

Friday afternoon we had the presentation and judging session. Every team had 5 minutes to present their work and 3 minutes to answer the questions. GiftMan, Brown Ground and DarooYar win this battle, but as you know all the attendees are winners if they use what they’ve learn in their real business.

I had the honor to interview Mr. Koorangi Founder at MPS, the first Incubator for supporting technological business here in Iran. This event as the first startup weekend he attended attracted his attention. He said that he has seen obvious change past 3 years he has got back Iran. Although there is some problems, the startup ecosystem is in progress.

Entrepreneurship is a case that should be reviewed and he taught some investors are paying attention to Middle East and Iran since the problems are the same all over the world. Problems such as traffic, shopping, library and entertainment are the same in Iran and San Francisco or France as well. Because of these similarities the strategies and methods should be global. So, we should solve a problem by whole and as Iran is part of the whole, the problem will got solved.

We have so many creative young people here who could solve the problems but they need support and some tools. The main tool is fund.

He also mentioned about the importance of investors. As you know, Mark Zuckerberg had enough investors so he could launched facebook. The idea itself could not guaranteed success and fund is important as well.

He answered the last question about localization the successful startups around the world. He said that most people are afraid of foreign investors and they say foreigners has got the market and we cannot compete. This idea is wrong, if you have a strategy you can work as well and attract the investors. And this would be a positive act when a foreign company buy internal companies. So think global and act local.

The Bridge 2014 conference (September 6, 2014 at the UC Berkeley Wheeler Auditorium) is predicated on the notion that the promotion of entrepreneurship, and innovation is the indispensable key to sustainable growth. This gathering will be part of a global effort to draw attention to “High Tech Entrepreneurship in Iran: Opportunities and Challenges.” This tagline represents the Bridge 2014 vision of calling upon change makers and thought leaders both in Silicon Valley and Iran. According to Kamran Elahian, Chairman and Co-Founder of Global Catalyst Partners, “We believe Silicon Valley and Iran’s thought leaders can empower aspiring young entrepreneurs that are striving to make a difference in this world.” “We envision this conference to be a precursor to future international events where highly accomplished executives will coach/mentor their aspiring counterparts from Iran.”

Conference participants will educate each other about the issues impacting high tech entrepreneurship in Iran, the prevailing conditions in the country that deviate from the “global innovation model” and the steps that should be taken to reduce this gap. Bridge 2014 complies with sanctions and corresponding laws. According to Kamran Elahian, “During this gathering, these key influencers with diverse backgrounds will share their vision, experiences, and perspectives for creating a better world through the power of innovation and the entrepreneurial spirit. This conference explores the role of high tech in economic development: where change is the catalyst and choice is unlimited.”

The issues that will be explored in this educational conference include: the attraction of venture capital, cultural attitudes towards entrepreneurs’ failure, existence of innovation clusters, the ease of starting businesses, and the availability and accessibility of mentors and role models. According to Dariush Zahedi, Director of the Berkeley Program on Entrepreneurship and Development in the Middle East, “We will examine the circumstances under which high tech entrepreneurship and innovation can emerge as engines of inclusive growth, reducing the country’s dependence on extractive industries, expanding the size of its middle class, reversing the flight of capital, and promoting the circulation of the brain-drain.”

Bridge 2014’s activities are hosted and sponsored by UC Berkeley. More than thirty companies, non-profit organizations and community leaders have provided support and donations for this event. For the list of sponsors, please see: www.bridge2014.org/donation.
About Bridge 2014
Bridge 2014 – “High Tech Entrepreneurship in Iran: Opportunities and Challenges” conference and additional activities, including subsequent conferences, research and publications are under the supervision/auspices of the UC Berkeley Program on Entrepreneurship and Development in the Middle East: bped.berkeley.edu.