“Paying is a challenge in the Arab world, and we felt that as merchants,” said Omar Soudodi, explaining the inspiration to start PayFort, after experiences in previous e-commerce jobs with Accelerabia and Souq. Soudodi, Managing Director of PayFort, isn’t new to entrepreneurship; he’s been one ever since he was a kid, running a candy stand at his parents’ restaurant. After earning a degree in finance from California State University in Fullerton, and gaining work experience at several financial institutions including Bank of America as Assistant Vice President at 24 years-old, Soudodi relocated to the UAE. The type of service that PayFort provides is not common in the Middle East, where most people associate e-commerce services to PayPal. Soudodi contrasts PayFort and PayPal: “PayFort is a payment service provider; we enter a contractual agreement with the merchant, and offer the technology and processing in order for the merchant to enable different payment methods,” mentioning VISA, Master-Card, PAYatSTORE, and PAYatHOME. Unlike PayFort, both consumers and merchants alike can set up a PayPal digital wallet and use it to transact payments where possible. Compared to Souq and Accelarabia, setting up PayFort was a different experience, notably because it was much easier financially- and they haven’t got any angel investors. “E-commerce is very capital-intensive,” explains Soudodi, “you have to spend a lot of money on online marketing, user acquisition, you have to buy products, you have to buy warehouses.” PayFort is different because they aren’t selling something to a consumer, but they’re “taking a percentage of a transaction.” As a result, he opted to have a big team with PayFort in order to achieve profitability in the shortest amount of time possible, making it a much more labor-intensive project. When asked about ROI, Soudodi says that he doesn’t disclose that information due to PayFort being private, but he does mention that “current transaction values are around US$35 million a month.” PayFort is growing 10-20% month-over-month, with exception of some holiday seasons where many consumers are abroad, so I guess you can safely assume that their ROI is looking good. There’s one e-commerce stone left unturned: Cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is still a hot debate topic, and unlike others I’ve interviewed, Soudodi isn’t hostile about the online currency. In fact, he sees it growing and evolving over time into something that can be prominent and successful. “I think that if you look at the financial instrument that is dominant online, which is credit cards– they were not designed for online, they were designed for offline,” adding that Bitcoin’s unregulated nature is what continues to spark uproar from authorities and institutions. “Bitcoin is a baby that’s been born that needs to learn how to crawl, walk,” adding sooner or later he thinks it will “gain traction.”According to PayFort’s website, its services will benefit businesses of any type and any scale, from startups and SMEs to larger businesses, and even governments. “I think when you build a company, you should build it from the bottom-up,” stressing the importance of working with startups, and discussing PayFort’s extensive knowledge of the startup community in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. The biggest business interest in PayFort has come from startups, and Soudodi confirms that they do what they can to make sure their services go live, regardless of risk factor. It makes sense that the entrepreneur is very well-versed with the startup scene, as he’s involved with Injaz and Flat6Labs. Injaz is a nonprofit organization that empowers and educates young entrepreneurs, and Flat6Labs is a self-defined “startup accelerator program” in the region. “Every time I visit Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon or Saudi Arabia, and you meet young entrepreneurs, it’s amazing [to see] thetype of ambition they have,” says Soudodi, enumerating the benefits as a more seasoned entrepreneur in keeping up-to-date with the startup scene. One really good reason? The potential business relationships that can exist between young ‘treps (and their businesses) with Soudodi or with PayFort. Which GCC country affords the best opportunities for up-and-coming ‘treps in his opinion? “Saudi Arabia, mark my words, they have a generation of entrepreneurs that is definitely going to sweep this region,” citing KSA’s accessto capital, high GDP growth, relatively large population, and issues that potential ‘treps can tackle by innovation in products and services. His advice to those wanting to venture into entrepreneurship? “There are a lot of problems in the Arab world, but it’s the best time to be an entrepreneur. All these issues, you can really address them with technology,” mentioning successful startups that provide products or services targeting various is- sues that a particular country might face. That said, he insists on staying levelheaded- “Don’t fall in love with the idea because you have an idea, fall in love with the idea when other people fall in love with it.” What are PayFort’s future plans? For the rest of the year, “the goal is to go live in new markets in the region,and eliminate some of the barriers for startups.” MENA’s e-commerce sphere just keeps getting more interesting, perhaps it’s all the paying-it-forward that the tech community has done. It looks like things are finally paying off.