 Hi, my name is Dan Stewart. I'm, well, I guess recently I'm the manager director of the Middle East So I'm not a big podium guy. I'm used to walking around so if I fidget a lot it's because I'm not used to standing behind a podium, but so Sorry, so basically like I was saying so recently I became the Managing Director of Living Social Middle East not so long ago Actually had a company a company is called GoNabbit So this is a company I founded almost exactly to the day two years ago I know this is an obsession on entrepreneurship But I remember coming home saying to my wife who was nine months pregnant pregnant at the time No, I'm gonna quit my job liquidate all of our savings and start a company. What do you think? Actually surprisingly well, but you know at the time and You know it just became me and Excel for a little while and then you know I joined up with a partner and then we launched, but we launched in May of 2010 Essentially what we do if you don't know what we do as a business We feature it's very local to local online to offline commerce come on our website We sell stuff we sell it at a discount because we're asking you to change behaviors by prepaying for something Normally you pay for so normally you book for restaurant eat pay for us. It's pay book eat Why would I change behaviors because I'll give you a price incentive to do so, right? So essentially how it works and we went through your lunch in Dubai Then we're an Abu Dhabi then we're in Beirut then we're in I'm on Jordan Then you're in Kuwait for a while there in in Egypt. So we ended up as a business working a number of countries, but You know, I just want to have a training wheels for a second So it's been said by someone else that eBay was essentially training wheels for e-commerce for merchants You have the stuff you can ship the stuff They'll bring you the buyers by by hosting your your payments and transactions eBay being your storefront and I think in a lot of ways, you know, there was really no e-commerce environment In the region. I've been here for a decade and had never really bought anything online in the region except I think maybe flowers or like a gift basket before and I like to think that you know Local deals like we were doing with go nab it was training wheels for e-commerce for buyers Why because we all know there's no address system here really it's all like peel boxes or like Referential addressing I live around the corner from McDonald's beside the barber shop kind of address systems But for us, we don't ship you a product. We send you a virtual product, which is a voucher attached to an email. So Yes, there's still that payments piece of e-commerce, but it helped us get around that delivery piece of e-commerce and really let us You know have a bit of an easier entry point But that said I spent probably 50% of the first year Actually 75% half of that 75 was legal the other half was online payments really it was how I spent my time It's really a function of the region Just where we ended up it kind of ended up where no credit card has gone before in the region So we launched as a credit card business in Lebanon in the UAE in Egypt and Jordan You paid by a credit card if you didn't have a credit card You could come to our office and pay cash which happened occasionally if you couldn't come to our office You have a credit card. You didn't buy we didn't do cash on delivery and some of the things other websites do But that said, you know, we launched the first daily deal site in the MENA region We're the first globally in Arabic. We're on everything in two languages We're in nine markets in four countries are mostly e-commerce. I mean eventually we kind of relented I still don't like it. We're relented and we'll do cash payments in Lebanon in Egypt We have staff everywhere so even office in Cairo and office in Egypt. Sorry that's the same place We have office in Egypt. We have office in Lebanon. We have office in Jordan We have office in the UAE and We were 45 employees when we sold out to leaving social in of June of last year and the irony is is my son was born Almost to the day we incorporated the company and my daughter was born the day before the transaction was announced So my my kids are kind of bookends So I guess I like to say I had a startup and why my wife had a job and two kids during that time So actually think her job was a bit harder, but So we sold out living social it's amongst other things is a daily deals company based in the United States living social operates in 640 daily deal markets around the world 60 million members 25 countries six continents and does a lot of different things and I was really exciting for us and just one of the things I want to talk about is just what we've seen from a Regional perspective for commerce and also from mobile commerce You know we do research we do by annual e-commerce research and there's a lot of different things and I can if you ask me later You know I can give you all this information But just two things I want to point out is the numbers at the bottom So we did this in March last year and then we did in August last year And one of the question was is people's preferred payment methods And so in March 53% of people preferred a combination of credit card or debit card like online enabled debit card And in August that became 69% and so that's great for us as a business I think it's great for you know other entrepreneurs looking to create actual e-commerce businesses You know and sell things online and take payments online And I think it's very linked to the second stat on the right on the bottom Which is that in March, you know of people that felt confident buying from local websites with 57% and increased to 75% And I don't think it's because confidence increased so much is that there was actually more to buy online from this part of the World we've seen flash sales sites come up and do fairly well, you know some raise the money You know we've seen you know Groupon entered the UAE, which is the first time we had any International e-commerce company enter the Middle East living socially transact with them was the first M&A deal in the region's history in e-commerce space So I think just having more to buy online in this part of the world Backed in to people becoming more confident actually transacting online Just a couple things I want to talk about, you know, so we all know stats And you know, there's lots people here that have way more stats than I do So, you know, there's 250 mobile phones in the region and you know smartphones and penetration is increasing An interesting stat is that you know smartphone penetration UAE for example of a hundred percent You know that hundred percent piece of smartphones in other words like phones that can access the internet that's still 70% Nokia It's only 3% iPhone So it's still very someone asked about Symbian before and whatever it's still a Nokia part of the world Very much so blackberries obviously still far stronger than than iPhone And so I think you know, it's one of the things that we have so with living social we have a mobile app. It's black. It's Sorry, it's Android and iPhone. So when I you know talking to a look we need to look at a Nokia afternoon Nokia nobody is Nokia's like well not where you are but our part of the world is much different, you know And so what have we seen so we've been running a mobile app iPhone and Android for three months now in the region So this is an UAE to Lebanon and Jordan. So we've seen this steadily increase But we do 6% of our transactions through mobile phone. So what does that mean? I mean somebody opens up an app uses their credit card and transact transact and because they get their voucher, which is also there On the app. You actually never have to interact with our website You can literally register pay and redeem with your with your voucher through mobile. And so 6% compares to but I didn't tell you this but 17% for living social in the US So I think 6% it's not so bad after three months in a part of the world where I Challenge you today to find me something else that you can buy online in this part of the world through a mobile app There's nothing so I mean it's not like, you know, we're the 15th or the 50th of 500th app where you can buy something It's the only one right? So what can you do? You can come online, you know, you can see the deals that we run We sell product and services now as well. You can purchase travel so you could buy a trip The one at the top is actually a Kilimanjaro climb so you could literally go open up your phone buy a trip and to go On a Kilimanjaro climb The guy was actually leading it was the youngest Egyptian ever somewhat Everest Random plug, but anyway, you can buy it get your vouchers. Don't write down my voucher code That's not cool because I want to go to these use these movie tickets But just pretend that just pretend you don't see my number, but you know, I can use my voucher I can show it. I never have to print off anything. So it's paperless You know some of the other things we're looking to bring so I mean, you know, I'll just finish off with You know living social in the US is now getting into online food ordering. So it's not so much about discount driven It's literally I'm right here right now, you know, I want to order something eat that'll deliver to here What delivers to here menus online menus on the app? I order I pay It's not a matter of trying to communicate clearly what I'm ordering So actually think this is you know, and I my credit cards on file So I'm paying for it and so these are the kind of things where it's not just a matter of you know I'm gonna buy a movie ticket and then redeem it We're really trying to push into an area of really kind of connecting buyers with local merchants And I think you know that was one of the things that appealed to us We had three different acquisition offers We chose living social and why because we felt like you know They're really moving in the same direction that we want to move and you know things that were relevant for the region Just the one thing you know, I think you know We should talk about today in the panel is just that no matter what you're doing Whether you're selling in the soup in the mall or online You're still competing on at least two of provide price availability and convenience And I think that doesn't change so I think you know no matter what you want to sell Whatever the channel is if you're not competing on at least two of these you're not competing. So this is me and Thanks very much