1/ #Anghami HQ relocating to Abu Dhabi Thread time

2/ Why? Because it just didn't exist in this part of the world! We needed music 🎶 and so did plenty of arabs who had to pirate for the lack of a legal service.

3/ Building music service is no simple feat, especially when it has to be available on every device, be local, contain a 57 Million songs legal library , be fast, be different ⚡️.

4/ It becomes even harder when you have to build a payment network from 36 telcos across the region - and amass over 80 million users.
What's the hardest part in building all this?

5/ The talent!
The people who spend endless hours working to build the vision and constantly churn fix after fix to make it sparkle.
That talent came mostly from Lebanon, 90% of the team hailed from my country 🇱🇧. And made us absolutely proud!

6/ A startup is meant to grow. Growth requires continuous investment 💰. And while our original investors helped us build. We needed more to keep innovating & competing.
Over the past 2 years, we tried hard to bring more investment to #Lebanon but to no ado.

7/ Little did we know, that 2019 will end with lashed hope of country revival 💔, followed by a domino of doom that started by financial crisis, strapped funds and ended with human suffering on 4 August 😒.

8/ As a founder, I was distraught between my belonging to this country that I had never ever left - and the company that I built with a magnificent bunch of people that I am not yet ready to let go 🤷‍♂️.

9/ In 1990, I was traveling to continue my education abroad when one of these endless Lebanese wars ended. I stayed fully believing in the renewal after the storm 🌩.

11/ In 2020, I didn't give up. My country gave up on our dreams, and the hopes of a generation of builders👨‍💻👩‍💻.
I had spent 30 years working & believing in a better tomorrow, and it was slowly vanishing.

11/ A promise from all of us: Our #Beirut 🇱🇧office will never ever close ⚠️. We will keep recruiting fresh graduates and seasoned team members.

12/ However, our new HQ will now be Abu Dhabi 🇦🇪. A city that welcomed us with utmost support. Well beyond our expectations. A city that will invest in our team, technology & research over the many years to come.

13/ In 2021, @anghami is now more Arab than ever before with Abu Dhabi 🇦🇪, Beirut 🇱🇧, Dubai 🇦🇪, Cairo 🇪🇬 & Riyadh 🇸🇦offices and users from all the world 🌍.
Firmly upping my belief that if we all work together, share learnings & failures we all become better as an Arab nation.

14/ We can dream, we can build, we can compete, we can lead the way & hopefully inspire others to do better.
This is just the beginning.
Our #Chapter2 starts very soon
Stayed tuned & Use Local👋