Sima Najjar

How to teach people to do things in a language that is not their own? As a user of the countless Internet ‘how-to’ videos, the majority of which are in English, Sima Najjar decided to provide the answer – in more ways than one. She created Ekeif.com, a video-content website for short, quality presentations in Arabic, keif meaning ‘how’.

Incubation period

Sima knew about entrepreneurship – she was already the CEO of a successful modelling agency in Jordan and a boutique in the capital showcasing female Arab designers. But she knew nothing about online business. Her first move was to approach an incubator, Oasis500. ‘They were a huge help with networking to build the right team.’ The young company did no marketing, launching its videos one by one on YouTube. ‘Now we have 1 million views every month!’

The very first video was about how to make a sheep out of cotton buds. ‘It was a greetings card for the Eid al-Fitr holiday after Ramadan.’ Now Ekeif.com produces 40 videos a month in six categories: Beauty & Style, Home, Food, Arts & Crafts, Health & Wellbeing and Parenting. Content from the site is uploaded to the YouTube channel, which still exists alongside it. Monetisation of the YouTube page started in May 2013. Other revenue comes from product placement to illustrate the presentations. Currently produced in-house by the three full-time staff, the videos were initially supplied by freelancers, generally youngsters in their 20s. ‘We will return to outsourcing once we reach our monthly content target of 1,000 videos, but always with a view to quality.’ This will be good news for youth unemployment in the Middle East, which ILO figures rate at over 25%.

Today the biggest users of Ekeif.com’s content are Saudi Arabian women. ‘Social customs mean many women are at home, but they all have tablets and smartphones and love to learn.’ In mid-May, Ekeif. com signed a six-month exclusivity deal with Mobily, the number-one telecommunications network in Saudi Arabia, which will be accompanied by a major advertising campaign.

Ekeif gets its ideas for content from the community and traditional search-engine mining to see which topics are hot. Although Sima knows about modelling, the videos only show the presenter’s hands, partly to ensure no conservative values are offended, but also to facilitate future localisation, when the time comes to voice-over the explanations in other languages. ‘We are aiming for Turkish and Persian.’

How to bring change

There are approximately 340 million Arabic speakers across the globe, but less than 3% of Internet content is in Arabic, despite its growing reputation in the region as a driver of progress and change. On Ekeif.com, the Parenting section is the place where delicate or taboo subjects can be covered, such as raising children with disabilities or experiencing post-partum depression.

Sima herself has been doing some parenting, giving birth to a baby daughter last December. ‘No-one noticed I was expecting!’ The young CEO did her best not to show it. ‘You don’t want people saying: “She’s pregnant, she won’t carry on with the project.” But I can’t cocoon myself inside an office, I have to go out and make deals!’ She’d been so busy she never made a business plan: ‘I was so excited about applying for the Awards, because it makes you devise a business plan. It’s a user-friendly process that really makes you think.’