Take this example. You have an idea. You do it all right, your web-service is ready to launch and beta test(remember amidship? what did I say then?). To start, you can not have your own serving box even though you pay the bandwidth, it’s way too expensive.

Second, you can only aim for SMB, and if you get to Medium sized businesses then consider yourself lucky.

Now I don’t know how you’re targeting the international market. Since:

You might know this market, not the global, reading blogs don’t count, interacting with clients do!

If you mean reaching international as service provider such as freelancing, then cool

You know the culture here, you might’ve watched, read, or heard about a globalized(americanized) cultures, but you might’ve not lived it.

Btw, it’s a small market over here, less competing hands, bigger clients.

Good luck. Let me know of your news. I’m an e-mail away :)

I just want to clarify that I don’t blame anybody, I’m exactly the opposite, I really encourage all the serious tries to make the local market better, I tried to explain the local market to encourage a better knowledge seeking and understanding from both the users and the firms sides.

But in the other hand, personally I am not part of these pioneers and I chose the international market instead, specially that I’m still starving for a better knowledge, maybe when I will have enough knowledge I will come back to the local market and try to make a difference… I really don’t know yet.

Most trends are currently being set by products created in America, more accurately in Sillicon Valley. Paul Graham has already written a lot about the Valley so I’m not going to repeat his words. But the idea is, it takes a big concentration of individuals to make a Valley.

The Middle East’s market in general, and UAE in specific is very out-dated compared to the rest of the world, and it shows. But then again, most of these people are striving for a better pay rather than a better product, so how can we blame them?

I personally prefer to develop globally, but it’s practically impossible, especially when you’re a small startup trying to do some good. To a small startup in UAE, the latest trends are irrelevant, they don’t give you any competitive value.