We talked to B8AK’s founders, Khalid Alhmili and Eyad Shaban to get an insight into the world of startups.

How did you get the idea for B8AK?

We saw the lack of access to organized quality maintenance services as a real problem. We had started working on a responsive website, but after the Arabnet 2014 Conference in Riyadh, we switched gears towards an app. We had met several CEOs for mobile app companies in the GCC that said almost 95% of their orders came from their apps rather than their websites.

What was the app development journey like?

We conducted a survey among potential users on how they would envision a maintenance app to be like and we set ourself the ultimate goal of a user-friendly app that would let you order any of our services in under a minute.

We established a set of functional requirements, sketched the app workflow and design and left room for plenty of geographic- and service-expansions.

We were so passionate to do this right that we even adopted a popular software development methodology, Scrum, to keep track of our development process.

How’s business so far?

Today we have enough verified and trained maintenance service providers to cover the Khobar and Dhahran areas, with more people registering and training every week.

We plan to expand our capacity to handle more than 300 daily orders and branch out to all parts of the Kingdom.

What would you advise someone considering app development or making a startup?

Many jump into developing their first startup based on the personal needs of their local community, without developing any market analysis. At the end of the day, mobile apps are just tools to implement successful business plans. Please, study your market and develop a clear business plan with accurate revenue streams and cost analysis before developing the technical parts of your startup.