Crisis Control: UAE-based Startup Geeks Offers Tech Support At Your Doorstep (Literally)

Mousa Yassin and Fathi Al Sharif co-founders of the Geeks standing infront of wooden doors.

For those of you who have experienced the sheer panic that comes after your trusted mobile or laptop gets damaged, this UAE-based startup’s offering may sound like a godsend. Launched in December 2014, Geeks offers on-demand tech services and support, with a simple but very appealing value proposition: when you find your favorite gadgets unusable, highly-skilled and trained technicians (i.e. “geeks”) will be dispatched to your location, be it at your office, event, or home, at your doorstep, and wherever possible, they’d get the problem fixed on the spot.

The idea for the Geeks came to co-founders Mousa Yassin and Fathi Al Sharif after the latter once had to get his laptop repaired, and found the experience to be a costly and inefficient affair- he either had to pay for an expensive replacement, or visit Bur Dubai to search through more affordable repair shops. The co-founders considered the long-term viability and scale of the problem, along with the growing trends of tech dependence and the need for quality tech support. The co-founders were also motivated with their desire to do something different after their years in corporate roles -Yassin, who’s now the CEO, comes from a management, operations and automation services background, while Al Sharif, the startup’s CTO, hails from an extensive IT background, which includes a stint at Microsoft.

“At a certain point, [you have] an urge to do something different, more challenging and to create something meaningful to the world,” says Yassin. “It starts off with that feeling, and then you act on it when the time [comes], and [the] idea is just right.” They started off Geeks with a basic MVP to handle requests, and then ran a basic marketing campaign to assess the market’s potential. When the duo saw positive results, Al Sharif worked on the startup full-time, while Yassin worked part-time to fund the business until they were ready to raise funding a year later.

In January 2015, Geeks served their first customer, and during those early days of the venture, the co-founders picked up and returned devices to customers themselves, gradually building their overall operations and their systems as they learnt from customers’ feedback. They then started to onboard technicians to be paid on commission to deliver services to customers at their locations. The company now also offers a live online chat on its website, which responded in less than 15 minutes when I inquired about a service.

As for their funding, the startup raised US$600,000 in a seed round in June 2016, led by Wamda Capital, with the round including investment group Equitrust and Bayt.com CEO Rabea Ataya. It was followed by a bridge round in November 2017, led by Wamda Capital again, and including Dubai Silicon OasisVentureSouq, Vision VC, and strategic Saudi angel investors. Next up, the startup is planning for a Series A round in Q4 2018, and more rounds in the future, as Yassin asserts their resolve to be “in this for the long run.” And the startup is also honing their USP to strengthen their endurance. For businesses, Yassin says that their USP is being able to automate the IT support process through providing business clients with the startup’s personalized platform for them to manage their IT assets and proactively monitor their network, firewall, and devices. Clients would also receive access to a dedicated and certified remote support team and on-demand workforce.