Since its launch in 2012, Anghami built a strong track record of successful milestones. Looking back at nearly a decade of Anghami, what do you consider the most important skill sets that helped you reach where you are today?
- Fairness, creativity and win-win thinking: this mindset helped not only
bridging gaps but building valuable partnerships and creating
opportunities. We deal with a lot of stakeholders given the nature of
our business, and we make sure that value creation is shared among
everyone - starting with users, to artists and content creators, to
music labels or distributors and brands, telcos, team members or
investors onboard.
- The ability to focus on the matters that matter the most and make an
impact. It’s easy to get distracted in our type of business; with the
limited resources provided, prioritizing and timely closures are key to
reaching objectives.
- Surround yourself with the right team and talent: a bunch of passionate
people that are always ready to raise the bar and commit to the vision
and work against the clock to deliver and overachieve. I’m grateful and
blessed on this front.
- Culture: we sometimes take culture for granted or underestimate this
factor while it should be observed in every aspect. In our case, Arab
culture depth is an opportunity by itself but is also diverse and
fragmented - It is a very important element that our NDU Master’s
program taught us to consider in every aspect of the business.
Anghami will be listed in NASDAQ and has proven to be the number one Music streaming application in the Middle East and North Africa. Its growth strategy was impacted by many partnerships; how do you describe Anghami's approach to the different partnerships it made? Which ones made the greatest impact on your growth?
We make sure to bring value to each partner we deal with across the value chain.
Artists, labels, and content creators get reach, growth, and monetization. Telcos and brands associate with music and gain brand love and revenue. Also, investors put in resources that translate into return. This is how it’s fragmented, but value creation remains at the core.
Clearly partners like music labels deliver premium content that attracts users - our MBC group partnership delivered user growth and reach - this one has been rolled out as a case study at Harvard Business School given the nature and structure of the deal. Our telco partnerships drive conversion, and brand partnerships grow our free ad business while financial investors have been instrumental in providing the needed structure and resources to fuel the business.
Each and every partnership brings something to the table; financial investors, media, telcos, labels, artists, brands and agents, all these complement each other forming this unique mosaic underlying the foundation of Anghami.
Data and artificial intelligence support many companies in creating an immersive experience. In our digitized world, what makes the difference in the creation of engaging customer experiences?
We are a tech and data business while being a media company - we collect more than 56 million data points daily and have access to people’s moods and activities based on the music they play.
Our algorithms meet users’ tastes and expectations while balancing human curation with machine learning.
Also being specialized in Arabic music and having an extensive catalog organized by curators provide an unparalleled experience especially when it comes to music recommendations and discovery.
We also developed unique social features on the back of our AI to bring musically likeminded users together and encourage interaction between them: Chat, Match, and Live Radio was recently launched allowing any user to be a radio host or DJ and interact with his audience. These are just a few examples of unique and differentiated customer experiences that we deliver based on data and artificial intelligence.