Author(s): Sama'a Al Hashimi, Kamel Gharbi, Nasser Mahdi, Yasmina Zaki, Ameena Al Muwali
Governments worldwide are desperately trying to create the optimal ecosystems for tech start-ups to establish and flourish. At the same time, young people perceive tech start-ups as a quick gateway to unimaginable riches and financial prosperity. Bahrain’s government is pursuing a similar strategy by launching several initiatives and backing the establishment of several support organizations, including incubators and accelerators, to motivate technology-based start-ups to grow, prosper and thrive. Despite this, nascent inexperienced techpreneurs in Bahrain do not seem to fully benefit from the various support programs available. This could be due to the lack of clarity and awareness of the role of incubators and accelerators in enhancing techpreneurial growth and assisting these inexperienced techpreneurs with their limited business experience. This paper examines the offerings available to nascent techprenuers by the various support organizations and compares them with the essential success factors for tech start-ups globally. The research attempts to identify the key gaps that may be holding back some techpreneurs’ success in Bahrain and suggests international best practices to address this problem. The research qualitatively investigates multiple case studies of innovative Bahraini digital applications in an attempt to explore the role of support organizations in their establishment and growth. In addition, eleven support organizations in Bahrain are interviewed to understand better how they run their programs and comprehend the recurring challenges they face. This paper provides techpreneurs with guidelines on the optimal benefits they can extract from support originations and provides incubators and accelerators with recommendations to maximize their role in the tech start up ecosystem in Bahrain.