Building in Saudi Arabia: Saad Raja’s Journey with Eddiy

In this episode of Qarar, I sit with Saad Raja, founder of Eddiy, to talk about his journey from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia and why he chose the Kingdom as the market to build his startup.

Saad shares how Eddiy is helping students and fresh graduates discover meaningful career paths beyond traditional resumes, academic scores, and generic job applications. We discuss how personality, passion, workplace culture fit, and market intelligence can help young talent understand where they truly belong.

The conversation also goes deeper into the founder journey: the difference between being an employee and being an entrepreneur, the reality of building with uncertainty, and why Saudi Arabia is becoming an attractive destination for serious founders.

Saad also shares honest advice for entrepreneurs entering Saudi Arabia, why founders should not treat the market as “free cash” or business tourism, and how to prepare properly before approaching the Saudi startup ecosystem or attending events like LEAP.

A conversation about entrepreneurship, EdTech, AI, career readiness, Saudi Arabia, and the future of work.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I believe a person is far more than what a resume tells us today. My role has always been about starting something from scratch. Nothing prepares you for the life of an entrepreneur. In a role as an employee, you have a GD. As an entrepreneur, you have a responsibility and ownership.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

So today I have the pleasure to welcome a very inspiring guest called Saad Raja. Saad Raja came from Pakistan all the way to Saudi Arabia to find his dream here. He found a lot of opportunities in Saudi Arabia that he can tackle. And actually, I met him during a program for startups. And we met together. I found him very special in what he's doing. And let's talk about what he's actually doing. Saad, how are you? I'm good, I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

And thank you for having me. Very excited for the conversation. So, Saad, what are you building now? That's a very good question. I think the vision is the fundamental belief that each one of us has a potential. It is our duty, or it is something that the education system owes to us that we find that potential and achieve it. That means that we find meaningful work that fulfills us. And that is what I'm building, especially now that the future of work is moving and evolving continuously. So I'm working with early graduates, uh fresh graduates, in helping them find opportunities that map on their potential.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

So, how do you help them to find opportunities or to find, I mean, what they really want before they even graduate? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

So the first thing is that we profile them, right? So we work with university career placement offices and we start off by understanding that individual not just through a static resume, not just through academic signals, but by holistic profiling. For example, their personality assessment, MBTI, or this. Something that happens afterwards, you know, especially when they go find the job. This is something that happens. Uh they go through personality assessment, they go through passion assessment, need assessment, culture fit assessment. We just have a more proactive approach to it. You said culture fit assessment? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

I mean, what do you mean about that? You're helping Saudis, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Or so this culture is specifically like workplace culture. What kind of organization would you like want to work in, right? Yeah. Would you want to work in a startup or uh, you know, would an impact organization uh or a more bureaucratic culture? Interesting. So, what kind of a job would work well with how you operate as an individual? Do you like working remote? Do you like working with people in person, hybrid? Uh, what is your next step? Are you looking for money? Are you looking for learning? Are you what are your active needs? So I believe a person is far more than what a resume tells us today. And the resume was built with a very good intention, but over time, what has happened is now people are trying to fix the resume and not, you know, find who they truly are. So they are they are under this imposter syndrome. Uh, and with AI, we've accelerated the process. So now they are focused on building a resume that actually uh conforms to uh the requirements of the ADS or the AI filtration and undermining and underscoring the value of being genuine and authentic and putting forward who they really are and fitting into the right roles, not just spraying and praying that they fit into every role and just find a job. How does that work?

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Just get me through the process. Like, for example, I mean, you are you're assessing the candidate or uh sorry, I mean uh the people or the graduates, or before they even grab, just just get me through the process.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

If you are in your third year and you are going to be looking for internships in the summer, you are an ideal candidate for us. So that's your first interaction with the professional world. We enter through career placement offices, it's as simple as them making creating an account on the system, and an invite is sent to every student in their uh university. They just have to upload uh a CSV and an invite is sent. As a student, the first thing that you do is you upload all and everything that you have on yourself about yourself. That means your academic transcripts, that means your uh certificates, that means any recommendation letter, anything that you believe is of value, and the system organizes that information. The second step is then you go through a personality assessment. We try to understand who you are, what is your personality type. The third assessment is your wish list, right? What kind of a workplace are you looking for? What kind of a job are you looking for? What kind of challenges are you looking for in life? Where do you want to test yourself? And the last bit is mapping who you are to market intelligence. What is going to be relevant in your industry based on your experience, based on your personality, based on who you are? So, what are the career pathways that are going to be out there for you to actually start? And they're going to be relevant and not outdated and gone and replaced by something. So we give you that career pathway and an actionable step in terms of what do you need to do next? One, two, three, who are the people who can help you? What are the upskilling opportunities that will be available for you? So it is like a career co-pilot built for you based on who you are.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

I think um I think we have we had a discussion before. Um, you never been to Saudi Arabia before thinking about uh building a venture here or starting uh or having a startup in Saudi?

SPEAKER_00 5:50

I actually chose to come uh here in Riyadh. And about the background, look, so when I graduated, I even before graduating, when I was selecting my subjects in my degree program, so I did my my education um was in sciences. So I had all science subjects, and then I realized that I'm going to be a pathetic engineer and even worse doctor. Out of I and this was not a logical decision, by the way. I just I I realized um and and now that I recall, I had a cousin and she was uh doing economics and finance, and uh, you know, the only source that I could reach out to, I called her and she was like, economics and finance is fun, and I was like, Okay, then I'll go for economics and finance. What I want, I don't know. What I know is that I will be not good at engineering or uh becoming a doctor. So that's how I landed economics and finance, and I absolutely loved the program and the degree. And um then when I graduated, I started off with a conventional career in the corporate sector. Um, so my first um professional engagement was with capital markets and Black SoSmith Klein immediately when I worked for big big banks, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Big corporates. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

So I started. I remember our conversation. Yeah, I started off with Daxo Smith Klein. I worked for the central bank. I work, I'm a founding member for Bank of China in Pakistan. I work with all these um, you know, big organizations, but at the same time, my role has always been about starting something from scratch, from zero to one. So Bank of China was setting up, you know, I joined them, it was amazing. Um, Food Panda, the bigger, which was acquired by Deliveru, they were setting up the online food plat uh delivery platform uh backed by Rocket Internet. So I was part of uh the founding team and I established uh you know operations in the northern part of Pakistan. So if we take the brands out, I think my personal aspiration is always about solving problems. I cannot do, uh I don't like to be static. I don't like a life without challenges. I loved education, but I also thought that most of the not-for-profits are not solving the problem. If you need to solve the problem, you need to put in technology in it so that it gets deployed at scale. And you know it. So when I was part of the European Union, there was this project called Learning Analytics uh community for exchange. I was an associate partner. That's where I discovered how technology is being integrated into education. Yeah with AMIL. Uh, so there were two problems. Number one, solving it at scale. So technology is the answer. Number two, money. Is there money uh to sustain yourself and devote yourself to this mission? And that is something that I learned uh, you know, through entrepreneurship. So 10 years back, I established my first learning analytics company with the biggest university back home in Pakistan, LAMS. Okay. Uh, it's called Edletica, it's still operational, education analytics. That's how I entered education technology, and uh that's how I started my journey. And it has been a bumpy ride, but today uh, you know, we have solved for both. We are building technology uh at scale, and number two, it is sustainable. We have a revenue model.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

You have experienced the corporate life, and you built your own venture, so you know the life of startups. What is the difference?

SPEAKER_00 9:11

There's a huge difference to be honest. There's a huge difference. Um, and I've learned it uh through experience. You know, I've been part of these uh ventures of the online food delivery, but nothing prepares you uh for the life of an entrepreneur. You know, uh you have to be one to actually know how it full how it feels because you cannot um you know rely on anybody else. You are the person, everybody is looking at you. You have to be the driving force. So there you have to get used to uncertainty, you have to get used to things not working out, but at the same time, you have to uh you know get used to being consistent, showing up, putting that motivation into everyone, and uh making sure that the money comes in at the end of the day. So you're mission-driven, but at the same time, you have to take care of everyone on the team as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

But this is as an entrepreneur, give me the difference between both of them uh from an employee perspective.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

You have that stability, you have a playbook, best practices. So every corporate over time has developed processes and playbooks. So you have a starting point, you have something to benchmark against, right? But as an entrepreneur, there is no playbook that is, you know, like meant for you. You take a little bit from here, a little bit from there, and some things from experience, and you create your own playbook, uh, your own validation of hypotheses, uh, the problem statements. In a role as an employee, you have a JD. As an entrepreneur, you have a responsibility and ownership. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

The life of startup is I mean, giving you a lot of lessons and then giving you a lot of experiences related to different areas, especially if you're talking about different departments. So um, I remember uh back to 2012 when I started to work as at a startup in Egypt. Um, I was involved in everything. I was involved in, I was I was actually managing sales and account management, but I was involved also in product management meetings. So I learned product management. At the same time, also I was uh setting was accounting, so I learned a lot about invoicing customers, um uh P ⁇ L, a lot of things that I have learned from them as well. So this was the early stage. I'm just giving examples. This was at the early stage. The marketing team I set was marketing team, I learned how to I mean um do some paid ads in the early stage. Then I have learned a lot more later on. I mean, life or your career at startup is so different. Yes, makes you experience a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Now, let's move to um a very you know unique question in this podcast. Why Saudi specifically? I first came to Saudi. Um I mean, for someone who's coming from outside of Saudi, and this is your first time here, you built already your venture or you already built your business, and it's already operational in your country in Pakistan. And it's a great country, by the way. I mean, um a lot of startups are growing from there to the world. I know that. A lot of tech minds who is really leading anyway everywhere in the world. So um, what I mean here from yours from your perspective, what did you find special about Saudi? Because you have a lot of destinations around the world.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

I think it's a mixture of ambition, the hunger, and the opportunity size, right? So, as an entrepreneur, I love working with people who have the same drive, right? There's no limit to what they want to achieve. So if you look at how Saudi has evolved in the past few years, you know, it is happening, what used to happen in years is happening in months. That is the kind of pace you want to associate yourself with as an entrepreneur. You want to get things done. You need to live with people who have a bias to action, and that is what you find here. Nobody tells you it can't be done, right? They're willing to sit with you and you know, work with you on how can we do it? Can we do it? So that's the first thing, right? Um, I hate bureaucracy. I hate sitting with people. I don't enjoy sitting in conversations that lead to nowhere. I like action. And I think my first thought coming here, and I would give this credit to my friend who I met in an executive leadership program. We were both here, and he told me that oh, what you're building is very relevant to Saudi because we are experiencing that shift from public sector to private sector and private, public-private partnerships in education in higher education. Come to Saudi. And I was like, okay. He's from Pakistan as well, right? No, he's from Saudi. Oh, he's Saudi. He's a Saudi. He's a Saudi. And he was, I mean, he was after me for the longest time, uh, six, seven months. We had this back and forth, and he was like, No, you have to come to Saudi. Okay. I even hosted him back home in Pakistan. Uh, he came for an official meeting there, and I was in touch with people working in EdTech here, right? Because I've been part of some global ed tech accelerators and the innovation system, European Union and everything, but I never thought that you know Saudi would be that opportunity. But he opened the door for me and then I came in, and I loved the direction, right? The hunger, the lack of uh red tape, and people pushing towards getting things done. And I think every year it gets better. So when I wanted to select a market where we could develop Eddy as an AI company, Saudi was naturally, you know, the top choice. I just packed my bags and I didn't have everything sorted, to be honest. That's how I operate. Once I made up my mind that this is what I want to do, I just believe in making things happen. So I landed. And um I joined before joining Antler, I already had conversations with the universities and you know the ecosystem players, and I was already doing it. Um, and which is something surprising as well. If people ask me that, you know, uh people got to know about Leap after landing in Saudi. I have been attending LEAP and all these conferences since 2022.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Well, uh actually today I um I had a conversation with uh a friend, he's from UK, by the way, because I don't want anyone to understand me uh incorrectly, but the conversation was like that. He said very clearly, I have never seen another country anywhere in the world who is the government is ahead and pushing the private sector. So this is something I think we have since all the time.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

I think you're actually right because I I draw a lot of comparisons with the Chinese, right? The the Saudi pace and what I saw with the Chinese. When I was working at Bank of China, I was wowed by how they operate. And I can draw like similarities here in Saudi with how they are pushing, they are not letting the ecosystem be the limiting factor, it is the enabling factor. It's the other way around. The eco, like you said, yeah, the ecosystem is pushing you to stretch yourself more, right? To extract the best out of yourself, and they are not giving you any excuses that you can take for not doing that. And where where do you want to reach with eddy in Saudi? I believe that whenever anybody takes or outside Saudi anyway. I mean I mean the ambition is that anybody, anybody, any anybody in a formal education stream, whenever thinks about career, he thinks about Eddie. So Eddie has to be their co-pilot for careers.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Since I'm I'm building in HR tech and you are build building in ed tech, why most of the VCs, if they are not, if if it's not all of them actually, they are afraid or sinister from investing in ed tech and HR tech?

SPEAKER_00 17:19

It's a very broad question, to be honest. But I would say, especially in this part of the world, emerging uh countries, I think health and education are two things that we immediately look at. Anyone who comes up with a problem that they want to solve, because we are a product of the system, so we, you know, this is very personal to us. Uh, how we get jobs, how we get educated, and how education is tied to how much I can afford. And uh, you know, like that plays a role in my social status and you know, where I am placed and pushed and positioned in the market. The second question is then it becomes difficult um for so a VC, you have to understand how investors operate, right? Correct, so they operate on returns, ROIs, so you have to make sure um you know the ROI is there. Now, there could be an ROI uh component for impact, there is for profitability, for equity exit, right? So, most investors out there, I'll try to narrow it down by saying targeting the right investors is very important. Unfortunately, there are not many success stories that these investors have that we can, you know, relate to, set as a role model, and you know, then position ourselves. The second thing is the involvement of the public sector. When you are running something in education, either you're collaborating with the public sector or you're going in competition with the public sector. So collaboration has its own set of challenges, and competition definitely has another set of challenges, right? So, because of the complexity for a VC to find a route to exit or to get money, I think it becomes very clouded.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Tell me honestly, what do you feel right now? After, I mean, uh, how long you've been here? In Saudi. Since you start since you started Eddie? Eddie started in Saudi, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Eddie's the homework started in uh Pakistan. So uh the product development started there, but commercial operations started in Saudi. Oh, you've been for how long? So it is uh so this is uh we are ending the second year here. So June, we will we will have to we'll it'll be two years for Eddie in Saudi. So what do you feel after those you know almost two years? I think um I uh I feel more determined and happy. I think we are on the right track. Um and one of the reasons is because the assumption that it is the right market that's coming out to be true. Um, so there's a fit product market fit, as you would say. Uh, that product is fit for the market, we are getting good traction. And I think for me personally, it's it's mostly about doing things the right way. I don't want to fake it, I don't want to carry a fluff, I don't want to tell people that I have all sorted, I know it all. No, we don't. But we are figuring it out, we are working towards it, and that's what keeps us you know motivated to get back to work every morning, and I think that's the best place to be.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

So, what is what is the most painful assumption um that you heard about or thought about Saudi actually before you come, and then you you you came here and found the opposite or something different than what you thought.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

To be very honest, all throughout my life, um I have learned one thing that I will not let let my my experience be influenced by somebody else's experience, right? So, yes, when I decided that Saudi is the market, I got a lot of information. People were, you know, volunteering information uh with regards to how difficult it is to fit in as an outsider, how uh critical it is to uh you know have your support system with your back-end operations outside Saudi. And uh there's a talent problem in Saudi, uh, there's a culture problem uh with regards to what you want to do and at what pace you want to do. But like I said, when I landed here and saw everything to myself, I saw what was being done, what was happening, and where they would be in the next two, three years. I could see, I mean, simple observations. If you go to these events and you see local Saudi talent running around, taking you know ownership and going the extra mile with the first principle thinking um, you know, approach, you know you are in. Right space. You don't need anybody else to tell you, you know, uh what will or what assumption will not hold because you're on the ground and you can see it and you can feel it, right? So I believe the um there were multiple things about talent, about culture, about how business is done here, how it will take some time. There are some market realities, yes. And I think that's the beautiful part of Saudi Arabia as well, that it's it is growing, but it is not letting go of its culture.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

What kind of channels I need to approach in order to um, you know, arrive here, start my startup here. Maybe some of uh entrepreneurs who are watching us they have only the idea, nothing else. So give us the road map to Saudi Arabia.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

I think there are many factors to it. But the first thing is that if you are planning a market access or a market entry, you need to first do your homework with regards to the market, not your business, but with regards to the market itself, right? Where do you fit in and then find a real local problem to solve? You cannot just bring something and you know just push it in the market. If it's a problem that's local, if it's a problem that is real and exists in the market and you're solving for it, then you only have to figure out the how part.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

But it doesn't mean that it will fit here. I mean, if you have already a problem who is, I mean, who are you resolving successfully in your country, that doesn't mean that it's already existing here.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

That yes, and also, I mean, I now help founders, you know, uh with their ex, you know, with their plans for Saudi, if they want to determine, and a lot of people approach me, right? Uh, is Saudi the right market? The first assumption that they have is that Saudi Arabia is handing out free cash. And that's a red flag for me. If you, as an entrepreneur, all you're worried about is cash right now, and you have not figured out what are you going to do with the cash and how you're going to generate value. You're wasted. It's wasted. It's a red flag. Then you're looking for a short-term gig, business tourism, as I call it, right? You'll come, you'll go to these fancy uh, you know, uh conferences, you'll speak at a few uh events, and then you won't call this place home unless you like the vibe, you like how um, you know, uh how Riyadh has its mornings and the evenings and the afternoons. If it does not resonate with you, I don't think you should think about Saudi Arabia.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

So before before we start um um recording this episode, you just said for me that you also help entrepreneurs, right, to come to Saudi Arabia through uh some kind of venture you're building as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Yes, so we do that. Um, this is something that I experience personally, to be honest. There is information available, but it's fragmented, right? There are a lot of good support available. So as a founder, you can save a lot of time doing the market research, getting to the right people, validating, doing your assessments before even you come. So, for instance, a simple use case is I see a lot of people come to leap and they don't come prepared, they get into the preparation mode after leap. And I think that is just a waste of time. You know, if you're coming for leap, spend the two months before leap preparing yourself. What are the problem statements you're bringing? What are the validation that you are seeking? What hypotheses you need, what data points, who are the right people, who do you want to speak to? You just don't want to be spending your time going stall to stall on leap. Leap is huge. I mean, you need to know what do you want from the ocean. The ocean will never tell you it has a lot of water, but you know what do you need? And I think that clarity is what led me to like start talking about it in entrepreneur communities, start uh helping people understand how they can see if they qualify to come to Saudi Arabia, do the initial assessment, their competitive intelligence, the market research, the product localization. I started connecting them with experts in the industry here, you know, asking them to speak to them, just just speak to them. A lot of what you think is not being done is already being done. So maybe you have people who do it already.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Uh Saat, thank you so much for coming today. And uh it was really great pleasure to have this conversation with you. Thank you so much, and I wish you all the luck with AD.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Thank you very much. It was it was uh wonderful talking to you. Um had a lot of uh fun. And I hope you know the substance that you are trying to bring to these conversations and have real conversations. I uh, you know, I hope that it resonates with your audience and people truly get the why behind this initiative of yours. I think that's the most important part, and uh something that I can endorse as well the authenticity, the genuineness with which you are doing this, and I hope it uh it finds its way to the right, you know. Oh, yeah, I hope so. Yeah, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Thank you, thank you, thank you.