GoDaddy Partners With Dubai Startup Hub To Teach Entrepreneurs How To Build A Website In Less Than A Day

Global internet domain registrar and web hosting company GoDaddy held its first 'Digital Me' workshop in the UAE in partnership with Dubai Startup Hub.

The workshop, held at the Dubai Chamber of Commerce headquarters in February, was designed to equip idea-stage startups with the skills needed to create and grow their online presence. A team of experts from GoDaddy and Dubai Startup Hub explained the importance of a strong, professional digital identity for businesses. During the training, all participants learnt to build and publish their own website using the GoDaddy Website Builder.

Commenting on the workshop, Selina Bieber, GoDaddy's Regional Director for Turkey and MENA, said: "Digital can be daunting and complex, but we as GoDaddy try to develop the tools that make it easy for people to go online, and the workshop takes those entry-level tools and the basics, and shows how it can be done within just a four or five hour period."

Myrtle Vidad, Managing Partner, Perfect Solutions was a participant at the workshop, who noted that prior to the training, she had been struggling to build a website for the business. "It's (been) really hard for me to develop a website, or find the right people to do it, so, having this product from GoDaddy is really amazing," she said, referring to GoDaddy's Website Builder tool. "I was really surprised, because I never thought building a website could be that easy. It's as easy as A-B-C!"

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Bieber added that working with Dubai Startup Hub was a "no-brainer" for its first workshop to start supporting businesses in taking the right steps to building an online presence. "If somebody has an idea, formulating that idea or bringing it to life– part of that process should be digital as well," she said. "We have customers all across the globe, but we see a lot of growth coming from this region and a great affinity for digital. In terms of some of the stats, in the UAE, 98% of the population is online, and 61% of the traffic is mobile, so, first and foremost, that desire to go digital is very strong here in the market."

In terms of the benefits entrepreneurs enjoyed thanks to the workshop, Natalia Sycheva, Manager of Entrepreneurship at Dubai Chamber, noted: "The majority of the startups overestimate the complexity [of building a website], and what we strived to showcase is that the tools are available. Use the right tools that will save you time and money to get to the product that you want to bring to your customers, and concentrate on your customers first, instead of worrying about how your website will operate or look, or is sustainable or secure."

GoDaddy is the world's largest domain name registrar, and has more than 77 million domain names under management with over 18 million customers worldwide. The company's website builder tool eliminates the complexity of knowing web coding languages like HTML, and enables people to design a professional website in a matter of hours.

This article was originally published on Dubai Startup Hub and has been reposted on Entrepreneur Middle East based on a mutual agreement between the websites.

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