Doha's Who's Who: Khalifa Alharoon AKA Mr. Q
Born on April 19th 1984, Khalifa Saleh Al Haroon, more commonly known as “Mr.Q, your friendly neighborhood Qatari”, is one of Qatar's most prolific figures from the younger generation.
Founder of "iloveqatar.com"*/ ILQ Network, CEO of Haroon United Group, Head of Interactive & Innovation at Vodafone Qatar, and Executive Director of Marketing at Qatar Stars league are only some of Khalifa's titles. He’s also an ambassador for the National Cancer Program to spread awareness.**
Khalifa was kind enough to be the first person for us to interview for Doha's Who's Who.
So Khalifa, what is your poison?
Technology! I have to have the latest gadget! I just can't wait to play with something new. Lots of times, though, I end up regretting my quick choices. That’s the price of being an early adopter.
Gaming - yup I am a gaming geek! You might wonder where I get the time but I finish games quite quickly! I love MMOs, strategy games, and anything with a good story.
Souq Waqif - I find it a captivating combination between old tradition and modern society; it captures the essence of Doha. The traffic there makes me think twice before going though. I’ll probably frequent it more once they sort things out.
A young Qatari boy stopped me in Grand Hyyat and wanted to take a selfie with me. He then told me that he wanted to be just like me when he grows up. It was really heart-warming. Knowing that my projects are already making a difference to the new generation motivates me to continue on my path.
1) To be one of the key people that helped shape Qatar and work towards the 2030 vision. 2) To build a reputation that makes my parents proud to have me as a son, my future kids as a father and my leaders as a citizen. 3) To make a positive difference in the world.
Describe yourself in five words
Passionate, positive, caring, ambitious, and impatient. I love making a difference and I have loads of ideas. To bring them all to life, it’s all about speed, speed, speed.
Obstacles when you started ILoveQatar
It was hard to explain my business model to organizations, especially since it was a website. This was long before ILQ grew into a proper network of sites. Sometimes I would explain excessively and the reply would be “so you want to start a magazine?”! Getting a loan to start my business was not easy at all. I had to build my brand to change the concept of a website in Qatar and put it on the map. My model was to get to critical mass. Build the brand, then figure out all the revenue streams. Sadly, most banks or institutions want a traditional business plan. Also, Qatar can be business unfriendly. Rents are expensive, there aren’t a lot of locations, setting up a business takes a while, people take a while with contracts, payment gateways are expensive, and people are fighting for a small audience (depending on the product or service of course). There are a lot of obstacles when you start a business that could delay work.
Something you'd do differently
When I started, I never expected ILoveQatar to grow with such speed. Our server needed to constantly have it’s bandwidth and memory increased. If I was able to do something differently I would have started with better servers and I would have invested more time in selecting better developers and hosting solutions. I would have probably focused on creating original content such as Qtips, much sooner.
IloveQatar, (one of Khalifa’s many projects), aims to bridge the gap between locals and expats. The website consists of many sections including News, Events, Forums and Qtips. Qtips is a web show that gives expats the lowdown on different aspects of Qatari culture with a humorous twist.
* ILoveQatar also helps raise awareness through a lot of educational campaigns, such as One Moment, which aimed to raise awareness about the speeding problem in Qatar. ILoveQatar has also participated in and sponsored numerous charity events such as Think Pink, World Environment Day, Wear Something Yellow (Anti Racism campaign), and more.
** Khalifa also won the following awards:
- Young Acheiver of the Year 2014
- 25th on Top 50 Power List - Arabian Business
- Entrepreneur of the year 2011
- On Ahlan Hot 100
