The story started in December 2007 when Mohamed Benmansour approached me to help him with an online travel agency he wants to launch in Morocco. We met for dinner in Palo Alto close to Stanford university to discuss his plans and ways we can collaborate. He expressed interest in building an online travel agency in Morocco then expand to other countries in the MENA region. At the time, Mohamed was working for Kawasaki Semiconductor as a chip design engineer. He was working on Displayport technology, you can read more about his line of work at K-micro site: http://www.k-micro.us/products/DisplayPort.php). I was reluctant to work with him on this project since he had little knowledge about eCommerce and very little interpersonal skills. However, we discussed some success stories like makemytrip.com in India and how we can replicate the same model in Middle East and North Africa. I went home convinced that I will not work with Benmansour on this project for many reason however I had to do some research and make a decision next time we meet.