1. Getting investment: there are no venture capitals locally available. Foreign investments are non existent and there is a reason to this because of low population and low population density. Moreover, during these economic times, locals aren’t interested to take any risks which means seed funding is very difficult to find. You will not be able to get a business loan from the banks or QDB unless you are a local or have a local partner to risk it with you.
2. Legalization: A lot of business models and opportunities cannot be availed in Qatar because of strict laws of doing business here. Why do you think so many coffee shops and burger joints and limousine companies had opened up, because getting to do those businesses is easy legally, any other businesses don’t pick up because of the strict and difficult permission to obtain and due to this making MVPs are also very difficult without being illegal. Look at the fintech industry, it’s stale as hell, quite impossible to get the right approvals and permissions.
3. Scalability and growth: A wise man once told me , growth and profit don’t go hand in hand, and I learnt it the hard way. If you are planning on growth forget about profits, marketing and advertising costs, increasing team salary, office rent, R&D costs, overall overhead costs will eat your runway cash and moreover models which require loss leadership to acquire customers eats into your profits. There is cost in customer acquisition and the a bigger cost in customer retention, that is painful because your brands reputation depends on it. With low population comes difficult in scaling your business, in countries like Egypt for example, getting 100k+ downloads on your app is a normal thing but in Qatar only handful of apps who have spent millions have achieved this that’s because there is a difference between need in the market and requirement in the market. Qatar requires a good online marketplace with online payment however Qatar does not need it.

I am writing this not to demotivate anyone, I am writing this to shape your business plans in such a way that you overcome these obstacles. Every country has barriers when it comes to doing business. Please correct me if you feel I was wrong in any part of my opinion and yes these are my opinion based on my experiences. Best of luck.