In The Press
Daily Star – Lebanon’s Woopra takes Silicon Valley by storm
Published: Wednesday, July 13th, 2011.BEIRUT: Woopra, a Lebanese website analytics startup that began as a college project four years ago, has now opened an office in Silicon Valley, where they are positioning themselves to compete with global players such as Google. “At some point, if you’re targeting the global market, you have to establish a presence in one of the biggest startup scenes in the world … Our main goal is to make connections and hire people who can complement our skills,” says Elie Khoury, 25, who founded the company based on a senior year project when he was a student at Lebanese American… Continue reading
Daily Star – Pushing technology start-ups in Lebanon
Published: Saturday, May 28th, 2011.BEIRUT: Elie Khoury dreams of a Silicon Valley in Lebanon. But for now it remains just a dream. “My dream is to have a city where all the entrepreneurs can hang out – a Silicon Valley of the Middle East,” says Khoury, who in 2008 co-founded Woopra, a real-time Web analytics company. “It would be good to have a solid community with investors so that start-ups could have funding.” The 25-year-old entrepreneur, who has spent the past two years developing his product in Jbeil, will soon be opening an additional office in the heart of Silicon Valley in Palo Alto,… Continue reading
ALIGN – Woopra: An Entrepreneur’s Idea Built to Solve a Problem
Published: Sunday, May 22nd, 2011.For Elie Khoury, web developer and guitarist, long-time passion for computers, commitment to perfection, and solid ambition to make it big, paved the way for this computer science graduate to become a successful entrepreneur. “A successful start-up is one that has been built to solve a problem,” said Khoury, and this is precisely what he accomplished when he co-founded Woopra. At age 12, Khoury received his first computer and began code programming. Throughout his college years, he worked on one project after the next, from an MSN delete checker to a Photoshop tutorial blog, looking for that one big… Continue reading
Mercury News – Boosters say Middle East needs startups more than ever
Published: Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011.Protests have also occurred in Lebanon, where Elie Khoury, 25, of Beirut, co-founded a startup called Woopra. We exchanged messages on Skype this week, and Khoury said the independence and innovative thinking shown by protesters bodes well for the region’s startup potential. I hope his optimistic view turns out to be correct. “I think this is going to be positive for entrepreneurship in the long term,” Khoury wrote. “We should look at the bigger picture here. The Internet connection will not go down for so long. But what matters most is how active and initiative-taking the young people in the… Continue reading
ReadWriteWeb – A Whole Bunch of Geeks in the Middle East
Published: Wednesday, October 13th, 2010.Elie El Khoury, the founder of the analytics firm Woopra, has spearheaded the YallaStartup Weekend in Lebanon, partially in the hopes of dissolving the cliche of the violent Middle East. “I wanted to have a story for the Middle East, showing the world that there is interest in entrepreneurship and technology there. People perceive the Middle East as a land of wars, we just want to show the other side, the passion of the youth.” Read more…
Knowledge@Wharton – Planting the Seeds for Tech Startups in the Middle East
Published: Tuesday, July 13th, 2010.When Silicon Valley-based Yahoo acquired Maktoob.com last August for a reported $85 million, it barely made a ripple in U.S. technology circles. But the acquisition of the leading Arabic online community had a seismic effect on the Middle East, a region that’s just getting to grips with what Silicon Valley and the like have been doing for years. Samih Toukan and Hussam Khoury, Maktoob’s co-founders, became overnight stars, not to mention inspiration for budding entrepreneurs across the region. Among the many kudos, the King of Jordan awarded them the King Abdullah Medal of Honor and subsequently decided to set up… Continue reading
The National – Start-up Lebanese tracker of Web traffic turns profitable
Published: Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010.Woopra, a promising internet start-up in Lebanon, has become profitable and crossed the 100,000-user mark after launching its commercial service last October. The company’s web-based analytics software allows internet publishers to track, in real-time, the number of visitors to their sites. The service was launched as a free offering and attracted a long waiting list of users wishing to test the software. In October, the company discarded the waiting list, opening the system up and charging users a monthly fee depending on the volume of traffic to their sites. “The response we got from our users was amazing. They… Continue reading
The Next Web – Woopra’s co-founder, Elie Khoury, talks to TNW Middle East
Published: Monday, January 18th, 2010.I recently had an opportunity to chat with Woopra’s co-founder, Elie Khoury. Woopra is a real-time web-analytics tool which has received numerous accolades and was recently voted as one of the top 25 products of 2009 by ReadWriteWeb. Elie is based in the picturesque area of Jbayl, Lebanon, an area known more for its historical significance, natural beauty and awe-inspring ruins than its budding start-up scene! Yet somehow, from within those ruins, this awesome jewel emerged! On why Woopra was launched… When you’re in a store, you could easily see what your customers are doing, and you could place… Continue reading
The Next Web – YallaStartup! Offers Six Lucky Winners an Entrepreneurship Course
Published: Sunday, January 3rd, 2010.A few weeks ago we told you all about YallaStartup!, an interesting initative that was set up by Elie Khoury (Woopra), Habib Haddad (Yamli) and Sami Shalabi (Google/ Zingku); three of the rising Entrepreneurial stars in the Middle East & North Africa region (MENA). At the time, YallaStartup! was offering some lucky entrepreneurs the opportunity to take a six month entrepreneurship course offered by Potential, worth $2000, for free. Once a week course participants meet online for a few hours, allowing participants from all over the region to participate. The results are in. Six lucky winners from across the… Continue reading
The Next Web – Lebanese startup Woopra in the top 25 of 2009!
Published: Saturday, December 19th, 2009.Woopra, a real-time web tracking application, had an honorary mention in ReadWriteWeb’s list of top products of 2009 as voted by its readers. Although at the bottom of their alphabetically ordered list, Woopra has been gaining momentum and quite a good exposure with its open API and plugin capabilities. Congratulations to founders Jad Younan, John Pozadzides and Elie Khoury! Check out the full list at ReadWriteWeb Source: http://thenextweb.com/me/2009/12/19/lebanese-startup-woopra-top-25-2009/
The National – Start-up support network launched
Published: Thursday, October 1st, 2009.The founders of three successful start-up internet businesses have created an organisation devoted to supporting technology entrepreneurs in the Middle East. YallaStartup will act as a support network, linking entrepreneurs with venture capitalists, advisers, lawyers and others needed to get their businesses off the ground. Its founders say such support is sorely lacking across the Middle East. “An entrepreneur with an idea or a prototype should be exposed to a large set of investors and should be able to find not only investors to fund their project, but people who can add value to improve their chances for success,”… Continue reading
Pushing Pixels – Java desktop spotlight – interview with Elie El Khoury of Woopra
Published: Monday, December 29th, 2008.Woopra desktop client is my favorite Swing application of the year, and it’s time to meet its creator – Elie El Khoury, as the Java desktop spotlight that has started with Don DeCoteau and Sam Berlin continues. Tell us a little bit about yourself. My name is Elie El Khoury, 23 years old. I live in the ancient city Byblos of Lebanon. Programming has been my hobby for more than 10 years. I was introduced to Java 5 years ago at the Lebanese American University which was the first university in Lebanon to teach Java as a main language.… Continue reading
Financial Times – Shining a light on the web
Published: Tuesday, December 16th, 2008.When Elie Khoury, a self-confessed “computer guy” since the age of 12, started a website about playing the guitar, he struggled to find an analytical programme to give him timely data about who was looking at his website and what they were looking at. So there was only one thing for the Lebanese American University computer science student to do: invent one himself. “From the very first day we launched, we knew it was going to be a big hit,” he says, sitting next to computer screens displaying Woopra, a website analysis programme developed by Mr Khoury, 23, and… Continue reading
Executive Magazine – Cedar Triumph in Cyberspace
Published: Sunday, August 10th, 2008.Overcoming the odds, Lebanese software gurus enter internet eminence The world’s most popular internet applications, including Yahoo, Google, Facebook and YouTube, share several interesting characteristics. Nearly all were developed by students enrolled in American universities and nearly all were aided by an American venture capital injection to successfully enter the market. Lebanese-born Elie Khoury and Jad Younan have followed more or less the same path, yet with one major difference: they developed their Woopra program in Lebanon. Against all odds, some may argue, as the Land of the Cedars can hardly be described as an IT incubator. Both Khoury… Continue reading
iLoubnan – One o One with Woopra
Published: Monday, June 9th, 2008.Two young Lebanese webmasters have launched a brand new software of live web tracking and data analysis: after a year of hard work and analysis, Elie Khoury and Jad Younan gave life to Woopra. In so little time they struck the technology market by force, and beat all their opponents. iloubnan.info interviewed Elie Khoury. iloubnan.info: What inspired you to create a concept such as Woopra? Elie Khoury: I had a couple of websites 2 years back. I wanted to know what’s happening on my blog/website in real time and I couldn’t find a decent web analytics! So I decided… Continue reading
LAU Magazine: Woopra Analytics – Computer Science Grads Launch Industry Standard Web Service
Published: Tuesday, January 15th, 2008.“Ideas today are endless,” said LAU graduate Elie Khoury, “but we need to be creative and take actions to build upon them.” That’s exactly what Khoury, along with his fellow alumnus Jad Younan, just accomplished with the launch of a revolutionary dynamic new Web Analytics tool called WOOPRA. Khoury and Younan pointed out that the intellectual environment at LAU was crucial in their ability to not just conceptualize the idea for WOOPRA – a tool that allows webmasters to view visitors’ real-time statistics – but also to see it through to completion. Read More: Print PDF version at http://publications.lau.edu.lb/magazine/2009-11-1/pdf/laumagazine-2009-11-1-p18.pdf… Continue reading
