Monday, April 1, 2024

Marhaba: A Personal Note From the Founder

Introducing Traders.ma

Salam, friend.

Let me take you back to 2006.

ADSL internet had just arrived in Morocco. My father was the first person in our hometown to have it installed, and suddenly everyone wanted to see this "internet" thing. Everyone was creating Hotmail accounts and discovering MSN.

And honestly? MSN was magical. Chatting with people from anywhere in the world, from your bedroom — that felt like science fiction.

But me? I got distracted by a different question.

Every time I visited a website, I couldn't stop wondering: how did someone make this? What happens when you type an address and a whole page appears? Who decides where the images go? It felt like a puzzle, and I've never been able to walk away from a good puzzle.

So while everyone was making friends on MSN, I gave myself a challenge: figure out how websites work.

No YouTube tutorials back then. No courses in Arabic. Just me, a slow connection, and the kind of stubbornness that made my family roll their eyes. I'd stay up late, break things, fix them, break them again. It was frustrating and addictive at the same time.

By 2008, that obsession started paying off. I got my first online job — technical support for a Saudi poetry forum. I was still in high school, earning my own money, realizing that this puzzle I'd been solving actually had real-world value.

After high school, I moved to Ouarzazate to study. To pay my way, I started freelancing — building websites for local hotels and travel agencies. Every project was a new challenge. Every client taught me something I couldn't learn from tutorials.

That was 17 years ago.

Over the years, I've sat with business owners who had brilliant ideas but gave up because "the website thing" was too complicated. I've watched friends try to sell their products online, only to drown in technical issues and confusing platforms built for developers, not for them.

And honestly? It started to bother me.

Because here's what I know after 17 years in this industry: the technology exists to make this easy. The gap isn't technical anymore — it's that nobody has built a bridge between powerful tools and regular people who just want to sell something online.

So I built that bridge.

Traders.ma is everything I wish I could have handed to every frustrated business owner I've ever met. A way to build a professional website without knowing what a "header" or "footer" means. A way to accept payments without spending weeks figuring out integrations. A way to focus on your product and your customers — not on fighting with technology.

This isn't just another project for me. Through Traders.ma, I've poured 17 years of experience into making something I genuinely believe the MENA region needs.

Because if a curious teenager in a small Moroccan town could figure out the internet in 2006, imagine what you could build today — with the right tools.

I'm glad you're here. Let's build something together.

Warmly,

Yassine Founder, Traders.ma