Abstract
In recent years, Saudi Arabia’s economy has shifted from oil dependence toward diversification, spotlighting the “creative economy”. This transformation highlights the design economy, where designers are pursuing entrepreneurial and commercial opportunities. Understanding the challenges and enablers that shape design start-ups is key to supporting their growth within the design economy. This paper, part of larger PhD research, explores the Saudi Arabia design ecosystem and the experiences of running a design start-up. The paper addresses the question: “How does the Saudi Arabian ecosystem support or hinder design start-ups?” It provides a qualitative perspective based on semi-structured interviews with fifteen designer-entrepreneurs across five Saudi Arabian cities (i.e., Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Jazan, and Tabuk). This paper contributes insight into how design start-ups operate within an emerging, non-Western creative economy, a context underrepresented in existing literature. The findings show that formal support structures remain misaligned with design practice, shaping how designer-entrepreneurs run their start-ups.
Keywords
design entrepreneurship; design economy; qualitative study; start-ups; Saudi Arabia
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2175
Citation
Alsenani, O., Rodgers, P., and Holliman, A. (2026) Analysis of design start-up companies’ challenges and enablers in Saudi Arabian ecosystem, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2175
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Analysis of design start-up companies’ challenges and enablers in Saudi Arabian ecosystem
In recent years, Saudi Arabia’s economy has shifted from oil dependence toward diversification, spotlighting the “creative economy”. This transformation highlights the design economy, where designers are pursuing entrepreneurial and commercial opportunities. Understanding the challenges and enablers that shape design start-ups is key to supporting their growth within the design economy. This paper, part of larger PhD research, explores the Saudi Arabia design ecosystem and the experiences of running a design start-up. The paper addresses the question: “How does the Saudi Arabian ecosystem support or hinder design start-ups?” It provides a qualitative perspective based on semi-structured interviews with fifteen designer-entrepreneurs across five Saudi Arabian cities (i.e., Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Jazan, and Tabuk). This paper contributes insight into how design start-ups operate within an emerging, non-Western creative economy, a context underrepresented in existing literature. The findings show that formal support structures remain misaligned with design practice, shaping how designer-entrepreneurs run their start-ups.