No matter the size, culture or level of affluence, people constantly seek to share ideas, learn, conduct business and create communities. With the advent of the internet the world is constantly growing smaller furthering the need to connect and understand other human beings.

Our mission for Local Souk (LS) is to provide “a web based social market, empowering local communities to help one another”. As people seek to fulfill their basic human needs online and offline our goal is to bridge the gap of online contact with face to face interaction. To pursue the closure of this gap we seek to give the power back to people around the world. Through seamless social commerce technology we will engage local communities while intertwining ideas and commerce with the global community.

To encapsulate our mission the name LS is derived from the Arabic word souk (سوق) which refers to markets in both the physical and abstract economic sense (e.g. , the word is used to speak of a souk in a city as well as a souk for agriculture and is used to reference the concept of free market).

As new technologies and social ideas develop we will continue to use creativity and innovation to fuse these advancements into your LS. Moreover as these advancements develop we will implement strategic plans to foster trust, fairness and efficient interaction with your local and global souks.

Being a startup, Local Souk's (LS) history is short but abundant. From its inception in the spring, of 2008, LS has taken shape quickly and skillfully through the collaboration of the founders AlKandari and Elliott. The two crossed paths at their previous jobs in online marketing. AlKandari, a web programmer, and Elliott, a marketing analyst, soon found that their skills and personalities could meld into a thriving working relationship.

Both involved with social media and new media at work, it was realized that there was potential to infuse these technologies within the online classified market. Basing LS on a social platform, the communication avenues include video, pictures, email and networking applications to maximize user's credibility and marketing potential. Understanding the new wave of online networks, LS will continuously seek to develop these communication possibilities to support local communities while maximizing their market reach through the internet.

Even more important than the technological side of LS, AlKandari and Elliott have seen the significance and practice of an organization's commitment to their consumers in the online classified market. The two founders whole heartedly believe in this ideal. They seek to serve rather than to be served and strive to continually build an organic organization rather than the traditional mechanistic company. To accomplish this they rely on feedback, creativity, innovation, work ethic, in addition to their overall passion to laugh and have fun.

In a single moment a market, industry, or the world can change. Predicting these events that change our lives is complicated to say the least. Local Souk (LS) is not designed to try to change the course of the future but to strategically leverage the paradigm shift in human interaction on the internet. Simplistically LS is planned to be adaptable to the market while implementing new technologies and policies to enhance the user's experience.

Most importantly the development of LS is not single handed, the interaction, suggestions, and constructive criticism from users will mold LS. The success of LS lies in the hands of its users, understanding this; the founders seek to distill transparency to foster the exchange of ideas of the global community and LS. As LS grows your ideas and feedback will be fused with the founder's strategic plan to perpetuate LS into the future.