Launching Zaqa

On a mission to make all businesses AI-native.

It all started when I was searching for a small business to acquire in the U.S., meeting owners who were willing to sell and following the classic entrepreneurship-through-acquisition (ETA) model. In six months, I spoke with more than 50 business owners and, unprompted, every single one of them complained about their outdated, clunky enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems that devour countless hours on repetitive tasks and the burden of changing software because migrations take years and hundreds of thousands — sometimes millions — of dollars. Those due diligence meetings quickly turned into customer discovery ones, and Zaqa began taking shape. Funnily enough, I had experienced the same pain using SAP while in management consulting, which easily ate up six hours of my week. That might sound minor — half a day or so — but multiplied across teams and extended timelines, the waste is staggering. The toll on morale is just as significant.

By December 2024, I realized that the market was screaming for a better solution. Building a solution to that problem seemed like the only option. Still, this journey felt like carrying an enormous burden alone. Evenings, weekends, every living moment — my mind never truly detached. Yet the mission kept me focused: I wanted to build a system that frees people from mind-numbing tasks like data entry, accounting reconciliation, and form-filling, and enables them to do what they actually enjoy.

That’s when Zaqa was born.

“Zaqa,” or “ذكاء” in Arabic, means “intelligence.” We’re an AI copilot that clings to old enterprise software, automating employees tasks by 90% or more. It’s a chat + dashboard in the front and hundreds of teams of specialized AI agents in the back. Let’s say you’re an accountant that spends four hours a day doing account reconciliation between the inventory management system and balance sheet on QuickBooks. With Zaqa, you can do it in a few minutes and win half your day (or half your accountants) back. We estimate that 10 million back-office employees in the U.S. spend 900 hours a year doing this kind of menial task. For reference, there are 2,080 working hours in a year, which means that more than 40% of employees’ time working is spent on those tasks. Our minimum viable product (MVP) processes purchase orders in 11 seconds versus three minutes in old clunky SAP.

The key is seamless integration with existing software to minimize business risk (no multi-year painful migrations). Imagine fewer hours wasted tabbing between disconnected systems, fewer headaches from manual data entry, and more time devoted to strategic, meaningful work.

Right now, we’re focusing on medium-sized businesses in manufacturing and distribution, where these pain points are especially intense. Yet we’re not dogmatic; our guiding principle is to listen closely to our customers, understand their most pressing needs, and go where that leads us. Many tasks need Zaqa modules to fill, and we will need to prioritize the most pressing needs. We fully expect to refine our approach as we learn more from real-world implementations.

Ultimately, we envision a world where employees no longer spend half their workday battling outdated software and manual processes. Instead, they focus on the things that drive them – creative problem-solving, strategy, having meaningful discussions. We’re currently raising $1.5 million to execute faster on this vision, investing in product development and pilot partnerships to continue iterating.

My key learnings so far are tremendous. First of all, as Professor Reza Satchu tells us (every single day): when you commit, magic happens. Introductions to investors and customers arise — we’re meeting multiple VCs a week, signed a pilot program with a $10 million restaurant chain, and are in active discussions with MassMEP (one of Massachusetts’ largest manufacturing networks) and Disney’s former CIO. As a (former?) introvert, HBS has really taught me to get out there and talk to people, challenge what they say, and really listen. Every conversation seems scary at first, but then it leads somewhere: a new perspective, a new insight, a pilot program, and soon, revenues! Along the way, you gather critical data points, conviction, and relationships that open doors. That pattern holds true no matter what path you’re on. I truly believe that.

I come from Lebanon, where businesses are run by smart, resilient, enterprising people, but they are disabled by infrastructure on every level: government corruption, a paper-cash economy, a complex law system, parallel currency rates, bankrupt financial institutions, and no access to liquidity. It’s very important to me to create something that can empower people to operate better. In my eyes, Zaqa is about more than just another piece of technology — it’s about reimagining how work should feel: less administrative, more inventive. Looking ahead to the next few years, I see a future where AI tools like Zaqa empower everyone to channel their energy into the most creative, impactful parts of their jobs. That’s the world I want to help build — and the one I want for myself.

Pierre A. Checrallah (MBA ’25) is from Beirut, Lebanon. Before HBS, he studied computer engineering and math, worked in management consulting, and founded two ventures: a $300 thousand hedge fund and a paddle sports center. Combining a passion for innovation and an itch to solve problems to improve the world, Pierre launched Zaqa to make all businesses AI-native.