Rouad — the B2B lead-gen platform
we built because nothing else fit.
From an internal tool to a live product Saudi teams pay for every month.
For years, Darb ran B2B lead-gen for its own agency work using a stitched-together stack — Apollo for data, Instantly for cold email, HubSpot for pipeline, a spreadsheet for WhatsApp. The bill kept climbing, none of the tools spoke Arabic, and WhatsApp — the #1 channel in the Gulf — sat completely outside every CRM. So we stopped fighting the stack and built our own.
The B2B stack in the Gulf is built for someone else.
Three things broke for us before we started building. If you sell B2B in the GCC, they've probably broken for you too.
1. Apollo bills scale linearly with revenue that doesn't scale linearly
One seat with a decent credit pack starts at ~$100/month. Two seats + email sending + enrichment top-ups climb past $400 fast. And Apollo doesn't dedupe against accounts you've already contacted — you pay twice for the same lead across quarters.
2. WhatsApp is the #1 GCC channel, and no CRM natively speaks it
Every Saudi and Emirati buyer we deal with responds on WhatsApp first, email second, call last. HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive — none of them treat WhatsApp as a first-class thread. So conversations live in personal phones, and pipeline visibility dies with the sales rep.
3. Arabic is an afterthought, always
Every mainstream CRM has 'Arabic language pack' as a checkbox — but the reports break, the RTL layout leaks, the sequences don't handle Arabic personalisation tokens. You end up copying English UI screenshots to Arabic clients and hoping.
One platform. Five pillars.
Rouad puts data, outreach, pipeline and WhatsApp into one interface, in Arabic and English, without the per-seat Apollo tax.
Account discovery + enrichment
Search by industry, employee band, revenue, or trigger (funding, expansion, new hires). Enrichment runs in the background — decision-maker name, title, email, LinkedIn, mobile. One credit pool for the whole team, no per-seat penalty.
Multi-channel sequences
Email + LinkedIn + WhatsApp in the same sequence. When the lead replies on WhatsApp, the sequence pauses automatically. When they open an email, the next step queues the sales rep for a call. All in one thread.
WhatsApp inbox that isn't a phone
Team inbox for WhatsApp conversations, assigned to reps, tagged by pipeline stage, searchable, and linked back to the account record. No more 'ask the rep who's on leave for the deal update'.
Pipeline + deals + quotes
Kanban pipeline, deal cards linked to accounts and contacts, quote builder with PDF export, approval flow. Everything the rep does moves the account record — no double entry.
Arabic-first from the ground up
The whole UI ships in Arabic RTL as a first-class citizen — reports, exports, PDFs, templates, notifications, all of it. Not a translation pack: the platform was designed for Arabic teams from day one.
From internal tool to paying product.
Numbers from 2026 usage. We update these quarterly.
If you can't find a platform that fits, we build one.
Rouad is the clearest proof that Darb doesn't just design landing pages. When our own operations hit a wall, we built the platform to unblock ourselves — and it turned into a product other Saudi teams pay to use.
The same team can build a platform for you. Booking systems, marketplaces, internal ops tools, custom CRMs, portals — all under Darb's payment-plan model: monthly instalments while we build, source code delivered to your GitHub when it's yours.
If you're evaluating 'build vs. buy vs. wait for Salesforce to add a WhatsApp tab', talk to us. We've done all three.
Common questions.
Is Rouad a Darb product, or a separate company?
Rouad was built inside Darb Productions and remains under the same team. The product is live at rouad.com with its own subscription model — same people, different offering.
How is Rouad different from Apollo or HubSpot?
Three things: (1) it treats WhatsApp as a first-class channel with a proper team inbox, not a bolt-on; (2) it's Arabic-first end to end — RTL, exports, sequences, templates; (3) pricing is one shared credit pool for the team instead of per-seat Apollo tax.
Can Darb build something similar for our company?
Yes. Rouad is the case study. Darb builds custom platforms — B2B CRMs, marketplaces, booking systems, internal ops tools — on the instalment plan: monthly payments while we build, source code delivered on GitHub when it's yours.
Do you use any of Rouad on client projects?
When it fits. If a client needs a B2B lead-gen setup, we sometimes point them at Rouad rather than rebuilding the same thing. When they need something custom — Rouad is the proof we can build it.
Want to try Rouad, or build something like it?
Two paths — the product, or the team behind it.