AIRBNB EXPERT: How I Built A $5 Million AirBnb Business From A Side Hustle - CEOCAST EP. 125

who would have thought at 16 I'm gonna be doing a 40 million deal now I'm thinking wait I'm looking at 200 million we're looking at 300 million I'm a classic example of the 95. you got yourself really good paid job you mentioned those in the six figures I was like everything made it that's what my mom asked for that's what the world looks at Ranger apartment Drive playing business class different floor on an airplane mate that was the biggest change of my life well how did you leave look this is again not an overnight thing [Music] Autumn welcome to the CEO costume thank you thanks for coming on bro finally we meet in Dubai we meet in Dubai the hottest place we could do a podcast I think we're both sweating right now but it's good to finally get it done you know and and to be fair we'll get into what you do exactly where we are is pretty much a Showcase of exactly that exactly so let's start with it so you've built a service accommodation business which started in 2018 currently sitting at three million uh evaluation and projected to hit 5 million by the end of the year and on top of that you've also acquired a business a real a real estate business in the way yeah so you're doing quite a lot man you're doing quite a lot yeah quite a lot in the short period of time because I'm dedicated and I work really hard yeah I do want to know a lot about the Airbnb business side of things because a lot of people seem to be catching on to that now thinking that you know they can do rent to rent but then also do it as Airbnb but what you do I'm all right is saying that inquiring the property and then put it on Airbnb right correct yeah yeah um so I definitely want to know how that all works because you've got an interesting story from you know working in a normal nine-to-five job your whole background we've been chilling with each other in the wife of the past week so I've got to see him you know know you probably so I'm really really excited for this podcast but I'm gonna let you take it away from here man what what do you do exactly before we get into it make sure you subscribe and set the Bell notification to all so you never miss a single episode yes so thank you for having me first of all and we are in Sunny Dubai um and I work a lot and I love to work I'm an entrepreneur so I was just I started my business in 2018 uh in Airbnb service accommodation or the property world that you call it so I do a lot in property I have over 10 years of experience in property so 2018 where the real entrepreneur Journey was started in the Airbnb business which is around it's so it's a three million pound plus business right now as we speak within four years we work with some of the biggest developers in the UK exclusively and we expanded into Dubai we're going to office in jlt that we expanded in 2021 so it's been it's become an international business very quickly very efficiently and very effectively so that's what I do but my biggest Focus as well as having that business now is merges and acquisition so acquiring businesses and we we're running one of the fastest growing luxury real estate company in Dubai as we speak yeah I mean we were telling me about a deal that you potentially got going on in jamiro and for people who know jamiro it's a very very expensive place I mean this property you're looking so is about 40 million nearly 5 million Dirhams that just come from being there uh exclusively with us so yeah it's one of the biggest deals I'm doing as we speak yeah so you're doing big big deal big turnover yeah I'm gonna get onto everything in a second but from you starting 2018 officially your business right how does it make you feel lowering where it is now I mean obviously you've worked hard your entrepreneurial heart yet but to get into this skill into this level of doing this size deals is completely different yeah but I look at it like this once a dream dreamed of this and I'm here today so sometimes you sometimes you have to really pinch yourself and say look me and you like like this now freedom of Lifestyle we can we can sit here in Dubai looking at the window with all these yachts and Arena you know I dreamed of this so it makes me feel good but I do pinch myself every day last night I'm talking to another friend you know you feel like oh how did I do it but that actually inspires me and I hope to inspire the people to do bigger things by thinking like this you know it's possible it's so it's possible coming from a nine-to-five job coming from my background I've been able to do this in four years and I think you know it was hard work and determination yeah let's start with the Airbnb model right because I'm naturally curious about the Airbnb model like I said it's hot right now and a lot of people seem to be getting on it and you've got experience in it so I'm gonna try and describe it in how I look at it yeah and I want you to correct me where I go wrong yeah so there's two ways I think there's going on about it right you can either do a rental in which means for the people who are watching I can rent a property off you for example for let's just say a thousand pounds a month yeah um and then I have an agreement review where I can lease out to other people as well and I can put that property on Airbnb for maybe 100 pounds 200 pounds a night yeah hopefully by the end of the month creating 3000 accounts giving you your thousand pound rent correct and therefore after bills and everything call it fifteen hundred pounds profit yeah and then you have the other side of things which I'm sure which is what you do is actually buying the property and then doing it Airbnb like that but then at the end of it obviously naturally your property you're left with the value increasing over time which is appreciation yeah yeah and works out to be better than actual rent for a normal tenant yeah because you end up acquiring a lot more value and profit at the end of it at the end of each month exactly so the Airbnb model that we've successfully run as one of the best companies in the UK is is the rent to rent model and then you do the purchase uh buy to rent buy to sa model buy to Airbnb model uh we do both um I have a portfolio of acquired property that with it's Capital depreciating and we bought that with investor Finance or our finance and but the main model we do is rent to rent we we're very different we work directly with developers so we work with one of the biggest developer called Model living in Birmingham we have we're in the tallest tower um that's a new tower as well right yeah the luxury Tower I think you've seen it is on Broad Street we're exclusively working with them we work in Liverpool with them uh we have Glasgow and and you know we work in different areas in the UK basically the the reason we use the rent to rent model is scalable very quickly so you don't need much Finance you don't need much down payment and you're you're starting up costs are entry level costs are easier to get into and scalability is very high as long as you've got the processing system so our main reason for success is we've we've scaled the rendering model so we have over 80 units with uh up to 80 units I think we have with with this developer and then we have single units around the around the country which takes up to 125 units so the 80 units is that just in Birmingham that one yeah Birmingham and Liverpool okay yeah so so we focused on growing at a scale taking either blocks or floors at a luxury standard in the UK so give me an example of like one unit so you know you pay for rent would you be open to it yeah yeah yeah so the rate rate is number that is very simple so you use that two-bedroom apartment one of the rents in in Birmingham is one thousand seven hundred I went out depending on the views and the and the size of the apartment one thousand five hundred to one thousand seven hundred you we take on conservatively 400 to 500 bills and all your costs as associated with it so call it 2100 yeah 2200 we say all in I look you know I've got a bigger business so I've got over has to run I've got offices I've got storage units I've got cleaning expenses you know it comes with all the all the admin stuff as well it's not just one or two properties where I'm doing this I'm sitting here with you so yeah you know this is where I'll let you continue this is where you get fun and good and and he creates the lifestyle Freedom right so I it will say say that's one property right if we go up to 80 property so that's 2 200 give or take using rough numbers here we sell these we rent these rooms out uh at her average of 3 300 3200 depending on the season even if you get minimum three thousand we're we're clearing 800 net or if not a thousand net yeah you know you you times up by 50 60 to 70 whatever your numbers are you can see you can do the math on the profit model yeah so this is what I'll jump in because doing a skill and doing a massage that's where you're making very very good money exactly now don't get me wrong having one unit for the average Joe like myself or whoever it may be having one unit putting that Airbnb making call it 800 to a thousand pounds a month seems great but it's just good pass by passive incomes it's not going to buy you your freedom or anything like that it's something you really have it alongside your normal 195 job so let's just say you're making 60 Grand a year from your land five job and you're making another call it this is a 20 grand on top from your Airbnb yeah now that's just one property now this is the the issue I have when you have like you know gurus online Airbnb gurus all right yeah they make it seem like you know here's the Airbnb model do this and it will be very easy for you get 10 Airbnb departments and all that sort of stuff and as you just said there to actually scale it massively this is where you then need your office and you need staff and you need your cleaners you need all of these sort of things that are going to dip into your costs which is what they don't talk about yeah they make it they sell you the dream exactly and all that sort of stuff look look I've been around the scene for a long time that people that you viewers know me um we've been doing this for more than five years nearly six years and I've been doing it before as a as a non-company as an on a personal individual basis so I have a lot of experience in the Airbnb the property property model the the reason he doesn't work for a lot of people because they don't Define the processing system so I I will touch on my background so I come from a very corporate management consultancy jaguelando or background all we did was process improvements process driven and creating efficiency in quality and cost like I've taken that mindset and applied it onto property right that's the game changer for me I we've got on scale we have flaws uh we've seen them we have floors of Apartments which are copy and paste people are doing following a process on cleaning now we have apps we have audits we have everything that you can name Under the Sun and we have all of these in place to be able to enable us to generate this profit efficiently and and long term it's not just over 12 months I've done this it's not worth 24 months this is over nearly five five to six years now coming up to six years yeah so it's always driven by processing system and including your mindset behind it so as a leader you need to get a mindset so anyone looking to do Airbnb model property model like such as this rent to rent you need to understand what your end goal is trying to get to if you just want to do one property find the way you explain it I do one property mine I've got a little bit of money getting your little pile trip here and there yeah this whole thing yeah yeah and but if you were to think what you're in it for the vision for me was to get 100 properties and here we are right today and the the freedom of Lifestyle yeah that's the ultimate goal for me and I have the freedom now right from from from zero so we started with what not zero rather I started with about 1500 quid I think or two thousand pounds the first first Airbnb that I've got the rent and the deposit that's all I had to pay it was furnished and I started with that yeah right I wasn't wasn't perfect but I got the process and systems right from day one the cleaning process is what all this you got to do what checks you're gonna do what does the customer want um well you know I did benchmarking I stayed in other people's Airbnb in the same city on a weekend or on Tuesday so it's all all about problem solving creating a better product um a lot of these gurus all people like you know there's some good good mentors out there right um the reason people fail is they forget it's a business it's not just a property once you take the property on it's a business like a full-on hotel business right customer service driven like when you're flying in from London to Dubai this is we're sitting in one of our essays and you can see how good this is this has been running for nearly two years the same apartment look look how clean look how it's run yeah um it's because we've we've adhered to process the team is trained fully today at the person because it's run like a business it's running like a Hilton we're competing with Hiltons down the road we're completing with Marriott we complete with our dress jbr that's what I'm competing with yeah I've got I've got a unit in address residences and there's a dress hotel next door and what I've found as well is that people went I'll talk about the buy specifically when people come to Dubai they're now rather booking apartments or booking hotels just because they got that much more space you know it's not just a hotel room bed little desk and you're done but now with Apartments sort of similar sort of money you can have your own kitchen Lounge chill space can have mates come in all that sort of stuff so it's a lot more flexible and a lot more things you can do in an apartment exactly exactly it gives you space for the same similar random price per night he gives you space as you gives you flexibility but where I like to be open on this like people fail on customer service customer service has gone down since Kobe days like customer service around the world is shocking right now like you probably go into the restaurant and you think what's going on like people don't want to work people and if you can set yourself apart right now in customer service you're gonna win like in our EP real estate business in the real estate business we're focused on customer Journey I've learned this from my Airbnb business which is Cash flowing really good money why customer service create a customer service through process driven and system driven uh environment in your business yeah sweetheart so where did all this come from you then you know because okay so like I said Airbnb is almost a trend right now yeah this is 2023 yeah yeah but you started in 2018 yeah coming up to six years ago so I know Airbnb was around then but it wasn't as spoken about how people speak about it now yeah so the whole idea of Airbnb where does that come from you this episode is sponsored by fire away Pizza the fastest growing Pizza Company in the UK with over 100 locations you definitely have a store near you the founder of fireway was on the show not too long ago and you can get a slice of action by using the discount code CEO cost at fireway.co.uk once again use the discount code CEO cost at fireway.co.uk right so I I could give you a bit of background to where my life started right it's all my mindset and the way I'm driven so Airbnb turned out to be one of the businesses that attracted me due to uh I'm into real estate so I wanted to visit and Hospitality I'm a customer driven guy and I wanted to be in a customer facing environment yeah um you know my background as you know I wasn't born in this country um and that is they say usually people who go for the American dream this was an American dream with me so I I want to take this by two hands right honestly I believe I've taken it I've got a long way to go to the bigger bigger bigger play I'm doing now I'm playing bigger game here like yourself we're playing the bigger numbers now especially being in Dubai so I think I think it was uh when I was in school um in I told you I grew up in Aston probably you know lovely place but not the best place to choose your personal growth in the mindset growth and that really made me think what I'm this is going back to when I was 15 years old in year 11. and asked it and I said look which four did you go to I went to Broadway school okay yeah that's awful people who go there you know that's cool look look I'm I'm supposed to be speaking at one of the one of the broader schools soon um you know I want to inspire people like I went to broader school I you know I openly stay I got I got bullied a few times right and that was it was surprising to say that's led to Airbnb in real estate it was that driver like I'm not having this like you know I I didn't look like this I was short you know all of this matters material material matters you know how you look matters sometimes you know I worked on myself worked on the way I speak articulate things um and then that led me into education education is key whether you know a lot of people bash college education University education I I I'm I'm not in total agreement of that because it depends what you want to do as a person not everyone can be an entrepreneur right of course not no but many people can be yeah if you get your education and your mindset right so if you want to be an entrepreneur get your education right from day one so that means study like do do something are you it's not just you're not just going to learn science you're going to learn key skills critical thinking learn critical to have critical thinking and key skills is the reason I'm sitting across the table with you and you're sitting across the table right yeah no one else right other people people forget people just think entrepreneur Airbnb real estate whatever you are starting from the day I leave school pretty much yeah you know there's a saying that you can own My Success it's not an overnight success you know that every Everything feels like an overnight success until you know people don't see the background so yeah it feels like an overnight success for me but it wasn't so it started when I was 16 University I I'm a grad a mechanical engineer I did my master uh Bachelor Masters so I went to Aston University so that hardship of having no friends I genuinely had no friends I wouldn't call them friends because like I look back now I have genuine friends you're one of you're one of my good friends I had no friends until University like proper friends and what that does it because I didn't have the the easy life I had to really work for it so don't have a dad just my mom and two younger brothers one of my brothers uh Solomon he's doing great job working in you met him you know he's a good guy one of the one of the one of the main guys of running my my business your perfect stay in Birmingham yeah one of the heads uh he's doing a great job so like I'm trying to coach him now to understand like the hardship I've had but what I did I used the tools I had so this is my story so I was giving this to his UK as bad as you sound as bad as the way that we say oh we don't want to go back to London right now or Birmingham we're going to stay here he's got the most opportunities that you're gonna find for free schooling uh free sixth form uh University I didn't pay for it I've got a maintenance loan and a grant right if you're if you're coming from a poor background if you're listening to someone's listening to this and you can you think that you can't afford to go to university think twice like what's the you know you get a loan out government pays for it back by the government you only pay um I don't know when I graduated was 17 000 I think it's 24 000 when you earn so you don't have to pay back unless you end something right so for me in my mindset and I've known a lot of people like this I'm like me I'm taking but this one too this is my American Dream yeah yeah take into advantage of this yeah and I did guess what did all right don't get me wrong I had my fun in the University you know went out with my friends uh made that's where I got my confidence uh to speak to put myself in position and what I did the biggest life changing world I took a a gap here to do a placement year put myself in an office I put myself with people like who who had 20 sits with 45 year old men or women in in in in in in in in offices yeah who gets a chance yeah not many people because they don't take it you don't get a chance but they don't take it I said why wouldn't I why wouldn't I leave my friends one year um I'm going to an office mate that was the biggest change of my life of senior offices and people got two kids three kids someone's going through a divorce someone I'm like what like there's a world out there yeah all right but look I'm gonna intervene and interjects here right your mindset is like this and I feel like and correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like a lot of it is to do with the fact that you came from Pakistan yeah how old uh 14 I believe I can't read after because you can't first time when you're in your teens pretty much right yeah and the worst time to call me look a lot of us ask people yeah people might real born here yeah we kind of take things for granted whereas you know education all that sort of things we take it for granted flop our grades and it doesn't become the best of experiences for us right well someone in Pakistan you've grown up there you know what the education system's like it's not the greatest yeah well now it's to be fair it's come up yeah but back then probably weren't the greatest so when you have come from uh from Pakistan to the UK you thought okay you know what I'm gonna make the most of what I've got here especially it might have the house right essentially yeah yeah you haven't got any older brothers or anything no no no so yeah exactly you would have been man of the house especially when you came to Birmingham yeah so you had to kind of get education go down the route and become the man of the house and you pay the bills and you know look after your mom your younger brother those sort of things so I feel like that's where your mindset has come from which is a great thing to be for well it's it's surprising people say oh um how bad it must have been for you not having a dad and X Y and Z right like you know I was like I need to be the man like where as men we're supposed to provide and protect yeah regardless they have a dad or not um my mother brought me to this country it's the greatest opportunity I don't know by the way it's easier said than done right now but when I was around my teens I was like all right yeah I just want to become I want to become this guy I want to become a bad boy I want to become this no none of that matters after your 1920 like it fades away no one like no one likes you know you gotta have bit of you gotta have the confidence but you gotta educate yourself in whatever industry you're going in mindset is the biggest thing is the game I'm I'm winning on mindset I do lose but the reason I keep winning is because I have a right man said I lose I have I have deals fall through I get rejection every day so I I knock about 100 Doors before I get my first uh I knocked about 100 Doors probably and I genuinely did before I got my first proper deal like you know and people don't see that people just see I'm just like you mentioned 40 million yeah like how do you think that 40 million deal has come through in Dubai to sell on our listing in Jumeirah which is the most exclusive area in the in Dubai yeah yeah because I built that relationship for three years with that guy three years he's a local guy three years so going back to the the life that I had is just like that changed me when I when I got into the office environment um it was National Grid I was working for National Grid has a monopoly is one of the biggest companies in in the UK we've been working on a national group before jail yeah just for placement here okay one year like you take a game but yeah yeah so before my final year yeah and and people University are like one of the biggest thing I can say right now is get into a placement yeah it could be in any way it doesn't have to be in a big company usually just be with people who are not your level they will be they got experience on you regardless if this is good experience is an experience that you'll download of their mind into yours if you spend enough time with them 95 of this day yeah Warwick we're having to Warwick driving first I was driving and motivating like loads of new things were happening I was like I feel like a man right I feel like a man and it's a driver for a lot of young young guys and young so young guys or even females listening to you know if you want something like put yourself in those situations and with older people yeah okay that's my Physicians yeah yeah yeah I'll say that to a lot of youngsters as well youngster's message to me saying I'm 16 I've just left school what should I do what's the whole business should I do and all that sorts go work go work exactly that and I say to them specifically go get a retail job yeah customer facing customer facing one of the best things I think develop my confidence and brought me to where I am now yeah it's because I used to work in car from Warehouse yeah yeah and I used to get a lot of cells I used to be forcing myself I've got this on my whole podcast I've done with myself what just to brief sum up you know it puts you in positions like you have to do something otherwise you're gonna get fired pretty well yeah if you're not performing my man just gonna sit me down be like it's time to go yeah so for me to optimize my performance I've got to go above and beyond exactly and that's what I always advise to people watching 16 euros 17 year olds before you start your business you learn a lot in retail you learn a lot about retail as well yeah exactly you don't know customer service and become a people person which at the end of the day entrepreneurs needs all these skills for when they grow up exactly so this this is you touched on a great run retail any customer facing job as an entrepreneur people listen just want to be entrepreneurs right there's two things you need marketing and sales skills regardless of what you're in regardless of your e-commerce or Airbnb property if you don't have marketing and sales skills or at least as a leader you don't have because you need to be a leader right you can hire Specialists of course you can't you can Outsource thing if you don't understand this if you're not having marketing you're not having sales if you're not having sales you're not having money yeah and there's no point being in a business but when you're not running a charity if you want to run a charity you know you can do that but at the end of the day your ambition is to be a businessman yeah or business woman should I say yeah yeah and and to to generate income and and achieve a goal of course uh um money is a byproduct of of all of these things yeah so people need to understand like youngsters and I do focus a lot on youngsters these days you know get on retail like you said yeah put yourself in offices because this where did I learn systems and processes offices right look where it's taken me 40 million deals a 20 million deals turned to you know business worth more than three million you know from where I just copied and pasted not reinvent anything I'm not saying nothing new yeah saying use your brain get out there and be uncomfortable yeah what you've done is you've taken products and processes from things you've seen and experienced and introduced into your own business nothing wrong with that because what ain't broken uh you don't need to fix yeah I mean but I'm gonna go back to something there you're a very very confident man I know you can walk into a room and you can meet everyone you fly on business class yeah you meet people at the business class uh area in Emirates in the lounge and what I will say is this you mentioned something earlier in the podcast about maybe five ten minutes ago the fact that when you're in school you got bullied yeah yeah now when someone is bullied that can knock their confidence a lot you know make them a quiet individual for a kind of affect them for the rest of their life so I want to know firstly what is that you got bullied for because the first thing I thought of is maybe because you came from Pakistan correct that was the reason yeah and secondly how did you get your confidence back look um if you're talking that age group it's it didn't happen overnight it was like I'm talking five to six years I'm 34 years old right now right um my company was gradual so there's a couple of things one thing is putting myself in someone who's 10 years older than me because someone who's 10 years older than you is never going to put you down if they're doing really well or they're always going to support you because they're mature they've been through all that they're not boys anymore yeah they're not kids believe me I was like when I had my first compliment like I'm a first compliment oh nice shirt or a nice I'm like what people give compliments like as a man you know like girls get loads of common numbers like on camera yeah yeah the guy are you still you still want something to be proud of or something like you know I've achieved something like even success and it was the older people like I didn't have a dad around and you know my mom gives me compliments and and whatnot but I didn't have an older figure to look up to and he was hanging around with the right five people they say if you hang out with the right five people you become the sixth right whether it's for Success whether it's money whether it's values uh like you know you could take take you can download even on the negative side as well if you hang around with five bum people you'll become the six so you need to hang around the right people exactly exactly and then and the key is a lot of people miss this and you're doing this travel yeah me when I started traveling I spent two months in Thailand I worked in Shanghai for nearly nearly two years back and forth through Jaguar I just the reason I start playing business class like I'm like oh there's a new world out there there's like a different floor on an airplane and then a different level of people like not in a disrespectful where these people are operating in the mindset that once you go business class they say you don't want to go back to economy because your mindset just goes backwards and what I've done is just hung around in these places hung around in better people than me you people have to pull down their ego like after like right the day I decided my ego has to go it's never gonna go 100 because we're natural human beings right they decided that they decided to make my growth went like linear like and this is this is my growth was very linear in the last year yeah by the way yeah so people people who know me my growth was buried in there but it wasn't like this uh the first three years yeah because of putting myself I was traveling uh I was in Bali for two months last year I was in Pakistan for one month traveling but when I said traveling I wasn't not partying not not going around restaurants all the time I'm connecting like you're connecting in Dubai like I'm just connecting I'm like also what do you do what do you do connect Network and you you are eventually going to see the success yeah 100 so when you got bullied at the time how did you feel if you can remember it well uh not great obviously yeah so no I didn't feel great I was looking for a way out I know like um so I'm 34 right so the phones were very very new those days not okay 3330 so if you are watching this on my age remember and uh I don't think you've seen them every year I remember me I got bullied for not having a phone yeah that was one of the things I can talk about right I was quite short as well so I got bullied for being short in year 11. I went to a rough School very rough school right bro and then I don't want to really keep mentioning the name but it's not the school fault it's just the area where we're in right and then and I'm grateful for being in that area like I've Got Friends there like some of my good friends who still live there but the grown-up matured it didn't feel great but I keep as I said it drove me to an angle I said I'm not having this and I need to come out of it call that I'm glad it happened basically like call me lucky I'm not I don't believe in luck I create my own luck but that's the only luck I had I didn't die but you know unless you're gonna die there's a different story I didn't die look where I am you know blessed to be here he gave you that file it did yeah yeah and again people need to understand like it's not one night fire it was oh over the years yeah one thing after another then hope you know you believe in something you gotta you gotta you gotta believe in it's a mindset I wouldn't know it was happening right I was around people and our mindset was like yeah this is possible like who would have thought at 16 I'm gonna be doing a 40 million uh a 40 million deal yeah who thinks that who thinks now I'm thinking I'm looking at I was having a chat with my good friend last night 200 million we're looking at 300 million right we've done sales in EP real estate for over 300 million in sales and since we acquired the company mindset look I'm gonna go back to the whole Airbnb property side of things in a second what I am interested to know what your upbringing was like in Pakistan I have so I come from a city so lived in Karachi in Islamabad so I went to a school so decent school so my upbringing was okay I always had food in the fridge always had others had a good like I always had an average Lifestyle some middle class so so nothing like you know I'm not gonna sit here and cry like you know I had it really because there's some people have a really bad yeah so I I was at a city I went to a decent school went in a British school so we went to where we spoke English so one of the reasons that English is pretty good and I I passed my GCSE the first time so you have to pass the English signs and that's right that was the biggest thing I was like I'm never gonna pass English and kids who are past English neither did English a level as well but they were probably not the best thing that the science is you know I wanted to be an engineer because my mum told me so and good worked out well you know so I have to thank my mom on that so yeah schooling was good lifestyle was okay but you know every every place has its benefits and his cons and the pros and the cons right UK has the tools that enables you to be successful whereas these uh Eastern and and South Asian countries don't know necessarily because of political situations as you know and so that was the difference it's different because even if you are educated in in these countries it's not exactly how you can start a business tomorrow yeah because it don't work like that for the people Pakistani Bengali India and whatever the case may be I'm pretty sure it's similar to you know those little countries as well even in Dubai right now I will openly say what cost us 12 Grand 10 grand pounds to start my first business here how many people have that in a natural uh if you're 23 21 year old to put that out come here live here you know how much it costs like to live here a monthly cost for a normal guy to be able to go to these restaurants and have a decent life that you can put on social media like what people say what seven eight grand a month yeah living in an apartment like this faster yeah maybe if you're living in a problem like this I reckon if you're living somewhere in JVC paying 1700 pound a month from rent and you know you're not living a lavish life I reckon you could get away with about three grand less than that so I've got a lot of State agents starting right now in my company so some of them are living at two grand a month yeah because look I say don't float your money or lose lose your money by trying to live the Dubai lifestyle yeah yeah it is a brutal one of the most brutal places I've been 100 years like I have to consistently work hard and make sure the deals go through to make sure I guess I can keep winning yeah financially and you know mindset freedom living in but it's possible one of the one of my uh agents just started and he came with five thousand pounds I think yeah and he's already about to close his first deal right he's not living he's not going to the restaurant he's not doing the fancy things not hiring Lamborghinis like that's the worst thing you can you can do yeah yeah right because if you're going to experience mate people are going to see that through you yeah so work on your experience and and do it smartly yeah I think it was me and you were having this conversation the other day at dinner you know when when you see people coming to the buy and live with this lifestyle of hiring Lamborghinis all the day and you know going out to these fancy restaurants and constantly putting on the social media it comes across like they're not used to that and so when they're not used to that you you can kind of see through them pretty much yeah it's crazy the last holiday it is it is yeah but we love it you know this is this is where the the next growth is for 10 years yeah I don't think we'll find a better place this is anymore we'll look back in 50 years all of us and be like what what a place this will this has become and the growth and I'm part of it and you're part of it exactly that yeah I want to go your first proper job jungle Jaguar Land Rover right what is that all about how did that come about and I was actually playing a really good salary as well so yeah I'll get into the whole story of because you left right yeah we'll get let's go into that yeah so I'm a classic example of the 95 but this I I truly believe they're so many people like me who are wasting the opportunity that I had or I had I had before and they have right now so when I say that I graduated in mechanical engineering yep went on a grad scheme graduate scheme so people don't know what a graduate scheme is it's like when you go to university you apply for jobs for you because you've done a degree right and luckily I did a good degree so if you're going to do a degree I say do a degree that benefits a mechanical engine I didn't by the way just disclaimer I didn't know why I wanted to do in life even until 24 even now I don't I know where my goals are but I would probably want to go in something else in about two years so I'm really ambitious so most people are like that right so I did uh mechanical engineering didn't work that hard I'm not gonna lie it just worked out as in like I turned up every day did the exams did the right revision so turning up is 80 of the battle yeah turn up to your lectures tell them well to be fed in terms of all my lectures however this University a decent good University I had a lot of friends in Birmingham University so I did I anyway I went to Jaguar got in these some of these Blue Chip big companies they spend so much money on training I I can't even I think they must have spent over 150 Grand over the term of my life in the career on my training like communication skills presentation skills these are basic things I've even done um Consulting the training like with KPMG uh because I was in that role of uh Consulting with suppliers and improving businesses that was my role that has I mean M A now and and acquiring business it's improvements I was in a grad scheme went through the two years training program in a leadership training program because I wanted to be the CEO of Jackie Land Rover I wanted to do the 95 I wanted to climb the career ladder guess what what I didn't realize I came across many leaders many people who had loads of ideas could have been entrepreneurs but they they had the knowledge and they had the experience to put it for Jaguar Land Rover and it was amazing the way it was run so I was part of the biggest the nearest engine Factory which is in Wolverhampton yeah I got put into this Factory when he wasn't it was being built as a 22 year old I was like I didn't know how I met the queen through that I met prime minister Triva why because there was the iconic Flagship right and I'm like suddenly I'm 23 I'm meeting imagine when you mean people who you're going to be around this there was a launch of the fact what year is this 2023 I think I was 23 so 10 years ago so you were in the engine in fact you were saying yeah yeah it's called EMC engine manufacturer there you have it people if you're a Land Rover engine is blown up no they're they're a good company you know like um people are people who work really hard there yeah no but my point to all this is you worked up the ranks you got yourself a really good paid job you know I think you said you mentioned it was in the six figures yeah right with a with a card every six months a brand new rate benefits you know you you to the outside perspective is a really really good it's perfect yeah it's a good lifestyle and it's secure as well yeah very secure so why did you leave look this is again not an overnight thing um I got to a point where I did post him into Shanghai I this is where I got into the business class flight look I was living the life Jay Lopez jlr guys remember if you add value to anyone yeah they will they you you will get paid you get paid for the value you had I I was like and I was shocked the way they were spending money on me and I didn't realize that backhand how much money I was saving so I was in cost savings I was a consultancy like so I would work with the new loan so we launched the same Factory that we launched with Wolverhampton yeah just after Shanghai imagine we launched at Wolverhampton and then we're like let's copy and paste this so I said earlier I was part of the launch part of the process setting of the pros they've sent me they said who because there's such a shortage of like skill skill they're like there's no one else to say I was like I'm 25 years old yeah applied for it passed they doubled my salary gave me a call so seriously was technically double my salary and you're near enough double I'm like I'm 25 and a half right nearly 26 I think I will can you imagine like 20 how old are you 26 right 26 like I was like everything made it that's what my mama asked for like that's what the world looks at Ranger were parked on a drive um you know if you want to talk about fun you were having all the fun uh going out when I want to go out and then I'm like oh so driver's gonna come pick me I mean this driver is going to come and pick me up to drive me to the airplane I'm like wow got it done then after two years of doing all of this I'm like there's got to be something bigger this life is so I've just started my life I was 27 by the time this started what can I do with this skill that I have this is this this came from because I was with CEOs and directors they were thinking Big Stuff big deals uh one deal there's like 100 million I'm like oh so I can use the same skill the only difference they have is experience if I put myself around these people every single day or or I go to private clubs and network which is what we do now right we do deals with my average my I don't I don't think I have a friend below like a like a friend I hang out with every day below 40 like I don't think I have like I don't see I have friends yeah yeah it's like it's like I don't know it's like that's just to become a norm now yeah you just think that's life and then that was the change it came back to the UK I still remember my boss and one thing I do say if any of my Jaguar Land Rover colleagues are listening to this and they may do um if it wasn't for them I wouldn't be especially my bosses they were my Mentos so use what you have if you're in an office right right now nine to five you don't realize how much opportunity this company has given you as in terms of training and even turning up on time if you are supposed to die nine o'clock you don't understand that you can lose a deal in Dubai if you don't turn up when they want you to do like you did no respect if you're working with the local area and they said oh I've got a 100 million deal and you're like yeah yeah I'm coming don't answer your phone gone mate gone yeah someone else is taking it yeah that's the real world you've got to grab onto the opportunity as much as you can so where did you learn that when did no one comes out and learns it from from day one yeah no loads of school anything day one I got told off I know these guys will come mention his name but this guy was my boss and he was 30 then and he said I came late and this story I've never really told anyone like several because I came late and every day to come up late and I was high performer right I was in the leadership program and uh he said do you use what do you think you're doing I was like nothing there was traffic he was like how late were you five minutes okay so yeah so I'm like oh I'm five minutes late right kind of like uh yes only five minutes and I'm still performing I'm still doing this like you know mistakes happen and I I even if I come late now and I don't come late as often and I'm working on it um he said to me if you think you're performing I'll leave you to that and I'm like what an idiot like you think you're patronizing me he goes mate you think if you think there was traffic and I was like there was traffic and I'm like there was generally traffic on M6 he goes mate you can't if you if you think you're smart you can't work this out his point was that is always an excuse for for losing rather than looking internally you could have woke up and could have came in at seven o'clock even if you start eight o'clock yeah earlier yeah because you're not self-reflecting you're not self-aware it's all about mindset like I keep talking about mindset it's like it's only Drew like a graph he goes there's a graph of the top performers that like linearly go up you you were here and I was actually a fisted look actually I was one of the top performers yeah it was got to my head but it gets to anyone's had a 24 and if your top performer on a good salary good car everyone's telling you out this is why your circle is important everywhere around my circle outside this place was saying me you're killing it right so anyway that was the biggest change that he was one of my biggest cartilage to make me think then my boss they're my senior boss he was like once I had to I I didn't bring a notepad and a pen like honestly guys like this has to do a realistic I'm saying he was like what are you doing we're trying to we're trying to work on 100 million pound saving or something something big number I'm like no I've got a photographing memory yeah I didn't have photograph yeah yeah he was like first of all I'm not even gonna reply to that mate get up yeah I'm like did you just tell me to get out so first thing I'm like I want to tell HR I'm like he was in my head I'm just like who talks to someone like that yeah comes and puts his arm around me he goes I don't I don't know if you realize what I told you to do that you're one of the most highest performing people here all these you're letting yourself down because the perception of the people that you think you look like a kid I look like a kid then perception is reality one of the biggest thing I can say perception is reality people have a perception no matter what you think you are if you look like a 20 year old you've got no facial hair you look like a kid you dress like a kid you made it in this group there's a 50 year old man who's done this 20 times over you turn up with no pen notepad basic things he's gonna not gonna take you seriously then you're gonna blame that oh he's looking at you because you're a kid no he's looking at you because you haven't done the basics that you have to go through yeah and you think you're too much so to summarize that that was the little changes of these bosses and I still on my LinkedIn and you know like I thank them I'll text one of them and say thank you if it wasn't for you I wouldn't be taking a notepad into your room I wouldn't be telling my guys last night tell me this thing yeah and this is interesting point if anything goes wrong in your life or business deals now until today's day and age do you automatically blame yourself and look at and think to yourself it's got to be something I had done yeah no so I take responsibility yeah if you don't take responsibility even if you lose even like it's happened to me recently in the last year the amount of money will be made in in the year before is not as great as the realities people are bullshitting you if their the economy is tough in the UK but I was there blaming my team oh guys you're supposed to be leaders just not done this ultimately who's response accountability is it mine right because I I could go into spiral saying Rheem is your fault I gave you the responsibility yes I did give a yes okay it was your responsibility I paid you 50 Grand a year right yeah but who's who's accountable for this business it's me so yes I put my hand up I take it's hard your feelings come into your emotions coming to this hard like I I'm not I'm not a robot I do go home kind of sleep sometime and this is why entrepreneurship now everyone you've got to take responsibility you've got to cut your ego out the day you cut your ego your success is linear yeah if you told me today Adam you you're not as good as you think believe me I'm gonna go back maybe maybe in front of the face or may not agree I'll say okay cool thanks for your opinion I'll go back I wouldn't know why why Rahim is saying that of course you got to cut out the haters that's like that's that's the given right but there's not everyone's not hating I'm this is one of the biggest things social media is creative like oh yeah I'm not gonna listen to anyone I'm doing what I'm gonna do me if I did that I wouldn't be sitting across the table in Dubai together with you and talking these good things yeah you've always got to learn to take criticism from other people and even if you don't want to face it as you said go back and reflect upon where is they've said that what they've said and and try and learn from it you know and pick up and that's the only way you can really develop yourself develop your skills or deliver develop whatever it is that they're talking about exactly what's the best thing to do when my leadership I I classed myself one of the one of the best leaders I've I have been as my version right and I I I work really hard I see will train I I've got coaches I've got mentors so I'm training every day by the way guys like I'm still learning 20 into my life 30 into my life like my business partner D said that the other day we had a I'm like quite open about this I I I was I had a tough date and you know I wasn't happy with one of the one of the agents and I said something and you know I took it out of you know I took it really really rough and he said look you know it's not right the way you did it and my first reaction was it was seven o'clock in the evening tired it was hot I'm like listen mate I know what I'm doing let me do it and I'm like actually you know he does have a point like take your emotions out of take your emotion out of decision making make quick decisions and take feedback he's not saying it he's saying you for his own good achievement because the business partner and for me why would he why would he want to put me down right and I took that and today I'm Monday morning today went to the Monday morning meeting with my agents calm and I was like take a step back at him I think you've had two tough weeks you know it's tough training people um so yeah that was an example take your ego out and take your emotions out of decision making yeah going back to your job what was the actual ticking moment for you to say you know what I'm gonna leave now it's time for me to do more a sense of achievement and money okay for me it was like look I'm working for 100 say say six figure right I'm working for this but the back of that the company is making 800k right Wi-Fi starting my own consulting company Wi-Fi I started grew up my property business and I could see the numbers right the funny thing is you can see you can if you start connecting as an uh a person who works in a job I start putting yourself with the HR managers or the operations manager understand how the so business cycle flow works and you start seeing where the value is added to the top of the End customer believe me may you will just see be like there's a bigger world out there so I was working with senior managers senior quality managers uh board members um I'm like there is a big uh end value to this or what I'm doing in the cycle in the flow cycle of the business so that was the changing moment for me I came back I said I've got a lot to add yeah risk taking I was taking a big risk and I said you know what I'm gonna go into property and that's where they said because property was to say property is the safest probably this could be could be could be not as fast as some other businesses but property in real estate is the fact is the safest way to grow your wealth and and acquiring businesses there's two things I could do at that moment I wanted to go into property and Airbnb yeah it's a the old school generation you know my dad and my uncles and everyone they always say you know at the end of the day whoever opportunities and and crypto things that come out and all these sort of Investments at the end of the day you could not go wrong with bricks and War because that is always going to appreciate in value you may have times in the market where it dips down and you lose some money but that's always going to pick back up exactly and in five ten years time the prop you bought for 500 Grand may be worth 700 Grand yeah without even doing anything plus you know your normal rent and all that sort of stuff it's gonna go up so for that reason you can't go wrong well look in Dubai you know these people have grown their property properties from 2020 to now like doubled it yeah you tripled in some big areas right we're in this market we just done three nearly 300 millions of sale uh in in Dubai in the real estate company that we just Acquired and people some of the people I'm seeing the sellers I'm like what you bought this for uh eight million and I selling this for 17. like like 70 million A.D right and I'm thinking like I wish I bought it yeah like I was here and developments I'm assuming yeah some of them are plans for the better offline right like al-barari I'm looking at this area called Ferrari right you know so that was one of them and I'm just like enough plan as well like if you look at low numbers like some people going to buy Hills has been one of the biggest growth areas in Dubai yeah um I'm looking to move to where I'm moving there next in two months and one of my sellers bought his property offline the 1.4 and it's a 1.5 and it's all about 2.3 did nothing and it's been rented on Airbnb since you got it on uh Hanover so you made cash flow through Airbnb through our property management your perfect stay in Dubai and then he sold it to us and I was obviously looking at the title deed and I'm like on the transfer they was like where was I what was I doing like you know I make mistakes as well and then you've got to be around the right people and I wasn't around the right people like that you know I was like I say it's cold with times and I don't want to invest uh save it and but you know what this is what I'm glad I'm hanging around you and I'm friends of you now as well because we went to uh view a couple of places the other day off plan a few people don't know what Off plan is the property's not actually built it it's getting built and all that sort of stuff but you get a cheaper rights yeah so we went to go look at one and you know the the amount of money you can make a when the building's complete you could sell it then but even not even then once you've got the sheet to say that this you know I've got this apartment in this building and it's gonna be developed in three years you made that 1.5 mil yeah and you could probably sell it for 1.6 yeah something like that so yeah you you know you you're an example like glad you bring that up and you were sitting there you saw the whole process and what the developer is going to look like and a lot of people uh do a lot of flips on Off plan so it's easiest Market to game too for me offline like what 10 you need to put down like one of them you're looking at 10 one of those 20 yeah and then the next payment is not into nine months and the next payment after they're not in the season it's like what you're putting down seventy thousand pounds yeah and you're getting a place in Dubai depends how much the property is yeah yeah but it's starting I would say 50 000 to 70 000 you can put down and and you can go up to like 500 and billion but you're getting a place in downtown or down in the Dubai Creek Harbor near there like the creek Towers game but and I you know I could see how much you were enjoying that you're thinking you're gonna have your piece of land yeah yeah yeah I've got the viewer everything all that sort of stuff of the creek Tower you know we probably still end up going for it you know I mean yeah and then you've done the London Market as well so like a lot of people listening to this being in London and and this is the New London for me yeah and you've done it you and your dad has done it really from yeah for me I I see London as a point unless you're you know buying to flip and you find some great great deals and don't get wrong there is because we've seen examples from people like property about Kazi good friend who does it all day long right but on the other end of things where you know you're buying a property you're looking to rent it there's there's money to be made in it but not as money much money as you are gonna make hit yeah and I see this now as the place to say rather than for me personally investing into London or UK for that matter to come to Dubai and bring it here because this is where you're going to see a lot more capital appreciation and a lot more gains yeah and it's going to build you more wealth exactly and and Dubai is looking to grow his population by 8 million uh to 8 million 8.5 Million by yeah 2030 around 2030 so you can see the the stability the sustainability of Dubai is way better than what he was in 2000 yeah families are moving as you know it's not just uh you know people who are like me and you there's families with kids schooling so once you bring your kids and family it helps the area a couple of appreciate because people are more permanent than they were in 2008 or 12. you know this is probably the best time to invest like I'm investing um some of my best friends my family they're investing in Dubai and and you can't go wrong because if you're space if you're buying Off plan you're buying a cheaper square foot and a square feet in in that area it's basically buying with a good developer like show bar or Mr um you know you're going the right way and if you get if you get the one thing I'll say you your listener like yourself as well you came to me for a reason right if you're if you're with right if you get the right education about any Market you can get the right results uh over time right and if you go with the people who are doing what they say they're doing you will get the right results so going with the right agent is very important going with the educated agent is very important going with people who know the laws and the policies of dld and rira and and going with people who understand what the resale opportunity yeah you taught me a lot of these things I didn't even know yeah yeah and it's important it's technical information important because you know like people don't know about do you spend 2 million you get a golden Visa now and like these type of things are attractive to a lot of investors and then you get residency for 10 years yeah you know they make the Dubai is doing a lot of things and we like it's for good for us like yeah we got more flexibility now so we can we can move our families here and I'm sure you you said to me you're looking to be exactly it's a future plan you know eventually in the future I think I will stay a bit more in the UK a little bit more maybe a couple of years if that Max but after that I'm here but you got 100 you are the freedom lifestyle as well that means you're gonna fly back when you want to yeah I'm in a freedom lifestyle I can come back and forth for any time I want but I mean in terms of actually you know putting my base in living here having my home here family home eventually having kids wife all that sort of stuff it will be in Dubai 100 I won't even let that happen in the UK exactly yeah this is a good point to go into your real estate business but before I do as I'm speaking about you know off-plan buildings and all that sort of stuff and the buyers division for 2030 Vision 2030 I want to ask for you because I haven't actually spoken to you about this what do you think of uh Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 and you know the property developments and that side of things you learned into it yeah they of course we keep up to date with all the real estate market and growth and I'm very much electricity in market growth and economics I mean I'm into understanding how money and the fire Economics work and I'm very big on that um so for my um my opinion this is my opinion only you know it's a long way to go to get to the growth level that we're at a sustainability level of Dubai there's a lot of laws may need changing may not need changing you know a lot of confidence is required from consumer so you know you haven't you know you got to build a consumer confidence to allow the growth of capital appreciation and investment success yes it could be a time to get in and now but you're looking at long-term growth yeah whereas Dubai is going so fast and sustainably you can't compare Saudi in terms of like like you know people most people say long term but they look at five to ten years right yeah this that what you're getting in Dubai you can see you're sitting in Marina prices are doubled in a lot of places whereas you know Dubai Hills I said you're not probably not going to get that's my opinion looking at the facts that we have around uh it's got a lot of a long way to go a long way to build a consumer confidence uh which is only going to be built by people moving there and people's you know you know government they all changing a lot they like the football thing that's happening that house they'll consumer confidence you know Ronaldo's playing there and you guys I'm not full into football where someone else is doing what are the 20 30 stuff isn't it yeah so I think I think the way I describe this Dubai is in a race or Saudi Arabia is the race with Dubai and the creek Tower is an example there they build they want to build the next biggest because of Saudi Arabia or Qatar I think it's on a country that's building this but you know that is always going to keep Dubai ahead and I wouldn't be I mean I've been in the business for a long time and I've been around a lot of Corporations and buying businesses myself um I'm you know like I haven't touched on the US stuff you know we're backed by a us hedge fund as well in family offices so we get a lot of the experience and I'm not I'm talking other other experiences downloaded into me remember that guy is like I'm not born you know like that's why we read books that's what we work with like hedge funds and family offices these people have done Finance for a long time yeah yeah so we're backed by one of the what is the finance our family office and hedge funds and U.S backing and understand how us has been through a cycle on many cycles so yeah Dubai has got the the the winner over Saudi Arabia yeah see what I say to people and this is my opinion on it as well right you know whenever I say I'm going to invest in Dubai that's my plan and all that sort of stuff the person the thing the other person may say is what about Saudi Arabia you know they've got the whole Vision 24 going on they've got all these developments and all this sort of stuff they're gonna you know they're coming for Dubai am I instant reply to them is this do you think Dubai are gonna hold yeah everything exactly for decide to be able to catch up at the end of the day it's going to be competition it's a competition you know tourists are going to go to one place or the other Dubai or Saudi Arabia there's no way I don't see it happening where the buyer gonna Saudi Arabia overtake Dubai is currently uh economy or anything like that it's a race it's a race literally who's going to win so the tower towers is the best to look at the tallest tower in the world no they're not Dubai is not gonna be the tallest tower yeah you know the biggest thing for us is stability Dubai has stability now with laws yeah uh which suit Western clients um there's a casino coming uh may or may not be a good thing but it's good for economics uh but good for further growth but a casino comes to this type of country you're bringing the Chinese investors you're bringing the Chinese clientele yeah um all other people you know since Kobe as well a lot of Chinese want to invest in Dubai so you can see if you're I'm an investor myself right so I'm looking at these things I'm like look I can look into five years and I'm like this is you're looking at pricing going keep going further ahead if you buy in the right place look the thing is you can't just buy anywhere in Dubai and be like yeah it's gonna double yeah yeah like that's not happening man I know people who bought it out 45 minutes 50 minutes away and they're like oh why is my price not gonna also I mean yeah because you bought the wrong development you thought it was a great people were in the middle of the desert yeah it's like buying in miles to buy in Saudi Arabia by the time the Dubai guess there is another 6 to 78 years so if you want to wait six to seven to eight to ten years yeah yes invest in uh far right areas like that um and not educate yourself yeah like Saudi Arabia has a long-term game um I'm not I'm I I'm playing my cards like with stability but fast growth as well at the same time yeah and what I will say is I think there's going to be a lot of Muslims watching this off the back yourself and off the back of me we have a Muslim follower at the end of the day are people going to hear things like oh you know the boys bring casinos and they're bringing drinks and all this sort of stuff and all that no one's saying we're going there at the end of the day it's gonna boost the economy and make our investments better so they can do what they want yeah it's not affecting us we're not going there yeah and then on the flip side of things as well you look at Saudi Arabia are I'm not gonna go into the religion side of things too much but we can you know it's a bit mud yeah but anyway real estate business acquiring and merging Acquisitions you know so what was well look um since I've been running started so many businesses because it started business it failed started I started a cleaning business didn't really go so well I've never made any money on it because it's a supplementary and me you know younger days always wanted to start a business so now um I'm into emergency Acquisitions and acquiring and buying business it's just like you buy property you buy a business with income from day one and you get the asset most most of the time yeah so it was for me like I was starting a businesses I need to buy something with generous income from day one rather than buying it by to let and to get 200 pound rent net after taxes and everything like under my mortgage why would it do that why would I put a deposit down for like 100 000 pounds and then get fired upon a month like I can I can use that hundred thousand pounds to buy an income generating business with the team and play 17-year running for example a 15-year running um and get an income generating plus get an asset plus long-term growth and look to exit after so the m a game is quite big it's been around in us for a long time it's been around everywhere for a long time but us is more buying and selling businesses UK is not so much people don't build to sell yeah I'm building my businesses to sell and exit potentially uh in 10 years seven years so that's what one of my drivers is the best way to create wealth um including property so it's this is this is not just what I'm doing M A I'm doing real estate and you know staying in the real estate market in terms of like Airbnb and coming to Dubai buying a business right so we bought this EPA Tuesday uh luxury real estate sales and lettings just company was founded in 2016. I wasn't doing so well there was a dispute so we we got this opportunity to come to our table because of our Network so networking is key guys networking has allowed me to acquire this business uh real estate luxury real estate business in Dubai which is based in jlt we've got over we've got we got over two dozen about 15 16 agents you know doing big deals right coming from UK moving from Spain moving from Turkey right like we're changing lives mate we're changing lives and the most exciting thing I've ever done by buying a business and you know I've got I had some staff there got rid of some got some new one in and changing the culture putting my own stamp on it like so how old is this business 2016 four five six years six years old business you know income generated presence already in the market uh you know it holds value so rather than going to start your business from day one uh I've got to hire people like I said the process in well okay I still have to I still have to work in this business like you know it's not always oh yeah boy business is making money you gotta start somewhere so for me that was a driver it's the best way to create um increase your wealth and and you know one of the other things that people don't see this is a bit technical you buy so I buy hotels in the UK because I'm in Hospitality Airbnb business I have experience so when I approach these sellers so when we when we approach them cold you know when they see my background I don't have to have the background you can still buy businesses you know I'm buying a hotel put an offering for 3.3 million in Birmingham looking another one in Southampton with six million you know end of the day when this the ebitda which is the you know like say the net profit it's about 2 million or 4 million in about 10 years of 10 hotels I could sell that at 10 multiples so I can sell that at 3 million and uh sorry three multiples or four multiples so three times three I can sell that and uh as 99 million right so I can sell that nine million exit in when I'm 40. or buy 10 of them and exit 50. that's where my driver is so it's a long play buy businesses grow them use my passion uh anyone no not anyone can do it you've got to have business acronym yeah you don't know what you're doing yeah you gotta learn you gotta have the right education you're gonna write mentorship uh have the right education understand you can buy businesses you know with little money as well as you buy property and then we ended up acquiring this with very little money and now where we are we're doing deals for 40 million yeah a million so how long do you see yourself having this business for them what's like your thought and play your goal plan on time frame skill look look I mean I'm immersed in the business fully the business is here to stay uh what we call is a week building a group a portfolio group or businesses yep more so in UK this is where the business acquisition is more so in the UK this is the only one that we bought in Dubai we're buying hotels so if I buy five hotels and I can take that to 10 million profit or whatever and sell that at times three I would look to sell in 10 years to someone else like me as a group yeah so I would sell as a group and the group is always worth more and I would be looking at like 50 mil so I'm looking at an exit with a big chunk of cash so it'll be 42 43 and I'm like you know I've just exited 50 million and that's the big play for me here like people don't realize how much wealth creation there is uh and there was someone else looking to buy this is probably the best time there's a lot of um a lot of older generation it's because of the economy we're in especially in the Europe market and US yeah us and Europe where people are looking to exit people are scared people take people don't want to take the risk they're worried about energy bills like six someone 16 years old why does he want to he doesn't have to drive me and you have and he's running the business for 17 years and he's like oh the bills are going up I don't know if I'm going to make profit I haven't got the energy so this is when you come up this is the greatest opportunity to take over well that's someone has started and double it or improve it yeah this is the greatest opportunity of Lifestyle we're ever going to get we're in the tough times risk levels are high and uh people looking to sell and exit take the money for them if I buy one for three million three million is a lot of money day one when he when he Transit 62 years old one of one of the sellers yeah what do you think he's gonna do with three million he's gonna go say in Spain he's gonna buy a property in Spain and you know he's gonna sit on the beach like he's happy he's genuinely happy I'm happy because I've taken over someone's income generating of 500k uh whatever the numbers are net yeah it's already doing it and now I can put my own stamp on it yeah so that's the story of how I got into this basically what okay so what I will ask aside from the real estate business here so the service accommodation business Airbnb is that a plan to sell as well in the future look uh maybe in the future at least part of the group yeah part of our hotel Hospitality Group so yeah potentially if the numbers are right um God yeah if the numbers arrive we can build the right process because that's the business I started from scratch right Bill to the team we have over 20 people working in the company um cleaners maintenance property managers drivers and whatnot admin uh customer service agents sales agents we like we got the whole we have the whole structure there which is what makes it sellable like people don't a lot of people don't understand they start businesses and they don't think your business is not a business until it's sellable yeah right so how what makes it sellable like you you can make you gotta have right processes you gotta have the right team the right readership first line management because if the business can't run without me it's not really your business it's your job yeah exactly that exactly so I'm here my phone is not ringing who's running my brother's the lead in it as Solomon um and then the team Underneath Him the cleaners and the supervisors that's it's a sellable business now because you could say Adam how much is that making right now rather than buying a property I might buy that because it's probably going to cost me the same yeah a business sellable is when you can swap out the CEO of it and it doesn't make any difference to the chain below it that's when it's fine yeah it's like um there's that diagram that shows it as well right like you imagine you have two periods you've got one pyramid like this and the CEO's at the bottom if you take him out the whole thing's gonna collapse yeah whereas if you have one like this and the CEO's on the top you replace him that that pyramid on Leaf Ain't Gonna Change nothing's gonna happen yeah so when you make it to a point where you know the CEOs at the top everything's underneath him under the bottom exactly you know then it's fine then you can sell it and then you can move on sort of thing yeah all the way around it it doesn't work exactly exactly so one of the biggest things to create leaders yeah we're creating the next generation of leaders uh my job is to find the right talent and scale that talent that is it that is my motto in my head money is a byproduct of all of this yeah some of the some of the ages you don't get a chance to meet some of my agents because I took you around to show the properties but some of the agents are like they're going to be the next leaders they need to take my place as a sales director and they know that one or two of them are like oh I'm ready for this because the more money they make the the more money their agents make they make more money yeah of course I make more money it's like a pyramid like explained right we are focused creating the next generation of real estate luxury agents in Dubai right A lot of people here just agents you know I want to create leaders so they understand the mindset they understand sales obviously and then they're creating more to grow and help to help your investors you know who's the biggest biggest important individual is the client is the customer and the customer has to understand that we have about leaders who can lead and make decisions and educate it and be able to educate others in the team yeah so what I want to clarify here as well right and this will be good for the audience especially if they're looking to come and buy something in Dubai you mentioned earlier in the podcast that you know you're currently in the process of looking to sell a villa with about 45 million Dirhams yeah is that your specialty or do you can I come along with 600 000 pounds what's that about I don't know 2.5 to 3 million uh can you acquire to those sort of deals yeah so we do we do both models so we do the luxury model for the big boys and they got a big cash and they want to move out from Chelsea to Dubai this is what we specialize in we also have a team that specializes in on you know Off plan they specialize on like a 1 million Dirham sale line or rentals or whatnot so yes we specialize so we have teams leaders um you know people can contact me directly as well what not but we have a specialist in different markets so we have specialists in Dubai here especially in downtown with specialists in in Marine Arena and then different Towers so one Tower might not be as exclusive right and one Tower maybe and we have spaces in that and so yeah we do we do we say we support both markets and the best thing the best way to look at it is we can educate the investor we're not asking when we're not saying that you people people make mistake investing they don't get they don't get educated best way to get educated and learn from someone who's been in the market for years and years and years so yes so people can invest people should look to invest in whatever the the starter Market or you want to go to the 40 million yeah the 40 million yeah what I was gonna ask off the back of that is like your service accommodation business selling that how would that work because if a lot of more rent to rent it's not the asset they own exactly obviously I know you own the whole business behind it but how does that all work then so it works on so he works on income so how much income so net profit and multiple of three so if you're a net roughly half a million for example you multiply by three or it's an example right standard 1.5 million yeah right good question about assets so there's no assets in this rental render I've got my businesses are split in different entities yeah uh for various reasons right so you have uh your rent to rent business with no assets for example right you based on for example contracts how long does your contracts run so do I contracts run for five years with the biggest developer one of the biggest developers in the UK was in your lease yeah the list the commercial lease right yeah so so the contracts agreements the corporate leases how long did it run that's one way to look at it second way to look at it who's who you who's your Lisa who's your supplier who who if you if he was if he was just a random Joe down the road the business is not that stable you can pull out you can have a person we're working with one of the biggest uh with the biggest developer mode of living they are the biggest developer one of the biggest development they have beautiful buildings luxury and we have good contracts for them good stable contracts that Chris value to sell right then your team your structure your processes how automated it is how good the system how good the leadership is so all these are factors into a sellable business because I I I could just run it and it's not going to be sellable because I have to be on it people have to call me no one has to call me now I I love to be in the bit I enjoy running because I'm only 33 years old what's the point living for me if I'm not improving something and improving your life as a customer yeah so yeah this is these are the points that create a sellable business so guys if you you know by all means you know I want people should start their own businesses that's the way you run business acronym right a lot of no you can't just you can't go buy a business but if you don't train and educate yourself and how to run a business you're gonna fail like I'm open about this right so I've educated Myself by corporate living corporate life of 95 took full two-hand advantage then I ran a business for more than five years yeah and now I'm buying businesses right but I could have still bought business five years ago but I would have to train myself in educating Mentor myself and like how do you do Post acquisition how do you lead a team of someone who's 45 years old working there for 20 years those are training so so yeah that's how you create a sale or sellable business you you put the structure and the systems in place and the team in place which creates value and you don't have to have an asset I essentially like hotels or machinery and Manufacturing yeah but yeah you can you can still like the model because you know same way you got into the Airbnb business right is you didn't obtain the asset you didn't have to put lump sum down for the property you know of 50 000 pounds deposit let's call it whatever the case is started with two thousand pounds or two thousand pounds and this is a beautiful thing about it because someone like myself or even someone younger than me who's saved up two thousand pounds could potentially do it so if you will I want a kind of like a Airbnb for dummy's guide for like how old guys so if you talk to me right now and I'll say to Adam look I want to get into Airbnb what's the first thing I'll do first thing you do you talk to everyone and you tell everyone that I am if it's rent to rent look I'm looking to rent a rent a property which will help you get guaranteed rent um at least Hassle and your life is going to be hassle free for three years like you tell everyone what you do first of all you got to create your mindset right and when you say everyone who you're saying exactly everyone okay that's the point that is the because you don't know if I speak to your mate tonight I will go for dinner with you and and I don't know he might have 10 properties but I'm just told in W Airbnb okay yeah and I helped I didn't not told anybody anymore I had landlords get better returns and stable returns with a stable company um without tenants tenants hassle so with corporate leases there's no tenants hustle you got even got the drama of uh someone messing your house of long term because it always stays in a five-star condition because look at this property like the C Rara is nice clean hotel and Hilton Marriott right so these are your selling points you want to do that yes then the second thing you want to do you want to get the leads as well not just tell people we're gonna get cold leaves you're gonna find out who's renting go on you know go on the portals go on right move going open red then you want to reach out to these people that are obviously sales there's techniques to the way to reach out because you're gonna get a lot of rejection you know a lot of rejection is going to come so you got to reach out to a lot of landlords yep whether you do guerrilla marketing whether you go knock doors whether you walk into State it's just you're going to do all of these things it's not easy if it was easy everyone will be doing it walk into doors knock as I say one knock but if you knew if you needed 100 Door was your first deal you would knock 99 doors very quickly yeah I understand yeah so knock doors it's a numbers game so you gotta you gotta go out and knock doors for agents so get your criteria you want one better two bed in London so you know wherever ilford or Wembley wherever you are say I want to do this area for this market for tourists I want this I'm gonna go break this down I'm gonna go search on open rent two bedroom apartment obviously Market rent and approaches landlord in a certain way I go into more detail when I coach my clients and stuff like how to approach how to approach challenges so the same principle applies when I'm approaching sellers for m a and buying businesses I'm doing the same thing when I'm getting challenges for getting a rent to rent okay so I mean the same challenge when I approach the developer so we only work with developers now and blocks and apartment hotels that's what we call it yeah we don't call it Airbnb anymore but it is ultimately the same model we're getting the same challenges this person is going to get or you're going to get because you haven't done Airbnb yet and you're looking to do it you're gonna get the same challenge it's the approach it's the challenges and you know giving stress selling them the benefits right so what I'm saying sell your customer the benefits of the of the service show them the value people will give it to you but you will get a lot of no's and it's who's got the most resilience who's got the most discipline and the consistency I I like to say there's a lot of time a lot of people can't at work with me and I'm going to see someone at work me I I step up my game because I'm like there's no no difference with this guy I'm unable person able human being with a good mindset how is the artworking me and then that's where I look at the people who are high performance and then I do these things in in in in in in in parallel and my discipline and my consistency and my mindset leads to your first deal yeah what would you say are the biggest unexpected costs when it comes to having a business like this so a business and rent to rent yeah yeah it's the biggest unexpected cost if you don't look at your energy bills which is the biggest thing is happening now you don't look at your end Market uh who's your end customer so you you if you don't start your game and you don't start your business backwards your Drew us engineer you've got an U.S engineer and from your end customer to getting your deal so if you have your end customer as a as a tourist flying in from Saudi Arabia to UK in London a family of three uh and if like what do you need what are their requirements what would a Saudi Arabian family want um with two kids in London yeah well two bedroom is probably gonna be a nice place luxurious place because they're quite more slightly Rich yeah most likely they only come into London because London is London is one of the best places for a lot of these people and so in a nice area clean so you start narrowing down what you're looking to do they said these are this is what you do if your first property get on their first property get your end customer could be a contractor could be Builders there's a big Market to build there's a big Market luxury Market work backwards like I work backwards so if you invite you as a taught I'm like what does Rahim want when he comes from London flies over the next day he just looks his ticket he wants ease of check-in he wants a nice place on jbr like jbr he can go get on his scooter you know yeah and you know I'm working backwards I'm like he wants nice views okay he wants a balcony you're always looking at and thinking about the end user the End customer yeah and trying to kill as much as you can to their needs exactly so and then I'm like okay there's loads of you then like those of people want the nice views and I'm like going on the hunt to get the product you go on to get the product right product you look at the economic software you understand that these numbers are going to work then you know you you go and do your sales yeah and you also do your marketing and then and then you look at your numbers and then you look at you know what's going to make me what are the cost what are the overheads what are the challenges what the risk and the risk outweigh you know um if the pros are better than the cons you know you go for it you know you can never have 100 right at all my my saying is if you're 80 confidence you know you're 80 confidence a deal go for it decision making at 50 I'm happy I'll make the decision you know 50 you know because you because you can the biggest the best leaders are they make quick decisions right doing this podcast we made a decision like like we're gonna do it yeah 100 yeah yeah and we're doing it and you know we're helping people so to make decisions I I am I saying is 50 if you're 50 right you think you're right make the decision and pull the trigger okay so tell me you mentioned that you've got to analyze everything risks and all that sort of stuff so what is a risk what is the risk in Airbnb yeah yeah what is the risk risk of airbnbs are like the clientele that I talked to end user if you're getting client tellers or if you're an avatar is uh tourists you've got to look at risk for parties people coming in just like enjoy themselves or how you protecting yourself from parties so we have like sound system monitors in every property so when you have sales of the monitor you can measure it just like having a camera but sound system yeah so these are the wrist you know can you sustain in in low season so UK Market is not so low you don't get that in London and Birmingham but you can get it in like say for example Devon or down south in Bournemouth or Southampton because the beach beach is right to this Market yeah so what you're going to do in November December in January when it's quiet have you done any numbers to check that you can sustain and have working capital a working capital does they have enough money that stays in the business for able to sustain in these times yeah for the business right yeah if you don't have the working capital and you've done your numbers wrong and you've not done the analysis right so these are the risks that have having going through low season so Dubai is very much affected by low season yeah so that's all I was going to say so when what about when you have a property empty you know a property like this I don't want to get into this one specifically because where we are right now is something that you know if I was looking at Airbnb requirements of when I come in November this is exactly what I want I want a two-bedroom by the marina a balcony all falls I've already said to you Adam save this place for me right yeah so firstly we're going to get onto you know how long ago because you get this place because this seems like it's a perfect criteria fit but secondly in the times when Dubai is quiet yeah it's a summertime where is bacon and this is empty how do you you know manage that look so we have strategies and we have plans so everything I do I plan it right so how do we manage that we will focus on midterm to long-term bookings that's how that's how we only if you look at our calendar monthly bookings we're okay that's the biggest Gap in the market so the state agents are doing 12 month contracts you need an ID here to get a tournament's contract so if you've got a market that we're targeting say uh one of my friends isn't going to ID so the only way you can rent for long term because he's an entrepreneur he works on his laptop and we're targeting a lot of these people a lot of people are coming from Russia for example a lot of people moving from England but they don't they they're entrepreneurs right uh they can work from the laptop but they haven't got an Emirates ID yeah so we're targeting we have marketing Google marketing Google ads we're just hammering this down they don't not everyone goes home uh now this is where the stable linked to my earlier this is where the stability in Dubai is now now everyone's going home now everyone is going going to be back to UK saying oh they're because they got businesses or they're making money so we have to make money right A lot of people so we're targeting that that's how we counter that risk targeting the monthly so we rent out for three months so my May June July most of the time most of them are booked up that's basically the maximum amount a tourist or someone could come in on the tourist visa pretty much yeah and then and then we have like we have discounts on it so we cover the cost like we don't make much profit in these models but we're coming on cost pays the bills and then we get into the high Seasons yeah like three times the price when you rent this in December then you're into this and yeah of course yeah I can imagine Yeah so basically you're just covering the cost not off season yeah I've got quite a few friends on property yeah some of you know as well for example Kazi now if I said to Kazi he's a developer right uh or developer in a sense of you know buyers renovates flips if I said to him I'm going to give you 100 million quid come to Dubai if I had to guess he'd probably make a big development you know and I will put them all on our rent or sell it to a company like the Mac or something like that if I gave you 100 million yeah what would you do with it in property yeah um so we would go down to potentially a development roof so find you a good plot and uh help you build that's where the biggest biggest margins are so that's one of the things we have we have a departmental partnership with with with contractors with developers so do we do that it's a very good question it doesn't by the way this doesn't just have to be in Dubai yeah this is 100 million and you could do every one of it across the world well if if you're talking property or other than property as well as you as an entrepreneur so I would split that money between property and and to help you as an investor and get your money some into into acquiring businesses so acquiring businesses which will be income generating for day one and we'll split some of the money in Dubai no not in the UK in development or buying something off plan I will spending money in that and developing a few hundred millions a lot of money right and we can we will stagger the money in different and diversify your risk so that's what I would do yeah development into Villas uh great couple of appreciation Off plan which has been done by like Mr or the Mac or or showbare split the money there and then we also split the money in you getting you into uh into acquiring businesses with us we have a group we're back by a big uh you know we're a big family office and we'll bring your money into the fund and to grow it so yeah that's what we do if you've got 100 million bring it on and uh maybe 200 million yeah well I won't I won't say 200 but we'll look at the numbers yeah and we'll diversify risk into the potential of Maximum growth look I'm doing big tick the great question here I'm doing big ticket that's what I'm playing right I've been here around five to six years in business we're looking at deals 100 million to 200 million right we've got a plot on sale in in on the palm of 195 million on the top of the Palm right just to build a villa that's 195 million Dirhams just just for the plot nineteen thousand is going for so we're doing stuff like that we're looking at partnering with people so we got this I've got these connections I've got the Partnerships um and I'm just rocketing off in if I can help people like you or investors who have this kind of money or have this kind of fun who are the greatest achievement for me and satisfaction as a person yeah what are your future goals for yourself business everything where do you see your life from about 10 20 years time I see my life 10 to 20 years a long time maybe the goal has changed but for me it's creating creating the uh the best family I can create um you know have kids um you know have a have a good girl grow with my wife uh when I have a wife right I don't have one now and you know get married and stuff type of thing and you know I have I have that family side um kind of like being an entrepreneur and growing up in this cobra where I kind of missed them and I think and stay true to my values have the character as a man and these are my goals these are really simple things that lead to your ultimate uh success yeah have have the character straight through to yourself and always maintain it so you you're never you know you will always get challenged on your character and I want to maintain my values of integrity and loyalty uh and kindness like these three things I work on regardless of how hard I guess or how good it gets a lot of people are challenged on their values when it gets good and he has got good for me I've had enough money to like not think about uh what when we're gonna go to dinners in Dubai or how much it's gonna cost right so that's when I was challenged for my values because you get is put into different circles you've never been in and you know this yourself living in Dubai can you hold your character as a man and and not gossip and all of these little things right so holding a character is the biggest thing that I'm working I want to stay true to in the next 10 years yeah um that will install that into my kids and in my family um and then in terms of business I'm looking to exit some of my group the group that I'm going to build when I Choir in 10 years at 100 Mil potentially and the biggest biggest Focus now is for us is EP real estate agriculture real estate in Dubai that we acquired we just became an associate partner with Crystal Palace in Premier League yeah thank you you see anywhere on the boards uh other things so if anyone wants to come to Crystal Palace yeah United game maybe Crystal Palace and United well you know we're bringing our investors there so my goal is to grow this brand and help new agents move from UK work with us you know make the commission that we're making help our clients move from UK come here I want to help the next leaders in luxury real estate to move to you move to Dubai and do these big deals I'm doing I'm allowing I'm creating this I want to share my well I want to share my money and if I'm doing 40 million deal I want you to do one as well and I will train you that's why it's honestly I'm so passionate about this and like it makes me happy going to the office on Monday that someone else is sharing my my commission as an agent so I want people to join my team and become a luxury real estate agent and then I want to serve uh some of some of these investors to get the best Capital Bridges I want to grow this brand to the best brand in Dubai and the best luxurious day company and with the most Integrity in Dubai yes yes and I'm gonna end it like this the only reason I'm gonna edit is because we're running out of light and I feel like we could speak a lot longer you know yeah um but if you had to give some pieces of advice to the to the youngers watching I say youngers because I feel like youngers are going to be the ones who are looking at yourself as an inspirational right yeah what would you say to them what would you advise them so my advice is I'll keep it short discipline consistency and resilience so what these words mean turn up on time turn up turn up every day turn up to the gym turn up to your business do something what you said you're going to do and take the risk take the risk guys the worst is going to happen you're going to lose some money that's always going to happen if you're you got the integrity and you got this you you build your skill you don't need to know everything you know I didn't I didn't born with real estate skills I didn't born with raising Finance skill I've been born with buying business I put myself and it took the risk basically I took the Rhythm leave my job take the risk guys take the risk but educate yourself and calculate the risk and have discipline and consistency you will be the best version of yourself that you ever wanted to be yes yes Adam I want to thank you a lot for coming on the podcast and we'll definitely be going out to eat or something off thank you and so everyone wants to find you where can they do so so on my Instagram handle Adam R triple seven Facebook Adam Runner um and Linkedin as well Adam Rana Rana so yeah give us a follow I post a lot of educational stuff I post daily I post my daily life how I got here what I do yeah what my routines are so I post a live so people give us a follow and if I can help people can DM me whether they want to join as an agent or they want to invest and I will put you in touch with my team or I will help you and if anyone's coming to Dubai happy to connect with them as well yes so yes I mean if there's any questions that I didn't ask on behalf of you guys yeah I will answer every single question put them on on the bottom of the comments yeah so what you do if you've got a question put it on the comments in the video below and Adam will reply to you directly and you can get your answer yeah other than that I hope you all enjoyed the podcast if you haven't subscribed make sure you subscribe like the video share to everyone you may know and if you want to get an Airbnb business make sure you give Adam a shout thank you yeah peace lovely thanks bro really good no that was a solid podcast [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: CEOCAST

Views: 29,754

Keywords: I Left My $100k/year Job To Start a $5 Million Airbnb Business, Adam rana, airbnb business model, how to make money from airbnb, the truth about airbnb, ceocast, ceo podcast, making money on airbnb, how to scale your service accomidation business, serviced accommodation, international business, why I left my job, the truth revealed, quitting 9-5 job, starting and growing a brand in 2023, mr ceo, entrepreneur story, entrepreneur shares knowledge, successful entrepreneurs uk

Id: xm8cuXI-Bio

Length: 84min 58sec (5098 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 17 2023