How to launch a startup in your 20s. Business in Dubai.

hi guys here watchin oxy locks and today I'm gonna meet with the Dubai interpreter he is only 22 years old and he has his own startup in the CEO and co-founder of let's work so let's go to meet him [Music] hi Omar I'm so happy to meet you are you like what you are doing I personally use your services so and I'm sure that many people haven't heard about you you're quite a new startup in device so can you introduce yourself so I'm Omar Harry I'm the co-founder of let's work let's work is a platform for co-working spaces around the by it's a new concept where we partner with hotels and restaurants and we use them during their off-peak hours to open them up for freelancers consultants startups some corporates to just as a place for them to work connect with people and have the flexibility to move around the city and I know you are only 22 years old 23 I need to hurry so you're almost like friend graduate yeah I graduated last year from University in Boston I studied Electrical Engineering so this is nothing to do with my major but I've always I've always had a passion to start a business of my own ok we see and how everything started so came up with an idea between me and Hamza my co-founder we we actually just wanted to find a place to start coming up with a new business plan so we looked at the different options where we had co-working spaces we maybe like an office or just the usual like working in some some coffee shops nothing really fit what we needed and even even the ones that fit our vibe was maybe a bit too pricey every day we're ordering like two coffees or water come out to 5060 terms and it's just like why am I paying for this when the whole place is empty yeah so then we came with the idea where there's such an oversaturated market of restaurants in the UAE with at the amount of freelancers the amount of people that want to start businesses and the amount of people with offices outside of Dubai where it divides the hub for businesses so we saw a few people working around us and we came up with the idea let's connect two of them the oversaturation of mark restaurants in Dubai and the expense that it's needed just to work somewhere when work is conducted from your laptop anyways exactly every yeah so even even like some co-working spaces they charge a lot of money but you have to understand they're doing this to cover their their rent mhm and rent into bison is naturally high for for commercial places so we thought let's use this dead space where the restaurants are not seeing as much footfall as they want so we can convert it into something else I wrote yesterday that let's work as a part of a twenty five finishes you exactly yes so what is it about and how did you become a part of it so the e25 is an initiative envisioned by Mohammed Al Abbar which is the chairman of AMR properties so what he wanted to do is to bring people under the age of twenty five to come up with different startups that have core competencies within M R so for example one of them was looking to co-working spaces we're looking to this this new nutriment a new concept new trend that that hasn't really hit the market properly here in the UAE so we did a few feasibility studies and this is how we came up with the model release we saw that there are a lot of a lot of like hotels that are just going empty during the day when they can be utilized and there are beautiful spaces and there are people that work from them so we wanted to just kind of get the people out of the the coffee shops I got our comments and any brand names but the usual coffee shops that they don't even want you to be sitting there all day they'd rather people to come and have a coffee and leave good the coffee shops in the hotels are usually like quite expensive so if you go to Starbucks it's like these artists yeah Hotel it can be certified for you exactly but no but we so our locations specifically we choose them based on if they work or if you can actually work there so we go through a long process of choosing which location which one doesn't and on top of that we we choose places that are fixed to to actually want to be a part of this this platform so we're not going to choose the very high end restaurants no no we're not interested in this for example the hotel we're in right now the roof they love it they lay they love the concept and they're very helpful to us they're always always coming up with new concepts new ideas that that could work and help us we do all our events here so it's it's finding that good relationship with the partner as well that helps don't what else is the new concept in Dubai as well yeah as a hotel yeah Rafa tells us great nights it's needed in the region their target audience are mostly young people young generation yeah in caps it's very trendy the decor you can see yeah it's a it's a no thrills hotel which is just just what you need and it's not that expensive exactly for them yeah it's it's massive value for the money even some of our members who don't know the Roper tells as soon as they come in here they think like Oh what I didn't even know this existed in Dubai yeah and how many people do have in YouTube at the moment so it's just me Hamza and we just hired an intern who's helping us out with we say sales a marketing but then I start up you do everything so she's like a third person is more than more than what we need we agree worse I don't want to say we were struggling but we were definitely stretched a bit thin because when we were managing 14 locations and we've had quite an influx of people signing up so it's a bit hard to manage even we don't have a customers support line so all the calls like on my way here today I think I had four calls that people ask and I call how can I sign up yes so that you mention your number in the email this houses numbers in the yeah I mean it's it's a burden at the same time that we don't have someone just answering the phones but on the other end of it people like hearing like oh this oh you're actually the co-founder that's great and then they kind of buy into you not just the business yeah they like you you're the co-founder story and the concept behind that so we I don't know how we're gonna let go of that but we hope that our voices remain in the business as well yeah and how do you split your responsibilities this comes up so it's interesting in the beginning obviously we were doing everything and even now I can still do what what he doesn't know I do I'm because I'm more engineering based so I handle the the platform so we have a platform that allows people to sign and sign out so I handle that I do the design for the website so I built the website to I do the operations so if anything goes wrong in one of the locations I'm there to fix it Hamzah does the legal work so he's a lawyer he's ex lawyer from East he was working in a company here in the UAE out also in London but he quit his job to do startup he was also very young cried he's he's been he's 25 yeah but he's same as me he's very ambitious to start his own business and on top of that he's very good at I don't know if you see a social media but he handles all of that I do the design sometimes but he handles all the social media and people love our Instagram mm-hmm it's very interactive it's more posts like the stories our posts are very funny he's always making fun of me in the post and people I I get to love to love to engage with it he always always tries to get our voice in the page so how is it difficult to start the business in Dubai when you are young can you know just graduated from the University I mean firstly I had I've always had a passion to start a business of my own I've had different projects when I was in university which kind of could have led to being a business but I never because my studies obviously kept me away from actually starting something I think it's not - it's you come up with an idea a lot of people have that station and they don't go further because they like always all the complications of licenses and everything but you have to understand there's a lot of services and there's a lot of different co-working spaces with accelerator programs that can actually help you get funding a lot of the universities here the UAE is China become a startup hub of people starting their own businesses so it's not that hard I think the only challenge we face is the licensing mm-hmm it's a bit too pricy it's sometimes it's complicated but like I said these services actually can help you so actually if you have a great idea you can find a investor for that yeah yeah there's always this so many investors here I mean the step conference in March is perfect example of that there's a lot of cool ideas there that we saw and there's a lot of people that want to invest in businesses here because it's I like to call as the slowly growing giant it's it's it's becoming very palpable coming very popular in a lot of big companies are coming out of it like we see Kareem see noon we see Petra these companies are becoming huge and they grew from here as well so actually about you need to start your business and then look for an investor or you can even have just an idea and pitch it to invest both both so if you if you're lucky enough to be able to fund your own idea I like to tell people just keep it very simple and very minimal people like to do like I'm paying twenty thousand ohms for websites it doesn't make sense validate the concept first see if people work mm-hmm so I give you an example of what we did as that let's work we started in one location and we gathered 20 people mm-hmm we asked them we asked we managed I find like a focus group yeah just a focus group we they were already working around and I found some people in coffee shops and I told them sit here pay for a monthly membership and work and it worked out great they loved the concept and they were my first and some of them are still with us today they were the first people that actually believed in the concept is like no this is this is what the region needs mm-hmm and even without the multiple locations it was just one and people liked it and I have so many subscribers they don't live in the week but they have some great ideas so they think and can they find an investor here if they come yeah I think you have to understand different markets in different places so an idea abroad might not work as well here yeah you need to norm I need some time I think come I think if they can come validate it and get some get some feedback on it attendees work networking there's so many entrepreneur networking places and events and stuff get an idea of is it feasible does it make sense and then start looking for an investor if you need it mm-hmm how many of you like locations do have at the moment 14 as of now 14 we were planning to extend to 20 hopefully mm-hmm by the end of this year I think if we go further than that it might might stretch it too thin but obviously the more the merrier we're just trying to because what we see when we open a location we get a community certain like even here in Marina we hit the marina area work everyone a lot of freelancers a lot of startups live in Marina yeah so this was perfect and even we have two locations here one in Peter 3:7 and this one yeah and what are your favorite places I can't say that I mean everywhere everywhere everywhere has its niche so the role hotels people love it it's it's very metal and you know it's it's it's the I'd say built for working in my opinion it's perfect but then you have the other places like parlor boutique district that's no that's in the trade center so part of the teak is very French very a lot of light and it's very minimalist which is kind of my style so I like that too d3 is very fun it like just walking around there's this it's very it's like funky that keep they say you're not you're not in Dubai anymore in v3 and the restaurant there molecule is perfect the food is amazing I like I like being outdoors so when in the winter a lot of the different places you'll see will start to promote them because when we first started we started in February so the weather was okay so we used to sit outside so pr7 is beautiful the scene you can actually see outside yeah and you can sit outside we had we used to have one day where we have all my meetings just out there on the table and people loved it it was different it was like a breath of fresh air [Music] so how did you meet with your partner co-founder Hamza so we were in the e25 program mm-hmm which is a initiative to bring back has to bring innovation together and come up with different startups we just synergized well I think I think that the co-founder relationship needs to be not you can't have the similar similar skill set I think you need opposing everyone knows each other yeah in the sense that he's very he's very detail-oriented easy he's very concise with what he looks at I think that's from his lawyer background where he looks into everything whereas I'm very I'm a lot more laid-back no creative person I did not know we're both creative but I think he's very like know this this needs to be this this is to do this where I'm just like not this it doesn't matter but sometimes it does so I think finding that relationship with someone where it's it's your very opposing characters she's more micromanagement here maybe maybe yeah I'd say yeah maybe micromanagement I'm so sorry to see this I'm more tech oriented to operation silence no he's more sales and marketing how do we push it to the next level but at the same time we have the same vision in the same which is very important so we we know what let's work is gonna look like a woman ain't got the same day on yeah just that's that's the most important thing we know where it's gonna be in a month we know it's where it's gonna be in three months we know where we want to be in three months because the thing with startups is you reach a point with just putting out fires every day that is since its operations every day so you need to find like how is this useful to me what am i learning and it's good to reflect on that too so we might we tend to do that all the time like are we in a good state this is good what we're doing is this helping me as a person just helping you are you growing in your career so obviously this is my first official job coming out of university so it is scary I mean I studied engineering for five years but I'm not doing anything to do with engineering necessarily mm-hmm so it's like did I waste my degree or am i doing something different but you know how to create the website yeah yeah you don't build the plot exactly I say you learn that oh yeah there's a lot of fun there's a lot of skills you you use without realizing it but I think you have your whole life to work mm-hmm something should do it you should overtake it yeah yeah just move forward just watch you heroes yeah and what are your plans for one at least till then till this year yeah there's a lot we have in mind we have we have an app that we're developing right now it's a lot of work but we're designing it it will change it will change a lot of things we've taken a lot of feedback obviously we work from our spaces so we like this heat to our customers our members the community we like to speak to them and from that we get we get like different everyone's trying to help everyone so they tell us that well you should do this you should do this I don't like this I really like this so we're just trying to build something together we had the MVP which is this just this simple sign in sign out we wanted to keep it as simple as possible and hopefully we're all something out very soon I can't really say what the app is only keep it as a surprise but once it's there it will change a lot do you have any competitors like Simula small services yeah I mean it's device you don't need to tell yeah I mean it's the boy trying to compete to them like you're thinking about some of your services how am I trying to compete with my competitors I mean we were the first ones to do this in the region so I don't see any I see I don't want to say copycats but I it's a free market it's a concept that's that's well known around the world it's new so once people saw what we were doing people wanted to copy us too which is fine I think the more the merrier it allows the concept to be understood more how can we get the one-up from them I think it's still the same thing going back to the Instagram it's it's hands and eyes voice it's it's it's connect yeah how do we connect with uh how much do we care about this and how much do we give in to our members I mean even I have that we've had the we heard some ridiculous requests like people calling like I've had people ask me like how do I set up a business I have no idea but I've heard enough data to help them out and I have enough connections from the community to help people up so it's just like how much effort you want to put in I could have easily said like no sorry we're co-working space but no which we try to push as much as we can and people have people always have event ideas and stuff and we love to we love to hear about that even within our community so for example I know a few graphic designers I know a few freelance photographers so whenever someone actually asks me whether I'm inside doing my work or outside I'll always try to recommend someone that I know because we have that huge pool of different out of diverse professions mm-hm and we need to make use of that a bit more which is might be what the app is about but yeah I think that's that's that's pretty much it that's that's our edge in order to get a freelance license do you need to present your like business plan or marketing plan idea I think I'm not really sure on that but no I don't think because if you're a freelancer you is essentially the Agra graphic designer or web designer your service base so I don't think our events planning for example hmm I don't think you need a business plan I think you just need valid credentials valid documents and then you apply for it okay you guys studying abroad did you think to move to another country don't come back today we I mean you use my home but I I wanted to I worked in in Delhi MC in Boston from a couple of months I was a global supply chain hardware tester so call was a experience in the corporate structure yeah I mean it was a lot of fun just applying all the stuff I learned mm-hmm which was it was interesting I like the person I was dealing with like big machinery I was in a lab all day corporate though is very if I could if I have to compare the lifestyle corporate was very like okay I come in at 9:00 I look at the clock is on at 5:00 but then sometimes we stay later obviously then I go home mm-hmm and I when I'm home that's it startup lifestyle it's the weekend it's after I come home from work it's you meet much more thinking you meet a lot more people my network now has grown massively compared to when I was in a corporate life as well as that no one's no one's on your back I think one thing started just need to do is self motivate yeah this is the hardest thing that's the hardest thing is is actually like why am I doing this like no one's no one's gonna if I don't wake up this morning I go to work who's gonna say anything to you let's work offers like three different packages yeah at the moment what is the difference so the daily we just we took a normal day in a coffee shop how you'd end up spending like 50 dirhams so we thought from two perspectives one if someone's already in our vocation without knowing about let's work and they come they're planning on working the Rope is a perfect example but we give them the value for their money by giving them 39 Durham's mm-hmm they get the unlimited tea coffee and water 20% discount off the food and they get our we have our own Wi-Fi network which is faster it's perfect it's perfect it's a people at the Daly is one of our most popular obviously because people want to try it out and then we have the weekly which is actually one member when we first started told us this when they're like I work outside the country but I'm here seven days a week so we're like okay perfect let's have a flexi option for people to have just seven signings throughout the month which is I think more than enough and it's still like very very valuable for your money two hundred and nine domes mm-hmm so with that you can sign into any seven locations and if you have 31 days to redeem it and you can do with it what you want does it include any extra services no it's the same as the daily just a bit yeah a bit cheaper and then I think the most part the best value for the money is the the monthly obviously it's 419 freelancers yeah freelancers for even we've have we have a lot of people that actually have offices of their own but they come work in our spaces so that was the why we thought of that it's it's priced at one coffee a day so you're gonna work every day it comes out to like 20 times a day and that one has a few more benefits where it's the same unlimited tea coffee in water and 20 percent discount off the food on top of that you get a you buy MRIs over to your card which is the loyalty program run by mr so that gets you discounts and mr outlets mr outlets right the restaurants the some of the kids amy and all that stuff and then on top of that you get meeting room usage so these beautiful meeting rooms you get two hours of them and all let's work members get the preferential rates for meeting rooms that we've negotiated through the hotels but the cool thing about the meeting rooms is it's not just like a private meeting room for yourself we've had people do events with the two hours we've had people do workshops and then they add an hour even they come to us and they say can we do a cold branded event or like a perfect what have you guys done that's really cheap right so what's three advices you can give to their young generation to start their own business I think the first one don't overthink it mm-hmm don't think of every possible scenario possible number one to elaborate on that don't so we've had so many assumptions before we even launched which don't make any sense right now because a thousand came up after number two I think I always say keep it simple we're very with a very simple business we're not it's not complicated for people to to wrap their tongue it's a word understand exactly there's no much there's no layers to it it's just very sign up sign and very clear exactly up number three try not to do alone find someone that can help you with it because startup life is lonely sometimes you need support you need support you need someone there to actually help you whether it's a co-founder whether it's a mentor find someone to give you a second perspective for you every day and push your everyday exactly yeah you need someone to motivate you and also you might think in a certain way but you have to think from the customers perspective mm-hmm so I might think all this is gonna be perfect but and I'm gonna end up spending a lot of money on it and then the customers like no actually I actually don't want that so have someone to bring a second perspective have someone to motivate you so guys this was one of the Dubai success stories I hope you find it inspiring thank you for watching and I will see you in the next video bye bye

Channel: Oksy Vlogs

Views: 16,827

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Keywords: Oksy Dubai Vlogs, oksy dubai vlogs, oksy vlogs, oksyvlogs, dubai, UAE, Dubai vlog, travel, fun, Dubai life, jobs in dubai, dubai mall, united arab emirates, middle east, things to do in dubai, moving to dubai, moving abroad, living abroad, business in dubai, launch a startup, how to setup a business in dubai

Id: 1aYD4rPvbFc

Length: 24min 46sec (1486 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 09 2018