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When Iman Suguitan saw potential threats to her marketing job during the 2008-09 financial crisis, she began planning her business.
Ten years after the recession, the Filipino entrepreneur “hibernated” her now successful high-end hotel supplies company Ahsant amid the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic on the hospitality industry.
I’m repurposing everything I’ve learned as an entrepreneur so that I can. Take advantage of current market needs.
However, Ms. Sujitan did not despair, she discovered a new opportunity and embarked on another adventure. The new Nuqt Idea House, which opens next week, not only retains employees in Dubai International City, but also draws lessons from previous global economic downturns and can help other small and medium-sized enterprises to operate in the context of the epidemic.
“I’m like a crisis survivor,” said Ms. Sujitan, also a first-time mother to an eight-month-old.
Hana Barakat, interim director at startAD, an Abu Dhabi-based global accelerator that works with seed-stage technology startups, said Covid-19 has had a complex impact on the region’s startup ecosystem.
She cited a recent study by Wamda and Arabnet, which found that approximately 70% of MENA startups were negatively impacted by the crisis, including pressure on revenue, funding rounds and cash reserves.
But Ms Barakat said the potential for entrepreneurs to embrace the market was there, with 18 per cent of respondents saying they had felt a positive impact, particularly in e-commerce and health technology.
She added: “Against the backdrop of the global recession, there are excellent opportunities to launch and grow your new venture in direct response to current market needs.”
Ms. Sujitan has experience launching businesses during financial downturns. She was senior cosmetics and children’s clothing marketing executive for a local holding company when the global financial crisis hit in 2008-09.
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“Every week someone was fired and you were waiting on the guillotine,” Ms. Sujitan, 41, recalled.
After taking an entrepreneurship course, she convinced her boss that she could perform her duties part-time, thereby reducing the value of the redundancy while retaining some salary.
Armed with time and cash to market research, source, design and grow the product line, she launched Ahsant (an Arabic word meaning “well done”) and quit her full-time role six months later, in 2010. She made Emaar her CEO. The first clients and business snowballed, including Four Seasons, Address Hotel, Dubai Opera and more.
Ms. Sujitan is confident that Dubai’s hotel industry will rebound, but while cutting costs, she will look for smaller companies with lower overheads and prices.
“I started on my own, doing sales, marketing, creating the website, accounting, everything from my apartment, but people need to know when they’re building a startup… don’t look too small,” she said.
“If you’re a new brand, you want to be memorable, stand out, and look professional; all your collateral should be there and have beautiful branding. You only get one chance to make a first impression, so leave a good one impression.”
This independent structure, fueled by savings and loans from friends, allows her to operate lean and grow organically without the need for long-term debt.
However, with movement restrictions due to Covid-19 all but shutting down the hospitality industry for three months, Ms Suguitan had “no choice” but to suspend Ahsant’s operations and find ways to keep her staff afloat.
That’s why she’s turning their skills to a new idea-to-market agency – Nuqt Idea House.
“When the lockdown started, we started working on collateral full-time, so we were ready to launch on June 28,” she said.
“I have the same designers, logistics and administrative staff…Everything I learned as an entrepreneur I’m redirecting, so I’m still leveraging those resources and taking advantage of what the market needs now.”
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Nuqt (Arabic for “dot”) is designed to provide direction and help companies “solve pain points…connect the dots,” Ms. Suguitan said.
“No one is prepared for a crisis like this, but I’ve been through it; I’m sure there are people who think the same thing as me. It took me years to learn certain things, but if I can pass on that knowledge while retaining My staff…this idea really excites me.”
Annabel Demana also thought about conservation when the government directed the temporary closure of shopping malls – which reduced her job doing retail purchasing for the discount store brand.
“Companies had to stop purchasing activities because their inventory wasn’t selling as fast as before,” the former accountant said.
“This has adversely affected my income and it doesn’t look like things will get better in the coming months and it’s not possible to find work elsewhere.”
With time on her hands and rent to pay on the Palm Jumeirah, Ms. Demana, 26, drew on her entrepreneurial experience as a student in her native Philippines and was inspired by the crisis that hit her income to start an electronics business. business enterprise.
After discovering that everyday items such as keys, credit cards and headphones contained high levels of bacteria, Ms Demana purchased a device that uses UV-C light – much like the sterilization methods used in hospitals and laboratories – to sterilize items including mobile phones. Disinfect household items.
She founded UVLicht Sanitizer in early May to market the system, which was already popular in the United States.
“I tried to find a product that was timely and practical,” she said.
“With the support of my current company, I obtained the NOC and registered the company. In two months, the product will be available in many online and offline retail stores such as SharafDG and Sprii.”
Of course, the launch has not been without its challenges, not least because imports from China during global lockdowns faced “extremely expensive” shipping costs in addition to extended delivery times.
“We had to find a shipping company with lower charges so that it would not increase the cost of our products and cause us no profit,” Ms. Demana said.
Supported by savings and financial aid from family and friends, she also took advantage of local measures to reduce set-up costs, which “seemed too risky, especially for new startups” amid the current uncertainty.
“Government agencies are trying to help small businesses during this time,” she said. “More relaxed payment structures are offered, such as monthly installments, certain fees are waived and online company registration is possible.”
As well as selling directly online, as life begins to normalize, Ms Demana also plans to sell through large retail brands who “can leverage their experience and customer base to better market their products” as she prepares to return to Work for an employer.
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StartAD said it has taken a “multi-pronged” approach to providing pandemic-era assistance to new startups, including working with partners VentureSouq and Scalable CFO, taking advice and mentoring programs online, and creating a relief fund. It also launched #LengthenTheRunway, a community fundraising campaign that encourages pledges of goods and services for new startups.
Regarding new startups now worried about setting up, Ms. Barakat cited a series of measures taken by the UAE government and financial institutions to fund struggling startups, including the Dubai International Financial Center, Abu Dhabi Global Market, Kizad Oasis authorities such as Dubai Silicon and others have introduced fee waivers and office rental holidays.
Banks are also helping SMEs solve their debt problems by offering loan repayment holidays and reducing fees. Meanwhile, investment firms and accelerators such as Hub71, AstroLabs, Beco Capital and Payfort offer potential funding, and business coaching providers Bessern and The Co-Dubai offer free courses to those in need.
“Currently, the future of new ventures is highly dependent on industry, but now as always; if entrepreneurs can deliver products or services to markets that need them, they will have a strong business foundation,” Ms. Barakat said.
“The world has adapted to new ways of living, working and interacting, so startups have the opportunity to provide innovative solutions for individuals and businesses during this time.”
She advises would-be startup founders to talk to as many people as possible because “understanding people’s lives and needs is a key part of what defines a great entrepreneur. It’s through this process of customer discovery that you can design, manufacture and Selling products is truly life-changing for them”.
Ahsant’s Ms. Suguitan agrees. If someone wants to start a business now, she said, they just need to “listen to what the market wants.”
“There are people who still have money and want to do business…it’s up to entrepreneurs to grab them,” she added.
“Sometimes you ask, ‘Why do I do this?’ … and then, you realize, ‘Because I love doing this.'”
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