Dubai Expats: A serial entrepreneur from Saudi Arabia who helps transform lives.

So the moment my life changed is the moment I decided to stop being a card and become a player. One day I was in a meeting and that meeting was taking too long with the client and I decided I don't want to be in this business anymore. These people were coming to me for things that I was not selling. A lot of people live their lifestyle based on what income they have or what business they're in. For me I wanted to design a lifestyle and then find a business that will support it. Hey guys welcome to OxyVlogs. Today I'm gonna interview an entrepreneur who was running a successful business. He was making millions. He was being invited to speak internationally but it didn't make him happy. He didn't feel fulfilled. So today he helps people around the world to transform their lives and realize their dreams. What did you do before you came to Dubai and why did you decide to come here? So I come from a technology background. Personally I'm a systems analyst and a systems engineer. I worked for multinational companies and in different countries around the world. After that I opened my own technology company based out of Jeddah and was serving mainly Saudi as well as the Gulf area and this IT business is very hectic. There's a lot of project meetings, business trips, contracts, tendering and I just one day I was in a meeting and that meeting was taking too long with the client and I decided I don't want to be in this business anymore. So I later informed my partners and actually stepped down from that company. And to be honest I was planning my early retirement and I looked at three different places and Dubai was one of the finalists and I did actually go and visit those places to see which would be an easy place to land and set up a small business out of and Dubai actually won of course. What did happen next? I didn't want to get more involved anymore into meetings, into bidding processes, business travel, extended conferences. I had enough like I think after 15 years or so in that business I had enough. So I wanted to move to a business that is more fulfilling that it will support my lifestyle and not the other way around. A lot of people live their lifestyle based on what income they have or what business they're in. For me I wanted to design a lifestyle and then find a business that will support it. So I designed my lifestyle that okay I would like to have dinner with my family at least five times a week. I would like to work between maximum eight hours a day. I would like to enjoy lunch at least twice a week. So I set up that kind of lifestyle and then I took some time off to think. And one of the things that kept popping up while I was designing my next tech company is people were coming to me for things that I was not selling. They were coming to me for things to do with career, things to do with the starting of a business, things to do with relationships. I know it helped them and then what I noticed and I think this was the point when I moved to Dubai people will actually take a ticket, will book a hotel for two nights to come and see me. I said wait a minute if people are paying tickets and hotels to come and see me then I must have something that is very valuable to them. So I said let me start by charging them to come and see me and people did pay and I was booked two months down the road. So then I realized and I was trying to figure out what do people come to me for and they come to me for clarity and action. So I said okay clarity in what? So it's clarity in their life and then actually in what? Actually in one of four areas either career, relationship, money or business. So I said okay what if I can structure what they're asking for and make it available to more people. So I stopped taking on appointments and I went back to all my notes and all my recordings to see what questions were people asking and what kind of answer I was giving and I noticed I was giving almost the exact same answer every time and that answer was working. So I said fine how can I structure that answer in a way where people can just do it by themselves and after a few iterations one of the things that came up was visuals. What if I use visuals? Because symbols and visuals are an international language. People will understand visuals from the time they're four years old okay. People will understand the visual if they're traveling without even knowing how to read the sign. So I used visuals to help people discover what they want in life, what's holding them back, what steps they would like to take or they need to take to move forward as well how they can create an environment around them to enable them to achieve their goals. And I packaged all that into different products. Our flagship product is called V-Sol. V-Sol is short for visualizing the invisible soul and I call them transformational journeys that would help people to transform and shift from one life track to a new life track using the different tools that I have created over the years. Some of those tools are physical that come in a box made of puzzle pieces and some of those tools are actually electronic available online through an online academy. Was it easy to set up a business in Dubai? Setting up the business in Dubai was quite straightforward and easy. First I went through like the different legal firms to understand the different structures and I did actually go and visit the different free zones and the different economic departments to understand what kind of license they have. Now surprisingly and I was overwhelmed at that time and I'm sure now there's more there was 80 different types of licenses that you can actually operate and they cost anywhere from let's say seven thousand ten thousand all the way to half a million. So that was quite overwhelming until one day I decided to go and visit Dubai SME. Dubai SME is part of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid foundation for small and medium-sized businesses and I presented my case I said look this is the kind of business I would like to do so what kind of business license do you recommend? Now they mostly serve locals however being a GCC national they actually extended to me the same benefits that they will give to locals. So I was able to get something called an out-of-home business license that it's offered and the license well there was no license fees at all however there was some sort of like typing fees and printing fees so the whole thing cost me per year 1600 dirhams more or less and that goes on for a year and then every year you have to qualify for the renewal but it has a maximum I think if there's a maximum of three years then you need to move to a different license topic. Where are you allowed to operate with this license? So this kind of license it gives you the to operate legally out of a house within the mainland so it doesn't work in any free zones or the freehold areas you can open a bank account and once you have the bank account then you can also set up all the online payment gateways and all that so it will allow you to operate legally if it's a one person then if you want to upgrade and have visas then yes with the similar license you can upgrade and I think it goes five thousand seven thousand and ten thousand depending on the number of visas that you require. Can you sell your products online? Yes you can sell online and setting up online business is simple and the way having all the different payment gateways actually based out of Dubai internet city so there's a qualification procedure they just need to make sure that you are a real business and you operate from a real place and you have all your accounting and legal documents and banking in place so the qualification will take anywhere between a month to four months but once yeah it takes quite a long time actually to be qualified for an online business but once you have it then you're open to the world you can sell all over the world. What challenges did you face with running a business in Dubai? So some of the challenges to operate out of Dubai people need to be aware of that it's a seasonal business or a seasonal cycle there's let's call it the conference season which starts somewhere in October November and ends in in April this is where most of the things happening in Dubai and almost everyone is here and then there's the very slow season which is our the summer season honestly which is mainly I would say July and August so if you're planning a business and planning meetings planning tenders planning proposals be careful of those two months because it will be very difficult to have meetings and if you're selling to consumers or people who in Dubai then this will be a very slow period for you so my recommendation since it's a seasonal business plan your business cycle and your vacations and your employee leaves during the low season and then make sure everybody's here during the high season so this is quite a challenge because you will actually have you could have easily two months without a single dirham coming into the bank account and this is happening across the board not just in my business line and I've seen it happening in a lot of other businesses so the the remedy for that is just make sure you're you design your downtime during the downtime of the cycle itself. What do you dislike about living in Dubai? It's the different fees that are coming around and popping almost every month and I think those fees yes they're small 20 dirhams here 60 dirhams there 1000 dirhams here but then when you put them all together at the end of the year it's actually it's a lot of money and for small businesses or companies who are just landing it does add up so so I would recommend is that yes let's look at fees but maybe have a gradual introduction to those fees and maybe some fees just need to go ahead and cancel them all altogether yes we're not asking to give us everything for free but however be considerate for the people who just landed or the startups the small startups or the freelancers they are different than big corporations who can afford those fees and for them it's nothing. If you had to start over again what would you do differently? So the way I would do it differently is to look for a co-founder if you want to call it a partner early on because having finding investors or finding financing is relatively easy in Dubai and finding talent is is very easy actually it's one of the reasons why I'm growing businesses here however finding a co-founder or a partner it's quite difficult and I think the reason for that is because people are here for a certain vision that they have for themselves and it could be difficult for them to to join somebody else's vision. What does your daily life look like? I was asked just the last weekend by one of my clients are you living your perfect day and I actually smiled and I said yes and that for the last two days I've been thinking about the answer that I answered was I true with myself was I true to him or was I just sugarcoating things and the answer is yes I'm actually living a day that I've designed to myself long time ago so I woke up very early in the morning 5 5 30 most of the time without an alarm and then wake up the kids around six o'clock and get them ready for school and then the school bus will come and and then from 6 30 until 7 this is mostly my time I go for a walk have some coffee and plan my day and one of the important things that I do at that time is I look around I look at the beauty I look at the greenery the water the birds and just thank God for this amazing place that I'm in I try to be at the office anytime between 7 30 to 8 30 and then I have a block until lunchtime where mostly I work on design work that require the having a full state of mental presence so no calls no emails no client meetings nothing it's just this time is for design and intellectual work after lunch I have the client meetings and sometimes there will be like three to four per day and this is where I review with the clients who are in private journeys because I do have different types of journeys some of them are private some of them are group-based and some of them are self-driven so for the ones that are within the private journeys we just have the weekly checkup where I check with them on the progress and then give them the next piece of the puzzle for them to solve I try to be home anytime between five to six sit with the kids and see what's going on and later on when also my wife comes from work we all sit for dinner our dinner is fixed it's at seven every day and whoever is late they miss it and after dinner just see like if there's anything to do with schools or homeworks or any plans that we need to plan for the weekend sometimes if I'm just tired I stay home if still have energy like last night we'll go for a walk and have some tea me and my wife somewhere in one of the cafes and what I do before sleep and I think this is quite interesting and it did shape a lot of things that where I am today is I read or watch or listen for an hour for that something scientific and I'm talking about biology physics astrophysics all these things that I don't understand what they are because I'm not an engineer I'm not a scientist but believe it or not a lot of things that I do today in business somehow were inspired by reading or watching or listening to something scientific until I fall asleep people often work long hours in Dubai how to create a balanced lifestyle I see a lot of people in the way that are stressed out and even burnt out sometimes in my opinion they have brought this to themselves yes it's a hectic lifestyle there's a high competition in the corporate world in the real estate world it's all high competition working longer hours and being stressed about it is not going to let the problem go away so in my opinion wherever you work it doesn't matter if you're working as a cashier or as a salesperson or as an executive make sure that you understand what is the job you're doing and you give it that much of attention a little bit more of course but not giving it your soul because once you give it your soul and all your attention all your time then actually you just became a card in a bigger game and once you become a card in a bigger game this is the moment that you lose your life I was in that position a long time ago where I was a card in a bigger game making sure the first one in the office making sure the last one leaving the office making sure working weekends making sure to always checking my emails and responding to my messages but for what honestly so in my opinion do you want to do you want to burn yourself out and consume all the energy for a job and not enjoy your life or you want to live a life and then use that job to finance it it's not the same thing it's completely two different things I know people who move to Dubai and until now their furniture is unpacked okay because just come back and they're very tired uh they're overwhelmed no time in the weekend either they're working or they're just sleeping all the time why this is not life uh if you want to come to Dubai you can have a balance if you know how to navigate and make sure that you only you don't give more and you don't give your soul yes it's required to go the extra mile but it's just one mile not a thousand miles further if your friend was planning to move to Dubai what is the minimum budget would you advise him to have so I get people asking me on social media as well when they visit we would like to move to Dubai what's what's your advice how much will it cost so believe it or not being me a structured person actually I did create the formulas so here's the numbers okay here's the numbers so if you're coming on your own okay so there's like no family involved no kids no spouse you would need a minimum of 8 000 dirhams per month to be able to to maintain a very good decent life okay of course you will have to economize and be be on a budget but 8 000 believe it or not is enough and you could live in a nice place okay now the next bracket will be 13 000 dirhams per month if you have 13 000 dirhams per month then you can actually live in a very nice area in a studio or even a one-bedroom apartment on your own and enjoy let's say the weekends as well where you can go out and spend some money around so 88 is the minimum and then 13 is is a very comfortable area and now once family is involved meaning spouse kids and all that then there's a formula for that then just add 6 000 per person per month for you to live a comfortable life now I know there's a lot of families living on much less than that but then of course they're they're living a very very tight life I'm saying if you want to live comfortable meaning that will have the normal car go out on weekends put kids in in very nice schools and live in a nice neighborhood then it's 13 for the main let's say household the person and then 6 000 per person per month how much do schools cost in Dubai I just came from school this morning you want to see the receipt how much I paid good schools you can get from 30 40 000 okay now of course schools go to 127 the American academy 127 per child you can take them to Hartford for that money the schools where my kids are well every year it goes up because they move from one level to another but it's averaging maybe 60 per child can you share your tips to make savings here I've been waiting for someone to ask me this question for a very long time okay so how to save and how to live on tight budgets actually there's so many tips and tricks so I'll give you an example of how to save on your electricity bill or your cooling bill okay when you go and rent in a villa or in a in a building don't just randomly rent look at where the sun is is rising and where the sun is setting okay and make sure the sun is not facing your apartment like all the time because that will actually raise your cooling bill and electricity bill you need to have ac on all the time and I know this now because where we live actually it's not facing the sun and our electricity bill and cooling bill is down so that's that's one way another another way to save is you don't really need to go and buy a brand new car and maybe pay a front or pay high monthly installments for that there's a huge market maybe not in Dubai maybe you need to drive to Al Ain or to Ajman there's a huge second hand second hand car market and you can get cars at 50 percent of the price 40 percent of the price so you can actually reduce your your monthly bills I also like to recommend that people plan their weekends and their staycations or their short breaks a lot of people just say oh we have a four-day weekend just go to the airport or book online and travel and spend a few thousand dirhams over the weekend plan your vacations ahead of time and you can get excellent rates actually if you were to describe your experience as an expert in three words what would that be happy safe and future what has this international move taught you different cultures have different business dealings I'm not saying they they are bad dealings but rather than just different expectations so for example some people will just do a business on a handshake or an sms or a message other people have to go through like weeks of lawyers to sign contracts and so and also the time appreciation it's different from from different cultures so you just need to make sure that appreciate time and have expectations right because some people would say they'll come and then you wait and they will never show up what advice would you give to those who are planning to come to Dubai so for everyone who wants to come to the bay or thinking about coming to the bay in my opinion start with a very important question which is why do you want to move to Dubai okay it could be a very like trivial question or has an obvious answer but if you ask this yourself why and think about it maybe you will not come to Dubai or maybe you would come for the right reason so are you coming to Dubai to make money are you came to Dubai to enjoy the lifestyle are you coming to Dubai to to start up a business are you coming to Dubai to retire okay so because each one of them will actually have a different plan for you to land and a different plan for you to operate while you are here so make sure you have very clear objective of why you want to come number two make sure you understand what are the sources of income to support the lifestyle you want to have in Dubai let it be an employee let it be a family man let it be a retiree it doesn't matter but once you understand the role you want to play in Dubai then make sure you have the proper financing for that coming here and then thinks just money is gonna come it's not gonna work do you have any quote you live your life by or think of often so the moment my life changed is the moment i decided to stop being a card and become a player thank you for watching this video till the end as you see money itself doesn't make you happy the most important thing is to feel fulfilled inside so if you have any questions leave them in the comments below we'll reply to you and if you want to get in touch with Osama there are contact details in the description under this video see you in the next episode