Very interesting product to see one day, you can switch the information on the magnetic card to read from different accounts. Meaning you can carry one card for multiple accounts and the card is interactive where you can display your card details only when putting in the password, check it out from Mashable. (Sent by Ali Z, thanks)

Going to Rehab complex to see whats new in the gaming market, i was surprised to see that more stores are opening there. Down in the basement where their use to be a large computer store now got segmented into small shops for rent. Rent is quite on the high side but if desperate to open a store in Rehab and you have a customer base, then by all means do open a store their. I personally do not recommend because when stores are back to back you start getting customers who will buy from your neighbor because of a 250 fils reduction in price. In summary, it becomes highly competitive and margins shrink.

The stores there are small, and rent is about 400 to 600KD. Call the number 94095820 Abu yousef to get more info.

Things you may not know about airliners:

When traveling abroad these new planes like the airbus 320, their is a wierd fail safe system installed on these planes. Its called the RAT  ram air turbine (RAT) is a small turbine that is connected to a electrical generator, installed in an aircraft and used as a power source. This RAT small fan will only be used when the plane losses electrical power, and with the new aircraft’s the systems at the disposal of the captain are all electronic now. They are all built with electric screens no more these old dials. So if all system fails and no electricity is provided, this small fan pops out of the bottom of the plane and uses the wind power generated by the plane going forward. This such power is then transferred to a small electric generator to provide power to the cockpit screens and computers.

Why such a post, madree i just like planes and thought its a wierd piece of information.

All i see is cup cakes and accessories, every Kuwaiti lady thinks she can make a better cup cake and a better “shaba9a”. I ve been thinking of writing of such a post a long time ago, its killing me that the only creative thing is cup cakes and accessories. Believe me Kuwait has a larger need to be served.  What blew my off is a new place that makes basbousa only, OMG khalas with the stupid specialization stores! what now a place that specializes in the chocolate chip used in cookies, why am i imagining a bimbo reading my blog thinking WOW thats a great store to open in the avenues!!!

What benefits does these stupid business fads create, ask your self any potential benefit for the economy? any export potential of products, which means more other currency being converted to Kuwaiti dinar? any Kuwaiti job creation ? Nothing!

You get bombarded by these new exhibition places showing you products and services created by Kuwaitis, again more cupcakes and khalgeen, nothing solid. I would like just one thing that shows creativity, a potential for growth? Why do i complain so much because from a venture capital (VC) perspective you need an idea with steady growth, something different which creates a new market, not eating away from the same market share and just reducing the profit margins even more. Dont get me wrong if you can produce the same product for much cheaper prices (budget business plan like jazzeera airlines) then yes by all means go ahead but this is not the situation. VC’s would like to inject cash in a business where potential for growth can be seen and based on a stringent business model and not a recipe! or my style is such and such! When I say cash im talking about a start up capital of 100,oooKD, a sum of money where a budget and cashflow is required and working with auditing firms. These type of business are not khalageen or accessories idea’s.

Again i dont blame them because the enviroment and our surrendings are not set to produce such industires like technology and products,  but we still can try to come up with something better than a cup cake.

Ending the post with a bomb shell, my sister owns Frost Cup Cakes  

Man i knew that the South Koreans where gamer freaks but never thought that their national carrier would be one day branded by starcraft. They even have institutions for addicted gamers. The 747 was painted and is now flying, lets hope we see it one day.

I’ve always enjoyed the Juice market, healthy, cool in the summer, sells well so i had an eye for it for a while. When visiting the UK i fell in love with innocent smoothies. I said to my self why not open a smoothie shop in Kuwait, it must work well. But after researching and comparing financials of many juice companies abroad i started thinking whats in a smoothie, and after reading and seeing the ingredients i was shocked to know thats what we have all around Kuwait. 3aseer khala6 its all that it is!! ok the ones sold abroad are bottled because of the nature of the market their.

 See the ingredients in th pic, i can see my self telling the dude “abee manga, ow frawla bas fresh haa!! ow ebser3a”  but still there is a possibility of a market or to sell such products. Remember when entering most co-ops you see this disgusting bin filled with ice that sells fresh bottled juice? ahhhhhhh. Their is a market, will talk about it in later posts.

I was always interested in e-business ideas like taw9eel.com but when asked about investing or creating such a business i would decline. When starting a business you have to give what is called an added value, if you don’t your customer will start thinking what am i getting for such a business. Well when we sit and discuss idea me and my friends we always talk about taw9eel.com and many say how an excellent idea it is and etc etc, but you have to answer specific questions to make sure the business is profitable in the long run, meaning time has to pass on the business and with time competitors enter the market and only here that we start to relate the benefits as customers. First what does taw9eel.com add in value to you? and secondly whats its competitive advantage? and third whats CEO boxer brand called? j/k that’s a joke…Third, what are the barriers to entry like?

I would push forward a strategy to make taw9eel.com price competitive maybe or service competitive, but when i researched its price and made a comparison i have found out that they are 30% higher than the market. Market here is defined as the normal Co-op, so the other questions is, is he buying directly from the co-op or is he buying from the suppliers and making even a higher profit margin, which is his 30% and plus the margin of the supplier. Below is the table of prices that shows the difference,  some may argue that he delivers for free but lets say you bought from taw9eel.com  goods worth for 130KD if you had went to the coop you would have saved 30KD. Now is the 30KD wasted is it worth going to the co-op, now you can see the added value question being answered.

Nothing against taw9eel.com and i think they do have a good business model, but needs a competative advantage which i cant see, meaning any one can come and copy their business and open it elsewhere.

After sitting in the noisy Paul cafe in marina mall and thinking about when the hell would pinkberry open there, i got the urge to use the WC. So when entering i was surprised to see an ad on the door of the bathroom. I always thought that these are some of the effective ads from a customer perspective. Bathroom to me means germs and am getting bombarded by Life buoyanti septic soap, thats targeted marketing. One more thing, it seems that life buoy are the only cleaning detergent brand that claims it kills 100% of the germs, Dettol does not.  I wonder why?

Brief

After aramex started to charge really high fees on any packages that comes to Kuwait i started to hesitate to buy online, i’v bought a book for 7 dollars on amazon and got it to be sent via free delivery. But when Aramex delivers the book to me, i get charged 9KD. So you can see the difference how business runs in the states and compared us here in Kuwait from a price perspective. There are reasons why but i will not get into them because i need a different post by itself. Anyways so i got hit by an ad about audie books and said lets check out the site. Then i started thinking would listening to a book be any different than from reading it. From a usability perspective its much better, i cant run on the treadmill and  read a book simlataneously, but surly can listen to one.

The Book

Its about behaviorural economics and one interesting subject i never knew about, when i started listing i got hooked fast. The book is called Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, and its about how economies behave based on our hardwired thinking process. Give the book a try, you wont regret it.

Non Kuwaiti companies ownership rules

Back to the post,  after reading the book and after remembering my economic classes at KU which i failed strongly, i noticed how important it is today to understand Kuwaits economy. One major part i have many questions for is job creation. I’ll post one day about the cupcake and khalajeen economy we are building now. So like many developed economies they run more efficiently by utilizing the private sector, and we all know from a broader understanding why, due to profit making and searching for better markets to make more profits using efficent means. Then i started thinking about the Kuwaiti labor force and how we are not up to the job due to lack of skills. To create a better job market and increase levels of skill acquiring, we need to open the market to foreign companies. Some will argue that this will demolish our local companies, but remember how competitiveness makes us learn more and become creative. Because our local companies our working within a semi closed economy, our companies are not even close to international standards from a efficiency perspective. Why? because they only compete locally. So now imagine the law opens to non Kuwaiti companies and staffing should be done by 50% Kuwaitis,  the international skills will filter down to Kuwaitis resulting in creating more jobs for Kuwaitis and higher learning curves.  But the question here, why is Kuwait not opening up?? doing so would employ many Kuwaitis and create a better and more efficient work force. A small example would be the telecoms sector, now you can see how Viva blow the prices out of proportion and the influx of employees moving between these companies. The newly established telecommunication commission to regulate these companies is a result of Viva entering the market. Because of Viva now you have the option to switch your provider without changing your phone number. I really would like to ask such questions in the parliament instead of giving a holiday for the last 10 days in ramadan or if the Persian gulf should be recalled to the Arabian gulf!

When thinking about opening a business there are many option to choose from. Some like to build a business from start and others want to become reseller of a business or a product. This post is about being a reseller.

Why, because some products sell them selves.  I have seen many products but some like the one am going to talk about surely are winner, from my opinion of course. 

I’ve always noticed products that are used in bathroom (its not that i like being in bathrooms;p) i just notice stuff.  Why, because some products are used in most bathrooms which means they are successful and add more value to the user. But usually in Kuwait we dont use air blower or dryer, we usually go with tissue and alot and lots of tissue is wasted. Of Course your thinking that the air blowers are slow in drying your hands thats why we dont use them often but this is why I’m posting about this product. To really appreciate it you got to try it out. I’ll explain how it works, and its kinda weird looking too. You slip you hands into a socket and the blower starts, and you just slowly take your hands out of the socket, do it twice and your done. Remember when you wash your car, then the car gets dried by this huge machine that blows the air away, something. Check the product out the dysonairblade.  I think but not sure that they have no suppliers here in Kuwait.