io81

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 once 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 financial 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.

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.

The last time i visited Mais el Ghanim was before they made their new store next to the Saudi embassy, so i was looking forward to eat their when a friend proposed it for a dinner outing. I was always amazed with the capacity of tables it presented from the windows facing the gulf road, i have passed Mais el Ghanim several times and thought it surly needs a large kitchen/operations to handle such volume. In Lebanon i have visited similar restaurants that had a huge capacity and that the emolyees use tobrag about the restaurants by meters squared saying ” ee ma63am 800m2 ow bekafi 150 shakhis” :p. So i got the same attitude in Kuwait, and yes it was huge compared to Kuwaiti restaurants anyways that’s not what my post is about; its about the hand held devices that the waiters where using to take the orders. A smart decision maker who made such an idea take effect. Speed to him was a main concern, which many business owners in Kuwait do not understand. You got to service your customers Fast!! you have to think of every way to cut down on redundant or iterative time. I guess the decision maker of the hand held devices calculated how many minutes the waiter wastes by going to the kitchen and giving the chef the paper, then the chef needs to read the paper and pass it on to the sue chef the the paper falls in the soup:P laa qawiya masakht’ha. Yes i may sound ridiculous to non business lean people but that’s the way you calculate cost of certain services, you go in detail of the detail. Again remember now the waiter is using an electronic devise, where human error is minimised by taking the order in an electrical form, then submitting the order in less than a second to the kitchen, now the extra time the waiter has on his hands can be utilized to waiter other tables and service other tables. The whole idea behind a dinne-in restaurant is to utilize their tables at peak times; lunch and dinner. Meaning the more you lounge at the restaurant the more they loose othercustomers waiting for a table. Again a smart move by an unpredictable place: Mais el Ghanim.

PS Wagamama intoduced such a technology in the food sector.

I have explained creativity many times in my blog, i still get surprised how these idea come to mind. From my experience (and this is not scientific) the more you understand the in’s and out’s of a certain product or service, you become more creative in it. Adding to creativity, is the “living the experience” factor will boost your idea and value of the service you are providing. I’m sure its not that easy to come up with smart idea for existing services but they can be done. A wounderful example i have seen on springwise.com is your personal paparrazzi service www.methodizaz.com. Think photokina and many other photographers in Kuwait and how we all love to have our photographs taken, look at layalina or Sho fi Mafe magazines, now imagine a service where you pay the photographer to take photos of you without you knowing so, you provide them with your address and daily routine. They follow you around and snap pictures of you looking natural, walking around, holding your kids, walking your dog; as you can see its endless and cool looking pictures. Now back to the post, if your not a photographer can you have come up with such a service?

First let me apologize for not posting the last couple of weeks, i’m starting a new business venture and had no time to post on any subject, but will start keeping you posted on my new venture and what kind of problems i will face. I sure hope many will benefit from my steps. I will explain what is the business venture that i’m creating and will use your help to start it too but not in this post. In the last two weeks i had an idea of opening a new radio station (this is not the idea i mentioned above) and after the financials (numbers research) the idea was promising. I got the idea when i saw the new law in alQabas newspaper that stated you can now apply for TV and radio channels, that was 7 months ago. After sending out mandoubs to both Commerce and Information ministries, just to know who can direct me to the right place and get what are the requirements to start the radio channel. Then when the mandoubs started being attacked with the Kuwaiti Ministry syndrome, i went searching for the information myself. After 4 days of jumping from one ministry to another i found the right place. Then and there i was told that there are NO licences to issue a radio fm station in Kuwait, (so what category does marina fm fall into, go figure) The law passed was for the satellite radio station like MBC FM, these are broadcasted through NileSat Satellite. So after a couple of days of research, i found out again that we do not live in a free market. Just a feeling of one.  

An entrepreneur in my view is a connector, you have to be a person who connects idea together creating a business model then getting these idea into actions. The hardest part is to make these ideas into action, because some need very simple follow ups  and other you got to go at 5pm in July to shuwaikh to meet a person. Just remember this, take one step forward and other steps will follow, they follow because you start feeling satisfied and this makes you take the second and third….then you reach a point where you are so confident about your business venture that you cant go back. Back to the connecting part: get a sheet of paper, write your idea, U GOT TO WRITE them. When you do you never lose your path or where you want your business to be heading. I personally do that, my laptop is full with business idea that i keep updating. Let me tell you something else, i’m a very messy person and thats the worst kind for running a business, the more you are organized the better. Be organized as much as you can, keep a file for your papers, licence etc… create an exceldocument with the expiry dates of your licences: Fire department, Ministry of Commerce, Rental Agreement, Ministry of Social affairs, Insurance and employees civil id believe me the list goes on and on. Especially when you got a lot of work to be done regarding any institution in Kuwait, you have to have all your papers ready and a stamp too, i use to run around from Kuwait customs at the airport then to Kuwait city then back. I even had letter heads and the stamp in my car. When establishing your company whatever legal state it is, it has to have a stamp and a Arabic and English letter head for addressing any part in the government. Keep sharp and keep your wasta ahead of you. Sometimes u just stop and think, why am i doing all this, at the begging you have to do most of the work then its simple just hire a mandoub right, why not hire a mandoub from the beginning then? because he has to be on your residence for him to do your work and its worth knowing how hard it is to start a business in Kuwait. The mandoub residence need atleast 2 months of running around the ministry to get the mandoub on your residence. 

Lately my sms bill has been increasing, i truly believe in the sms service and i appreciate it because of its power. You can never deny not getting the information, but when i say i called you and you did not pick up well thats another case. So sms is really like a mini email, so i got a call from Zain. A very well mannered lady requested a few minutes of my time to explain a new sms savings offer. Most of the times i would ignore such calls or say i cant take the call now, but when she said (SMS) and savings i told my self lets listen. (and by the way now they are using 90 lines trying to make us feel better when accepting such calls, smart) so i  accepted the benefit and terms given by her and the sale took 5 minutes only. Why did such a sale go smoothly, because i wanted the service simple yes? not really  Zain must have some sort of CRM system to sort out customers showing a gradual usage of sms and surly would see the benefit of such a service, filter the numbers out and get your call center to call them and create sales. If such a simple  be implemented in many companies around Kuwait, we surly would have less wasted calls and less phone bills and more sales. I would only wish that Zain would think in such a smart way with there approach to the Kuwaiti Society. Now such an idea can be implemented in any form and in any business, you just need to listen closely.

Before 3 years ago, i found an Australian franchise called Cartridge World. Looked interesting so i researched it a bit more and then started contacting them. I even found a perfect store in Kuwait city to open the first branch. Let me explain what the franchise does: it takes the empty ink cartridges of any printer and refills it for you for half the price of the original. A smart idea honestly due to the expense of the cartridges, especially the non laser cartridges. And if you are wondering why the first ink cartridge that comes with the printer originally never last because they only fill a quarter of it. HP and other giants make there profits from the ink not from the printer it self. A good laser printer costs 230KD and the ink toner all cost a whopping 145KD. So after that phase i thought of making my market study and look what i found out: a huge Kuwaiti factory in thajeej area that refills empty cartridges and sells them back to the ministries in Kuwait, this small plant is selling for all the ministry printers in Kuwait, so now the only target in my head is the consumer yes? well the Kuwaiti consumer has been dissatisfied and have already heard about such a service from small shops in Hawali that claim they refill the printer cartridge for less than half the price. But because of there unprofessional methods, the printers later on break down due to the ink cartridges sold by them. At this point many consumer that i have talked to where dissatisfied and do not trust any store that claims he can refill your ink cartridge. After such research i have contacted the franchiser and explained to them that i wont be taking up the franchise in Kuwait in due time, and may contact them in a later date. So just to show you folks that you got to understand the market, the consumer and what he thinks of such a service. Because i searched for the consumers feeling and perception, i understood it may be very hard to persuade them again into trusting my franchised service. But some did go for the franchise and a store opened in the same area i wanted to open the first store, Kuwait city infront of the Blockat area.  

If some have read the Qabas news paper on Friday, you may have noticed a law introduced about creating new TV and Radio channels. Atleast for the first time you may apply for a TV or Radio channel in Kuwait. I’ll stress here on how badly we are in need for a radio channels that are specialised in certain fields. I do love radio and thing its a cheap and affordable method to reach a public audience and present what you have as knowledge. Now see how many opportunities may come up with this new law, a new music English channel, a lawyer channel, a psychologist channel, a sport channel, and a political channel and maybe a traffic channel. Let me explain: why not create a radio channel for pyschologists to present there finding on air for Kuwaitis to listen and interact with such presenters, maybe a talkshow where you can call and ask questions. The thing is these programmes are available only under the Kuwait ministry of mass communication, even the radio host are from the ministry. Now imagine such a radio channel but with talent like Marina FM anchors. Then ads start rolling in, making it cheaper for the consumer to find the ads that they wants to know about due to the specialized channels like the above. Now services do become cheaper because service providers have a more direct way to reach there customers and this decreases the money spent to reach them from the first place and therefor less on the consumer. Surprisingly you will get some weired shows like a consumer watch dog, or real stock market analysers. Let me explain a small point, overall the more we introduce laws and with specific  guidelines the more business flourish out of such laws.

    

Many have heard or used 6alabat.com, its a simple website where you log in, browse for a restaurant and order. Then 6alabat.com takes the rest, i wont talk about the miss hap that 6alabat has like making incorrect orders etc etc…but i will explain how he makes a profit for other to understand and may even compete. When you request an order from 6alabat.com the site admin receives an email with your order, name of restaurant, and your address, then he prints the papers and faxes it. If you notice most restaurants that are on the website have a fax machine for orders. Then 6alabat.com at each month collects a fee of 200fils per order. So if you do a simple calculation you can project how much they are making in sales and now plus the adds that have bombarded the website. (i loved how it looked before, but money is a strong motivator to change many beliefs) So now you know how is it is to create something like 6alabat.com, the thing to do is find something that 6alabat is doing wrong or find something that satisfies but in a different more effective method. Imagine a friend telling you the idea of 6alabat.com before it was established, would you have gone for it?! most probably not. Who would have thought that one day a couple would use the website together to order lunch, or sitting in a diwaniya and asking the guys who’s up for a certain restaurant?