=====================================================
I used to buy Turkey Breast from Sultan Center “Ashwa 3adat salema” and now after showing the names of companies that are selling rotten food in our country I feel safer to buy from them again because everybody know that Sultan center involved with rotten food so sultan will do the best to go back to the right track to gain customers trust again that’s why in my opinion they wont take the risk and continue selling rotten food bel 3araby “el motaham ra7 eysawy kel el ashya ely etwakher asabe3 el etehaam 3ana” . Now the story is Turkey Breast price increased 22% in one week !! is it because now its fresh and good? ha 3amo sultan??:P hehe well if you buy the same food every month or week you will notice the price and I think 22% is not a small tiny profit . “Yasqo6 Al 7etaan”

About Rotten food I always wonder how come KFC “Sero lazeez” didn’t close yet ?! ma a3aref a7ad ma tesamam mena!! KFC is the meaning of Rotten food/oil/kitchen then why KFC still surviving ?! one of my friends said that KFC profits exceed other fast food chains here In Kuwait such as burger King And McDonald’s!! “this Information from some one work in the same field” he told me they actually making profits from the expat they always make special offers specially in the gulf road branch “sheghel ghada’a 7ata el eshba3 o feraaakh fa eyhasteron” J/K kelesh wala our Egyptian brothers . I’ve got another information but I’m not sure about it that expat get special discount price in unofficial way. Now I wont ask again why KFC didn’t close yet! ser el khal6a 6ela3 bel 3arag ely ey6ee7 3ala el bo6a6 :r

I tend to watch business news passively but some things just jump in my face, like the news that E-books sales have surpassed print! This is major game changers, why? Because if you’re in the selling books business then you know that this industry just ran over the cliff and the only way its heading is down. Then after you weep and think you lost everything, you can start thinking of shifting your model to downloads, most e-commerce sites provide download options now, 3 years ago this option was not widely available.

Another thing that amuses me is when I read news like Al Naser Sport shop just opened  its 61 branch! 61 more than most banks in Kuwait. Most banks have 50 branches and less, then you start thinking surely there is a large market for sporting goods. The way i think is then how can i bust this market with some model that i can create to take a chunk of its market share.(wayid emsadig nafsy) I can imagine the CEO of Nasser Sport thinking: ” that he is cornering the sports market in Kuwait and my logo is fab:P”. (logo needs to be changed badly) I do think they are doing a great job at it too. Some times these small pieces of news are indicators that show how markets are shaping too.

(image taken from bananaq8)

I say this because business modeling or model creation if incorporated with new technologies can make a profitable business, like the lulu printing shop that is all automated compared to the physical brick and mortar print shops. Image that with a simple button you can publish your book. Did i just contradict myself about the book industry’s:P.  So I think why not an ecommerce site to sell sport goods online in Kuwait and deliver them. Understand that new technologies are the catalyst of many industries, and that they can destroy a business in a very short period. A friend of mine told me, if you want daily news about Kuwait, follow these news broadcast on twitter instead of subscribing to these news sms service that charge you 500 fils a week. Here again twitter just made a service that is charging 500fils into free. Again these services are reaching the top of the cliff, sadly. 

Thats a crazy idea, people in the states I guess are now working with a company to get their homes branded for exchange in mortgage payments. Wow how desperate people can get to cover their living expenses.

http://www.adzookie.com/paintmyhouse.php

(Beware paragraph  below requires thinking:p)

There is a thing i always wanted to discuss but am worried it may bore you, I’ll give it a try. If the only thing we hear about from strong world countries is “economic growth” and how they push for the economy to grow and open markets, but at the same time, your expenses grow and prices grow even higher (hence the emergence of budget business), so why grow then!? When looking at the numbers things make more sense: annual average growth of salaries is about 5.6% in a year in Kuwait (i think this number is from bayt.com not sure thou) and every other products increases its prices by 20% average, then you do the math. We are always 15% on average short. I say this because in 2003 when i had a store in salmiya, i use to walk to Kurdu shawerma place to have dinner, and i remember paying 350 fils for a shawerma, and at that time we use to argue that the price is higher  than the usual 250 at that time was because he had a better shawerma or meat. But today he sells his shawerma for 650fils and its still the same meat from 2003!, thats about 80% increase. Now multiply my thought to Hienz Ketchup, starucks latte, corn flakes etc etc then you can feel the difference in your pocket.

Is this what some call economic growth? in Dubai i was chatting with tech person in a hospital (MRI operator) and i asked him, so how is Dubai, is business or jobs better here? He does not agree at all. It’s getting expensive by the day, and he said something weird. There are no more public beaches in Dubai like before, mostly everything is private property. Another thing is how many Kuwaitis where not in debt in 2001 and how now all are in debt in 2011. This is also the same with the states too, in 1980  most American saved or had saving accounts, now 2011 its all about who has the credit card or loan with a lower interest rate.

Maybe economic growth is not related to happiness, it seems the more the economy grows the less happy we are.  Google: Gross national happiness instead of Gross national product. 

In the mornings, i go about Kuwait city trying to finish all the beurocracy the government throws my way for Digumz pending papers (and they are shit loads). So i found out that it’s much easier to commute around the ministries of Kuwait City with a taxi instead of driving around my car and looking for parking, then walking to the ministry and back again. So the average ride in Kuwait city with a taxi is 500fils which is cheap to be honest.

So how did i come up with the 500fils? if the meter was running it would cost you 250fils with a journey from Holiday Inn down town to about the parliament building. So I  would give another 250fils as an extra tip that would be fair, right? WRONG!

Its crazy out there, learn from my stories. When stopping the taxi, never lean in and tell him where you would like to go, just open the door and get in, why? Because he will kick you out if you tell him to take you to a place that he is not heading there.

When you get into a taxi and heading to your destination, make sure you have exact change or get ready to start a hustling match when you get there, and every other bus in Kuwait city will start honking the horn behind the taxi because the taxi driver does not make a complete stop and drop you off, they tend to do a “drive by dropping” which originally came from drive by shooting’s:P. So if he stopped to give you back your change, you can know that your in the middle of Fahad al Salem St when he is doing so  . So have the EXACT change next time.

500fils is the normal rate, but some will ask for 1KD which is way high. I once got in a taxi and gave him the strait face and told him my destination(thinking smart malat 3alai). In my mind is the sweet 500fils am going to pay him:P, then he drives for a 2 minutes and sez: wa7ed dinar baba! and i say NO 500fils,  i really liked his communication skills, he goes “OUT BABA!” and there I go out in the middle of Kuwait city thrown out by the taxi. So make sure you keep these points in mind when looking for a taxi next time.

After a long discussion that P2BK is the place to advertise, i have agreed to have a booth there. I paid till now 195KD for the booth and 250KD for the banners. Is it worth the money and time spent?

Let me say the place was crowded, very crowded. But what are people looking for and what are they buying? the crowd is 90% ladies, young and old. All looking for food. If you have food to sell that would be the place. As expected: accessories and clothe designers are the major sellers. Another note, my booth sucked and the colors came out all wrong, blue instead of xbox green.

One weird concept was a triangle restaurant, that sold everything in a triangle package, made no sense to me. If they were trying to save space with this genius concept i would understand, which i dont think so. Ask your self a question, why are milk packaged in rectangle cartoons and soda’s in cylindrical cans? you see with milk that expires fast storage is a main concern so wasting space cost money, but soda’s have long shelf lifes so no problems with storage. So now where does a triangle fall here?

As for my booth, i think yet to be analysed, let me say my first day is bad.

After strong recommendations from my friends that i have to exhibit digumz.com in P2BK, i have accepted but what i dislike of such events is that its exposure yes! but to which crowd? I guess most are going for reasons that have nothing to do with seeking new ventures. The other major part that i dislike in these events is that i can’t know how well that exhibition did for my business. I love using the Internet because i can see where my customers are coming from and have the details to support any other decisions i make. Even when a decision is made i can see the affects directly. But with exhibitions, i cant measure my success. So i guess such an expenses gets called Sunk Cost.

Anyways digumz.com, my self and the friends who recommended P2BK will be there with me too!.

The contract.

So i come to you and say ” hey how about we take the status update on facebook and launch it into a company, and you can keep telling your friends whats on your mind with only 160 characters to spare”

I guess i would see the same shoe thrown at bush being waved at me:p So thats how twitter got born. I am not a fan of twitter but with all the Arabs in the world wanting more freedom, and all the Arab countries that may topple. I had to look into it, and again its one site that is flooded with people. I dont know the excat numbers but am amazed on how its being used. This is where you here the term accidental business.

Yes, a small post today, tweet  

Like any reader of local issues i was intrigued by 52degrees thinking its a new concept and all, but then i started getting questions; what is it about, who are these people that they are showcasing in the red carpet, what did they accomplish, what products did they create, any international brands? i really wished i was wrong but when seeing that all the comments on Al watan newspaper online post were all great i got suspicious. What can you understand from a bunch of pictures and the editor post at alwatan clearly saying” the creative 52 degrees has all the attention”. Its such manipulation of mass media, on what basis can you claim such?

So i asked around and many where lost like me, so i decided to comment in the news paper online post but nothing came up. So i thought of a trick, how about i submit a good comment and a bad comment and see if what i suspect is true, Al watan took the bait. Sorry to say but true mass media loves changing people perspectives. The editor at Al watan 52 degrees article deletes the bad comments and keeps the good ones, well i understand if some  one is swearing then thats fine, but with even little resentment the comment is not published.

See the attached picture where i have submitted both comments, one got censored then deleted later. The irony about the story is that art is all about freedom, but clearly we so none there and i thought journalism was about being objective and unbiased hmmm clearly otherwise. (all pic are taken from Al watan online news paper)

My full comment.

My comment censored! and the wayid yehabil comment is mine too:)

My comment removed.

Well i know this has nothing to do with business but its interesting, i was checking my email on yahoo and saw this piece about how McDonald food does not decompose. So i figured out why not try it. I bought a burger and fries, no ketchup or the other sauces so my test lab (the basement) wont smell. You should have seen how the server at Mcdonalds looked at me, “that’s it” nothing else. He was not use too small orders i guess, typical order at the diwaniya:

3 double cheese burgers

2 quarter pounder meals

3 Big mac meals

2 six pieces nuggets

and all diet cokes:P

Anyways i will be posting and taking photos each couple of days to see the progress of the decomposition of the burger and fries and see if its true that the food at McDonald does not decompose, maybe its the American one that does not decompose. Time will tell!

Man! if this thing does not rot then we need to start a movement!

I have read Dan Ariely’s book and think it one of the best books i have ever read, and now i cant wait to read his next book. Now your thinking what does a book on behavioral economics add value to your self. Well, if your a person who owns a business or even trades in the stock exchange, Dan’s book explains why people act in certain ways when in financial situation. Understanding our hard wired brains and how we think, we can predict how our customers act towards the products or services we provide. Watch his youtube video and you can have a glimpse of what he explains in his book.