io81

Going around Kuwait City finishing some work i always keep an eye for empty stores or shop for rent, i just have a feeling that many kuwaitis look for a small store in Kuwait City to open a restaurant to serve the employees working their. I usually find many near the stock exchange but nothing close to Fahad Al Salem st, the street where the Sheraton round about starts and and near to the Baitek tower. I found one store, has a good location but no good parking. I have attached some pictures to see the place and you can start imaging you store their:p its next to Gulf Bank branch on Fahad al Salem st, but on the back side of the street. No down payment and 600KD rent. The rent is expected from a store on Fahad Al Salem st. The hares number is 97947908, i guess his name is abu shrooq.

I guess many have seen the ads about the spaces for rent next to Qurain area, i have visited the place and spoken to the employees and i can provide you with a small brief about the place. The smallest shop is around 20 meters squared with a least monthly rent of 260KD. You can take more than 20 m2 and go for larger areas but you will get charged by the meter at a rate of 16KD per meter squared. Other prime location as they call it, will require a higher rate per meter at 22KD. So i asked them about a shisha place and they said that to take a shisha place you have to go for 400m2 and pay a rent of 2,850KD. The shisha place is excluded from the calculation i have provided above. The place is huge and will have all the major banks their, thats a good sign. Al Ghanim electronics and most fast food stores are their, and LuLu hyper market is their too. As for the rent you got to pay 4 months in advance and will get another 3 months free to setup you venture. The shity thing is a lost their number, sorry. One more thing, the area is seperated in small blocks like the pic below, each area has a certain purpose like, the furniture street, the cafe’s street, the car accessories street and the list goes on. Good Luck.

Walking down the avenues (the mall), my self and a friend started to chat about the avenue mall and how its huge etc etc… but then he told me that its being labeled as a land mark in Kuwait! So we discussed what defines a land mark and this is what i have found out on the web:

(source http://www.thefreedictionary.com)

So you can see after reading the above it may work with 1 and 2, but do we as Kuwaities would like to have a mall as a land mark, before you start the Harrods (UK) land mark thing let me explain; we as Kuwaities naming a mall as a land mark just proves our ignorance that we are consumer based citizens, we live to buy. The provoking issue that pisses me off is that how unethical, uneducated we are in purchasing whatever we desire before giving it a second thought. Nike and sonia rykiel for instance had sweat shops that paid 13 year old kids 60 cents to create a 45 kd garment! we as Kuwaities are promoting such action or maybe not for Nike or sonia rykiel anymore but others brands that are capitalizing on our ignorance. The other thing is when some claim that a mall such as the avenues is an economical benefit is quite wrong, the franchiser are getting a monthly 6 to 8% out of sales going to the original owners and when we spend money on such non Kuwaiti business our Kuwaiti dinar is leaving the economic cycle and creating a leak that is growing each year that leads to a weaker KD. Again i’m not against international businesses but to define the avenue shopping mall as a land mark that has no history or benefit to the Kuwaiti society then i guess that is ridiculous. Let me know what you think and if you  do consider it as a land mark, why?

I have posted earlier about the new commercial building in Hawali, a friend of mine had just took a store there, the prices are as follows: the main shops on the ground level facing the street have a kholow or down payment of 10,000kd and the rent is about 500kd paid quarterly. The next floors only require rent from 400 to 300kd and no down payment. Now the sort of business’s that have taken place are: GNC, Patchi, Bon el Badawi, Refaiei rostary, Sugar, Empress and many more Kuwaiti based sweet and confecti shops. So now you have an idea what the customers there are going for and from such information you may have a better understanding if your business may grow fast or can live with the visitors of the other shops. You have to study your concept and see if  you work out between the above mentioned. If your thinking of food and sweet business this would be a great place to start, many of Patchi’s customer will surly notice your business. But if your thinking of opening a laundry….hmmm wala madri… i say go with food if thats what you originally had in mind and now with a better will power due to the stores i have mentioned. Always scan the area for new shops and opportunities, thats the only way to find a good location for a store, but still put in mind that passing customers wont buy your products they must be coming to hawali specifically to see your product or saw your store by mistake when they where intending to go to Patchi.

 

Many have been asking me on how to find a good location in Kuwait or a store in one of the new malls around. The answer is a very tiring procedure and sometimes may take up to one year of searching but this all depends on your budget, if your budget was an open one then you can always find a store in a couple of days and whatever location you choose, but when constrained with a certain budget patience is the answer. Always keep your eyes open for new buildings coming out in places you would like to own a store in. For me it would be the salmiya area, and even watch news about new malls popping out. A ideal strategy is to visit the known real estate companies in Kuwait that are concentrated in building malls: Tamdeen RE, Commercail RE  such companies are building now the Kuwait 360 and the dome in Abu Hulaifa respectively. When approaching such new malls that are still in the drawing board stage you get better chances of finding a store, why because such companies like to see committed business people that provide all the details about the store before even finding a place, and when i mean all the detail i mean: store layout, concept, design, logo, projected sales etc the more information you provide the better the chance you got. I still did not introduce the variable ” wasta” because this alone plays a major role in the store acquisition and may delete other basic requirements. What people do not see here is when you start small and create a successful retail shop in one mall in Kuwait, it becomes much easier to acquire another one in a newer mall by providing that you got one successfully running now. But this may even turn out as a two edged sword!? because managment of the new malls only want new concepts and nothing repetitive, so when presenting a concept again and again you may get declined just because you have such a store somewhere else. Who ever said starting a business is easy! if it was then people all around would have been millionaires of some sort:P this approach of finding a store require an act of balance and some insider information from such real estate companies. (Pic via tamdeenrealestate.com)

  

When starting out a business, you have to study every aspect of it. Internal aspects are the profit projections, funds needed, the concept but the external part have more or less the same importance because these are the elements that surprise and can close down your business. SWOT analysis, its a simple tool made to understand your position within the market you are entering. So my example is about restaurants in Kuwait; back to SWOT which stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threats. The Strength and Weakness parts are what you provide as location, or strong accounting standards, or you got a certain hygine expert(which i doubt in Kuwait). I will be concentrating on the OT parts of SWOT in this post, The Opportunity in the Kuwaiti market is huge, 67% of the population is teenagers and thats a large market to tackle. But what about the Threat, Kuwait Ministry of Health is creating a large budget to tackle fast food restaurants in Kuwait, health campaigns all over Kuwait will be targeting young teenagers from universities to middle schools. So as you can see the Threat here is greater than the opportunity, so if your thinking of starting a restaurants you have to consider going against the government budget of millions compared to the small budget you got! Unless the restaurant you setting up is a healthy one, like Low Fat. Low Fat is a smart concept of a restaurant, he is on the starting point of the curve, and any promotional ads from any entity in Kuwait, it can be a magazine or the government awareness campaigns, he is the one with the advantage. “in simple terms, he’s ridding the wave” This idea came to mind when i passed by Holiday Inn downtown, and saw another burger joint. All burger joints in the states are losing profits, Mc Donalds is loosing profits and only investing in healthy food restaurnats like Pret in the UK. So its really a matter of time before business owners here realize the down turn in profits due to a more health conscious society. Take a look at subway, 5 years ago nobody knew about, but now everybody is like lets go to subway instead of McDonalds, the Health epidemic is growing by the day in Kuwait and is going to catch up too, another example of eternal opportunites and threats is the apartment building in Kuwait, now non Kuwaitis canot purchase there own apartments but, still Kuwaiti owners are investing millions within apartments buildings, because a law will be passed favoring non Kuwaitis to buy apartments in Kuwait. So who here has the advantage, the one waiting for the law to pass then build apartments, or the one already building and anticipating the law? and tip apartment building now are being sold quite cheaply and will explode when the law passes, just for people thinking of buying apartments!, as you can see projecting the future of a certain flow of the business is as important as the concept, the food, the people running the business.

I have posted earlier opportunities about store’s around Kuwait, this is another one. Unfortunately Kinko at the airport is closing down and want to sell the store for 40,000kd and it includes a rent of 1200kd/month. Honestly cant think of anything to be opened there except a bank or another coffee shop, maybe.

So i’ve been searching locations all over Kuwait, and when you find a good one, they request a 70,000kd clearance fee or kholoo. Honestly i do not believe in kholoo and think its a way for robbing people. I found a nice building in salmiya, the street where starbucks shaikha is located. A new building that has multiple store’s, if your interested in opening a computer or mobile phone shop, that would be a good place, anything else probably wont work. Will be posting other locations later on.

So i’ve been talking briefly about entrepreneurship, but i have missed an important point. Passion! when you have something that you really love and admire, that does not have to be a product it can be a service too, and can make money from . I have a friend who loves real estate, (don’t ask me why) he reads articles about it, took online courses. This guy can take a look at one house and know how good its infrastructure is and how much it costs. but he never thought of using his experience to open a business. After long talk that we had and a bit of mind twisting. He got convinced of opening his own real estate broker. After two years have passed, he now buys and sells land in Oman, Kuwait and thinking to enter the UAE market. Lets calculate some numbers here: he use to make 700KD working in a finance company from 8 till 3, ya3ny yearly he makes around 8400KD. Now he buys and sells land making an average commission of 3000KD per month equals to 36000KD yearly, traveling around the GCC, and doing what he really loves with passion! So now see how different is 8400 from 36000 big ones:P But…. but, “risk” is always associated with such dives, (these risks must be calculated risks that i will explain later on). He works long hours, had to go to people he never met and sell! It takes time and effort to sell your products and services, because people do not trust who you are at the beginning. But at the end its worth it. So when you have a certain kind of passion for something, believe in your self and take a step forward, take a risk and believe me life is short don’t waste time!