Emerging Emirati Entrepreneurs 2014 | Building the Foundations of Business in the UAE

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‘TREP TALK Q+A What do you think is the biggest challenge facing Emirati entrepreneurs?

There is a lot of competition especially from foreign businesses and established businesses that have been around for years. We are trying to set ourselves apart by introducing modern, yet sophisticated, designs. Emiratis play an important role in contributing to the economy, we have plans to collaborate with local designers on future projects within Moz. Our long term plans for Moz is to expand further within and into other related areas of business. My advice would be to find something that can stand out between the crowd of contestants. An Emirati seeking the help of Tejar [Dubai] should also be confident enough that his or her idea can make it in the real world, and can take all the challenges that it might face. What is Moz Flowers marketing strategy?

Initially, we started via word of mouth. Basically for each order we ensured that two costumers were aware of the brand, which is the recipient and costumer. We have accomplished that by tagging every arrangement and bouquet with a store tag with

our contact information. Apart from setting up brand awareness, it had also eliminated the figuring our process of where that arrangement came from. Our main focus was to market our concept store through social media networks, which not only allows us to interact with our customers, but also serves as a genuine and a constant means of costumer to business communication. How do you stay motivated?

What keeps me motivated is the positive reaction and feedback I get from clients. Our major part of business is gift giving, and seeing those smiles on our clients is just the biggest joy of all. When running your own business, you sort of lose track of time. At some point I realized that I have been working for a whole week without a break, but I wouldn’t chose it to be any other way. What process did you go through with Tejar Dubai?

Tejar was my guide through this whole process. They were constantly guiding me with their professional advice. Apart from the guidance, they have also put me in contact with

various entrepreneurs who can benefit from our area of business and vise versa. Tejar is a place where entrepreneurs like myself go to expand their areas of expertise, in the way that they mentor and connect you with like-minded people to help your business flourish and get noticed. To secure their assistance, Tejar took me through various steps to insure that my business plan

was well thought through, and in a way made sense. I started with pitching in my idea, which was already in the process of development, and then I had to present my idea to the judges. The team of judges was from very established businessmen in Dubai who have experience in various business fields. They weren’t hesitant to give their honest opinions on what might and might not succeed.

To our surprise, people were extremely ready for that ‘‘change. The idea began with wanting to elevate the downturn of flower shops around the area. Our concept was to advance the flower stores into a new level of retail development in a well-branded floral concept.

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Entrepreneur

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