Social media, the launchpad to business

As is case with any fresh graduate, Rana Ashour was eager for a job. She soon found herself working as a structural engineer at an engineering consultancy, which was where she discovered a passion for creativity.

She would craft tiny gifts for family and friends for occasions such as Eid, weddings and baby showers. The response encouraged Ashour to create a group on Facebook where she shared pictures and information about her handmade gifts.

In 2009 Ashour decided to market her products. Two years later, in collaboration with her younger sister, she launched Hadayaz, an online gift and event planning business.

For entrepreneurs like Ashour, social media is a rare helping hand in a tough terrain where finding sponsors, affordable rents, and getting a license are major hurdles.

“When you are starting your own business, the most important thing to do is to have a proper marketing strategy ready,” Ashour said.

While funding is elusive, Ashour recommends advertising products and services on social networking sites. She utilised Facebook to generate a loyal customer base for her brand.

“Facebook is one of the best places today to advertise your products,” said Ashour. “It allows you to start small and then slowly build towards establishing a name for yourselves and your brand.”

Using the group she had created on Facebook, Ashour was able to learn which products were popular. She went on to create a Facebook page exclusively for Hadayaz.

“You can reach a lot more customers if your brand has a Facebook page; it’s a lot easier especially if you can’t afford a website,” notes Ashour. A website dedicated to Hadayaz finally went live this year.

Like Ashour, a recent graduate Sidiqa Sohail, realised the importance of social media as a tool to share her passion for her hobby. Dubbed Chef Sid by friends and family, Sohail started baking in the summer of 2007.

Earlier that year she had tried her hand at cooking various salads and pastas but it was the art of baking that caught her interest. While working at a summer job at the Arab Media Group, Sohail tried her hand at making chocolate chip cookies with a recipe she obtained from the Internet. Somehow she ended up with more than a 100 cookies that she took to work the next day.

“The response I got from my co-workers and family that day encouraged me to try my hand at other baked foodstuffs besides the usual cookies and cupcakes,” she said.

In April 2009 she decided to start her own blog where she could share recipes. “In the beginning I wasn’t sharing any photos of the food that I was making for my friends and family,” recalls Sohail. “Later I realised that the most important thing about a food blog were the pictures!”

Even with a successful marketing strategy, young entrepreneurs still have to face a number of other challenges. One of these involves generating the necessary funding to sustain their business, obtaining a business licence and finding an affordable retail space to sell their products.

Co-founder and chief executive of online careers portal Gradberry, Iba Masood is quick to point out that the business eco-system for young entrepreneurs is “very harsh.” “To make matters worse, the long set of regulations for obtaining a license makes it an even more difficult environment for many.”

Masood, a finance graduate from AUS, launched Gradberry in November 2011 to connect employers, graduates and universities. As part of Gradberry’s start-up costs, Masood paid Dh23,000 to obtain a free zone licence. In addition, she was required to present a bank statement that proved she had an additional Dh100,000 in her bank account.

The high cost of the licence left Masood with very little funding to direct towards her marketing campaign.

“Most small businesses here in the UAE are illegal in a sense,” she said. “However, there will ultimately come a time when the entrepreneur will need to obtain a licence; this mostly happens when the entrepreneurs seek to compete with international brands.”

“If this continues to be the case then we can expect to see a massive case of brain drain right here in the UAE. The government should identify the high impact entrepreneurs in the country and support them.”

In addition, many young entrepreneurs cannot find the necessary funding to rent a retail space and have to look for alternative ways to sell their products. Ashour overcomes this by displaying her products at a gifts and novelties store called Mexar on Jumeriah Beach Road in Dubai. She pays $5 a month as rent in addition to 5 per cent of all her sales as commission.

However, according to Takamasa Makita, legal director, Clyde & Co. there are now an increasing number of possible methods to obtain a trade license without renting office space.

“RAK commercial licences can be obtained quite easily by having a ‘virtual/flexi-office/desk’ in Dubai; a few other free zones offer similar licences,” explains Makita. “There is a restriction on what the licence will allow you to do, so care is needed on the choice.”

—The writer is a trainee at Gulf News.