Meet the young Emirati entrepreneur empowering Emirati women through his app “3bayti”

Dubai: In a city that never stops innovating, Rashed Al Mansoori found inspiration in something deeply traditional, the abaya. From that simple yet powerful symbol of Emirati identity, he built 3bayti, an app created to give Emirati women a bigger stage for their creativity and businesses.

“I just wanted to help them reach people without having to pay too much,” he explains. “If I can make their journey easier, that’s enough for me.” His app connects homegrown vendors with customers, making it easy for women to sell their creations and for buyers to explore a variety of Emirati fashion in one seamless platform.

The idea came to Rashed not in a classroom or boardroom, but during a casual walk through a shopping mall. “I saw pop-ups everywhere,” he recalls. “I asked one of the women how much she pays for rent, and she said around Dh6,000. But her sales were about the same amount. That’s when I realized, she’s not even covering her costs.”

For most people, that might have been the end of a passing thought. But for Rashed, it became the spark that ignited 3bayti, a mobile app designed to bring Emirati women’s products together in one seamless, scrollable experience.

“Why can’t I create something that helps them reach a bigger audience, without having to pay upfront?” he asked himself. The answer became his mission.

Rashed’s entrepreneurial journey wasn’t pre-planned. “I wasn’t always thinking about business,” he admits with a laugh. “I used to run a gaming server when I was younger, but after a while I stopped and focused on my studies.”

While studying finance at the University of Dubai, Rashed began to feel a pull toward entrepreneurship.

“I started sketching the app on paper, page by page, the way I imagined it,” he says. “I didn’t know if people would believe in me, but I believed in the idea.”

At first, vendors didn’t believe him. “We would message people, and they wouldn’t reply,” Rashed says. “Some even blocked us.”

But then, one TikTok video changed everything. “It went viral,” he smiles. “Suddenly, everyone started replying. They saw a real Emirati face behind the app, someone who was trying to help, not just profit.”

That transparency became his strength. Rashed put himself at the front of the brand, building trust through sincerity and consistency.

At its core, 3bayti (stylized with the number “3” to represent the Arabic letter Ain in “abaya”) is about convenience and culture. Even the name carries a story. 3bayti means “my abaya”, a word Rashed chose to make every Emirati woman feel seen. “I wanted each girl to know she’s buying something for herself, something made with her in mind,” he described.

“It’s one app that brings together all women’s needs,” Rashed explains. 

It's explore page, inspired by TikTok and Instagram Reels, allows users to swipe through abayas and accessories effortlessly. “Instead of searching store by store, you can just scroll,” he says. “We made shopping fun, but also focused on our local identity.”

Unlike other fashion platforms such as Ounass or Namshi, 3bayti is intentionally homegrown. “We’re not trying to compete,” Rashed says. “We’re trying to uplift Emirati women, to take our local brands to the world Inshallah.”

Though Rashed is the driving force behind 3bayti, he’s quick to share credit with his small, all-Emirati team, including his co-developer, Essa Arif Al Mutawa, a university student who helped turn the concept into a working product.

“I told him I’d be there for him,” Essa says. “We’d meet in cafés, spend nights fixing bugs, and celebrate every small success. It wasn’t just coding, it was building a dream.”

Today, five Emirati women work alongside Rashed, driving his vision forward and inspiring him to keep pushing ahead. “They push me,” he confides. “They remind me of meetings, follow-ups, everything. They make me feel like I’m not alone in this.”

For Rashed, 3bayti isn’t just a company, it’s a cause. “We cover marketing, delivery, everything,” he revealed. “We take only a small commission; 15%. Our focus isn’t on profit. It’s on solving a problem.”

He’s already seen proof that it’s working. Within days of launch, 3bayti topped 84,000 impressions on the App Store, briefly surpassing regional giants like Temu in the UAE’s shopping category. “When I saw that, I knew people believed in what we were doing,” he says.

But Rashed refuses to call it success, not yet. “Even if I make a million dirhams, that’s not success to me,” he affirms. “Success is when Emirati women start getting sales, when 3bayti reaches the world. That’s when I’ll say I’ve made it.”

Through 3bayti, Rashed is helping redefine what modest fashion means for a new generation. “Before, abayas were only black,” he says. “Now, we have multicolored designs, patterns, something for everyone. We’re connecting the old generation with the new.”

That balance, between tradition and innovation, is what makes 3bayti so uniquely Emirati.

From a mall observation to a viral app, Rashed’s story embodies the UAE’s vision for youth-led innovation and homegrown tech. He’s part of a new wave of Emiratis who are not waiting for opportunities, they’re creating them.

When asked to sum up his mission, Rashed doesn’t hesitate.

“From Dubai to the world,” he stated.

It’s not just a tagline, it’s a promise.

A promise that the creativity of Emirati women, once confined to pop-up stalls and Instagram accounts, will now have a regional stage, thanks to one young Emirati man who believed their dreams deserved a digital home.