#132: Building Dubai Since 1991 - Adel Sajan

Speaker 1 Iraq is taking over. So he's like, what does that even mean? Like, you know, you've never heard of this.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 You know, so he's like, no, just go outside and see in your balcony. So he opens the balcony and they're like tanks lined up on the streets.
Then we had to escape.

Speaker 1 So luckily the Indian government rescued a lot of the Indians. How did you escape? On a fighter plate, on a fighter jet.
Like, no. So they sent these huge army planes.

Speaker 1 So he didn't want to work in India. Yeah.
Kuwait was obviously it was a war. So you want to live somewhere close by.

Speaker 1 And like, like really, Saudi was more conservative at that point you know so so it was just like okay let's just try dubai so it was that rejection was a perfect you know because if had it not been or had the war not happened or had so many things not happened you know maybe things would have not been the same for us maybe i would have not been at harvard who knows right

Speaker 2 Me Adel Sajan.

Speaker 2 You're not going to want to miss this episode where his father came from the slums of India to ultimately becoming one of the top three developers in Dubai, where Otto went and forged his own path.

Speaker 2 This guy, family man, entrepreneur, hustler, shark on shark tank, this is going to be one that you want to tune in for.

Speaker 2 Welcome to another episode of Next Level Pros. Today we have Mr.
Attil Sajan,

Speaker 2 which is one of my best friends in the world. Otto comes from Dubai, what I always refer to as the king of Dubai.
He is one of the top three developers in real estate. They have skyscrapers.

Speaker 2 Literally, when you go into the beautiful city of Dubai, you're going to see these guys everywhere. And

Speaker 2 they just have such an incredible presence, not only in real estate, but also in retail and supply, everything else, which is super cool. But,

Speaker 2 you know, obviously the glitz and glamour is cool. Let's talk about a little bit of the story.
Your dad came from very humble beginnings. Can you jump into that a little bit?

Speaker 1 Yeah. So first of all, Chris, thank you for having me on your podcast.
You know, I'm really feeling honored and privileged.

Speaker 1 Chris, again, is one of my best friends who I met thanks to HPS and I had a great time over there thanks to him.

Speaker 1 So you know thank you for being part of my life.

Speaker 1 Talking about my dad, yes, of course things are different now but actually my,

Speaker 1 you know, we

Speaker 1 originated from you know some of the slums in India and my granddad was a factory worker and he actually passed away when my dad was only 16.

Speaker 1 And my dad being the oldest suddenly had huge responsibility to take care of his two younger siblings and his mom, who was not that healthy, so she was not able to, she was not capable to work.

Speaker 1 So he had to not only feed three of his family members, but also make sure that they survive. And it was really, really, really hard because you're 16 and you don't know what just happened.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And so you said he came from the slums of India. Like, that's hard to get out of.
How did that end up transitioning?

Speaker 1 So, so at that point, more than getting out of it, it was like, how do we put a meal in front of us? Right.

Speaker 1 And and uh he used to do all kinds of odd jobs like selling milk uh delivering newspapers uh selling firecrackers you name it like you know whatever odd job hustler like because at that point you just gotta get a meal in front of your you know yeah that's survival survival so it was literally survival mode and he reached out to one of his uncles in kuwait he's like look uncle i need help uh can you get me a job i need to really support my family and um

Speaker 1 uh his uncle said that, look, you're too young. When you turn 18, I will employ you.
And he just thought that, look, normally when you need people the most, that's when they turn away.

Speaker 1 It's typical life.

Speaker 1 But luck may have it on his 18th birthday, his uncle sent him a letter saying that, here is one. Happy birthday, you're 18.
And if you're still willing to, you know, the job is still available.

Speaker 1 And my dad was like, hell yeah.

Speaker 1 And what industry was your uncle in? So my uncle had, you know, a building material company in Kuwait,

Speaker 1 you know, selling all kinds of building materials. And my dad just went to Kuwait as an 18-year-old.
Salary was very low.

Speaker 1 They used to live in a maybe like a 30 square feet, a 300 square feet apartment, like 10 of them, 10 people living in like one

Speaker 1 in the very initial days, right?

Speaker 2 So this

Speaker 2 suite that we're sitting in is bigger. It's bigger than probably what your dad lived in.

Speaker 1 This suite is, yeah, it is.

Speaker 2 Of course it is.

Speaker 1 But that's how you start, right? Because when you have those humble beginnings, you can't be expecting luxury. You just need to go to the next phase in your life.
And that's what he got.

Speaker 1 He got that opportunity. And as a person, my dad is an ACE salesperson, is an ace businessman.
Where did he learn that from?

Speaker 1 I think it's in his blood.

Speaker 1 He had to drop out of school. More nature rather than he never attended university.
He had to drop out at school at grade 10 because his father passed away.

Speaker 1 So it's not that he was taught all these beautiful cases that we were taught at Harvard.

Speaker 1 you know it's just inbuilt yeah you know what I mean

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 2 he

Speaker 1 then

Speaker 1 within a very short span of time became my uncle's right hand because he was really good at what he was doing and within five six years he was like the chief commander for my uncle for running his business made it extremely successful how big was the business at that time I don't know how big it was, but I know how much he started earning.

Speaker 1 He started earning about

Speaker 1 $8,000 $8,000 a month.

Speaker 1 Keep in mind,

Speaker 1 big deal. $8,000 a month because of commissions.
So he was earning that on sales commissions, purely in commissions. $8,000 a month 35 years ago.
So this was

Speaker 2 early 90s.

Speaker 2 Late 80s. Late 80s.

Speaker 1 Late 80s. Late 80s, early 90s.

Speaker 2 I mean, that was top, so top 1% in America in 1991 was 100,000.

Speaker 1 And now it's

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 1 you're talking about America. Right.
Think about that if you convert that to Indian rupees. Oh, man.

Speaker 2 We were rich. Crushing it.

Speaker 1 Like, we were extremely, you know, coming from the slums and earning, you know.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it would be the equivalent of like a sales guy making $5 million a year here or something.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 earning, you know,

Speaker 1 $8,000 a month, $100,000 a year,

Speaker 1 you're crushing it. Yes.
And he got a sister married, he got a house done. You know, I was born in Kuwait and we were living in extremely, you know, living in a posh neighborhood in Kuwait.

Speaker 1 Things were great. You know, there was no reason to, you know, think otherwise.
And then fortunately, unfortunately,

Speaker 1 in the early 90s, Saddam Hussein from Iraq, he invaded Kuwait.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 my dad's boss calls him and he's like, look,

Speaker 1 Rizwan, you know, there's an invasion. And he was in London.
He's like, go to the office and, you know, pick up these papers. And my dad's like,

Speaker 1 what is invasion? What does that mean? Yeah. And he's like, Rizwan, like, you you know, Iraq.

Speaker 2 Bizwan's your dad's name.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. So he's like, no, Iraq is taking over.
So he's like, what does that even mean? Like, you know, you've never heard of this.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 You know, so he's like, no, just go outside and see new balcony. So he opens the balcony and they're like tanks lined up on the streets and the soldiers walking in because it was a surprise attack.

Speaker 1 Nobody knew, right? It wasn't planned. There was no announcement on social media.

Speaker 2 This was headed up by Saddam Hussein. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dude, it's crazy how little educated we are in the Western world. Like,

Speaker 2 I knew something about Kuwait and I knew something about Saddam Hussein, but I don't know the details.

Speaker 1 So, that's what happened overnight. There was a surprise invasion.

Speaker 1 Iraq invaded Kuwait, and that's it. They just seized the country.
And

Speaker 1 we were there. I was born.
I was like maybe a year old. And

Speaker 1 while most people would panic, you know, in such a gruesome situation, my father was like, hmm, how do I make money out of this? And

Speaker 1 I mean, because that's that's his spirit, right? So, you know what he did? He went to

Speaker 1 because the

Speaker 1 telecommunication was cut,

Speaker 1 the internet, I mean,

Speaker 1 there was no way to contact your family. So he went to all the people in his buildings and the neighboring buildings, and he charged them five dinar.
Five dinar would be about

Speaker 1 $20

Speaker 1 or like $18

Speaker 1 for a letter. So he would charge about $20 per letter.
He collected 100 letters for people to send them back to their home that, hey, I'm alive. And then he would take those 100 letters, drive through

Speaker 1 some warton area, go to the other side and deliver the letters. And then eventually the, you know, the Indian embassy found out, like, what the hell are you doing? You can't do this.
You know,

Speaker 1 it's not safe.

Speaker 2 He's like, it's worth two grand. Let's go.
Literally.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And then he started selling oil on the streets in Kuwait.
And then... It's like, you know, it's pure hustling.

Speaker 2 I love it.

Speaker 1 And then, so one of the Iraqi soldiers came and he's like, How much? And my dad's like, five dinar for what? For the oil, whatever he was buying.

Speaker 1 And so the Iraqi soldier gives five Iraqi dinar. And Iraqi dinar is much less than the Kuwaiti dinar.

Speaker 1 And my dad's like, no, no, no, not Iraqi. It's Queti dinar.
You know, because like 10 times. Then he takes out like a gun.

Speaker 1 And he's like, no, it's Iraqi. And then my dad eventually had to just, okay, here, here you go.
So he did all these crazy things.

Speaker 2 But at gunpoint, he's getting held up. That's crazy.

Speaker 1 So anyway,

Speaker 1 then we had to escape. So luckily the Indian government rescued a lot of the Indians.

Speaker 2 So yeah, how to like give me details. Like how did you escape?

Speaker 1 On a fighter plate, on a fighter jet. No.
So they sent these huge army planes. And the...
The Indian government.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the Indian government, obviously, they would rescue the Indians back to India because we're not Kuwaiti. Right.
Yeah, and I'm sure the other governments, so we're expats.

Speaker 1 So the Indian government sent a lot of planes and we went in like the Indian army planes.

Speaker 1 How do you, I mean, if they're surrounding this place with tanks, like, how do you but the Iraqis did not attack, so they're in, but but they only were okay with the Indians, they didn't have any issues with the Indians, so they were fine with you guys leaving, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Why they didn't care with us leaving, you know, it wasn't like uh, uh, so they were very much okay with people leaving, uh, uh, but they want to capture the country.

Speaker 1 Um, anyway, fast forward, so my dad leaves, he goes back to India, and then he's like, Look, I need to get out of India, I need to go somewhere else to make some more money.

Speaker 1 So he approached one of his friends in Dubai, and his friend offered him a salary of $500 a month plus a commission, which is like, whoop, you're back to square one.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And most of the money that he made got devalued because the Kuwaiti dinar got devalued. So he comes back to Dubai, he starts working for this guy.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 this is what 1991. 92.
92.

Speaker 2 Dubai is basically nothing. It's a desert.
In 1992.

Speaker 2 So, like, what was this guy, or why would your dad even consider Dubai as?

Speaker 1 I don't know. It was very random.
It was very random. You know, as my mom said, you should think about Dubai.
It was very random. There was no, like,

Speaker 1 there was no.

Speaker 2 I mean, think about Dubai. Did David even know Dubai existed?

Speaker 1 So he didn't want to work in India. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Kuwait was obviously, it was a war. So you want to live somewhere close by.
And, like,

Speaker 1 we're like, Saudi was a little more conservative at that point. You know, so, so it was just like, okay, let's just try Dubai.

Speaker 1 There was no other reason.

Speaker 2 So this reminds me. So we

Speaker 2 luck.

Speaker 1 I would say luck plays.

Speaker 2 We got this equation, right, from Das where it was like hard work, all these different things.

Speaker 2 And then the last one was luck. So that is a nice, nice dose.

Speaker 1 He's, of course, he's a smart worker, he's a hard worker, but he's always had very good luck on his side. And in this case, to answer your question, plain flat is luck.

Speaker 2 Which is interesting. I don't necessarily believe in luck.
I actually believe

Speaker 2 it's like hope and manifestation that

Speaker 2 comes in the form of luck.

Speaker 1 No, I believe in the fact that you can't just be like, hey, I'm going to sit at home all day and I'm going to get lucky.

Speaker 1 You got to set yourself up for luck.

Speaker 1 So, yes, luck plays a big role, but then you got to also work your ass off and you got to set yourself up for luck. Absolutely.
And then when it comes, it comes.

Speaker 2 So you guys move.

Speaker 1 So we come back to Dubai and he gets a very low salary, $500 per month with commission. And,

Speaker 1 you know, he's working for this guy and he starts earning about three three and a half thousand dollars a month because of commissions which is okay and he goes back to him and he's like look um

Speaker 1 uh he tells his boss the new boss now that i know this business about plywood and timber which he learned in kuwait you know give me four or five people and give me like a 10 profit share and i can make it big And but unfortunately, that guy was very conservative.

Speaker 1 He's like, no, this is too risky. I don't want to do it.
And then my dad's like, look, I don't see my growth potential too much. So I want to part ways.

Speaker 2 And that's when he went to my mom and he's like, so wait, this guy rejected the 10% profit share.

Speaker 1 He rejected the idea of doing this new business of plywood and temper. So he was doing a hardware business, which is a smaller business, you know, door handles, hinges.

Speaker 2 uh you know nails and so your dad decided to go and do it on his own which had this guy accepted the offer yeah it would have been a completely different for sure for him yeah

Speaker 1 yeah for sure wow so uh he said no uh i mean he's still in dubai he knows we're still yeah

Speaker 1 and he's kicking himself and and i mean it's okay i mean he's he's okay he's he's doing he's doing all right uh and like i said it's it's a little bit of destiny a little bit of luck so so it was that rejection was a perfect you know because if had it not been or had the war not happened or had so many things not happened you know maybe things would have not been the same for us maybe i would have not been at harvest who knows right so yeah you know, I think one of the greatest principles of successful people is that they are really good at fighting off their back.

Speaker 2 Correct. And your dad sounds like he was put on his back several times.

Speaker 1 Oh, many times, multiple times. With his dad passing away and then the Kuwait war.
And then, of course, many with the recession. So many times he's faced very easily.
But he always has a smile.

Speaker 1 He's never stressed about it. You know, I don't know how.
It's awesome.

Speaker 1 Anyway, so he started his business. He went to my mom.
He's like, look, I have $30,000 saved right now because all the the money he made earlier was gone because of Kwaitina. So I have $30,000 saved.

Speaker 1 I want to start a business. Worst case, six months, I lose all the money and I can go back and I can get a three to four thousand dollar job easily.
I'm capable enough and we can live.

Speaker 1 We'll have a house sustained. We'll have food.
Like, you know, we'll be okay. It's not the end of the world.
My mom said, do whatever you want. You have my support.

Speaker 2 And I was like,

Speaker 2 which also is like a key principle to success is having somebody that will support you.

Speaker 1 Huge, huge. So my mom is very simple, very supportive, you know, very easy to get along with.
So she was a big moral support for my dad.

Speaker 1 And that's why my dad's like, okay, you know, it's not the end of the world. Let me take this plunge.
But no, he obviously nobody knew that it's going to become this.

Speaker 1 I mean, fast forward, if I have to say, like, our company just completed 30 years this year. And from that $30,000, you know, last year we had an annual revenue of almost $4.5 billion.

Speaker 2 Unbelievable.

Speaker 1 We have, you know, 6,000 people working for us, multiple businesses, 40 cities. So, you know, it's just a complete transformation from the slums to four and a half billion.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's so incredible.

Speaker 2 So, obviously, life's been different for you. Yeah.
Right? Like, you didn't grow up in the slums. No, no, no.
You had a lot of incredible opportunity. Your dad set you up in a lot of ways.

Speaker 2 But I think one of the things that I respect and love most about you is that you found your own path

Speaker 2 along that. So, can you dive a little bit into that?

Speaker 1 Like, what it is like growing up in a successful home and finding your own path yeah so i'll start off with my growing up part first uh my dad uh really instilled very strong values from from a very young age he was extremely tough in building my foundation so when i was 13 years old summer holidays like we all do june july august so we had our building material shops you know and in that we have a warehouse and we have like an open yard where we store timber plywood all kinds of wood over there.

Speaker 1 So 13 years old, I was supposed to work 8 to 1

Speaker 1 during my summer holidays with my tie. I have to be on time.

Speaker 2 You had to wear a tie. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. And I had to be on time.
Like, no, 805, it's 8 o'clock. And my first job was with the blue-collar workers.

Speaker 2 And this is that,

Speaker 1 which I love, but the only challenge with this was I was working in the open yard. So I don't know if you've been to Dubai, but Dubai in the summers,

Speaker 1 it's 100 plus degrees.

Speaker 2 I think we've, yeah, it's like 120 or something.

Speaker 1 It's really hot, it's really hot. Like, you know, it's like 50 degrees Celsius.
I don't know how much is in Fahrenheit, but it's like really, really, really hot.

Speaker 1 And I used to carry like four shirts because I would be like drenched every day. And I'd like come back with like a red tomato face.
And my mom and my dad would fight every day.

Speaker 1 And he's like, Look, stay away from this. It's my domain.
Do whatever you want outside this. But this part is mine.

Speaker 2 So she wanted to protect you. Like,

Speaker 1 which mother is gonna like his son who's 13 getting roasted in the sun every day? Come on.

Speaker 1 You you know you're not gonna find many mothers it's gonna be okay with that so uh and you're you're an only child right i'm the only child yeah but i did get i did get a salary so i was paid about 120 a month which was a lot of money as well being 13 yeah 22 years ago yeah so it was nice it was fun and um

Speaker 1 and then so so from the age of 13 to 18

Speaker 1 every year For those three months, I always did something. So for the first three years, I was in the warehouse.

Speaker 1 Then one year I spent, you know, in Media City in marketing. In one year, we did door-to-door sales.
So we started the steel division.

Speaker 1 So we used to go to all these AC fabricators, knocking in that, hey, we're from Danube. This is what we're selling.

Speaker 1 One year, when I was 18, I spent, when I say one year, it's three months, my summer holidays, I spent in my dad's cabin.

Speaker 1 just observing what he does, how he deals with issues, how he's meeting people, how he meets bankers, how he meets inside, outside people, whatever.

Speaker 2 So I want to point out just the progression of that. Like initially it was like, go work, bust your butt.
Doesn't matter if it's smart work, it's just hard work. Right.
Those first three years.

Speaker 2 Then he said, okay, let's go marketing, figure out how to get people's attention. Then say next,

Speaker 2 figure out how to close people. And then last, figure out how to govern and manage people.

Speaker 1 That wasn't the last. That was the second last.
Okay. The last was when I, so I was supposed to study in the US.
I had very good grades. Of course, we had the money by then.

Speaker 1 But then my dad's like, look, I think you should study over here in Dubai so you can work and study at the same time. And we had just started our retail business.

Speaker 1 So at the age of 19, I became a buyer.

Speaker 1 By buyer means like a department head. So, you know, he's like, okay, I want you to go and start a chandelier division.
I'm like, chandelier, what?

Speaker 1 And he's like, how do you, like, how do you even start a division? You know, you're 19. I have no idea.
He's like, no, it's okay. You'll figure it out.
And he didn't tell me anything.

Speaker 1 So he's like, here's a million dollars. Go and start the chandelier division.
It's not a bag of million dollars, but like a buying budget of million dollars. Yeah.
And

Speaker 2 bag will be.

Speaker 1 So I go to China and there's a city called Gujun. And this is known as the city of lights.
It's 90 minutes away from Guangzhou. And literally, Chris, it's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 You have a city with 7,000 shops of chandeliers and 10,000 factories of chandeliers and lighting in a in like in something as small as like maybe smaller than Manhattan. That's all there is.

Speaker 1 There's only chandelier shops, restaurants, and hotels.

Speaker 2 There's nothing China, China literally blows my mind. So I've been there a couple of times.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And one night we were having dinner and the guy that we were with, our translator, he was like, do you guys want furs? Yeah. And I'm like, furs? Why would we want fur?

Speaker 2 He's like, there's a city close that has furs. Literally, we went, same thing,

Speaker 2 same type of city, just fur. That's insane.
Like, dude, literally, cities dedicated to one product.

Speaker 1 So, you know, that's smart. The way they've they've designed it makes it very easy for buyers.
And I walk in, you know, 19 years old. This is a new translator.
She's three months old in the company.

Speaker 1 And we're like, okay, let's figure this out. So, you know, made some Excel file, try to make some sense of it.

Speaker 1 And we just went door to door. Hey, we're from Dubai.
Very big company, but this is our order

Speaker 1 because there's a new division. And it was fun.
You know, it was really fun.

Speaker 1 But the good thing, I mean, the bad thing at that point was I had no idea about MOQs, minimum water quantities. I had no idea about packaging.
I had no idea about freight.

Speaker 1 I had no idea about tax and duties. I had no idea about anything.

Speaker 2 You just had to figure it out.

Speaker 1 I just had to figure it out. So it's like you throw a kid in the pool.
He just figured it out. So that's what it was.

Speaker 1 And of course, my dad could have given me like some understanding, but he didn't intentionally.

Speaker 1 Of course, now I've been to like China 40 times. I travel 100 days a year for my work.
It's a very different story now.

Speaker 1 But that's how I started.

Speaker 1 So when I was in my university, I used to go for exhibitions i used to go to university and then after uni i used to go to work to our shops you know meet the customers meet the salespeople go through some i had fun as well don't get me wrong i had a very good life but it was a balanced life so work college and then fun so we had all three going on um

Speaker 1 and then the pivotal moment of my life happened when i graduated

Speaker 1 So my dad asked me, what do you want to do?

Speaker 1 And I want to join the family business, of course. He's like okay so I had two parts so one was our building material business.
We were doing a revenue of about

Speaker 1 At that point one and a half billion per year AD and we were very profitable, you know

Speaker 1 Successful business our core business. Yeah, and the other is this new retail business which is doing about a hundred million a year, but we were losing 10 million a year on it.

Speaker 1 And my dad was kind of like just fed up with this business. He want to shut it down.

Speaker 1 He's like, you know, this is is taking so much time and we're not able to get it right and you know whatever like I'm it was a distraction from the core business yeah he was it was defocused he's like I want to shut it down so I thought to myself I told my dad I'm like look I don't shut it down give me this business I want to take over and he was very happy and at that point if you ask any guy when you have a one and a half billion profitable business which is doing well and 100 million where you're losing 10 million a year which is not doing well which one would you choose Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 Nine out of ten times, people would go with the easier option. But the reason I chose this path was because

Speaker 1 I thought that if I could A, turn this around, I could add value to the company. And B, then it's my baby where I can do whatever I want, right?

Speaker 1 I don't have anyone else, you know, because think about it. I'm 22 years old.
I don't want to be working with like these 50-year-old CEOs, and then it doesn't work.

Speaker 2 Which brings up another question. Did you, like, growing up in a very successful home, did you you yearn to have your own like validation?

Speaker 1 I want to have my own path. No, no, I want to have my own path.
Like, my dad's had his own path. He's created his empire.
So I want to

Speaker 1 prove to the company as well that, yes, I can do something by myself. Because when you join a successful business, if you do well, it's your dad's business.

Speaker 1 If you do wrong, it's always a dad came up with a good business and father, son came up.

Speaker 2 Screwed it up.

Speaker 1 And then from a value proposition side, how are you adding value? You want to come in, try new things.

Speaker 1 And I always believe should not never spoil a running formula successful formula so that was successful very successful leading in the market yeah

Speaker 1 and that's when my journey began like my true journey began so uh i i remember i was 2014 you know i was super young and um

Speaker 1 so it's 2012 my bad 2012 and i have this business and i can tell you something which i can tell you now it's much easier to start a new business than to take a failed business and turn it around.

Speaker 1 It's much harder to do that because you know things are set in a way that it's not working right and the first thing that i did was i went to my you know top management i'm like hey guys i know i'm the chairman's son but don't treat me like one i'm not here to take your job i swear to god i'm here not as

Speaker 1 you know your enemy or somebody who's going to take your job i am here as your biggest weapon because you know at the end of the day we're a big conglomerate you guys are now the small guys in this big conglomerate who's losing money.

Speaker 1 So, you know, obviously you need help. And being the chairman's son, I can open up a lot of doors.
I can fight a lot of battles for you internally and externally.

Speaker 1 I can make you, I can make this company grow because we have the same common goal. I want to prove myself.
And if the company grows, your career grows.

Speaker 1 So at the end, if I win, you win, you win, I win. So we have a unified goal.
So don't have that impression that I'm, because it makes a difference.

Speaker 1 It always happens when you have management and the young chairman's son joins, immediately you'll have good people leave. Yep.

Speaker 2 So I, so I just want to point out what you did there. So you

Speaker 2 defined very clear expectations, like, hey, look, this is where we're at. This is where we need to be.
This is like, and you put everybody, you were very transparent of like, don't do this.

Speaker 2 Let's create.

Speaker 1 common goals.

Speaker 1 I gave them confidence that because if I, and I fast forward, like now we're close, they told me they're like, the second they announced they're going to leave within six months because they're like, oh, you know, now the chairman's son is here.

Speaker 1 What value do I have?

Speaker 2 So, and I think most business owners get this wrong, right? Like, they just let it be and kind of just come in. But the fact that you were very clear communicating with the company.

Speaker 1 Basically, I wanted to run the company professionally, not as a family-run business, but of course, have my involvement, open up the doors, you know, be them as a support system, be them to fight their battles,

Speaker 1 but let them fight it.

Speaker 1 So that was very important.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 two years, oh my God, from 2012 to 2014 was so hard. But we took some really tough decisions.
That was a time when we're like, okay, let's turn this. How do we turn this around?

Speaker 2 So, what happened to revenue those first couple years?

Speaker 1 So, what we did was, number one, was shut down half our stores where we didn't see a silver lining. Number two was rebranded our concept from Bill Mart to Daniel Home.

Speaker 1 Number three was we stopped all local purchase. So, I said that everything that we import, everything that we sell has to be imported.

Speaker 1 So, our gross margins go up, better control on on stock, hired some retail professionals,

Speaker 1 fixed our warehousing and logistics, made sure we have like top-tier racking.

Speaker 2 So when you got rid of 50% of your locations, how many locations did you go from?

Speaker 1 We had about 11 and we came down to six. Okay.

Speaker 1 But then

Speaker 1 we also added a couple of more locations. So we were like then back to eight.

Speaker 1 But then interestingly enough,

Speaker 1 So at that time, you know, our stores was one was like 2,000 square feet, one was 20,000 square feet, one was 10,000 square feet. There was no science behind why we opened such a lot.

Speaker 2 I mean, there was no like stamped formula.

Speaker 1 That was a problem. So we had building people running retail.
So I changed that. I added the retail people on board, fixed all the issues that we had.

Speaker 1 And I remember it was in, and I came up with this new concept called Danube Home, where the store size would be 60 to 100,000 square feet.

Speaker 1 And the concept was everything home from furniture, sanitary, tiles, garden, kitchen, electrical hardware, blinds, like a superstore for home and before that your largest store was 20 000 square feet the largest but the average store is about 8 000.

Speaker 1 wow so it really reinvented the whole concept and it was in the year 2014 where we finally broke even so we grew from a hundred million to 128 million and during this time dubai is cruising right like yeah i mean that the birch khalifa had just been finished or or was this when you kind of had a little bit of a downturn yeah so this was so we we opened the concept in 2009 right after recession

Speaker 1 so it was the market was okay i mean it was it wasn't bad it was okay uh it was good uh it wasn't like crazy like you know but it was it was all right uh but it was in 2014 when we broke even uh so from minus 10 to zero we grew by 28

Speaker 1 and guess what my daughter was not happy at all he's like oh you've only grown by 28

Speaker 1 you know when i was younger and we started oh we used to grow by 50 60 a year oh

Speaker 1 and i was like you know i was i was expecting How did that make you feel? I was expecting, like, wow, Adil, good job. You know, you did something I couldn't in this business.

Speaker 1 And, but, but that's what, you know, that's what keeps it going. So I told, I explained to him.

Speaker 2 So did that piss you off or motivate you?

Speaker 1 No, no. It's not about motivation or piss me off because I'm a rational person, right? So I explained to him, and it was intentional.

Speaker 1 Because see, in retail, it's very easy to grow. Throw money, open stores, your revenue grows.
So I'm like, look, this was part of our strategy.

Speaker 1 And I truly believe that if your foundation is weak and you just grow, you're never going to make money. Absolutely.
You've got to first fix your foundation, create and make sure your base is strong.

Speaker 1 And then you, and then you, you know, so running a business is like running a marathon.

Speaker 1 If you don't prep yourself and you run a marathon, you're going to, you're going to, you know, unless you're Daryl. Unless you're Daryl.

Speaker 1 But then if you, if you prep yourself, you know, do the right training, get the right nutrition, are ready for, you know, for the sprint.

Speaker 1 And then you do the marathon, you're going to do much better, right? So that's what we were doing for those two years.

Speaker 1 So I told him, look, if I double the revenue instead of losing 10 million, you'd be losing 20 million a year.

Speaker 1 So, 2014 is the year I went back to him. I'm like, Look, we're ready now.
We have a new concept, we have new people, we have a new structure, we're broken even. I want your blessings.

Speaker 1 And by blessings, I meant money to grow the business, uh, finance. Uh, and he's like, Okay, sure.
Uh, so I told him, I'm like, Look, I want to, you know,

Speaker 1 he's like, You have my blessings as long as there's green on the paper. I was like, Fair enough.
And the first thing

Speaker 1 I did was I took about 35 of my key, key key members, you know, branch heads, warehouse head, marketing head, whatever. And I, and we went to Bali.
And keep in mind, so I'm about 24.

Speaker 1 My average team size age is like 26, 27. And my older, like, you know, higher management is like 35, 30.
Very young team, intentional again. I didn't want an older team.

Speaker 1 So very young group going to Bali for the first time. Most of them have not seen Bali.
Most of them have never been on a trip like this before.

Speaker 1 And for the first four days, we had the best time of our life. River rafting, kayaking, clubbing, you know, beautiful dinners, whatever, like you name it, we did it.
And it was on day four

Speaker 1 that we had a bonfire. We sat down by the beach and I told them my

Speaker 1 plan for the next five years from 2015 to 2020, my roadmap.

Speaker 1 I'm like, hey guys, you know, I have a plan, my next five-year plan, and I want to 10x this revenue from 128 to a billion, you know, a billion a year.

Speaker 1 And every single one of them thought the boss has lost it. Because just imagine, you know, for the last five, six years, nothing's been happening.

Speaker 1 You know, two years with me and then three, four years when you started off. And now suddenly, in five years, they wanna.

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, at 24%, that means you would double every three years, which would only get you to, you know,

Speaker 2 250, 300 million. And you're like, let's go to a billion.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So So there's about 8x,

Speaker 1 10x sounds cool over, like 128 to a billion.

Speaker 1 And then I spent an hour explaining to them how. I'm like, look, guys, this is a new concept.
It's called Danube Home. We're going to open a 60,000 square feet store.

Speaker 1 This is the revenue you can do per year. This is what our competitors do in these markets.
These are the markets we're going to enter into. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 So I explained to them that, look, we've done a lot of research. There is a roadmap behind it.
And this is what the plan is.

Speaker 1 And of course, things don't work out exactly the way you plan it, but you have a general trajectory.

Speaker 2 Which I think is so important. We actually talk about this a lot with our five-year plan.
You can't just have this big, crazy, hairy, audacious goal, right?

Speaker 2 You have to have a way to justify him back into it.

Speaker 1 Of course, so there was a way to do it.

Speaker 2 Because that's what people, and that's exactly what you did, which gets people behind and motivated.

Speaker 1 So, my whole objective of this trip was I needed the buy-in of all my top leaders. You know, you've seen Wolf of Wall Street.

Speaker 1 I wanted that real passionate drive with them because I couldn't do without them. I can have whatever Excel sheet I want on paper or on the computer.

Speaker 1 But if I don't have my top guys aligned with my vision

Speaker 1 and have the same passion as me, it's not going to work, right? Especially in a startup. So this trip was extremely critical.

Speaker 1 And then I told them very clearly and up front, I'm like, hey guys, look, whatever you worked in the last five years was amazing. I'm grateful for it.

Speaker 1 But what I need from all of you for the next five years is double, triple of what you've done. I don't want people who got to look at their clock and work.

Speaker 1 And if that's something that you don't want, this is the right time to leave. Tell me right now and I'm okay with it.

Speaker 1 Whatever compensation, whatever help you need, whatever letter of, you know, referral you need, I'll sign it. But I don't want you to be working anymore

Speaker 1 if you can't be giving in that time. But I promise you.
If you do give that time and the company does grow, all of you are going to be leaders in your place.

Speaker 1 And it's very important to define expectations because at that point, I'm saying there's no work-life balance,

Speaker 1 but you have a golden opportunity to be somewhere in five years' time. So, you know, it's

Speaker 1 one guy left out of the 35. Wow.
And he tried coming back multiple times over the last 10 years. Maybe like

Speaker 1 for sure.

Speaker 2 For sure.

Speaker 1 All 34 of them work for me. Even today, in 2025,

Speaker 1 all of them are leaders in their domain, having, you know, managers, having, you know, so many people under them.

Speaker 1 And if you want to know what we reached by 2020, so we didn't touch a billion because billion was a little ambitious, and I intentionally so, always for the stars.

Speaker 1 Like, we were taught at Harvard as well. Uh, we didn't touch a billion, but we did about 700 million, so we grew from 128 to 700 in five years.

Speaker 1 But most importantly, for me, when I took over, uh, we were at minus 10

Speaker 1 net. This is not A beta, this is net.

Speaker 1 Yes, uh, and by 2020, we were at 12.8 percent net so there was like a 22 percent swing so you went from 10 to 84 million or 90 million from just from negative 10 million from negative 10

Speaker 1 oh negative 10 to positive 12 percent yeah correct so from negative 10 to correct correct 90 90 million so uh incredible uh that was the journey and then it became my baby where you know it was mine i created like i turned it around so it was like a success story in the company became a cash cow we were one of the fastest growing home improvement retailers.

Speaker 1 And the journey was very hard because when we started, when we tried to expand and I used to go to all these shopping malls, I'm like, hey, we have this concept we want to open.

Speaker 1 Keep in mind, that time Dubai had these seven, eight big retail mafia families who own like 90% of retail. So each company would have like 50 brands, 40 brands.
And I'm coming in with this one brand.

Speaker 1 And then I'm like, look, I have this concept. And the mall guy's like, oh, you want to sell a commote in my shopping mall?

Speaker 1 like a like a wash space in my shopping mall I was like yeah it's unique it's different he's like no way and

Speaker 1 okay fine

Speaker 1 so then how do you solve that right like it's a big road it's a huge roadblock because how are you going to expand if the malls say no yeah and we pivoted by opening massive standalone showrooms next to the best shopping malls in town so similar like size to like a like an ikea you know so ikea is about 250 300 000 square feet we would be about 60 to 100.

Speaker 2 Okay, so about a half.

Speaker 1 But it's still big.

Speaker 2 No, that's massive. It's still big.
Yeah, IKEA is massive. It's still big.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And IKEA is about 150 to 300. Yeah.
Cause it's about 60 to 100. So one third.

Speaker 2 But a similar concept from a sample standalone greer. Correct.

Speaker 1 Which we would open in very prime locations. And you know what we did? Something different was I'd put these massive 20 meter by eight meter LED screens.
bang on the showroom

Speaker 1 showcasing our products awesome so it became like an instant buzz you know what's happening over here? And anyone going to the mall would pass our shop anyway.

Speaker 1 And the rent would be like half with double the size of the shop. So it kind of worked out again.

Speaker 1 So the lesson over here is, you know, you'll always have roadblocks in life, but how you find your way around it and how you look at it as, you know, a blessing in disguise is what really makes you successful.

Speaker 1 So resilience is key. And then as time progressed, started some other businesses.

Speaker 2 So yeah, fast forward to 2024.

Speaker 2 You guys started your real estate development business in 2014? Correct. So you got 10 years.
You guys have branded pretty much everything Danube, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, so just, I mean, once again, if you guys ever go to Dubai, you're going to go and you're going to see billboards for Danube, Danube Home, Danube Real Estate Development.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's in the airports, it's everywhere. And so you guys have really, just really parlayed off of this same brand.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So yeah, we've gone with that route. So Danube properties, Danube Building Materials, Danube Sports World, Danib Home.

Speaker 1 You know, there's a lot of Danib companies right now. I love it.

Speaker 1 So real estate was interesting. Real estate we started in 2014.
My dad started again.

Speaker 1 And back then, most of the big boys in real estate were selling these million-dollar houses with no payment plans. So nobody could afford it.

Speaker 1 And if you understand Dubai, 90% of Dubai's population is expat.

Speaker 1 They're not Emiratis. It's expats.
And most of them are salaried salaried people who couldn't have, who've been paying rent and they could never buy a home.

Speaker 1 So looking into that problem statement, you know, we came up with this idea, affordable housing where you're selling studios for about

Speaker 1 $120,000

Speaker 1 with a 1% payment plan. So we were the first people to introduce this 1% payment plan.
What is it? It is basically you pay 20% upfront. and your remaining payment is 1% per month.
So now suddenly...

Speaker 2 Which for the Americans in the room, 1% of the total value of the thing, right? Americans automatically think financing. They're not like waiting, you're going to pay 1% financing?

Speaker 2 No, it's 1% of the total value.

Speaker 1 So, what we did was we went to the banks, we made this bulk deal with them. We inbuilt the interest costs into our product, making it easier for us.
So,

Speaker 1 the apartment came with self-financing.

Speaker 1 And then you buy in this $120,000 apartment,

Speaker 1 and then you're paying $1,200 a month.

Speaker 1 So, now suddenly, suddenly

Speaker 1 the entire real estate landscape of Dubai changed because now there was this new product in town where the mass could afford could afford a home.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it was an instant success. And then everyone started copying it.

Speaker 1 And what makes us really proud is because of this one single idea, suddenly, you know, thousands of people in Dubai could have their own dream home.

Speaker 1 And, you know, we've had so many people come to our office, like, wow, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 You know, as if like, you know, it was, it was such a, because, you know, owning owning your own dream home it's it's one of the uh pivotal or you know nicest moment in a family's journey for sure hard for most people as well and i think i think another key just marketing aspect for what you guys did there is the the uh base religion over there is muslim yeah right and most of them believe in not paying interest right and so this also appeals to them from a standpoint of I can own a home that isn't financed.

Speaker 2 I'm just paying 1% a month without paying interest. So it kind of hit hit both aspects, made it affordable, made it alignment with the base religion, which was pretty awesome.

Speaker 1 So now, since a lot of people copy this concept, like, what do we do next? How do we, you know, you know, create another defense layer?

Speaker 1 And the next thing that we did was we started giving all our apartments fully furnished. Now, keep in mind, we have our sister company, which I started, the retail company, the furniture brand.

Speaker 1 So it was much easier for us because we were the only private developer that's fully vertically integrated. We have a building material company.

Speaker 1 We have our retail furniture company, so we use that to better serve our customers. And we started giving all our apartments fully furnished, which nobody had before.

Speaker 1 And that was, you know, buy in bulk, really high-end furniture for like affordable pricing. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Which I think brings up another just great point.

Speaker 2 Like in business, when you're really successful in one vertical, make sure the next vertical can parlay and be used at the next because each of these businesses allowed for the next one to be even better, right?

Speaker 2 So like, absolutely and so where a lot of entrepreneurs they they get so distracted they see this opportunity this shiny object something that they don't know don't understand doesn't take care of any like you know synergies and just I mean what you guys have done is just like a master plan of building uberly successful generational wealth.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, to each his own, but for us, having this synergy really helped all our businesses in a big way.

Speaker 1 And so that was the second thing we did. The third thing that we did was back in 2014, most of the buildings used to have four or five amenities: a pool, a kids' pool, a sauna jacuzzi,

Speaker 1 you know, maybe a kids' area, and that's it. Most of the buildings.
And we were like, my dad, you know, we were like, why

Speaker 1 is it so? Why can't we have a result style living in a building? And that's when we transformed from affordable housing to affordable luxury. And we came up with these buildings.

Speaker 1 We came up with these buildings where they would have

Speaker 1 40, 50 amenities per building. So Infinity Pool, Aquatic Gym, Doctor on Call, Paddle Tennis Court, Badminton Court, Floating Cinema,

Speaker 1 Golf Simulator, Bowling Alley.

Speaker 1 It's a huge list.

Speaker 2 The drone landing.

Speaker 1 Air taxi. So we have, yeah.
So one of the new building that we launched will be having an air taxi coming soon. So one of the first buildings to sign that up.
So we just went all out.

Speaker 1 Like we thought of every single amenity that we could think of and we just like put it in and that worked like magic because if you think about it

Speaker 1 people don't mind paying 10 15 20 percent more

Speaker 1 in a building where they're getting so much fully furnished apartments payment plan you know all these amenities prime location and and the winning formula was a combination of all of this and we were the only developer doing all four of them perfectly you know some was only doing the payment plan some was only doing fully furnished, some was only doing this, but we had the entire bundle.

Speaker 1 And because of this combination of having high value proposition for the customers, immediately in a hyper-competitive market like Dubai, which is the hottest real estate market in the world right now for real estate, you have government-backed companies, you have so much going on.

Speaker 1 Despite all the, and we were one of the newest developers, 2014 is not that far away. We ranked

Speaker 1 third in terms of sales value.

Speaker 1 So, you know, it just comes down to the basics you know my my dad always says is you're gonna Harvard great but follow the basics understand the pulse of the customer keep your staff happy keep your customers happy figure out what the trend is and then just make sure your execution is spot on you know and so many of the times when we've done that it's worked and and if you see all our businesses There are two commonalities.

Speaker 1 Number one is every single business was different.

Speaker 1 So our retail business when we launched, we were the only person selling bathrooms and kitchens and tiles and wallpapers and flooring and furniture all in one roof. Nobody else does that.
Different.

Speaker 2 So, create a unique offering.

Speaker 1 Second is when we launch our sports business. By the way, we launched a sports business as well, largest sports facility in the whole of Middle East and Asia.
Like, Dubai was big on sports.

Speaker 1 So, that was the only

Speaker 1 estray, but that was more to connect to the community. And I have a team managing it.

Speaker 2 And just a fun passion problem.

Speaker 1 Fun passion thing. I love sports.
I love paddle tennis.

Speaker 1 But I'm not involved. Like, I've given it away to my, like, some, you know, young guy who's running it for us, but it's doing extremely well.

Speaker 1 And it's doing well because, again, when we did it, there was people only having paddle, only football, only cricket, only padminton, but there wasn't even one indoor multi-sport facility.

Speaker 1 We were the first. It worked.
Amazing. When it came to building materials, we started with nothing, but then very soon became very fast.

Speaker 1 We became one of the leading building material companies because my dad got 30,000 SQs under one roof: plywood, timber, steel, aluminium, glass, hardware, you know,

Speaker 1 ACP panels, like all veneers, laminates, you name it. Most of the guys at that time, plywood was plywood company, timber is timber company, sanitary is sanitary company.

Speaker 2 Just hyper-focused, hyper.

Speaker 1 So, we've always believed in this one-stop kind of a solution, whether it's sports, it's building material, it's home, it's properties.

Speaker 1 Yeah, bring everything and then give that high-value proposition.

Speaker 1 And when you do that and then do something different, so when you do a combination of these three, it works. But the catalyst of all three

Speaker 1 is you need to have the best people.

Speaker 1 You gotta be transparent with them. You gotta fully empower them.
And you gotta give them enough stake in what you make.

Speaker 2 Absolutely.

Speaker 1 A little piece of the pie. You've got to give them a little piece of the pie.

Speaker 1 So when you do that, you have now these super smart, young, you know, ambitious people who know exactly what's going on in the company, and they're running the business like it's their own.

Speaker 1 And that's the only way you can scale.

Speaker 1 And then they build their teams, and then it happens. So, you know, this is the winning formula for us at Danube.
This is what's worked for us.

Speaker 2 So, Otto, you've experienced all the success. Your dad's experienced tremendous success.
You've gone and forged your own path. Like, you have no need or want for money at this point.

Speaker 2 What pushes and motivates you today?

Speaker 1 I mean, you're absolutely right.

Speaker 1 I joined like YPO recently, and like we literally spend maybe half a percent or 1% of what we make because everything is set.

Speaker 1 You know, and

Speaker 1 so we're very content with our life, lifestyle. So we're not, obviously, you're not working to change our lifestyle.

Speaker 1 And then when I went to YPO, like a lot of people are like, okay, why are you working?

Speaker 1 Why, why, why, why, why?

Speaker 1 And the answer to the why is like, even if I see my dad today,

Speaker 1 he's 60,

Speaker 1 he's young, but he's still 60. And he's still working six days a week.
He's working until 9 p.m. every day.

Speaker 2 Which, by the way, so I was looking at his social media yesterday. It was so cute.

Speaker 2 They were watching you walk across the stage at Harvard from his office.

Speaker 2 Everybody was in there. They were cheering.

Speaker 2 Oh, someone was like, hip, hip, pooray.

Speaker 2 It was cool, man.

Speaker 1 I thought, man, like, how, how cool of an example this is of like, he's still out there working, hustling, celebrating his son like so cool so yeah you should definitely check out both our instagram handles i'm sure chris is going to put it up yeah we'll throw him down there a lot of interesting content but yeah we're super close in family we're actually four generations staying together in one house also uh small house of course

Speaker 2 yeah um

Speaker 2 no that's so cool i think i think uh a lot of people have gotten away from that uh right like uh we have several friends that live in dubai that are from from like your similar heritage or whatnot where traditionally families live together where they're not doing it as much and so like the fact that you still value

Speaker 1 our values. We have our values, you know, we're very close in family

Speaker 1 and we all and and don't get me wrong, you know, I spoke a lot about work

Speaker 1 I also have a lot of fun in life. I travel a lot, you know, with my wife, my three lovely kids, you know, so I'm blessed.
I mean, I can't ask for, I think I'm privileged.

Speaker 1 So to answer your question, I think it would be foolish for someone being the only child in my my platform to have all this opportunity to make so much value in community and then just throw it away because I want to, you know,

Speaker 1 just travel and do nothing. Like, how would that make any sense? Right.
Why can't you just have it all? Why can't you travel? Why can't you have your family? Why can't you work your ass off?

Speaker 1 Why can't you do it all? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I always believe it's never a trade-off. that, hey, don't work, just do this, or just work, don't do that.
So I think it's important to do it all.

Speaker 1 And the only way you can do it is have a very organized life. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then make sure your time counts.

Speaker 2 Which obviously you live what you preach. I mean, the reason why we know each other is because we were both furthering our education at Harvard Business School and being a part of the OPM program.

Speaker 2 And so like, you know, anybody in that program, I respect just for that aspect.

Speaker 2 But even more, I respect that one thing I recognized immediately from you was like, this is not a guy that's just checking a a box for his family, right?

Speaker 2 Like, we're, there's a handful of those type of people in our in our program. They're just like, hey, dad wants me here, mom wants me here, whatever.

Speaker 2 This is the only way I can take over the business where you had already forged your own path. And so, like, what you're saying, I believe is true.

Speaker 2 Like, you are truly a man that values it all and wants it all. Sure, for sure.
I appreciate that about you. For sure.
Yeah. So, dude, I appreciate the time that we've been able to spend

Speaker 2 not only on the podcast, but just over the last last couple years with with Harvard you know the the interesting thing is like the the world the world is small you know it you there's there's lots of opportunity to get out there but for those that haven't gone to Dubai sell us on Dubai real quick how we come to Dubai

Speaker 1 it is it is the best place for me at least in in the world and for many reasons

Speaker 1 number one

Speaker 1 One of the safest cities in the world.

Speaker 1 Number two, you get the best of both worlds. You have culture, but you also have a very modern society where, you know, everything is.

Speaker 1 So you have the super bling, but you also have something which is culturally sound.

Speaker 1 Number three, you have some of the best restaurants over there. Number four, if you want to shift to Dubai, no taxes.
I mean, we're paying nothing.

Speaker 2 Unless you're American.

Speaker 1 Unless, I mean, if you're American, you got to pay tax no matter where you live.

Speaker 2 Right. They got the hooks in us.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 otherwise, you know, just like 5% VAT. They've just introduced 9% corporate tax.
And there's no income tax, no inheritance tax, no property tax. There's no tax.

Speaker 1 So it's amazing.

Speaker 1 Whatever we earn, we take home.

Speaker 2 You know, Dubai is the one place on earth that makes me think maybe a monarchy can work.

Speaker 1 It does. And I highly recommend you should, you know, one of my biggest idols, you know, is His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, who's the ruler of Dubai.
Read his book, The Sheikh CEO.

Speaker 1 It is fantastic. The way he's transformed Dubai from a desert to one of the top cities in the world in 30 years, unbelievable.
It's unreal. We are who we are because of him.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, if Dubai wasn't a success story, it would have been much harder for us to, you know, get this kind of success.

Speaker 1 So, we've kind of piggybacked on that, and we're lucky, blessed to be at the right place at the right time.

Speaker 1 And, yeah, and even from an investment point of view, if you ever invest in Dubai, the rental yields are very high. You get anywhere from six to eight percent.

Speaker 1 You know, typically around the world, it's only 7%.

Speaker 1 Even the price per square feet for the kind of buildings I was talking about, it's still very undervalued like you can get something in the heart of Dubai with 50 plus amenities furniture payment plan for about

Speaker 1 $700 a foot which is very reasonable when you compare to New York, London, Singapore, Hong Kong, Mumbai, any of these top tier cities.

Speaker 2 And that's fully furnished.

Speaker 1 Yeah, fully furnished. So

Speaker 1 think about Dubai as your, if not your first home, at least your second home.

Speaker 1 And if you don't want to invest, just come with your family, you know, in the winters, and I'm sure you're going to like it.

Speaker 2 It's one of the most amazing places in the world. In fact, I went and celebrated my 40th birthday with Otto and his family.
That was great. Yeah, it was a fantastic time.
Instantly,

Speaker 2 one of my favorite, if not my most favorite, cities in the world.

Speaker 2 And so the fact that you guys have been behind the construction and development of it is just like speaks so much to you guys. So, Otto, thank you so much for being on the show.
Until next time.

Speaker 2 Thank you.