Are You A Dreamer?

Are You A Dreamer?.

Are You A Dreamer?

As I approach the last hurdle of launching my own brand of cleaning products, I get so excited from the forecasts that I make up in my mind but, at the same time, I get so overwhelmed with fear that I lose sleep over it.

When I penned the business plan for my cleaning company, I was sat in a hospital, sleepless and scared. My ex wife and I were going through a traumatic experience of a still birth, feeling helpless, I decided it was time to try and stop myself overdosing on caffeine and giving myself a black lung and write down the plan that I had so many times orchestrated in my head. I had completed the whole thing in 18 hours and just went back to it to polish the numbers and some spelling and grammatical mistakes that I had made.

In the financials and projected growth, I had the business start-up capital at $300k and a growth rate that Forbes magazine would be proud of. I might have been a little over ambitious in my calculations but hey, I’m an entrepreneur! I am the eternal optimist, the opportunist and the daydreamer. My cup is always half full, I’m always looking on the bright side and guess what, the grass on my side is emerald green. Although I had great aspirations and even though the numbers or growth rate of the business isn’t as they were projected in 2008, I have done everything that I had set out to do. I started with a healthy number of staff for the residential unit, took on commercial contracts and now launching my own products. What I didn’t think about when I thought up this business was how important the last element of this business is. Moreover, I didn’t contemplate how lucrative it is.

The cleaning product market worldwide last year was $2 billion dollars. Holy cow. I have been doing some research and green works, clorox’s Eco friendly alternative, had sales of $60 million. That’s still only 3% of the market share! I’m not looking to take over the world, but I seriously believe that my products are more attractive than theirs. I’m only looking for 0.1% of the market over the course of the next 18 months and then grow that share by the same amount year on year for the next 5 years. I know what you’re thinking now, that I’m dreaming. And maybe I am. I am a true believer that if you aim high and you fail, at least you failed high. I’m at 50% of my aimed growth rate. If I’m in the same situation a year down the line with my products,  I’m still a winner.

I always laugh because I’m just a kid (ok, maybe not so much as a kid anymore) without a formal education, I have a tainted childhood and questionable past. One thing I do have is a big heart and bigger dreams. I always encourage people around me to follow their hearts and chase their dreams. If they fall flat on their face, someone will always be there to help them up and laugh about it with them. Although I’m scared about how my business will succeed, I try to have fun everyday with the tasks that I have. The responsibilities I have to my future wife, my employees and other dependents are not what motivate me to get out of bed in the mornings. They might be the reason for me not giving up or having a lie in when I’m hungover, but no, it’s my dreams and the hope of getting one step closer to realizing those dreams that is my driving force.

Don’t be scared of dreaming. We all have nightmares now and again but they’re worth enduring if it means we get to live the dream.

When Will I Be Famous?

When Will I Be Famous?.

When Will I Be Famous?

The song of Cheesy 80’s British Pop Band ‘Bros’ comes into my mind every now and again whilst I’m making fun of myself. A few weeks ago, I made a joke on facebook about being a D list celebrity due to the number of newspaper and magazine articles published on the company which was duly followed by some ribbing and cheeky comments made from close friends. However, recently, much like tonight, I couldn’t sleep and read a promo for a reality show in Dubai named ‘The Entrepreneur’. The grand prize is 1 million dirham (just shy of $300k US) and the same amount in business support and services. Although an optimist, I thought to myself that my measly little cleaning company probably would get passed over but I filled out the form and sent it off nonetheless.

Can you imagine the look on my face when I received a phone call a few days later saying that I had been shortlisted for the show!! I think I actually dropped the phone and fell off the sofa.

Now, I don’t know if I’ll be on the show for, let alone win but, if by some miracle I do actually get on the show, even if it’s for an episode or two, how much would that kind of PR or advertising be worth I wonder? See for me, I could definitely use the money to grow the business, I mean, who wouldn’t? More value than the cash though is the branding and exposure a company could benefit from by being on this show. I know there are downsides to this as well such as opening the business to scrutiny and allowing people to see behind the scenes and how we deal with cock ups and such. Every business has them, it’s just how they handle them that can make the difference between managing them or letting a problem spread like wild fire and devastating a business.

For the likes of us little people, the SME’s, we fight a battle everyday to make sure that we offer the best service to our customers whilst making sure that our staff feel valued and making a profit in a competitive market. Will something like this be a blessing or a distraction? I’m yet to make up my mind but let us see. Nothing is in writing yet but I have a feeling that could change.

 

On that note, I’m going to leave you with a little video. Enjoy.

The song of Cheesy 80’s British Pop Band ‘Bros’ comes into my mind every now and again whilst I’m making fun of myself. A few weeks ago, I made a joke on facebook about being a D list celebrity due to the number of newspaper and magazine articles published on the company which was duly followed by some ribbing and cheeky comments made from close friends. However, recently, much like tonight, I couldn’t sleep and read a promo for a reality show in Dubai named ‘The Entrepreneur’. The grand prize is 1 million dirham (just shy of $300k US) and the same amount in business support and services. Although an optimist, I thought to myself that my measly little cleaning company probably would get passed over but I filled out the form and sent it off nonetheless.

Can you imagine the look on my face when I received a phone call a few days later saying that I had been shortlisted for the show!! I think I actually dropped the phone and fell off the sofa.

Now, I don’t know if I’ll be on the show for, let alone win but, if by some miracle I do actually get on the show, even if it’s for an episode or two, how much would that kind of PR or advertising be worth I wonder? See for me, I could definitely use the money to grow the business, I mean, who wouldn’t? More value than the cash though is the branding and exposure a company could benefit from by being on this show. I know there are downsides to this as well such as opening the business to scrutiny and allowing people to see behind the scenes and how we deal with cock ups and such. Every business has them, it’s just how they handle them that can make the difference between managing them or letting a problem spread like wild fire and devastating a business.

For the likes of us little people, the SME’s, we fight a battle everyday to make sure that we offer the best service to our customers whilst making sure that our staff feel valued and making a profit in a competitive market. Will something like this be a blessing or a distraction? I’m yet to make up my mind but let us see. Nothing is in writing yet but I have a feeling that could change.

On that note, I’m going to leave you with a little video. Enjoy.

A Second Chance

A Second Chance.

A Second Chance

With recycling becoming part of our everyday lives, I can openly say that societies around the world are better informed and are starting to care. In a previous blog, I talked about how people were trying to recycle, however, didn’t really have a clue what could and could not be sent to the colourful bins. Should we be stopping at just recycling packaging or kitchen waste? How about reusing things like coffee grinds as exfoliate for your face? What if we think even bigger and start to look at recycled furniture? I’m not talking about restoring your granny’s baroque armchair, although that would be pretty cool. I’m talking about taking a wardrobe that someone’s about to throw out and turning it into a bench or a chest. Maybe cupboards turned sideways and used as bookshelves.

After months of waiting for the contractors to do up our new house, we finally moved in a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, the snagging’s not yet finished and we sometimes wake up to workmen tinkering around outside. For a long time I’ve wanted to do things with scaffolding and when I was a single man, had even contemplated making a four poster bed out of old scaffolding and furnishing my room with other recycled items. I called it ‘industrial chic’. Obviously, now being in the throws of marriage, I wouldn’t be able to do such a thing… Or would I?

Well, luckily our new house is big enough to afford me a man cave which I have been able to do with as I please. I haven’t made a four poster bed, why would I? What I have done is made a four meter long day bed and an L shape bookshelf. All from scaffolding and scaffolding boards that were used for the construction of our house. I still need to get cushions and seating made for the day bed, I’ll probably get those this week.

If you’re thinking that’s a bit too much for your own house, my partner made more subtler items. She reused the cable spools and turned them into tables. The one in the picture above is a small one but they come in different sizes and can be painted or covered or sprayed.

While we probably wouldn’t or maybe couldn’t have everything in our house recycled, we have tried to use as much as we could wherever we could. I would be interested to know how many other people have turned a piece of something to make something else or even using an item of furniture for a purpose other than its intended use. Are you giving your furniture a second chance?

Feed Me Seymour!!

Feed Me Seymour!!.

Feed Me Seymour!!

 

I’m guessing not many of you will get the heading of this blog due to your age or where you were brought up but it’s a famous line from the movie ‘little shop of horrors’. It was a comedy from the eighties starring Steve Martin and was probably my 3rd favorite movie at the time. My first being ‘The Goonies’ and second was’Beverly Hills Cop’. It has nothing to do with the topic of this blog except maybe tying in gluttony but I’m not going to get all self righteous. For a few years now, I have been looking into the possibility of getting into vertical farming. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, it is using a skyscraper or tower block and its levels as green houses to grow food in rather than build offices or apartments. The idea came to me after it had been publicized a few years ago and the real estate crash of the UAE where there were an abundant of buildings half constructed all over the place. To start such a project on your own would be a huge task and an even bigger investment need but with the recent promotion of crowd funding or crowd sourcing, this project could become easier to get off the ground than I thought.

I mentioned it in passing to a friend of mine who owns such a building and was immediately interested to donate his asset to the cause. With that out of the way, the hardest part is pretty much done. Now I need to go back to the business plan and revisit the numbers to see how much would need to be invested to get the rest of it on track. There are many benefits to vertical farming. Apart from the carbon emissions aspect, as in if produce is produced locally, you don’t need to burn fuel to ship it in. The produce is fresher when it hits the supermarket shelf and it creates jobs locally. My idea was to grow things like cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and the like and sell them in the supermarkets under a brand name but then the profits from the proceeds would then go to buying grains and building wells in third world countries. In essence, the business is a non-profit, social development scheme. As a company, we do as much as we can for charities locally but I always wonder if we’re doing enough. I’m a huge believer of charity should always start at home, which is why I support local children’s centers, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have a responsibility to try and do good for others around the world who aren’t as fortunate. I feel very blessed for having what I have and I hope I continue to be blessed with such prosperity but what use is it if it’s all in vain? I guess what I’m trying to determine is, are there enough people like me out there to pledge their time, money and effort to feed a soul in Africa even though it’s a million light years from their own life or would they rather dismiss it with the view that ignorance is bliss? I hope there are more like me. I think this is why crowd sourcing is a good thing. People can pledge their time, their skills or their money. Like my friend who has pledged his building. Like another friend who comes from a agricultural background donating his knowledge, time and contacts. I wonder if I could raise enough money to get all the infrastructure in place like solar panels, water recycling systems, LED lighting. I wonder if corporations would sponsor or donate. I wonder. I wonder how many people will die of starvation, malnutrition or dehydration whilst I ponder these points. I wonder.

Green with Envy

Green with Envy.

Green with Envy

There’s an old saying that my grandmother would say to me on a regular basis when I was a child. Directly translated it is ‘Look at the rice in front of you’. When you’re a mischievous kid and your Cypriot granny screams this at you, you tend to laugh. What she meant was to concentrate on what I was doing before trying to do something else or finish playing with the toy or game in front of me before trying to get involved with what the other kids were doing. I guess it was a form of ADD but today I realise that it was just my curiosity as to what other people were up to. I wasn’t a jealous child because I would share my toys and usually give them away and then get told off for it because my parents would have to go and get me new ones. I’m like that till this day. I like to share things. I like to share emotions, knowledge, prosperity and good times. I’m not a huge fan of sharing bad times though you sometimes need to. 

I look around and listen now and then to people I meet and have recently realised how jealous people are. They’re more interested in what other people have rather than trying to work out a way of achieving it for themselves. I found this recently with the news that the UAE recently fell two places in the World Carbon Naughty Corner from naughtiest country to the third naughtiest. 

That’s great news for us as residents of the UAE as we are the culprits at the end of the day and it seems that we have heeded the call to grow up and be responsible for our planet. We still have a huge way to go but hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day. What really annoys me is that the other GCC countries now are so jealous, instead of trying to reduce they’re own emissions, they’re brooding. 

Changes come only by making a conscious decision to do things differently to achieve a goal. Rallying people and implementing initiatives to ensure people do things differently is a way forward. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum is an absolute legend. 4 years ago, he passed his Green Building guidelines that everyone beginning a new construction project had to adhere to. Changes weren’t seen overnight as they didn’t apply to buildings that were already approved and underway but look, it’s made a difference now. Education and advertising the reduction of water and energy consumption 3 years ago from the Sharjah Government all along the University City Campus road 3 years ago has helped to teach the young adults who now are the same people who have attributed to the reduction of our footprint. Abu Dhabi has done the same with their initiatives and between them and the other northern Emirates, we can proudly say we are learning and changing the way we live here. 

On that note, people will always be jealous, whether it’s of your life, job, career, money, relationships, looks and blah and blah. As long as we concentrate on the bowl of rice in front of us, I have hope that we will no longer be one of the naughty kids in the corner and become the shining example stood at the front the class. Even if I did hate that kid in school.