EP#4-How He Co-Founded a Michelin Star Restaurant in Dubai Through Networking | ft. Tarek Roumie

In today’s episode of the #Alphapreneurs Podcast, our host Rayhan Aleem sits down with Dubai-based serial entrepreneur, Tarek Roumie.
Tarek walks us through his inspirational career journey, starting with his passion for entrepreneurship at just 15 years old.

He offers key lessons from his intensive experience in the local F&B industry and breaks down what it takes to open a restaurant that truly captures the public’s interest. We will also explore how building solid human connections and driving the innovation wheel are essential for any entrepreneur who is thriving in a fast-paced environment.

👉 Contact Tarek Roumie through: troumie@matternutrition.xyz
👉 Website: https://matternutrition.xyz/
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Key Takeaways:

00:00 Intro
01:11    Entrepreneurial Beginnings – Family Influence and First Ventures
06:07 Mentorship's Role
08:00 Building Multiple Brands
15:50 Role of Business Partners
20:42 Keys to F&B Longevity
34:37 Beating Social Anxiety & Networking
45:27 Managing Multiple Businesses
49:36 Final Advice
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𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝗔𝗺 𝗜?

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𝗦𝗲𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝗼𝗼𝗻!

Transcript

 [00:00:00] Tarek: When you have somebody that's almost like you're accountable to them, you have enough respect to them that you want to grow for them, it changes your dynamic of how you deal with things. After a restaurant passes like seven or eight years, that's it. They're going to make it for a long time, because they've become ingrained within the community.

[00:00:22] Tarek: So I actually didn't know how to speak to people. And if somebody spoke to me without me planning a conversation in advance, I'll freeze. I had no idea. Zero, zero. If you have five projects, you need to figure out what your dose is in order to move the needle. 

[00:00:41] Rayhan: Welcome to the Alphapreneurs podcast. I'm your host, Rayhan Aleem, founder of Tax Star and Alpha Pro Partners.

[00:00:50] Rayhan: Join me on each episode as we talk to inspiring Dubai based entrepreneurs who share their stories, challenges, and secrets on building world class businesses. Tarek, welcome to the show. 

[00:01:03] Tarek: Thank you for having me. 

[00:01:04] Rayhan: Thank you for having me. this is a rare occasion for you to join a podcast. So I appreciate it. 

[00:01:10] Tarek: Of course, man.

[00:01:11] Rayhan: So I'm just going to get into it. Obviously you've, you're born and raised in Dubai. You have a family of entrepreneurs. I remember you once telling me that your grandfather was an entrepreneur as well. Dad's an entrepreneur. You're an entrepreneur. What got you into it? did you have influences from your family?

[00:01:29] Rayhan: did you want a regular job? Has entrepreneurship always been something that you wanted to do? 

[00:01:35] Tarek: so I think the most important part is from a young age, I was always raised to Think for yourself. Don't you don't need to follow traditional norms with my dad I used to watch him just doing his own thing, you know going against convention and it worked out for him So when I was younger, I always had this black swan mentality of like I don't want to get a normal job I actually had decided that 15 or 

[00:02:05] Rayhan: 16 

[00:02:06] Tarek: When I was 19 in uni, I started writing like my first business plans for like ideas.

[00:02:13] Tarek: My first business plan was always like this app for personal trainers. Cause back then I was super into sports and I was just like, Hey, I want to do this. And I think this is going to work. What are the challenges? Blah, blah, blah. And that kind of just got me into that mentality of Hey, always come up with something new, come up with something different.

[00:02:30] Tarek: And if you can execute it, great. If you can't, it's okay. The time will come. so you could say it started as a young age, from a young age, for sure. And 

[00:02:41] Rayhan: what did you do business studies when you was at university? 

[00:02:43] Tarek: Yeah, so I did. My undergrad in sports management, business management, and then I moved into nutrition after that.

[00:02:51] Tarek: And after that, I got my, master's in marketing and so 

[00:02:56] Rayhan: matter, 

[00:02:57] Tarek: right? So it's like a combination of all, I was very fortunate. I'm always going to say this, like I have such a supportive family. When I didn't know what I wanted to do, my dad was like, further your education, just focus on that until you figure things out.

[00:03:15] Tarek: When I figured things out, He was there to help and support from the beginning, but he also gave me stipulations on doing that. And, yeah, that without that, I wouldn't be able to do what I'm doing, it really made a difference. 

[00:03:34] Rayhan: Yeah. And, entrepreneurship is not easy as well.

[00:03:37] Rayhan: Yeah. you've got your family business, you could have worked with your family business, but you Started on your own. Yeah, Yeah. and you could have taken the easy route, but you didn't Tell us about your thought process, you know How did you feel starting on your own?

[00:03:54] Rayhan: What kind of challenges did you face? 

[00:03:56] Tarek: Let's just start by Starting on your own means, absolutely nothing. Yeah, that's anyone that tries to start on their own including myself, always have this idea of I know what I'm doing. I'll get through it. The reality of it, you actually know nothing and everything is much harder, much more difficult, much more challenging than it normally would be with somebody with experience.

[00:04:24] Tarek: Till today, we were just talking about my business partner, off, off record. Like I still learn about corporate structure from my business partner cause I have no idea how that works. Like literally no idea. Tell me the different C suites there are. I have no idea, so it was very challenging to a certain degree, but I think one of the key things that really helped me was.

[00:04:55] Tarek: I had like support, I had support as well. don't get me wrong. There were a lot of things that I didn't have support in. And I think I've mentioned this to you. I really wasn't taking much of a salary. I was still living with my parents. I was still trying to figure things out, and my dad didn't have the means to be able to be like, Hey, go take, do whatever you want and I'll pay you whatever you want.

[00:05:20] Tarek: So I really had to make it work and you had to, I had to be gritty. Honestly, like you had to be very gritty, like just make things work. And I think, this about me, like it doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to work until it doesn't work when it doesn't work. Cool. We change it and we move on, I think everybody's very obsessed with trying to be as perfect as possible and that slows down the process continuously.

[00:05:45] Tarek: there's a kind of beauty in imperfection. 

[00:05:49] Rayhan: Thanks for sharing that. one of the things I also want to point to and, highlight also is mentorship as well as an entrepreneur mentors is you need mentors to help you guide you the right way. And, you've mentioned you've had quite a few mentors in your, in your journey as well.

[00:06:07] Rayhan: how important would you say a mentor is to an entrepreneur and how has it affected you in your kind of journey? 

[00:06:13] Tarek: Personally, it changed my life. personally without Allah, I would not be where I am a hundred percent. Yeah. I think this idea of thinking that, at all, is actually a very limiting situation for anybody.

[00:06:31] Tarek: And when you have somebody that's Almost like you're accountable to them, you have enough respect to them that you want to grow for them, it changes your dynamic of how you deal with things, I truly believe that anybody that doesn't have a mentor is missing out, it's a night and day difference because you would be arrogant to a certain extent to think that you have it all figured out, 

[00:07:01] Tarek: You're always learning.

[00:07:02] Tarek: There's always somebody better. 

[00:07:04] Rayhan: even, with professional sports, right? Of course. Even, they have coaches, they have mentors, and they have people who they turn to because, other people can see things differently to the way 

[00:07:16] Tarek: things. A hundred percent.

[00:07:17] Tarek: it's a very powerful thing. big factor. I think also on the mentorship perspective, like without, a lot of people tend to have their own biases, and when you have your own biases, you think everything is perfect. you don't have somebody challenging you.

[00:07:39] Tarek: How are you going to be better? Yeah. Simple as that. if you go on a treadmill and you're walking two kilometers an hour, I'm working out. And you have a personal trainer just pressing it for you. You realize that you can actually go much faster, much harder, mentor, same thing, business partner as well, applies the same way.

[00:07:59] Tarek: So 

[00:08:00] Rayhan: you've launched Moonrise, Rascals, Matter Nutrition, some amazing brands in, this region in Dubai. tell us more about, what inspired you to set, set these up, what was the process, how difficult was it in the beginning? tell us some stories in terms of how you set three amazing businesses up, with, as an entrepreneur.

[00:08:26] Rayhan: I'll start 

[00:08:26] Tarek: by saying Moonrise and Rascals are where they are, not because of me. It was because we have a team, the biggest and most important factor that I learned from my, from Matter is in that similar line of having a mentor. is you need partners. a partner is somebody that can really push the boundary on one level while you're pushing the boundary somewhere else.

[00:08:53] Tarek: to get into the story of all of those, again, relating to mentors. One of the things with Matter Nutrition, when we launched that, we launched that at the right place, right time. Everything was working out perfectly fine, but we made a decision very early on as a by product of a conversation between Alaa and myself, my business partner and myself.

[00:09:15] Tarek: That he mentors me, but he expects me to give that back to somebody else. All right. And, we also had Capital saved from our profits to potentially invest in somebody new, if that opportunity arises. All right. So the story of how that led to Moonrise was Ahmed Suleiman. He happened to be on, he used to eat my food at the gym.

[00:09:42] Tarek: We got along very well and we started meeting. It wasn't really mentorship in the traditional sense. He didn't ask me to be his mentor, but he would ask me a lot of questions and then worked out. quickly, we realized, I realized that he will probably be, if not a hundred percent, the best chef in the world.

[00:10:04] Tarek: And, we wanted to be a part of that, so what that led to is, him and I having conversation and, we put the money in to be able to support him to live his dream. And, within one year, as you're aware, We've got a Michelin star. We have a decently profitable, yeah, decently profitable business.

[00:10:28] Tarek: it's, we're very lucky in the sense that we've managed to do two things that are very hard, which is build a successful brand, but also successful business. a lot of people look at brands and businesses separate. You have a lot of times where they are both amazing, but a successful brand does not mean successful business because they might be very low on cashflow.

[00:10:51] Tarek: So they might be very. tight on many other things that people don't take into consideration. you can have a business like Deliveroo that's doing millions, but they're always raising or they're trying to raise because their cashflow is tight. Their expenses are very heavy. to me, personally, that is not considered a successful business because there's no money coming out of it at the end of the day for everybody else.

[00:11:16] Tarek: So building that balance, what that led to is, I met my other partner from Rascal's 

[00:11:26] Rayhan: Talal, 

[00:11:27] Tarek: and we had a conversation about opening. It was completely his idea of opening a sandwich shop. And ironically, my first business was a sandwich shop. So I had that. I, had that in me to want to do something like on a bigger scale.

[00:11:44] Tarek: And really what we came to realize is as three partners, we brought a third partner on board, each one focusing on one thing worked super well for us, super, divide and conquer mentality. I do not deal with anything they talk about. they do not deal with anything I talk about. We have complete trust in one another and we just move forward based against that.

[00:12:10] Tarek: And because of that, I feel like it's been quite simple. I'm not going to say it's easy, but it's simple. there hasn't been any challenges, so to speak, that people are in complete disagreements, so that's been the biggest positive from my learnings on that, on a personal level, one of the most important things to me.

[00:12:37] Tarek: is, especially with Moonrise and Rascals, is this is not my ship, I am on that ship and there's a captain on that ship. I play a support role and I'm happy to do that. I think a lot of people have this ego of Oh no, I want to be the main person. I'm happy to not. I'm happy for somebody to be the face of it, to be the one talking about the brand.

[00:13:01] Tarek: I just want to be able to play my role, which is help make this real. And help make this big, 

[00:13:08] Rayhan: I think you, you underplay yourself. I think because I work closely with you, you actually make a big impact to a lot of these brands. and a lot of these businesses as well. 

[00:13:21] Tarek: look, obviously I'm not going to discredit myself and say I don't make an impact, right?

[00:13:27] Tarek: I think it would be unfair on me on saying that I don't make an impact, but I know where and how I make the impact. it's, it's about pulling the right liver at the right time. it's about making sure that the decision that you make actually moves the needle. I don't care to make an impact on things that to me don't matter.

[00:13:52] Tarek: Yeah. using rascals as an example, the brand of is Talal. Talal is the visionary behind that, right? And I will not want to be involved in that simply because I don't know completely what's going on in his brain. he makes a decision. I trust it, and in that same line, Ramiz makes a decision on food.

[00:14:21] Tarek: I trust it. 

[00:14:22] Tarek: I, don't want to be that person to have an unsolicited opinion. 

[00:14:27] Rayhan: Yep. 

[00:14:27] Tarek: That could cause tension. I think a lot of pro times problems happen because there is too many opinions. And too many people trying to make a decision. Too many chefs in the 

[00:14:37] Rayhan: kitchen. 

[00:14:38] Tarek: Too many chefs in the kitchen.

[00:14:39] Tarek: Exactly. Yeah. It's too many chefs in the kitchen and people try to make a decision without really understanding that, Hey, do I have the. ability to make this decision. do that. Do I have the experience to make this decision or am I making this decision emotionally? Because I feel like I'm connecting to the brand, it's a, yeah, it's very simply people trying to make changes or giving opinions on a business.

[00:15:07] Tarek: They're not involved in saying, Oh, I would change this. I'll change that. But what does that mean? Like the whole business changes, operations change, everything changes. 

[00:15:15] Rayhan: No, on, you made a valid point about, one of the things I want to touch upon what you spoke about was, this concept of when you're starting a business, you can have a family business.

[00:15:25] Rayhan: You can have your own business without a partner. You can have partners as well. you've seen all of that, right? You've got the experience to see all of that in your, in your career. what would you say is, What's your preference? Do you prefer having things on your own, a business on your own?

[00:15:43] Rayhan: Would you prefer having partners? Obviously, you've been in family businesses as well, involved in family business as well. what's your preference and what's your problem? Definitely 

[00:15:51] Tarek: not family business. Let's just start with that. Definitely not family business. And for me personally, I would, I realized I love to learn from partners.

[00:16:01] Tarek: I realized I love to work with people because it holds me accountable. And on the flip end again, there's no, Single person bias, when I was doing matter, originally, every decision was made by me, every decision, right? And that just means that there's a lot of mistakes that come up, you don't know any better.

[00:16:27] Tarek: So you say, I'm going to do this because I think it's right. You don't realize that you will make a big impact on your business because there's nobody to tell you otherwise, right? There's nobody to tell you otherwise. So now every decision comes from people that are at least somewhat knowledgeable in their field, when it comes to financial decision making, like even you know, I don't know if you're comfortable with this but like even when it comes to Moonrise decision making, we get you involved Yeah, like 

[00:17:03] Rayhan: we don't need to you're very good.

[00:17:05] Rayhan: You're very good in financing. Yeah 

[00:17:08] Tarek: I'm good at it, but I might miss out on something that you See that you can challenge me on, which is I think extremely important, I think Because it's not about it's not about being right, it's about actually Getting to the biggest and most beneficial Impact for the business, you know for the greater good for the greater good.

[00:17:35] Tarek: I don't care about being right I care about is this for the greater good If it is great, I'd rather be wrong and I learned and I understood, you've taught me a lot as well, so that's something I learned from having partners and having a mentor, that I feel like that's the theme, having a mentor and having partners really gives you a different perspective that you would not have if you are doing everything alone.

[00:18:06] Tarek: you're probably watching, I use this example a lot. You're either listening to a podcast, you're watching a YouTube video, or you're reading a book. And you're decision making. For that month is based against what you're listening to what you're watching and what you're reading, people will read something and they're like, I love this next day.

[00:18:27] Tarek: They're applying it. I'm, guilty of that. But there's nobody challenging it. If you're doing it alone, same with podcasts. If you listen to something, you're like, Oh, I love that. let me, launch a business in one day, choosing a crazy example, but they don't realize what that comes with and they don't realize what the downsides of it is because they only heard the positive and in their mind now it's only positive.

[00:18:52] Tarek: It's subjectively positive, not objectively Yeah. 

[00:18:55] Rayhan: Yeah. no. Great. I like that. for me, in my business, I don't have partners. Yeah. I'm doing it on my own. I guess in the beginning I wanted to do, I wanted to do all my own, but a hundred percent agree with you. as you have partners, as you have people who you can be a sounding board and you're accountable for, it helps you make better decisions and it makes you a better entrepreneur as well.

[00:19:16] Rayhan: A hundred 

[00:19:17] Tarek: percent. 

[00:19:18] Rayhan: so yeah. 

[00:19:19] Tarek: No worries. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's no right or wrong, right? You having, not having partners, me having partners, there's no right or wrong. You're not better off or I'm not better off, right? the most important thing is what you mentioned. At the end of the day, you need some sort of sounding board.

[00:19:39] Tarek: Yeah. Whether it's, your relationship partner, whether it's management team, whatever that looks like that will eventually help, and I'm sure like you made certain mistakes along your way, and yeah, and you learn from them, right? You learn from them, but you also have a learning capacity to be able to say, I made this mistake.

[00:20:03] Tarek: I'm not going to do it again. Some people don't. And then they don't realize why they're struggling, So because they also don't have partners potentially. 

[00:20:12] Rayhan: So in Dubai, there's a lot of F& B brands that come and go. I've been here for eight years, obviously been here longer.

[00:20:21] Rayhan: and in, in my eight years, I feel as if the life cycle of an F& B brand is between three and five years, a new, something new starts and then everyone's, going to that place and it's really busy. And then after a few years, it drops off, whether it's competition, whether because they have a wrong cost structure or they're not profitable.

[00:20:42] Rayhan: In your opinion for an F& B brand, what would you say is the average life cycle in Dubai? 

[00:20:49] Tarek: Three to five years, I think you're spot on hundred percent. and you're also pretty spot on a high level, like why does it not last, right? I think with Dubai specifically, you have way too many brands coming up all the time, right?

[00:21:12] Tarek: But also at the same time, the reality of it, Dubai is a very new city. Yeah. Okay. So there's a lot of new coming out. There's a lot of novelty coming out. There's a lot of consistency in brands coming out. but that means that people can make it really big in the beginning, but within a year, somebody is they're doing well, I can do the same thing.

[00:21:39] Tarek: they copy them, they do something better, and that brand all of a sudden is irrelevant because there's somebody newer, flashier with probably a better product, but also within that, within the food cycle, there's been a lot of changes that happened in Dubai. So call it even six years ago, seven years ago, 10 years ago, realistically.

[00:22:06] Tarek: 10 years ago, we had only brands from abroad. We were importing brands. Yeah. Then you have this restaurant called Tom and Serge that popped up. Yeah. Great branding, great restaurant, ticked off a lot of boxes. Okay. That was like the first true homegrown brand. Okay. That was 10 years ago. They have now 15, 20 restaurants.

[00:22:34] Tarek: They're doing amazing. after that, so that was the first push into slight casual eating cafe culture, casual eating, because it's easier to do in food. From there, you have all these new brands that come, they're competing with Atomic Surges and all that, people tend to go towards the ones that they're comfortable with and all that.

[00:23:00] Tarek: After that, you had this new wave of homegrown fine dining, which we were a part of, we are a part of, right? Homegrown fine dining, there were, there was Oceano and Trescent, that's considered, and Hoseki, that were considered, Homegrown fine dining, even though Hoseki is like a brand from outside or a business from outside you had this Mentality now of people that trusted the cafe casual scene.

[00:23:30] Tarek: They went into oh Somebody's doing it from Dubai and they're experimenting. Let's try that. Yeah, and you have this new wave You know, are all the brands in fine dining going to last? Probably not. they probably won't last. And then finally, you have now this new wave, again, of good food in a casual manner.

[00:23:54] Tarek: Yeah. And these are all, this isn't the reinvention of the wheel. this is literally what happens in New York, what happens in London, it's very normal to have that, like You have places that are offering incredible product, but it's a casual product, and now it's accessible to the masses, right?

[00:24:19] Tarek: The issue that you have from an F and B perspective is if you're not the very best of the best, your novelty will wear off. You are the best of the best. You need to be consistently innovating. Or else your longevity will wear off because there's so much money in the country. Yep There's so many people being able to do the same thing, F& B is very notorious for having chefs move from one place to the other staff move from one place to the other so Tomorrow you might have somebody that leaves three fills and he's a chef at three fourths and opens his own thing, that's actually what happened, it was a very simple real life example of that, and this can apply in every single restaurant, so if somebody leaves rascals and they go to a competitor who's interested in opening a sandwich shop, they have our, they literally have our blueprints from A to Z, they can copy and make it their own.

[00:25:24] Tarek: There's nothing we can do about it. so F& B is hard from that perspective. 

[00:25:30] Rayhan: You mentioned obviously the, being the best of the best. So as an F& B brand, what are these, what are the key pillars you would say, in your opinion, that you'd need to be on top of to ensure that You're continuously, reinvigorating your brand, keeping the brand fresh.

[00:25:49] Tarek: Look, the, one thing I can say is product, marketing, consistency, right? Your product needs to be incredible. Your marketing needs to be, can always on top of the game. You need to always be on top of people's minds and you need to be consistent in what you do, right? I have to also be very frank that Moonrise and Rascals.

[00:26:16] Tarek: I've been in the market for a year and a half, so it's a year and a half to two years each. So there's, it's not enough, like we haven't passed the, there's also this theory that after a restaurant passes like seven or eight years, that's it. They're going to make it for a long time, because they've become ingrained within the community, but That might change in Dubai because also in Dubai you have so many new people moving in all the time, so you might be relevant as well, right?

[00:26:48] Tarek: Pardon? 

[00:26:49] Rayhan: Delivery as well. 

[00:26:49] Tarek: Yeah, you have delivery as well. Deliveroo as well, but Like the one thing for matter, like we've been a business for seven years, profitable for seven years. So six years and a half, what kept that going is every three years we're bored and we reinvent ourselves, like actually today we reinvented ourselves as of today, like we do that every couple of years because It does not make sense.

[00:27:21] Tarek: Otherwise, it's a, you will, people will get bored people, competition is going to come, competition is going to come. there's going to be sandwich shops. There's going to be specialty sandwich shops that are going to open. Yeah. There's going to be somebody doing the exact same thing as moonrise, but doing, Middle Eastern, Italian food, there's always going to be something.

[00:27:47] Tarek: So you just need to be consistently reinventing yourself and how you reinvent yourself. That's up to you, but the client needs to see Oh, they have a new story to tell. I'm interested in that. Yeah. I want to see what that, what's that, what that's about, I think that's the most important part.

[00:28:09] Rayhan: the, launch three successful F and B businesses. so some of our listeners who, they aspire to set up their own restaurant or, sandwich, shop, they might be working, 

[00:28:23] Tarek: they 

[00:28:26] Rayhan: might be working full time in a job and they want to set up their own.

[00:28:30] Rayhan: start their side hustle. or maybe they want to start their own Michelin star restaurant, which is quite difficult. what would be your advice to, that person who, usually when, you're, I know, cause I used to be an employee, But usually as an employee, your first idea is to set up a restaurant, right?

[00:28:51] Rayhan: Yeah. That's what everyone so for the aspiring entrepreneur who wants to set up an F& B, what kind of tips would you give them? 

[00:29:01] Tarek: are we starting from scratch like zero? 

[00:29:05] Rayhan: I would say so. Okay, 

[00:29:06] Tarek: cool. So definitely don't open a coffee shop. 

[00:29:09] Rayhan: Yep. 

[00:29:09] Tarek: Okay, because there's way too many. number two is if you're planning on launching a restaurant or a product or a business in F& B, you need to really pin down your product, right?

[00:29:27] Tarek: if your food is not impeccable or at least incredible enough, you're wasting your time, right? That's to me, the most important thing. Number two, you need to vet that. If you think your food is good for you. If the customer doesn't. You're not going to have a business, right? There's many restaurants that I hate that people love and they're packed all the time.

[00:29:56] Tarek: Am I wrong or am I right? It doesn't matter. They're busy. So you need to vet that. And your best way of adding that is to do pop ups, you need to test in the market and see how people react in the market. Yeah. and the third thing, which I think is more a long term for FMB, she and I discuss all the time, you really need to understand your cost structures and your cashflow structure, right?

[00:30:23] Tarek: You really need to be able to maintain a business, because food is yes, a heavy cash business, but it's also. Very low in the profit margin. Perspective in comparison to other businesses, right? So you might be grinding to sell and you're packed, but you end up making very little profit, So you need to understand what that looks like and make changes accordingly in order to be able to survive for the long run. this is like an underlying aspect of a food business beyond product, product marketing and consistency. Yeah. That is your life and death. That's your cash flow is your like Yeah.

[00:31:11] Tarek: your lifeline, so it's a very important thing. 

[00:31:15] Rayhan: Just going more into the product, obviously. You mentioned it should be impeccable, but this doesn't matter whether it's, a sandwich shop or, high end or mid range, right? In terms of product, what else could you, what other, how can we go a bit more deeper into that?

[00:31:37] Rayhan: So for example, we're talking ingredients, so we're talking how it's 

[00:31:42] Tarek: how it tastes at the end of the day, how it tastes, how it's presented, of course, right? But Does it need to be a specific product? No, it's what you want to do. like you, everything's been done before, right? If you want to place your bets in a positive light, or you want to hedge them correctly.

[00:32:05] Tarek: You're going to do a burger, a pizza, Italian restaurant, right? but if it's something that's unique, you need to vet that first. You, if you open a restaurant that only sells, I'm just using this as an example, panipuri, It only sells poly, how are you going to bring in enough people? so it needs to be amazing.

[00:32:30] Tarek: First of all, that makes them want to come back, but that's when you then have to focus on your marketing, and then if you have enough people coming consistently, you need to make sure that it's consistently amazing for making people want to come back and refer their friends. I don't have data on this, but it is very interesting for me to know is like different restaurants have different repeatability.

[00:32:55] Tarek: There's some restaurants that people go eat at three times a week. There's some restaurants that people eat at. or order from every night, there's some restaurants that people go once a month, once every three weeks, and that also plays a role in repeatability, because, I'm using this example as a Tasha's.

[00:33:17] Tarek: They figured out their formula to have very high repeatability, and they have their product is Great enough that you don't think, Oh, I'm going to Tasha's. Oh, it's going to be a bad meal. Like I'm going to Tasha's. I'm going to have a good meal. It's not the best in the world, but I'm having a good meal in a good setting.

[00:33:35] Tarek: I can bring my family. I can bring my girlfriend. I can bring my sister, whatever that looks like. So I'll go there consistently, so when you don't know where to go, you say, I'm going to go to Tasha's, whereas a moonrise is a once every six months kind of thing, once every five months kind of thing, or once a year even, so it's very different, but it also like for each different business, it doesn't matter which part it's in, as long as you're aware of it, as long as you're aware that other rascals Transcribed I'm expecting the customer to be eating at Rascal's once to twice a week, max, because it's a heavy sandwich, matter sandwich, by the way, pardon?

[00:34:23] Rayhan: Beautiful sandwich. Thank you. Thank you. 

[00:34:24] Tarek: Thank you. That's all Ramas. Literally all Ramas. matter. They're eating it four times a day. Yeah. Very different. So it all depends on what that looks like. 

[00:34:37] Rayhan: So as an entrepreneur, networking is super important, especially if you want to. get business through the door, you want to raise capital, you want to build a network of influencers.

[00:34:48] Rayhan: You seem to know the who's who, yet you haven't, you don't really do much on social media, right? You don't really have an online presence. How do you, how do you approach networking? how have you maintained those relationships? I knew you through a few of my clients. Yeah. Obviously Dubai is a small place, but for me, you seem to know pretty much everyone in Dubai.

[00:35:15] Rayhan: What kind of tips can you give entrepreneurs and how has it made an impact for you? So I'm going to 

[00:35:20] Tarek: start from the beginning and why I became good at networking. I had really bad social anxiety. I don't know if you know this. I had really bad social anxiety. So I actually didn't know how to speak to people.

[00:35:32] Tarek: And if somebody spoke to me without me planning a conversation in advance, I will freeze. I had no idea. Zero, zero. What I ended up doing was I started putting myself in positions to hang out with new people, and I still do this to this day. It's gonna sound crazy, but it's gonna sound sociopathic, but this is what I do.

[00:35:56] Tarek: I plan conversations in advance with absolutely everybody I meet. So I literally know, to a certain extent, I know the direction of conversation I want to go without like, now I do it subconsciously, but I, before I used to write it down, I'm going to ask them this question. I know this about them.

[00:36:17] Tarek: I'm going to bring it up. I know they're interested in this. I'm going to talk about that. it's an 

[00:36:21] Rayhan: amazing tip. I 

[00:36:23] Tarek: think it's great. And I think it's A way to build a connection with somebody. Yeah. Even if personally at the time I didn't do it to build that connection. I just did it because it forced me to put myself out there and talk to people.

[00:36:40] Tarek: now how did that lead into the, like the network effect when I first started my first business? like my first real proper business that blew up matter. I had a goal that was very simple. Meet three to five new people every single week. Okay. It's a lot of hard work. It's if I show you my calendar, I'm back on that now.

[00:37:06] Tarek: If I show you my calendar, it's very difficult. Okay. But meet three to five new people every single week. No. It is hard work, but also you also need to be a very kind, honest, generous person because then it becomes natural to people to say, Hey, I think you will vibe with this person. I think you should meet them.

[00:37:30] Tarek: Or like recently I started doing that again and I had no issues asking, Hey, Is there anybody interesting you think I should meet? Literally anybody. I messaged my mentor. I messaged two, three people that I know connect me to anybody interesting that you think I should meet. Suppose that I asked a friend introduced me to somebody.

[00:37:58] Tarek: I don't care who introduced me to one person. He introduced me to a lady, sat with her. I went into that meeting with no intention. Ironically, I was just like, Hey, I want to. I want to build a connection with you based on that skill set I've built, right? I just built a connection based. I know she likes hiking.

[00:38:16] Tarek: She likes mountaineering. I asked her all the right questions, right? At the end of the meeting she was like She knew she found out what I do blah blah blah, she's oh, there's somebody I think you should meet Went met them the following week I met that person again just vibe. No real intention Oh, I know somebody who I think you should meet.

[00:38:42] Tarek: Met four people just by asking one person, that's it. like literally I would, I've asked one of my business partners, Hey, introduce me to anybody, in the fitness industry. I don't care who it is. I'm now working with one of the people that she introduced me to, it's just, it's, it won't hurt to ask, even to the certain extent I've asked you, you've introduced me.

[00:39:10] Tarek: like it's, there's nothing wrong with asking. I have this conversation a lot with other people. Like sometimes people want to approach something purely with an intent. Yeah. Your intent needs to be, let me build a human connection. Let me, if, can you be friends with this person? If you can, great.

[00:39:34] Tarek: then it becomes much easier to get your asks. if you have any. But, that's how I build my network, man. I, it's that simple. But also, remember I've been doing it for seven years, so imagine for the first year and a half I met five new people a week. That's 250 new people.

[00:39:55] Rayhan: And then two, that's two 50. 250 people have a network of what? A hundred, 200, 300. There you go. That's how it spreads. Yeah. 

[00:40:03] Tarek: And also it's different opportunities like, It's gonna, again, there's a right place, right time to do it, right? But if you see somebody at a coffee shop and you see them three days in a row, say, hi, nod your head.

[00:40:22] Tarek: Literally. Like it's that simple. nod your head. If you want to network, like you don't know what they do. You don't, you have no idea. Just let, them tell you what they do. It might be interesting to you. They might know somebody that could be of interest to you. Yeah. That because of what you're doing.

[00:40:41] Tarek: So I think that's, it's a very, you're not better than people. that's the mentality that I have. You're not better than anyone. Just me, everybody, will have. Everybody can offer you something that you do not have. Suppose that. 

[00:40:57] Rayhan: I have a good example. I have a friend of mine. he travels a lot.

[00:41:02] Rayhan: He's got a successful business and, he can do that. And, he was, I think he was in a hotel and there was a young family and the kids were crying and him and his wife, went to that hotel. Couple with that family and said, look, let us help you out. Now you seem quite busy. You've got kids all over the place.

[00:41:24] Rayhan: So they built that connection afterwards. that family was like, thank you for helping us. this is my number. and then they got into contact and it turns out that family, he was also an entrepreneur that exited a business and he ended up investing in.

[00:41:45] Rayhan: My friend's business of around 1. 5 mil. and that's just because, they just went, they were in the same hotel, kids were, kids were screaming and, they, they've had a young family before and they just went and helped out and 

[00:42:03] Tarek: that's it. That's it. That's how it works by being kind, like my most recent project, which is a new restaurant.

[00:42:12] Tarek: It moved forward because I've kept a good, honest, genuine relationship with somebody that I've known since seventh grade. 

[00:42:22] Rayhan: Oh, wow. 

[00:42:24] Tarek: Simple as that. I've known him since 7th grade. We've done small projects together, fun projects, nothing crazy. And when the opportunity arose, he's seen that, what I've done.

[00:42:38] Tarek: He's hey, let's work together. Yeah. That's it. Simple as that. 7th grade, it's not like a more recent connection, that, it really does play a role. It really does playing, being kind plays a role, Also being an asshole plays a role. Very negative role. I don't know if I can swear.

[00:42:58] Tarek: okay. Also being a bad person plays a very big role because Dubai is very small. 

[00:43:06] Rayhan: Yeah, 

[00:43:07] Tarek: so Dubai is very small. People will talk, people will know. 

[00:43:12] Rayhan: one of my experiences, I've been here for eight years. You've been here longer than me, but, you do come across a lot of like people who are not nice.

[00:43:25] Rayhan: and it's very rare. I think you're a gem, right? I think, there's not many people out here like you. and the more people like you here, the better. but. Sometimes there is that kind of mentality where it's short term ism, where you just want to screw someone over or you just want to bulldoze over someone else just to get your point across and get your, get your kind of initiative in place.

[00:43:57] Rayhan: and I think, I tried to be as nice as I can, whenever I can. and I find that in the long run. You get a lot of benefit off the back of that. and I think, yes, there are individuals who do win short term, but long term I don't think they're gonna be able to sustain these things going forward.

[00:44:21] Rayhan: And you also have to think about your mental health as well. if you're an a-hole all the time, that affects you as an individual as well. Whereas if you're like a given person, you want to help benefit others, it not only helps them, but it also helps you. as an individual as well.

[00:44:38] Tarek: I agree completely, man. I agree completely. I think short termism is a big thing in Dubai because it is a very transient place as well, right? But it will never hurt being kind in the long run. Yeah, it will never hurt. It will always come back to you by being kind in the long run. Yeah, I truly believe that.

[00:45:02] Tarek: And I'll continue to do it. I don't care. I've been burned before. I don't care. 

[00:45:09] Rayhan: so Tarik, you run multiple businesses, congratulations. thank you. Running one business is hard enough, , but you manage to manage multiple. Is that something that you've always wanted to do? What kind of advice can you give to other entrepreneurs?

[00:45:27] Rayhan: I know you mentioned before that you work with partners as well, and I guess. That can help, but that can also be quite, it can be a bit of a hindrance as well. so what, how do you manage, managing multiple businesses and what kind of advice can you give on that? 

[00:45:45] Tarek: So the reason why I personally got into the idea of doing multiple businesses is because I personally get bored.

[00:45:53] Tarek: Suppose that is there a right reason, wrong reason? No, I just get bored and I want to try something new and I want to do something different with a different kind of challenge. Suppose that, the advice that I would give to others is related around two things. Number one, definitely have partners because they will hold you accountable.

[00:46:13] Tarek: You running five businesses yourself is very difficult and you running five businesses with 10 other people, right? So they will definitely hold you accountable from that perspective, and you will have sound on boards and whatnot. And the most important thing with managing other business, like managing multiple businesses with partners in order to avoid hindrances and in, sorry, in order to avoid conflict, in order to avoid, challenges.

[00:46:43] Tarek: Is to be as honest as possible to be as transparent openly. If you believe that you cannot do something. you need to voice that, like rascals, I had voiced these last two months. I need to focus on something else. And I had voiced that in advance and my partners could have easily said, Hey, no, we want you to be in the business.

[00:47:12] Tarek: there's no need, we want you to be in the business because 1, 2, 3, 4, and I would have had to figure that out. But I'm very lucky that we've always had a transparent, open, and communicative, partnership. They were like, cool, no worries. You do that. We'll handle it. And I haven't looked at Roscos for two months.

[00:47:34] Tarek: So I'm focusing elsewhere, right? Now, the other point related to that is, if you have five projects, you need to figure out what your dose is. In order to move the needle and you need to have enough of a strong team to continue to move that needle every single day. So your role is to give them that really big push and they need to continue with it because you can't be doing everything yourself, as from running one business, you need to worry about so many other things.

[00:48:12] Tarek: So delegation is very important and within delegation, you need to be able to say, Hey. This is the direction we're going you need to be thinking more strategic as opposed to applying tactical daily things. Yeah, you think of the strategy you have you really figure out the roadmap While the team is the one doing all the tactical stuff in order to get you there And you watch if the needle moves great if the needle doesn't then you come back and you say, Hey, what can we do to change that?

[00:48:45] Rayhan: Yeah. 

[00:48:46] Tarek: But your time is obviously much less if you're working on five projects. So you need to figure out also how to switch your time. Is there a correct formula? No, I'm still trying to figure that out to be very honest. But what I'm finding that works best is, Hey, for two, three months, I'm going to work on this with these two being on the side, for two months, I'll work on this with this being on the side, it just that's the.

[00:49:10] Tarek: Way for me right now, that seems to be working best, but also being constantly in tune and checking in is also very important. You don't want to just leave a business, like just because you're focusing on something else, you don't want to just leave your other projects. Yeah. another piece of advice that I would give is when it's a new project, allocate three to six months for it.

[00:49:36] Tarek: You need it to grow, allocate the time for it. It's a baby. you need to treat it like it's your only business to a certain extent, but you need to have the infrastructure with your other projects to make sure that they can handle them. I've learned a lot from doing this multiple times now, and that's a big learning that I had.

[00:49:56] Tarek: I, need to have a team in each project that if I'm not there. They're able at least to maintain because then I can come back to do the next push, but obviously I can't do that push alone. They will help. 

[00:50:09] Rayhan: So Tarek, before we wrap up, what kind of projects are you working on currently?

[00:50:15] Rayhan: I know you mentioned you work, you've got five businesses that you running or working on right now, but I'm sure there's more on the horizon because you did say you get bored, right? what are you working on at the moment? And if the audience wants to get in contact, what's the best way to get in contact?

[00:50:33] Tarek: First of all, thank you so much for having me. I really, appreciate it. No, thank you. Appreciate it, man. But, the latest projects are to do with a restaurant, but also I'm not going to call it a project anymore because The biggest baby that we have, or biggest child is matter and we're focusing on reintroducing and introducing new products through that.

[00:51:00] Tarek: So that's going to be, it has been a big project we've been doing through a lot of research and development and product testing specifically for athletes. So that's something that's coming up very soon. 

[00:51:12] Rayhan: So if you're an athlete. Yeah. Good food. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:51:15] Tarek: More than food. That's what we're moving into.

[00:51:17] Tarek: So that's going to be very exciting. And the best way to connect with me is always through email, happy to connect with absolutely anybody I'll give, I'll leave my email on the, in the comments or via, and, whoever wants to email me, I'm always open for that. Nice. Thank you so much, man.

[00:51:34] Rayhan: No, thank you, Tarek. It's been a pleasure to learn so much from you. 

[00:51:39] Tarek: Thank you. 

[00:51:39] Rayhan: You are an amazing entrepreneur and human being. 

[00:51:42] Tarek: Thank you, sir. 

[00:51:43] Rayhan: thank you very much. 

[00:51:44] Tarek: Thank you for having me. 

[00:51:46] Rayhan: Thank you for joining us on the Alphapreneurs podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and give us a five star rating and a review for show notes and more.

[00:51:56] Rayhan: Click on the link in the description, connect with me directly on LinkedIn and search for Rayhan Aleem. See you soon.