Anant Singh: The Power of Imperfection

Anant Singh believes the best businesses leave room to become better. In this episode of (C) Suite Talks, the co-founder of Mina Creamery reflects on turning a dorm-room experiment at NYU Abu Dhabi into an Abu Dhabi brand shaped by regional flavors, local creativity, and a willingness to learn as it grows.
 
In just over 15 minutes, he shares why founders should resist perfecting an idea too early, what scaling a team taught him about leadership, and how nostalgia, hospitality, and community helped turn ice cream into something people could make their own.

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SPEAKER_00 0:04

Build a very bad version of something.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

You start somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

You start somewhere. It doesn't have to be perfect. No, it has to be bad, I think. It's not just it has to be perfect, it has to be bad. Because if if it isn't bad, then one, it won't leave space for you to be better. Because you have to leave because you have to leave space for when you, let's say, enter the market, right? And getting to know and people are getting to know your brand. That will inform so much of what it needs to become and take shape. So if you make it to perfect, maybe it won't be flexible, right? So I think, yeah, like start with a very bad version.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

But Haba, I'm Janan Farhat.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

And I'm Derek Zeno from the El Kasumi Foundation.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Welcome to C-Suite Talks, a podcast about what it really means to lead.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

We're talking to the people behind the titles to hear their stories, lessons, and a few surprises along the way.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Because leadership is more than just the corner office. It's personal.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Our guest today is Anand Singh, co-founder of Minak Creamery, an Abu Dhabi-based ice cream company. He founded alongside Rihab Algurk. Anant, welcome to C Suite Talks. How are you? Good, how are you? Thank you for having me. Anand, I have to say, the I am this is my first time at uh Minak Creamery, and the interiors look fabulous. It's got a lot of personality. Anant, Minak Creamery is a real Abu Dhabi student startup story. It began while you were studying film at New York University Abu Dhabi and making ice cream from your dorm room. You and your co-founder, Rihab Algurk, then turned those experiments into a business in 2023. Since then, MENA has served thousands of scoops and opened a permanent space in Abu Dhabi's Miza district. There's also a strong local story behind it with ingredients like dates, mangoes, honey, lavender, and dairy sourced here in the UA. And that brings me to the first thing I wanted to ask you. You've created ice creams inspired by familiar regional favorites like korak chai with toasted biscuits and orange blossom baklava. Where did the inspiration to bring those flavors into ice cream come from?

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Right. That's a great question. Um I think when people ask this, and it's a question that's asked very often. It's like, why are you making these flavors? Where are they coming from? And I have to give Rihab a lot of credit. I think it starts with her because especially like in the last year, I've really stepped away from, you know, working on the flavors as much because there's so many other things that I've had to take care of. So I was like, okay, Rahab, this is your thing to do, go for it. Um, and she is a culinary, she's the culinary brains behind our business, right? So she's uh often coming up with these flavors. And if I could think a little bit more into what she's thinking, I think there's a few patterns there. So one is seasonality. Um our flavors change, you know, every two to three months. There's a seasonal set of menu. Right. So for example, we just kind of ended the mango season. And then we didn't just do any mango flavor, right? So we did Asi Rabud, which is this classic uh mango cafeteria drink that everyone knows and everyone loves. Um it's a flavor that was so hard to take out because it's actually the one mango flavor that kind of stayed a bit further out as well, because people just come for that flavor. Right. And we still have like some tiny cups in there because some people come and they throw a tantrum, like, I want that flavor. Right now, give it to me. So we give it, give that to them. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so I think, yeah, so seasonality, but then Asira Buddha actually is a great example because it's also about nostalgia. It's about the things that people have grown up eating in the region, in the country, that you know, yeah, it's in a different form of ice cream. And and so many desserts make sense as ice cream, as you said, baklava or even karak, right? Orange blossoms are very Levant classic. We have so many flavors that actually, you know, we take inspiration from Levant, we do olive oil, we do a lot of flavors with Zathar. Yeah um uh we source again really high quality ingredients, right? So if you're able to source something that is just an ingredient that would not necessarily make sense as ice cream, but we know it just stands out as being so good and and from a specific place, we will try to figure out to make something out of it. It usually works out well.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

I imagine there's like a lot of trial and error that goes into like building these flavors because they sound nicer. Uh like it's not the conventional ice cream flavors that you see at a an ice cream store, right? Right. So I imagine there's a lot of trial and error that goes into it.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

I I yes, there is, but I I I I think it's a lot less than what you would imagine. Because also, like right now, like if you look at just today, like of course, we're getting to express all our flavors and you know, we have them in the store. But to us, it also is a practice from the last three years. Because especially last year when we were doing online, which was a lot smaller scale, right? We were making the same flavors even back then. Um it was just like, yeah, like we were, and probably a lot of trial and error happened back then. But now it's kind of like, okay, the same practice was like, these are the flavors you've come. Of course, there's one or two new flavors that come pretty much every week that we've not necessarily done before. But there's a lot of the practice from you know our last two years of you know doing it at a small scale, at a much uh you know humble version. And I think also what happens now is like we definitely make it slightly better now because okay, we're using better dairy than we used to, we have access to better suppliers, better ingredients for a longer time. So, of course, the flavors have developed themselves, but all the flavors that I've mentioned to you today and kind of have become popular in the last seven, eight months, we were doing them last year and the year before that. Right. Uh so I think trial and error as of today is actually not a big part of our process. We keep Mondays and Tuesdays for that. So to have, you know, especially goes to kitchen Monday and Tuesday just to come up with like some new flavor or practice some new flavors. Uh, but for the most part, it it has become a lot easier for us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Amazing. All right. I think that's a very good place to start a month. Uh let's get into our 15-minute chat. Sure. So let's start with your morning. Could you walk us through your typical morning from when you wake up to how you prepare yourself for the day ahead?

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Right. So days look different depending on what day of the week it is. Because Monday and Tuesday we close. And we also take that as a time to um kind of rest, of course, because uh retail work is quite labor intensive. And Rihab and I, as co-founders, make sure to be here in the shop itself. We also scoop or cashier or you know, are watching the line as part of the service. And it's just it's just fun, right? Like we have enough people do the job, but it's also like we are part of the experience, and we're part of like when you come and you stand on the line, you're catching ice cream, you probably get to say hi to me and meet me and and know about me. But what ends up happening is that okay, we're seeing like thousands of people every day, uh every week, and um, and yeah, we need a bit of rest. So Monday and Tuesday kind of are rest days, but also it's a day, uh, two days where we have to cap catch up a lot of admin work because Wednesday, Sunday, we focus so much on retail and meeting people, really set aside. It's like, okay, we'll look at all these things on Mondays and Tuesday. Monday, Tuesday is a lot of Excel, you know, like planning the weeks of next week's flavors, uh, supplier things, roster, scheduling for the shop, um uh yeah, tracking accounts, all that stuff happens on Monday, Tuesday. So a lot of like computer work, just sitting down. Wednesday, Sunday is like the party day. So also we kind of take away from the other work. Of course, there's a little bit of rostering or scheduling, or we might need to look at, but it it is a lot more about service and and you know, kind of the retail work. So I think that there we kind of to prep ourselves a little bit better, wake up like you know, a good um three, four hours before the shop opens, get your breakfast in because you probably won't have time to eat till later. We have a whole morning kind of checklist that we go to. It ends at the huddle. So huddles are something that's very important to us, especially as we've grown uh our hours to 12 to 10. It used to be 12 to 7 earlier. Okay. So we usually start the day and end the day with like a 15-minute reflection with the team on like what went well last uh day or last week, what didn't go very well. And we try to we have this practice like you have to give a compliment to one specific person, kind of also like you know, get in the practice of noticing others and and and when they do good things. Well, that's very nice. Yeah, so that that has kind of become uh part of our morning schedule, uh, apart from of course just the logistics of setting up, the flavors deciding you know what flavors are gonna come in the cabinet for the morning, setting up the boat outside, posting the flavors. There's like a routine to it. Uh so yeah, pretty much subscribe to that every day.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Nice. And what's the first thing that you reach for in the morning? Is it like tea, coffee, your phone, ice cream, no judgment?

SPEAKER_00 8:21

I nah, the water, but I actually love pokari sweat. That's my favorite. Oh, nice. I drink a lot of pakari sweat. So usually the first one. Same. I love it. Water is great, but like a pucari sweat, a cold one from the fridge.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Yeah, especially in the summer, I think.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Yeah, it just hydrates you really well. Um, so yeah, pakari sweat and a phone and my phone used.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

That's interesting. So that's the first thing you actually want to do.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Yeah, like I I I'm I'm someone like uh who feels thirsty all the time. Like I won't, I want my water. I want my so I it it feels nice to you know just wake up in the morning, grab a Pocari sweat, um, hydrate myself, and then I can kind of start to function. But not a big coffee or tea person. Uh at least in the morning. Like I would, I would I I I have my coffee usually at 12, like right about the time we're opening, like right after our reflection. Leslie and Brang, who are amazing baristas, they usually make a nice flight by a cartado for us, and that's that's my first coffee.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Well, we we love variety in our show, so it's uh great to start with someone like it's the you're probably the first guest on the show to say you start your day with pokari sweat. It's usually tea, coffee, matcha, green tea. Oh, that's cool. But never pokari sweat. I didn't expect that.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Yeah, pokari sweat is just good. And I I always have like loads of it in the fridge. Like, take one out.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Nice. Okay. Now let's talk about your career. Um, you came to the UA uh to study film before going on to co-found Mina Creamery. Right. When did this uh stop feeling like something you were experimenting with as a student and start feeling like, hang on, we might actually have a business here.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

So finally year of uni, I was thinking, okay, naturally every senior year.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

So what's that, 2022?

SPEAKER_00 9:54

2022, yeah. So naturally every senior student is thinking, it's like, okay, you know, I gotta start thinking about what's next, what I want to do next, what kind of path I want to take. So for me, with film, and film is something I you know hold really close to my heart. I was like, I really, even today, I would say it's like I I hope that I still get to express myself over my whole lifetime with film, and I still get to hold it as a practice. It's not something I've put aside or want to put aside. Um, but to me, it the idea of okay, if I want to be in UE and if I'm gonna live here, I the idea of working in film didn't seem appealing. I didn't get very excited about it. Um, so then that's why I think it was like, what could I what else could I do? And it's just naturally like you know, like the craziest thing was like, why not just build something on my own? Like, and I and this is coming from a point where there's no idea how things are built, right? There's no idea of how anything is done for that matter. And I think that was if now that I look back, that's pretty incredible because I was like, thank god I had no idea because then I would have never done it. Yeah, um, and then I was like, okay, I want to figure this out. And it started with like naturally, like I was like, I'll start making ice cream. First, I learned how to you know make the product itself. Um and at that time I was very inspired by so I'd done the summer and the semester before that in New York. Um, amazing ice cream there. I was like, oh, there's such good ice cream in that city. Then even like, you know, coming, like I visited my parents, my parents live in Bombay. Uh Bombay has amazing ice cream spots, natural is one of them. It's um you know, all these like different homegrown ice cream brands that are super big on like quality produce, quality, you know, local fruit produce and making ice cream out of that. And I was like, there's nothing like that here. Maybe we should look into that, right? So that was kind of the start of the idea. So that is what uh I would want to do. Even the first flavor that I developed was um uh dates, because I was like, okay, what could be one thing that we could source from this country and make something out of it? Yeah, uh, so dates is it felt like the right way, and that's yeah, that was kind of the start of it, but also within that journey I realized I'm very bad in terms of culinary anything. Yeah, making ice cream didn't come naturally at all. Yeah, um, and that's also kind of where I met Rehab and she had this ice cream vlog and she was posting all these flavors. I was like, that's what I want to do. I don't know how to do, let me reach out to her, and that kind of yeah, segue into um our partnership and the country ground itself eventually.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Yeah, she was the perfect partner in colour. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

She was like, okay, I'm I'm very I I was very interested in the business aspect of it, like the idea of building something and and for example, even design or even kind of marketing or like you know, social media excites me. Like, you know, how do we like you know come up with these slavers, what would make sense and all that stuff. But yeah, just huge lack of culinary knowledge and and and how to make things happen. So I was like perfect execution is there.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

That's amazing. And uh the first uh few batches of ice cream that you turned that was in the dorm rooms, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:49

In the dorm rooms with uh tiny little So who tried that?

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Was that your friends or like people in the domes?

SPEAKER_00 12:55

My roommates had a lot of ice cream all the time. Nice friends, I would bring it to any gathering, like you know, be getting together in the evening.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Yeah. You were telling me like you also take care of a lot of the operational aspects of the business, right? So uh what I want to understand is uh what's one skill you didn't expect to need when you started building Mina, but now you use it all the time.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

I I this is such an incredible question because there's so many things that I feel I was prepared for. Um one thing that really threw me off and still does, and that's why I I wouldn't necessarily say I've fully developed that skill, yeah, but I am learning that skill, and I I think it's a very important skill that I'll have to learn is managing people. Okay, and and like just the leadership aspect of it, because so many things were taken for granted for us because our team was so small, right? So communication is so easy and and and managing people is so easy because you know they're right here, they're arm's length away, and right and everyone understands everything, and everyone's putting the full effort because the focus is like, okay, let's you know make this business work. When it gets to uh 14, 15 people team in the span of you know last what six months, there's no way you're prepared to manage that or know how to manage that. Yeah. So I think in the last three years it's been so much of like um having to develop that habit and and ability to manage people. And and I'm still, I would say, struggling with it. I'm still trying to learn. I'm not, I won't say I'm fully there.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Uh, but I think yeah, that is one skill that is coming handy if if I will say if I've you know learned something over time and also something that is is is astonishing. Because hospitality and food and restaurant business is such a people forward business in terms of both like you know, all the people that come into your store as customers, but also all your um employees and and people who you know make the ice cream to serve the ice cream. Um and it it and that yeah, that requires you to have a lot more focus on the people aspect than probably any other business because service um it kind of ripples through, right? Like yeah, I I think that is just something we've had to learn, uh especially in the last few months.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Thank you for that. It was a very honest answer. Uh how big was your team when you started, and how big is it now?

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Started was just me and Reab. That's uh three of us. Our first hire was in April 2024. Um and he was our only employee for two years after that.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

So until So it was the three of you for the longest.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Yeah, it was three of us for all of 2024, all of 2025. Yeah, and even in the end of December when we started, we opened the shop with four people, and two of them were my roommates. Uh Andres and Ba, who are also like uh people I've studied with uh NYU. So we we are living together. They they are so Andres is a freelancer artist. Ba Nam has a full-time job, so since then she has left. Um and and we're like, okay, I need people to help me open the store. Yeah, I have no idea what I'm doing. Can we can you guys help? And they're like, Yes, we will work. So they worked uh part-time. So we had uh yeah, just us and Umar, who was our full-time employee, he was not here, he was in the production because he's a production guy. Right. Uh so it was just like Rihab and I and uh those two, and we opened the store just like that. And then over time, up to now we have 14.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

I love that. Your friends came in and started helping you out.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

And this still works. So Andres has since then he's now our design lead. So he does everything design related now. So people have also graduated onto further roles. Sheka, who started as part-time, now she's uh front of house manager. Wow. Uh so people, yeah, like in the nine months, a lot of people have graduated into uh new roles. It's still now we have a good system also for part-timers. We have like a so we have a hybrid team, we have four time full-timers in front of us. Okay. And then we have uh six part-timers in front of us. Uh so we have a whole roster every week. Now we've found that found that groove, but at some point it was just a shot in the dark.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Like we don't know what we're doing. Yeah. No, that's amazing. Um, now let's introduce a little uncertainty, which given how much experimentation goes into Mena feels appropriate. Uh, welcome to our wheel of questions, Anand. Uh, this is where I give up some control over our conversation and let the wheel decide what we talk about next. Anand, would you do the honors and give it a spin? Yes. Okay. Ananth, as a young founder, what's one piece of advice that really helped you? And one you're glad you didn't listen to.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Okay. One piece of advice. Build a very bad version of something. You know, like just start with a because it's it's it's non right. Like if you're like, uh, like the logo doesn't look good, and we don't have you know the resources to work with a designer, of course you're gonna make it on Canva. And we don't have a cart of any sorts. Uh but you know, a friend of mine who does coffee stands has this very nimble setup. Maybe I'll borrow that from her. So it's like, you know, you start in that way. You start you start somewhere. You start somewhere in it doesn't have to be perfect. No, it has to be bad, I think. Not just it has to be perfect, it has to be bad. Because if if it isn't bad, then one, it won't leave space for you to be better. Because you have to leave, because you have to leave space for when you let's say enter the market, right? And getting to know and people are getting to know your brand. That will inform so much of what it needs to become and take shape. Uh so if you if you make it to perfect, maybe it won't be flexible, right? Uh so I think, yeah, like start with a very bad version. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

So you don't need to have everything figured out, but start somewhere and it doesn't have to be great. It can be bad. It should be bad, right? Yeah, it should be bad. And then you figure things out. Amazing. Another spin around. Okay. Amazing. When you're looking for fresh ideas for Mina, what inspires you beyond the food industry?

SPEAKER_00 18:51

I think um so many things, right? Um travels is easy, you know. Go around the world, it's like, why are we not doing this? Yeah. Um and of course it goes back into food because you know, ice human food is great around the world, and you kind of take inspiration from that. Um but I think people are very interesting, and and that's something I used to even say, you know, like at the start of the business, like I never realized how much we would be informed from uh people and you know the way they are about the business. Yeah, like even like as simple as like people getting excited about the way we do certain things in the store, which is nothing to do with ice cream, right? Yeah, and and I really we put so much effort and you know, let's say investment in the experience of the space by you know designing these things and and having it in a certain way, right? Um, you know, doing the tiles in these certain ways. And I think that really speaks to a lot of people, and they get excited about it, and then they maybe some people don't even realize it, like why they like Mina Kimi so much, but they're like, wait, I like this space a lot, because I don't know, maybe I'm recognizing a good taste in design or style. Maybe that speaks to themselves about themselves, right? Like I'm someone who likes good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

And then and and I think that's I often say like that's the strongest indicator of a business. Like if people are willing to advocate for you, and we we work a lot with a lot of artists, so being in this district helps because there's Seif, which is a prestigious art fellowship right behind the building. There's Make, which is a beautiful make maker space, uh, from where these tiles come from, especially the ceramicist there made it herself, uh, 421, which is incredible art gallery. So I think that lends us a lot into the business because we are surrounded by this huge uh community of artists who lend us their work, who like so much of what you see here are by artists. That's uh and this is Mexican market painting, that's Bows Apple. Oh wow, um and like yeah, like there's exchange. We even had a print here that our artists put, got sold eventually. So yeah, so I think people get excited about putting their works here. People even give us their prints all the time. We see literally last week, someone made an illustration, brought a print, gave it to us. Yeah, people make those drawings all the time there. You see, so I think yeah, so I think that really speaks to us about who we are becoming as a brand because we are attracting uh these people and they they are excited to be in this space or make some things for the space. Yeah, um, so I think that that's a huge inspiration beyond the food itself.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Yeah, I mean it's my first time at the store, and it's also one of the first things I noticed that the interiors are amazing, it has a lot of personality. And it's I'm I'm glad you also just like told us what what everything means because everything has a meaning behind it, right? Like everything that's in this is definitely not the conventional ice cream store experience, right? You come into Mina and yeah, people make it their own space, people love coming. I think you're building a culture around it, right? And and that's amazing. It's been amazing. Uh so Anat, Mina Creamery started with experiments in a university down room and has grown into a brand that's telling stories about the region through food. You're the youngest founder on the show, by the way. Thank you so much. Um thank you so much for joining us on C-Suite Talks and for giving us a glimpse into the person behind the brand and also the brand itself.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Thank you so much for having me. This was great.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Thanks for joining us on C-Suite Talks, where we bring global and local insights from the heart of Russell Kaima to the world.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

Be sure to follow, share, and tune in next time for another 15 minute conversation about what it really takes to lead.