Why this Dubai businessman launched a new crypto venture

You have had an interesting entrepreneurial journey – what have been the main highlights for you so far? 
An entrepreneur’s life has often been described as a roller coaster ride. Mine has certainly been no different. When you’re an entrepreneur, you constantly put your head in the guillotine. You can’t hide – if it fails, you’re to blame and if you succeed, you were lucky and you create your luck by working hard. I wouldn’t change any of it apart from the fact that I wish I had listened more to experts in their fields instead of trying to do everything and learn everything from my own experiences – It turned out to be a costly experience – both financially and in time.

What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
I believe the bigger the challenge we solve, the bigger the wealth and rewards we earn. For me, moving to a new country [the UAE] in 2009 and having to start my life all over again at the age of 43 with three kids – while recovering from a heart attack – were extremely challenging times.

I always wanted the best in life, and I believe in abundance. During those challenging times, I knew that ‘this too shall pass’. I just knew it was like a passing season, I was going through the winter and spring was next. I had faith that if I just kept challenging myself, learning and taking action, being honourable, inevitably the universe will reward all my hard work. Educating oneself and adapting to this fast-changing world is key to continued success and growth

Can you describe the various verticals of Be Unique Group? How has it coped with the crisis in the past year?
Be Unique Group is a diversified company based in Dubai with over 100 staff. The key to our business success is the people in our organisation, and we specialise in recruiting highly motivated people. Our training division through repetition coaching ensures that they adhere to the highest standards. We then help businesses with their creative marketing – that can be anything from logos and branding to strategic marketing plans.

Reviewing their client journey and help make them memorable by adding a consistent  ‘wow factor’. We also create referral marketing programmes, which ultimately provide the highest returns on investments with the least amount of capital outlay. Our online advertising agency, which my son (Ali) runs, is currently in the top 3 per cent Premier Google partners within the MENA region [for digital marketing].

We are a family business and my wife Angela runs our hospitality company, which develops restaurant plans from start to finish. She has a passion for food – especially healthy food – and this business is doing extremely well. We are currently developing restaurants in Saudi Arabia, Oman and here in the UAE.

One of your newest ventures is a crypto trading exchange. Can you provide us details about it and how it has performed?
There is a huge interest in the cryptocurrency space, with the sector seeing major investment in recent months – especially in tokens such as bitcoin. Blockchain technology is here to stay and we wanted to take advantage of this without the risk associated with the high volatility of cryptocurrency prices. Hence, we started our own exchange at great cost and opened the world’s first community-owned crypto exchange last year. The results have been amazing. We started trading in September 2020 and have had huge month-on-month growth. In May, our turnover was in excess of $270m and in June, we were trading at $450m. I expect this amount to be our daily average by the end of the year. What is different about our exchange is that the traders are given tokens (like shares) within our exchange with dividends paid daily. So, the more they trade, the more money they make. Our aim is to incentivise and reward our community.

Coming back to Be Unique Group, what are the plans ahead for the organisation? Any expansion in the pipeline?
Yes, we are looking at expanding our online division and it will soon be operating from the US. Also, with the working patterns and habits changing due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we believe there are huge opportunities to open events spaces where small and medium sized businesses can reach the masses using video conferencing technology such as Zoom, reaching more people at lower costs. We are already in the process of setting up one such event space in Dubai – it will be open before the end of this year.

As we start to tide over the Covid-19 crisis, what is your advice to business leaders on what comes next?
Start connecting with your clients again. We are humans and face-to-face relationships remain integral to business continuity. As we head closer into the post pandemic era, let us remember to start reconnecting with people genuinely. Also, an important element is that we must live by our promises.

Looking ahead, which are the sectors where you see the strongest potential for growth?
Technology has been given a massive push during the pandemic and that’s a trend that’s here to stay. Hence, sectors which will see growth in the future are digital products and services, financial services and blockchain.

Where is the future headed, in your opinion?
The future is very bright for our children and their children. Never in history has information been so readily available and the transfer of wealth been so easy across borders. With over 8 billion people on the planet, there has never been a larger market of opportunities. I truly believe and live by the mantra: ‘Think abundance’.