Entrepreneur Interview: Mr. Sayed Yousuf Ali

This is basically a service industry. They provide customers with branding services. As a part of this they conduct brand audit, review corporate marketing communication internally as well as externally. This will include advertisements, yearly reports, trade show booth, brochures, sales sheet, training videos, press releases etc to show uniqueness of the client’s organization.

Mr. Sayed Yousuf Ali the owner of Spyro group decided to start his business in the year 1995. He hails from a business family. His forefathers were also into business and have many ventures in UAE. He has completed his BE honors in Mechanical engineering. He worked in private sector for 3 to 4 years in design engineering, training and project planning. His father is also a business personality & his mom a housewife. He has a young brother is studying for medicine in United States. His interests are reading, meeting new people, travelling & exploring new places etc.

His forefathers were into business so trying hands on business was very obvious. Small fabrication unit was always a dream but could not start that and had to redirect activities to different directions. His experience and knowledge prompted him to start business and was confident enough that he will flourish. He was confident that he could come up with unique approaches to help clients. He choose this business as it was a service sector which was close to his internal desi

When we start a business there would always be some unforeseen challenges that would arise. For this I prepared a business plan. Business plan does not help when starting a business it but allows us to analyze the funding options that we have, making crucial business decision, also helps to understand the industry and market.

Functional risk was one of the perceived risks that the entrepreneur had to deal with. The services that we provide are effective and its outcomes are accepted by the customer was one of the perceived risk that he faced. This is a company that promotes the clients business by providing branding services so initially the clients will not have complete trust of the outcomes.

To start this business the basic problem that he faced was the investment. Investment was necessary to loop in for starting the factory. So he came with an idea to align with partners by selling his ideas and impressing & convincing them to invest in the business. Unfortunately many backed out. Then he planned to start a small subsidiary in UAE i.e. Consultant engineering service. This was a big hit with a good team, trustworthy & hardworking team. The profit that came through consultant service was used to invest in Middle East.

There were not many major problems. Although starting business in Middle East is easy but to get good trustworthy partners, proper documentation visa formalities, papers to be approved by labour were time consuming process. Choosing of company name is also an issue as it has to be approved by the Chamber of commerce. Catchy names are important to business. In service world what works are catchy name & quality products & services.

In the starting phase of a business appointment highly experienced employee will not work out because of the expense. To cut short the expense we chose employees with less experience which affects the jobs that we undertake. So majority of the task assigned to the employees would not be something that they have specialized in it.

Profit from the Consulting Company was used in the new venture that sorted out the financial problems that arise when starting the business. As this company was introduced in Dubai they got the name that we wanted.

Initial stages we just keep on investing in the company and managing the expenses. We cannot fully thing about profit. It takes 2 to 3 years to get surplus amount from the business. At this stage do maximum jobs, synchronize the processes that will help you in long run.

He took guidance from his father & grandfather who were already into business and also learned a lot with his own experience & mistakes and as well as from the people around him.

He considers himself on top of the line and wants at least be once in the Forbes magazine.