Dubai Business: Is the Worst of Summer Behind Us?

Tim Elliott (0:00)

It's the Morning Drive, Networking with a Difference now. Carmen Taubman is the founder of Crew, which is a curated professional community. She's, it's kind of a business matchmaker network, I think, for founders, and she's back in the studio. It's been, I think, Carmen, seven, eight, maybe nine months.

Carmen Taubman (0:16)

Yes, nine months. Since we saw you.

Tim Elliott (0:18)

Welcome back, how are you?

Carmen Taubman (0:19)

Thank you so much. I'm very well, I'm very happy to be back.

Tim Elliott (0:22)

Well, it's nice to see you, and I said to you, you look well, and your response was, thanks, do I look tired? I'm like, right, no.

Carmen Taubman (0:29)

I've been working really hard in those nine months.

Tim Elliott (0:31)

Okay, I can imagine. I mean, look, you founded a business, networking with a real twist, with a real difference, and we'll get into that. But I wanted to kind of start here, because you speak to founders, you speak to decision makers and operators every day. When you look past the sort of public facing optimism, and you hear what's actually being discussed in your sort of community, what's the mood amongst founders to buy SMEs at the moment? What would you say?

Carmen Taubman (1:02)

Yeah, absolutely. So, number one, thank you for having me. You're welcome. Good to see you.

So in terms of the mood, I would say it's been mixed. There's definitely been some tough stories, and I don't want to sugar coat it behind the scenes. It's challenging.

We've had some challenging few months. There's been requirements by some businesses to figure out, do we need to pivot? Do we need to figure out how to be creative and ensure that we keep good people hired? So there's certainly been some challenging stories behind the scenes, but having said that, I also am cautiously optimistic because the people that I work with, especially in crew, they are constantly figuring out, and they're just adapting to the situation. And I mean, they may be in survival mode, but my gosh, they're doing everything they can to survive.

Tim Elliott (1:53)

Do you know what you kind of see, and this is almost ethereal, it's kind of untouchable, it's that feeling of sort of can do, the kind of Dubai attitude, right? And I ask lots of people about that, and I know that it seems a little bit, you're just saying that, but I feel like that's where we are at the moment, and it's as though that's the key to moving forward. Is that a feeling that you get? It's not really a question, I know, it's more a, how do you think things are?

Carmen Taubman (2:24)

Absolutely. I think that we're seeing, okay, there is a lot of noise in Dubai, right? There is, but we're also seeing some of the really authentic stories pushed through of people that are Dubai-it-ing.

And we were just talking about the camel soap factory and how they've managed to actually achieve a goal to keep the business going. And those stories are very much what's needed right now for people to keep pushing through.

Tim Elliott (2:53)

Well, both of us were like, that's such a great story. It's such a positive thing to hear. I think you take from that. Because, I mean, basically we've seen friction in the region. We've seen trade disruption. We've seen supply chains upended. Founders have had to adapt their cash flow, their reliance on those supply chains that have been upended.

And I guess growth strategies as well, because it's about weathering the period, isn't it?

Carmen Taubman (3:19)

Yeah, absolutely. And look, I think that people have hope still. Like, we obviously, we know what Dubai can achieve and the opportunities that Dubai can provide us. But I just also think that there is, there's a cautiousness to it, right? Like, we have to get used to this feeling of uncertainty. And there are people, to be honest, in this region that are used to it. This is not the first time that uncertainty has actually hit the region.

But there are other people that are still very new to this. And they're trying to figure out, okay, how do we operate in this new normal?

Tim Elliott (3:56)

Yeah. So you launched Crew, when you came in to see us eight months ago, nine months ago, whenever it was, you had launched, what, six months before that? Something like five or six months, I think?

Carmen Taubman (4:08)

Less than that.

Tim Elliott (4:09)

So how has it been for you? How have you had to adapt since February the 28th?

Carmen Taubman (4:16)