Ashish Tulsian: 

What is it that you do today?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

I’m the CEO and the co-founder of HostMind. HostMind, it’s a cloud kitchen based in Dubai. We started as a cloud kitchen with three food brands because our vision is not to have 100 brands. Since they want the vision was to have very unique, very prime brands that cater to you as a client and the HostMind now we have seven brands.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

How did you land into hospitality or rather restaurant?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

This is a family legacy, I would say. It’s a family history. I started working in F&B very young. I was 12 years old.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

What changed from your family business practice to what you brought at HostMind?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

One major difference, it’s the vision of scaling the business. When we sat all of us, the three together, number one, we agreed, this is not family business.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Cloud kitchen, it is one of those business models, which I feel went through its hype cycle and then came down crashing for most.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

This is why the average rate of brands opening and closing is 500 concepts a week. 500 concepts a week. This has flooded the market with brands that are existing, that are taking place on aggregators, that are costing other brands a lot of money to show.

After two years, this is where now our brands are not discounted anymore, except for new customers to try. I was scared to take this decision in a market where each and every single brand is discounted on a daily basis, no matter how big, small.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Hi, welcome to Restrocast. Today, my guest is Mona Al Sayah. She’s a co-founder and CEO at HostMind Kitchens, a cloud kitchen company based in Dubai, doing fabulous concepts in sandwiches, burgers, salads. Her brands like Soak’d, Season’d, Mom and Chef, and a couple more are not only killing in the market, but this conversation will tell you why. Mona is a rarity because she grew up in a hospitality family. She grew up in a restaurant family. She started at the age of 12, and I think today at maybe 30 or shy of it, is killing it as if she’s a pro, and that she is.

I think Mona’s story is interesting because I generally, you know, I strongly believe that at times people who look like overnight successes have had decade or decades, you know, behind them, which at times are not visible. Mona is one such example where, you know, while world may believe that she may be 6, 7, 8 years experience in total by her age, she has been breathing in hospitality since the age of 12. So we are talking to a 30 year old with 18 plus years of experience. This conversation is also great because you will see that conscious brands can be built keeping your ethos intact, keeping, you know, not only having a vision for your brand, but also conscience while delivering that, you know, for your customers, for your employees. What do you stand for beyond gimmicks? For example, one striking thing about Mona’s conversation with me was very early on she qualified.

She said, we are a clean sandwich and a clean ingredient company. It may not always be healthy. It can be indulgent, but it’s clean and it’s fresh. I think having that nuance tells me that, you know, you can build a business without being gimmicky and you can say your truth. You can be, you can own it and you can be very, very proud of it because customers that are meant for you will not only find you, but they will pay top dollars for it and that is what Mona is doing. I’m sure this is going to be inspirational to watch. Welcome to Restrocast. Mona, Welcome to Restrocast. 

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Thank you. I’m so happy to be here on the session today, actually. Looking forward for the discussion and I’m excited since it is unscripted. This is why Absolutely.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Absolutely.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

And I don’t know where this is going to go.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

And I think we are going to take you to the, you know, dark or bright is perception, but we are going to take you through a nostalgic journey. What are you, you know, what is it that you do today?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

So basically, I’m the CEO and the co-founder of Hostmind. Hostmind, it’s a cloud kitchen based in Dubai. We are not just a cloud kitchen. What makes us a bit different is that we started as a cloud kitchen with three food brands. To anyone who does not know what cloud kitchen is, it’s basically a delivery only kitchen. We are restaurants available on aggregators, Deliveroo, Kareem, Noon, Talabad, Zomato, all of these. And we deliver only through these aggregators. We don’t do physical restaurants.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Trust me, anybody who’s watching this, they know.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

So we started as three brands at Hostmind, Soak’d, Season’d, and Burgr’d. Soak’d, it’s a sandwich brand. Very organic, very nice concept to share or single or to party as well. It’s a very nice, cool concept. The second one, Season’d, it’s a healthy and a salad brand. The third, Burgr’d., is a very nice burger concept. After this, we grew these three brands to become seven different brands. We introduced more and more brands to our cloud kitchen. And this is where we decided we need to stop.

Because our vision is not to have 100 brands. We are not a cloud kitchen that wants mass number of orders per day. Since they want the vision was to have very unique, very prime brands that cater to you as a client the same way that we would cater to ourselves.

And now I’m going to tell you where this comes from as a background, as a family background. So in Hostmind now, we have seven brands that are available online. We also have a B2B line of business. The B2B line of business was never in the beginning, in the vision in the beginning. It grew with the business.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

But before you go there, sorry, but I have a question. Why is it called Hostmind?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

So it’s, this is nice. It’s hospitality mindset when we were thinking of the name. In my master’s, I learned a lot about the psychology and how our brain functions. And the brain functions, two sides of the brain, whereas there’s the emotional part, and there’s more the analytical part and the data part. So any when I when I think of hospitality, I always think of both parts, how to engage with your client to reach both part of his or her brains, the emotional part through the experience that you give to your client, and also the analytical, the data part where it needs to make sense to your client to order from you, whether you are a restaurant, cloud kitchen, etc. So it’s hospitality mindset, Hostmind, it combines both mindset, us offering to our clients as a business and also how to reach the client’s mindset as well through our food and offerings as well. This is the name. Yeah.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

And how did you how did you fall into? How did you land into hospitality or other restaurants?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Yeah, I, this is a family legacy, I would say it’s a family history. I started working in F&B very young, I was 12 years old, when I started working with the family business. My brother was at the time 26 or 27 years old, he decided to launch his first F&B venue in Lebanon, we started as a small restaurant, and then it grew to become a wedding venue. My mom is a chef, she is the head chef in this business in Lebanon.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Oh, wow.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Yes. So she she has a team of 13 chefs with her. We do weddings, we do events, we started as a very small business, and then we grew. So I joined my brother and the family at 12 years old, where I worked all positions, you know, when you start a family business, a small business, everyone is working everything. And this was amazing, because this truly shaped who I am right now. And this truly shaped through all my journey and my career as well, who I am because of these early years that I really worked hard. And yeah, this is how I landed.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I think as compared to as compared to restaurants, wedding is, I think 10x more crazy.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Yes, yes. It’s one night, it’s, it’s your night, right? And everything needs to be perfect in this one night, nothing can go wrong. So there’s a lot of backstage, I call it in a wedding, there’s what you see, an F&B operation, and there’s backstage, there’s everywhere, someone saying yes, go, you turn it off, you go on, you move forward.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

There’s a real chaos and the real action is happening.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Exactly. So after working with the family, I decided I’m going to pursue my own career, shifting from F&B to see if F&B is truly mine or not. And I shifted, I went to Spain to do my master’s.

After doing my master’s in Spain, I came back to consulting, I joined the boutique consulting firm in Lebanon. And I joined them for four and a half years almost, it was an amazing journey. It was a school for me, consulting, working in management consulting, was a school to teach me everything about structuring businesses, restructuring, manpower planning, how it’s, it’s a thought process, no matter what we worked as projects for me was the thought process until the day came where I said, I am, I’m done. I want to do my own business.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

But don’t you think, you know, given that you were already, you know, early in the family business and you saw your, you know, entire family being entrepreneurial, when you went in consulting, you know, did you realize how superficial consultants are?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Not, not really, I don’t fully agree with this. And I’m going to let you know why. We worked with public sectors, we work in Saudi Arabia, UAE, in Lebanon, not, not really Lebanon, our offices were in Lebanon, we worked in Saudi Arabia and UAE. And this perception is not true, always. I don’t fully agree because what I learned from consulting, the projects that we were working on were really being implemented. And that’s the difference than designing a project, then saying, yes, this is the strategy, and then actually implementing what you see, whether we were developing actual SOPs, actual processes. So we were, let’s say, working on process reengineering, SOPs, etc. And this were being implemented. These are stuff that actually we saw the difference. This is the difference between yes, as a consultant designing and leaving, and then an implementation project where you actually implement with your client.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I mean, yeah, if you’re implementing them, then your loop closes, then your loop closes with the feedback.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Exactly. But what is totally different, the real world is definitely being an entrepreneur. And this is the real world. So coming from consulting, coming from a very good job, an amazing job, even when I decided to quit my job, and I called my brother, I told him, I quit, and we’re doing a business in Dubai, in FNB. And he was like, you’re crazy. What are you doing? The situation in Lebanon was crazy. 

 

Ashish Tulsian:

What year was that? 

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Economically, it was 2022. So economically, the country was not doing well. I had a really great salary, everything was well, I was establishing a very nice career life in Dubai, everything was going well. And he was like, you’re crazy. What are you doing? Like, why are you quitting this amazing job? I was like, we’re doing an FNB business in Dubai. Don’t ask me now what, why? We are going to figure it out. And this is what happened.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

But tell me why, what was going, what was happening? What was going through your mind when you were taking that kind of plunge? And that too, in 2022, when, you know, world has come out, of course, crazier, the growth since 22 has been crazy. But world has just come out of a ditch of COVID.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

It was end of 2022 when I took the decision, actually. But I don’t know how to explain it to you. But I guess any, any entrepreneur would understand this is that while I was an employee, I was there to learn to grow. But I knew deep down, I was never meant to be anything other than entrepreneur and having my own business. At that time, maybe I didn’t know what I’m very passionate about FNB. And everyone, anyone who decides to go in FNB and pursue an FNB more than a year, it means they are truly passionate about this or no one will say more than a year. They try it. They try this dream of, I want to have a coffee shop. I want to have a restaurant. In each group of friends, out of five, two people want to have a coffee shop, right? I want to have a nice coffee shop.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

And that dream settles within first quarter.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Exactly. And people don’t know this. So, so when I decided, I, when I was an employee, I knew deep down, this is not something for life. I’m here to learn. And even when I decided to go to consulting, my family was a bit surprised. Like we have our own business. We do good. Why are you going to consulting? Why are you going to work for other people? While you, we have our own business. And clearly it was for me to learn. I knew that I was very young.

I needed to learn a bit more. I’m still very young right now, but at least consulting years gave me a different view on business. They gave me, they give me, it was a school for me, officially. And it’s not only from the projects, it’s from the people that you work with that I’m still very close friends until now. And they taught me through the way, a lot of stuff that I implemented in my business.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

What changed, like, for example, you know, and then this is very cool because you saw family business in FNB, in heavy operations. You’re talking about wedding, your mom being a chef, um, your brother managing it, running it. And now from a consulting side, you suddenly saw structure, how to, how to document, how to structure, how to build process.

When you took, take that lens, what changed from your family business practice to what you brought at HostMinds, tell me the difference. Give me, give me a few examples of the good and bad of the, or not, not good and bad, like the past and the present.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

I’ll tell you one major difference. It’s scaling the business, the vision of scaling the business. This is exactly what, when we decided to do something and I sat with my partner. So HostMind, we are three partners. It’s my older brother and it’s our third partner as well. When we sat all of us, the three together, number one, we agreed, this is not family business. This is not the family business. My brother and I in business, we’re partners. We’re not siblings. And this is very clear. When we enter the room, we keep the family outside. We talk work and then we’re, we’re the best siblings ever, but this is not the family business.

SOPs processes have to be implemented on each and every single, even my mom fly all the way from Lebanon to develop some specific recipes. The moment she’s in the kitchen, I have an agreement with her. I tell her you’re the most important person in my life. You’re my mom. You have every say in life, in the kitchen, it’s not your say. In the kitchen, there’s processes, SOPs in Dubai that you need to, in Lebanon, do whatever you want.

I have no say, zero say, right? You’re the ruler in Lebanon. But here, please respect because it take, it took a lot of time to set the team on this track and to set the team on certain processes and SOPs for us to be able to scale. So this is the difference. Family business is amazing, is good money. You grow fast, you grow good, et cetera. But when you, when you come to the phase, phase where you need to scale, you need to bring it outside Dubai. You need to franchise it. This is where it poses. 

And this is where you need to go back to zero, to start formalizing, standardizing, making everything documented, et cetera, which takes sometimes a year or two sometimes to do if a business is big enough. So this is what we really focused in Dubai since day one. No, we’re focusing on scalable business.

We want to build the brands that are franchisable while maintaining premium quality, not commercial, not mass production, premium quality food, premium quality service, but in a formal way, if I may say, documented way.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

So has your brother, you know, given your brother has always been in a traditional business, which, you know, for, I’m sure for him, these rules were new or this, this experience was new. How has he changed as a partner in hostmind? And has he, has he taken some of these learnings back into his business?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Of course, of course. Look, I have to say he’s, he’s a role model to me. My brother has always been a role model, whether as a person or at work. And since five years old, I worked with him. I learned a lot of my work traits, I would say come from him directly, but a lot as well do not match this. A lot come from consulting, from my own experiences in life. The amazing thing is that he’s very flexible. And he gets that what is in Lebanon is different than Dubai. And the moment we were in Dubai, we both adapted.

And this is very important. Because if even my brother was super close to me, if we didn’t have the same vision, the same mentality of adapting and being flexible to what Dubai needs, and the team in Dubai and the market and the customers in Dubai need, this would have been a huge issue. Correct.

So yes, we all went through this SOPs processes formalizing things, because we had the vision of expanding since day one. And this also, of course, impacts as well in Lebanon, the structure in Lebanon, which was which was already there. He did an amazing, brilliant job in structuring without formalization, structuring as a family business, amazing 70, a team of 70 people working day and night, amazing job, a season because we work day and night because it’s a season.

Amazing events, huge weddings, one of the top wedding venues in Lebanon. But it is different than the business here. It’s quite different.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Yes. So 22, you started hostmind, leaving your job. And Cloud Kitchens is, I think, it is one of those business models, which I feel went through its hype cycle, and then came down crashing for most, and then became hybrid, and is still finding its footing while settling. So today, when you know, when somebody tells me that they run a cloud kitchen company or cloud kitchen brand, I have to ask them a lot of questions before it can settle in my mind that what is it that they do, which was very different in, let’s say, 2021, 22, 23. Last few years have been, you know, interesting. I will not release a good or bad. What has been, I’m assuming that, you know, you’re only selling on aggregators, and there are no physical stores yet.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Yes, exactly. Exactly.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

You don’t have any physical stores, right?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

No physical stores, only cloud.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah. So I just wanted to make sure that, you know, you’re on the right question. What has been your learning for the past three years, given in Cloud Kitchens, people are coming with random stuff. Anybody is spinning any brand. One kitchen is spinning 100 brands. You know, they’re almost just populating or crowding digital marketplaces like, you know, Talabat, Kareem, et cetera, all the aggregators.

And they’re hoping that, you know, some orders will come from somebody who may want, you know, who may want either the cheaper food or who may fall into my funnel because they just discovered me and they want to try it. I don’t know what’s the viability of that business, but it’s extremely difficult to build a brand which is purely, you know, Cloud Kitchen based and does not have a trophy store or a, you know, main store on the street. How’s been that? And what is it like? Just open it up for me, what your brands are and what’s the journey been for the last three years?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Sure. What you’re mentioning is super accurate, if I may say, and definitely you’re way more experienced in F&B as well than I am. And what you’re saying is for sure accurate. A lot of brands are having the misconception of opening a Cloud Kitchen where we just open any brand, we launch it and we move forward. And it’s very easy to fall into this cycle. I don’t want to say trap because not always it’s trap into this cycle because it’s very easy to launch a brand on aggregators, right? You set up a license, you pay, you have the money, you launch it within one month, if you are accurate on execution, et cetera. And this is why the average rate of brands opening and closing is 500 concepts a week. A week. 

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Sorry, come again?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

500 concepts a week.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

In?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Open in UAE.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

In UAE.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

On aggregators. Open and shut off in one month. Open and shut off because you are just launching a brand. It doesn’t cost me anything. It cost me a couple of thousand dirhams. I’m going to launch the rest. It worked. It worked. It did not work. I’m going to shut it off. Why? Because I already have the setup in my kitchen. I have the ingredients. I have the team. Co-training.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Cost of launch or cost of testing is?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Is nothing. And this has flooded the market with, as you said, with brands that are existing, that are taking place on aggregators, that are costing other brands a lot of money to show on aggregators, right? Because of the organic, because of the distance, because my kitchen is a bit further than your kitchen. So your brands are keeping my kitchen, my brands below organically, visibly on aggregators. And this is a huge impact. Brands who want to stay cost a lot of money. This is exactly what I want to say. 

Brands who are launching just to launch, they’re going to close in a year or two. Brands who are there to stay, even the biggest cloud kitchens without naming them, the biggest cloud kitchen in Dubai, the brands, their brands that are known are brands that have legacy, that have been in the market for years and years and years. The brands that we open as shadow brands or that we open just to launch a brand, this is a brand that’s going to shut off soon. I’m testing the market. Why is it going to shut off? Because it’s going to utilize resources in the kitchen. It’s going to utilize the team. It’s going to utilize kitchen space, which is very expensive in Dubai. It’s going to utilize my utility, everything. At some point, we’re going to look at this brand and say, you know what? It’s not worth it. Let’s focus on this brand. This is the cycle that’s happening. So brands are opening.

Okay, then it’s worth it. We close them and then other brands are opening. What is really working in Dubai, profitable brands are the brands that build legacy, are brands that are 20 years old, 23 years old, 10 years old, five years.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

That is probably why some of the largest cloud kitchen companies, as you said, without naming them, also started buying a lot of legacy brands.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Exactly. A hundred percent. Why? Because you need the brand. Building a brand is something very hard. Building a brand, and this is always something that we discuss, building a brand is super costly. You cannot open a cloud kitchen, operate a cloud kitchen in 300K. No, this is going to do nothing for you. Even 1 million, nothing. You’re going to throw it on one branch. Either you’re going to go with a vision of several branches or don’t open this one branch. This is the tricky part of cloud kitchen that people say, it’s very easy sometimes.

So I have established a consulting company on the side where I help some clients to develop their brands, to work on concepts from branding and from developing the concept until execution as well, because it’s something I’m passionate about. I’ve done it for my own brands and I’ve learned how costly it is and I’ve done huge mistakes that costed money. And this is why I said, okay, let me establish this consulting firm where I can help really as a consultant from my own experience where you call me and you say, I say, don’t do this. Don’t.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

That was my question. Do you say no?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Yes, definitely.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Because otherwise, it will feel like that you are the reason why 500 concepts are getting launched every week.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Definitely. I would sit and say, no, last week I had a meeting and this, this was also a one client who wanted to grow their brand and who, and it was really good business for host mind. I told him, don’t do this. Don’t, I don’t, I’m not looking for you as a client for two months and then you were shutting off and going home. Don’t do this. This is not going to make you money.

Please stop what you’re doing right now. And this is very hard to say because you lose the clients and because, but this is, this gives credibility at the, at the end of the day as well. But this misconception about yes, it’s very easy to open a cloud kitchen. No, it’s not.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

What was your, you know, break down the journey for me. So you started cloud kitchen in 2022. 

 

Mona Al Sayah:

End of 2022. I would say beginning of 2023 officially. 

 

Ashish Tulsian:

23, 23 beginning. And what was the first brand that you started? 

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Soak’d. Soak’d is my first.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

So, you know, how did you, how did you break that? You know, how did you, how did you create that space that that’s that small crack for Soak’d for it to be recognized in the market in your TG while, you know, fighting these 500, you know, different brands unloaded a week. How, how did you do that?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Okay. So what, what’s TG by the way you said in your TG, you said.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

In your, sorry, in your target group, in your, in your. 

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Okay. Sorry. I just make sure I’m understanding. Okay. So initially when we started, it was kind of flu. We wanted to start with a concept and this concept, when we did the budgeting and the financial plan, it was a huge. So we shifted to different concepts that to start bit by bit. And we worked with, with a very well-known chef here in the Middle East. His name is Chef Jean Barbour. He was with us since day one. He’s a very well experienced chef. And as a consultant, he brings what usually consultants do not bring. He brings the kitchen experience. So the operations and setting up the kitchens and all of this.

And this is where, when we sat all to start our three brands, we launched Soak’d first, which is a sandwich to train the team bit by bit. And you are going to see how the process of brand started from easiest to the most complex one. So we started with Soak’d, a sandwich concept. All the brands of hostmind focus a lot on clean ingredients. We have clean labels, all our stock, you go any, any, any time to any kitchen, you are going to see clean labeled ingredients. We focus on clean food, which, which means not cheap brands.

Our brands are considered a bit higher than the market rate. If you want to eat nice food, fresh food, a clean food that, that you would cook for your kids at home. This is exactly.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Very good crust, very good crust ingredients and process.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Exactly. And, and Soak’d, we launched it at the sandwich brand. The bread is organic bread, no additives, no preservatives, homemade. And it’s a sandwich concept that you eat clean food, but it’s not a healthy concept. You have fries sandwich. It’s not the healthiest comfort food, but clean. I know that at least I’m eating a clean sandwich with after it, we launched a bit of healthy sandwiches where you can order a clean sandwich without the fries. If you’d like to add a bit of calories on it, more comfort food on a Friday night, Soak’d is your answer. So we introduced different ranges in Soak’d. 

After it, we introduced Season’d. Very healthy, very trendy brand, catering to the trend of healthy living, of we want to eat a nice meal. I was not a salad fan. Till now, I’m not the best salad fan. It’s my first choice. But it has been growing amazingly. Season’d, and it’s the trend. People are going to healthy food, to salads, to a nice meal. We choose to do also very clean ingredients, definitely, and very fresh daily, daily, daily production. And what we worked on Season’d is to give you salads that you wouldn’t waste time at home to make them. It’s not a four-ingredient salad. It’s minimum 12 ingredients to give you a nice meal with all the nutritional facts that you need. And it’s not as easy to prepare at home. Or else, why I’m going to pay 60 dirham for a salad of four ingredients if I can do it at home? Even me, I will do it at home. Correct?

Anyone with economic sense will do this at home, right? So we wanted to do something that really takes time for you to prepare and to provide you something that really adds value on table. And this is all our salads you would see. Minimum 10 ingredients to 12 ingredients, very high in protein or high in fiber, depending on what you are looking for. And one very important thing is that Season’d, the concept came from a changing menu every six to seven months. So it is Season’d, apostrophe D.

And the menu is summer salads, fall salads, winter salads, and spring salads, and all season salad. And every season, we introduce salads based on the ingredients of the season. It’s pumpkin season, you’re going to see a pumpkin salad. And this was the concept of Season’d. Then we launched Burgr’d. It’s an amazing burger concept as well. Also, you can order a box of two or a box of eight. Top packaging where you receive your food in a very neat way, to eat it in a neat way. So when we started, whether it’s me or my brother.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

How do you eat a burger in a neat way?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

That’s how I’m going to tell you. Not in a neat way, at least you receive it in a neat way. Okay, exactly.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I don’t want to eat a burger in a neat way.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

I do agree. But still, at least I want to receive it in an appealing way. I don’t want to receive it in a bag. And this was also one of the main things we worked on in all our brands. If you see and check all our brands, perfect packaging that cost me a lot and decreases my profit margin. But still, I insist on this because customer experience is very important. I want to receive my salad in a perfect shape. I don’t want to receive my salad spilled or open. No, I want to receive it in a perfect shape.

And I want to receive my sandwich, a nice sandwich. I don’t want to receive it half of the ingredients. I want to receive an appealing one. And it comes from us being a bit perfectionism when it comes to F&B. And everyone who sees the brands, they would know that whoever is behind these brands, whether my partners and I or the team, you need to have perfectionism a bit to be able to deliver this level of…

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Do you mind telling me what’s your packaging cost percentage?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

It’s high. It’s more than 3%. Very high. Until now. I’m working on it. We decreased it. I started at 3.2. We reached like 2.7 and we’re still working on it. This is gonna definitely decrease when we scale more. But I really wanted to keep this for now. And it made a huge difference for our clients. Because whoever is paying for our food, our target client are not people who are aiming for a 20 dirhams meal. This is not…

If you want 20 dirhams meal, I will tell you, don’t waste your time on me because I cannot afford this. So our clients… And this is feedback I got from clients, by the way. I never forget when I received a call and I received a call from a client who’s like, we’re paying for this food because we love your food. Make sure next time to send me one, two, three in the packaging. Do not be cheap on the packaging. This call changed everything for us as well.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Wow.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Because our target client, our average order check is 70-80 dirhams. They are paying for good food per one meal. They want to receive it perfectly. Imagine a client telling me this and I was like, oh my God. And when we launched, all aggregators had my personal phone. So you call for the restaurant, I reply to you because I want to…

 

Ashish Tulsian:

You would have missed this insight otherwise.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Exactly. And I want to listen to the clients. Another client, wow. And our brands, let me continue also. Sorry, I drifted from the brands. Another client called and he said, add pine nuts. We want this. This is our childhood Lebanese food. Add pine nuts to it.

Pine nuts are expensive. So we shipped, my brother shipped for me pine nuts from Lebanon, specifically from a village in Lebanon that has the best one. We shipped them here to Dubai to add to Mom and Chef, which is our Lebanese and event food brand to add pine nuts. And we increased the price and people loved it because they really wanted this. I’m giving you this example to show you that when you know your target market, you can increase your packaging costs because you know later on with the scaling, I’m going to decrease it. You just need to be patient that you’re not going to make the profit now. You’re going to like deflate it.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

And that’s where you’re, I mean, one way to also say this is, and I totally believe in what you’re saying, right? Because I’m that buyer. I’m that buyer who’s going to, you know, not eat from cheap places. When somebody gives me buy one, get one free, that’s the easiest way to shoo me away because I’m like, okay, I’m not taking this for sure. But more than that, you know, I absolutely understand that a buyer who is willing to spend a lot more just wants to make sure that you’re reliable and you’re exactly deliver what you promise is gold. How did you, so you, Mona, you conceptualize these brands and you brought them to life. Already big deal. But how did you, how do you bring this awareness to your target customer? So how did you find your target customer?

And especially aggregators is like, you know, it’s a jungle. It’s wild, right? Problem with aggregator or digital marketplaces, according to me, is not only the fact that there’s a lot of discount mongering and there’s a lot of, you know, deal hunters. Problem is that even the ones who are not that, not those people are being shown the same restaurants and same deals. It’s almost shoving down your throat, right? And that creates a lot of blindness for discovering good spots. How did you market your brands? How did you find your TG? How do you capture that TG?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

This is very hard. And I’m not going to say that we mastered this in the first year. No, it was very hard because we were fighting with, we were fighting with brands that had different agendas, if I may say. Some brands have totally different agendas. They want to stay on the top, even a 50% discount. And they want to just target certain number of orders per day. And this is very hard to, uh, to compete with, right? Because at the end of the day, I cannot give 30% and 50% of my brands. There’s no way I can give 30%.

Even there’s a partner with us on the table, a huge partner, which is aggregators. They are the ones that make money the most in the first couple of years. So how I’m going to give you 30% and then come to the aggregator, tell him, thank you so much. This is 35% for you. And then the food costs and then the operational costs and where, where are we going? Right? So this has been very hard to reach the number of orders that we reached today. And, and it, it, it took two years. This is not easy at all.

Some brands, sometimes I know brands that took longer as well to be able to reach a certain number of brands, because, um, again, fighting with the, it’s a very price sensitive market and highly discounted. The challenge is actually to try it. Once the customer, you need to, it’s very expensive to acquire the customer.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Correct.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

If you have a good food, you are going to retain the customer. And an amazing things that we have is that all our brands have more than 65% repeated customer.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

And how do you know that?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

From aggregators, we have all the metrics of the customers, not the data of the metric, but the metrics.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

But aggregators are telling you how many are repeated and how many are new.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Exactly. How many repeated?

 

Ashish Tulsian:

65% is repeated.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

More than 65. Season has 78%.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Damn. That is, that is brilliant.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

This is amazing. This took two years. Why? Because to acquire the customer, it costed a lot of company, a lot of money. Sorry. It costed, I’m going to give you a bit of financials if you want, like to acquire one customer, sometimes it can cost you per order up to six dirhams per order. This is massively expensive. Why? Because on aggregators, sometimes when we put, uh, when we put like pay-per-click campaigns, I forgot now the exact name of it on aggregators.

Sometimes you press on the menu and you go back and then you say, Oh, I’m going to check this money. And then you go back and then you come to my menu and then you say, Oh, let me check again. This, this three time costed me 15 dirhams. Every click is costing 15, uh, five dirhams. Imagine. And then you decide to order mom and chef from one of our brands until you decided to, or I already paid for the aggregators 15 dirhams. This is huge. But then you decide you taste, you check the ratings or while we have good ratings, you taste it, you’re there. But until you taste, this is a massive investment.

And this is why at the first year, it’s very hard for you. You need to focus how to target your market, how to target, sorry, your yes. Like to target who are your customers and how much you have to spend on it. And aggregators marketing is very efficient. I’m going to get there or there’s a love, hate relationship between us and aggregators without them. We cannot correct. Let’s face it.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

You can’t really, you can’t just only hate them. Like, I mean, as you guys are on this board together.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

They charge us a lot. And this is where there’s this tension, like, oh, he charges guys a lot. Let’s agree on a better commission, et cetera, et cetera. They charge us a lot, but they deserve it. Logistics headache is massive. You can’t even know how detailed the logistics can be on the ground unless you try it once and you deliver once yourself, and then you can live the hassle. So yes, they deserve it. They are expensive. Yes, they are expensive. Let’s face it.

They do deserve it, but it’s very important to market on them. I do believe that aggregators marketing, it can be much more efficient in the start than social media marketing. For one main reason, aggregate one dirham on aggregator is going to target a hungry person willing to order now.

Now social media is very good now. Now I’m going to shift all spending from aggregators to social media. Now it’s time to expand, to make it massive, to tell the people, yes, a season’d, season’d, season’d, the mom and chef, mom and chef to make you memorize it at the beginning. I want you to try me to, to try my food and to taste the food. 

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Social media is for branding exactly. While aggregators literally are sales, sort of sales, marketing sales.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Exactly. And you are targeting someone now. It’s ordering is very emotional. Yeah, it’s very emotional. And this is why when this is why the first few years we focused a lot on, uh, on aggregators marketing. And even I worked with Amen, Amen is, I love working with him. He’s an expert in aggregators management. I give him hard time, but a man, a man is he manages all aggregators. He has his own company, by the way, and he manages, manages aggregators. He comes from Zomato and from a gators background, and he knows the algorithms. He knows how, how to deal and how to, we work on discounts per minute, per hour of the day, you know, 

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Oh, brilliant. Yeah.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

I know what he said. Hour of the day, you know what I mean?

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah. So, and very few, and it blows my mind how few, uh, operators really go that deep.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

You know, every operator keeps, uh, you know, crying about, uh, you know, aggregators being costly, but very few really go deep, you know, in optimizing their spends on it, optimizing their menu, optimizing their price. And that can do wonders to a brand. I’ve seen a lot of, a lot of brands have done great stuff on that.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Yeah. And you have to work with professional people who are experts in this. It’s nothing related to the regular marketing. This is not. 

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Okay. So I’m in whatever business you get from this, uh, you know, please send the commission.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

No, but no, but these, um, because this is very, very important and, and, uh, aggregators marketing. Once we first started the first year, I used to do it my own and this, I would spend two hours of my day minimum working on this. And I couldn’t maintain this with everything that’s happening, growing, growing business, a team of 30 people, uh, where FNB is 24, seven business, right. And then launching a whole B2B line of business, which, which is the total other company right under, under one company. So this is where we, I needed to outsource it. And it is really very important because you can optimize and it’s going to get your good returns, but you need to be very patient.

It took two years after two years. This is where now our brands are not discounted anymore, except for new customers to try all brands. And this is very hard. The moment I called and I said, we’re removing all discounts on all brands. I was shaking at home because I’m like, Oh my God, what if tomorrow, uh, my sales are going to drop 50%. I’m like, you know, I was, I was taking the decision with my partner and I’m calling him and saying, we’re stopping discounts. I’m scared. I was scared to take this decision in a market where each and every single brand is discounted on a daily basis, no matter how big, small, new, old brand you’re discounted. So yeah, two years we’ve reached this now. Thank God. And we’re doing good.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

65 and 78% still speak to me a lot. I think that’s, that’s amazing. Uh, you know, congratulations on that. 

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Thank you.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

But when, when, you know, your understanding of a brand is so clean that, that it requires a lot of money. It requires a lot of investment. Um, and you also don’t want to do everything. Why did you become seven brands in, in, in a single cloud kitchen? Why don’t you, why, why not just two or three?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

I’ll, I’ll, I’ll answer this later on, but between you and me, seven brands, what we launched at the seven brand was a smart launch. I would say our seven brands are smartly designed with consultant, who comes from a cloud kitchen background. We designed it in a way that it’s as if we are operating for big brands with the same ingredients. We created new menus, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And we launched the other brands without, without any more hassle. It doesn’t mean that these brands are going to grow a lot.

No, these additional small brands were done to, uh, reduce waste, to keep things moving, to keep our fridges very fresh because nothing is kept for the other day. And this is very important, you know? So this is why we said seven brands we have. So, soake’d, Season’d, burger’d. I already spoke about them cooked. It’s a pasta brand. It’s a premium pasta brand. The pasta we use in cooked is used in fine dining, Italian restaurant. So even when you, when you order the shape, you will see, ah, this is what I get in a fine dining restaurant.

Yes, we are doing it in delivery in affordable prices, but it’s a very nice pasta and the premium premium quality products. Uh, the fifth brand is mom and chef. Mom and chef is a very dear brand to my heart. It’s the mom, the home cooking, the traditional food of your mom and the chef innovative, how to make it in a cloud kitchen, how to deliver you freshly cooked. Now live cooking. I’m going to focus on the word live cooking to your door and 40 minutes.

So this is where mom and chef come from. Chef is chef Jean, our partner consultant chef. I told you about chef Jean Barbour.

He is the chef mom is my mom and is every mom at home cooking. So it’s not only when you go to mom and chef, it’s not only Oriental and Lebanese food. Why is this? Because our moms, Arab moms do not stick to Oriental and Lebanese food. And this is something different about Arab moms. I’ve seen, I’ve seen all my, I have friends from all around the world and I’ve met most of their moms and I’ve seen this difference. And when we were discussing chef Jean and I about this brand, we said a Lebanese mom would do on a Sunday lasagna, right? She would do Bolognese. She would do steak and fries. She would do with mushroom sauce, salmon, etc. Chicken curry. You know, they, our mom, they are cooked. Whereas you don’t see an Indian mom cooking tabbouleh and hummus, right? You don’t see a British mom cooking kebbeh, our food.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

You don’t see British mom cooking.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Basically. But, but you get the idea what I mean. So this is where mom and chef comes from. It’s mom and chef. And it’s not an event for Lebanese cuisine. Our clients are from all around the world. And this is nice because even the Instagram page, I really focus that mom and chef is not Lebanese. Our content is not in Arabic and it’s not only talking to the Lebanese and Arabic people because it’s for everyone. It’s literally a brand for, for, for everyone who’s looking for home cooked food. So yeah.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I think seven brands make sense. If you can, if you can do that smartly without, you know, if you can process the same ingredients and especially if the, if the, this cooking skill or the, or the breadth of cuisines is not, you know, really random. So I, I, I, I really see that. But what has, what has changed in last three years in you?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

In me? Wow. I became a much tougher person, honestly. Much tougher person. It’s, uh, uh, I, I know that I’m very detail oriented and it’s not easy to work with me because I will be demanding, but because before demanding, I would have thought of the full process. I would have drawn the process 10 times with the contingency plans, A, B, C, D, et cetera.

So when I’m, I’m requesting something with the process A to Z, I, I know that I am demanding, but for a very specific reason to reach ABC. So what changed me, I guess it’s that I became a bit of a tougher person, handling situations. The first few obstacles I faced, I was more scared than now. Like now I would have 10 huge situations, 10 phone calls a day. Definitely. I’m going to be stressed. Definitely. I’m going to go crazy. I’m a very passionate.

I tend to be sometimes aggressive and I’m, I’m a passionate person, passionate. I care about my brands. I care about, uh, the same way that I’m passionate about food. I’m passionate about the team. Sometimes the clients call me, say the team, I defend my team to death, but in the kitchen, I’m going to be tough. No one is going to cross me or my brother, uh, to go to the team. No, it’s us. You deal with us, but expect me to be very tough as well in the kitchen and, and not tolerating, uh, many things because I’m not a very patient person. I have to say this.

So what changed me is a bit tougher when it comes to dealing with obstacles, that some obstacles that were huge for me three years back are now a regular phone call on a Sunday morning, which is cool, which is fine. This changed me. Uh, I would say this is not very, uh, changed me in an event, not very nice way, I would say, but what changed me in a positive way, I would, uh, I would say is, uh, wow, I learned a lot.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

No, the first one is also positive. I mean, why are you saying the first one is not, not in the, 

 

Mona Al Sayah:

because sometimes you tend, people tend to see you, you’re tough. You’re, you know, you’re, 

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I understand. I know what you’re saying.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Nicknames and that’s where, you know, 

 

Ashish Tulsian:

people are calling me like Hitler. 

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Yeah, exactly. This is, this is exactly what was being called. So, so, so this is not something I’m proud of and I’m really working on, on trying to calm down, but I, I am passionate and they, and they know this about me and the team who is really with me after three years are people that know that I’m not going to tolerate some things, but at the same time, you can call me 1am. I’m going to be there for you, but no mistakes. And I have this default, uh, uh, how do I say, you know, inconvenience in me, but I’m trying to work. I’m trying to learn. I’m still young as an entrepreneur. I’m trying to become calmer.

My brother would tell me at 40, you’re still 30 years. You’re, you’re, you know, you’re still very aggressive, very passionate. Right. When I say aggressive, it means I want in two days and two days, I’m not going to waste time, waste money. Uh, you know, I want to open this branch in 12 hours. It’s 12 hours. We’re going to all work 12 hours, uh, you know, standing, uh, including me and my brother on the ground, but we’re going to do it. Yeah. This is what I mean by very aggressive, very sharp on the execution. 

 

Ashish Tulsian:

What’s the difference between Mona, the employee and Mona, the entrepreneur that you feel, Oh, wow. You know, that’s quite a strong difference.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Oh, wow. That’s nice. I never thought of it. One of the employee is calmer is, uh, very hard. Both are very hard worker. Both are very high achievers. And I have to say, I really work hard when I want to work on something, determination, et cetera. This, yes, I’m aware of this, but what is major difference is that, uh, when you are an employee, yes, I used to be very stressed. I need to reach my goals, et cetera.

But deep down, you are kind of chill compared now. When I was an employee, I would have never imagined saying this about consulting because we used to work really hard. And we used to work day and night, sometimes weekend. Sometimes I worked on Christmas on Easter, all our holidays, you know what I mean? But now I see the difference. So as an employee, you’re more chill, deep down, you’re stable, no matter what’s going to happen at the end of the month, I’m going to receive a salary.

And this has, this has drastic impact on your unconscious and on your mind, by the way, and you will not know it until you live it. The difference is that I am a much stronger person right now as a personality. And, uh, I, I would never, as an employee, I don’t give up, but as an, as a business owner, I would never give up and I would fight, you know, till, till the end, whether for me, for my team, for my brands, I would, you would see me like if sometimes if a client gives a complaint, I would take it, knock the door, take it myself, like, you know, still till today, because, uh, this is, this is something that is different than before. Yeah. And I’m a stronger person. I don’t know, actually, I need to think a bit about other stuff. I never thought of it. Uh, uh, I never thought of it before. Yeah. Really? This is what I have on top of my mind. Yeah.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Go back to your childhood. You grew up in Lebanon. You were in Beirut

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Yeah, in the mountains. No, I live 40 minutes away from Beirut.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah. And, um, you know, you told me that you started, uh, working in the family business at a young age. So, you know, elaborate more on that as you were telling me. But my question is that what were your formative years like? What is it that you remember the earliest time when you started working in the family business? Because, because for a kid in your formative years is when your personality is blooming, right?

But it is the time when you’re really for the first time experiencing who you are and whatever you feel about yourself from the gain and the loss or the, you know, win or, you know, or a failure, you start telling yourself certain things that becomes, you know, who you are. Let’s go there.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Yeah. That’s cool. That’s interesting. Actually. Uh, yeah. At a teenage is very, it’s, it’s, I don’t know, it’s tricky because it can have, uh, how do you say it? Like it can have two impacts. 

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah. You can go two extremes.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Yeah. uhh for me how it formed my character is that, uh, I don’t have the social fear or this, uh, you get what I’m, I’m used to working with people, 12 years old day and night weddings.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

You started working at 12?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Yes. Yes. So imagine 12. I’m, I was a kid, right. And, uh, many people were against this. Like my friends, I missed all the birthdays. I missed all the, why are you working? Et cetera. But I really, I enjoyed this. And this is something very nice because we were building something as a family. We came, we did not come from money and we were building something. All of us, my dad, my mom, my two brothers and, and myself, even the best friends of my brothers were all with us.

So it was, it was really building something from scratch. Like my brother had, he was a musician and he was doing really well as a musician and he sold his, uh, his keyboards and added to, to open the business. So it was something where we were all into this, right?

My dad, my mother, every, everyone. So, uh, so my parents never had the money, but they, they gave any kind of support that you would imagine from my mom stood till today. She’s 64 and she’s a cancer survivor. And still today, she’s every single day in the business. Whenever she’s even Dubai, when I call her, she flies all the way to come to do recipes now in Dubai. Can you imagine? 

So they gave all the support. So we were doing it with all emotions, with all heart. And I never thought of it that, Oh, I’m, I’m a kid I should be, uh, you know, partying or birthday party or whatever. I don’t know, but it really shaped how I speak with people. It really shaped how, uh, I can read people easily. I can know the different types. FNB is where you see all types of people, really men, women, kids, all people, young people, you know, uh, all types, uh, good people, bad people, you know, everything. And I, I dealt with all of these types of people.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Right. What were you doing as a, as a 12 year old? What, what was up to your skills here?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

I started as a cashier and, uh, as a cashier and customer service, like in the restaurant, uh, waitering, helping people around this was part everyone was doing right. And I started yes, as a cashier. And it’s funny because.  I still have some character traits that are still the same. I’m impatient in the business. I don’t have patience or tolerance for, you know, wasting time and clients who are disrespectful, zero tolerance as well.

Teammates, I still have now, I’m laughing because I remember some stuff that, no, I still have the same characteristics, but I learned how to deal with these people as a cashier. And then when we shifted to a wedding venue, I was the wedding coordinator. And then I had a small agency in house where my friends and I were, where I established this agency for hostessing, where we welcomed the guests and we sat them.

So I was handling all the coordination of the wedding, which is something very detail oriented, which is something very stressful. And it’s, it’s nice. It’s the rush time of the wedding where I have to say, you go, you said, you know, and this is where I knew that I will never be able to be in a position where I sit and they say, yes, of course I will do this.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Yeah. Okay. As you wish, I will do this. Yes, sir. No, this is not for me. I can do this. And it’s funny because in the masters, we did the psychology test. And the first thing she told me from, from all these childhood questions is that you can never be in a position where you can work in any company with a zero autonomy and with fixed processes and with, you know, it’s, it’s not me. So this is definitely shaped because of work. And, um, so dealing with people is mostly everything because no matter what the job I was doing with the task I was doing, it’s people.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Do you, like you, you made a very important point. And I think anybody who starts working early in life, no matter what age goes through exactly the same experience where, you know, your friends, your, your, your peers are having fun chilling and, and, uh, you know, they may, they may actually, of course, they will ask you to come and they will feel bad that you’re not coming. And then the perception will be, oh, should you are missing on life or you’re, you’re missing on things. What was that experience? And, you know, when you look back, how great, I mean, do you feel grateful or do you, do you feel grateful that you got that experience at a young age or do you feel, oh, damn, I could have lived, let’s say another five years off, you know, teenager life.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Yeah. I have to say, I don’t, I don’t know what teenager life is as a teenager and without work since 12 years old, I used to go to school and then Friday night, Saturday, Sunday work, and then school and then, and then university and then work and then consulting. And, you know, I, I saw at the first year in consulting, I was doing consulting and work, a family business.

And this is where I had a burnout, like consulting and then weekends, weddings. And then, and this is where I had to cut off and step away from, from the family business. I never regret it. No, definitely. I don’t regret it. Uh, is it something good?

I would say it’s good to start working at a young age, but not in a stressful and demanding, a very stressful and very demanding job. 

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Why? 

 

Mona Al Sayah:

I became a bit workaholic because I used to, because I’m so used to, and I’m so comfortable at work and I enjoy it. I am someone that is, I enjoy what I do and I enjoy work. And I became workaholic because I grew up while work is part of who I am.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

But aren’t you workaholic right now?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

I am, but I’m telling you, maybe I am because of, because of starting work at, at, uh, at 12 years old. I don’t know. I don’t know. I have to check this. Right.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

But, uh, do you, do you, do you, I mean, when you’re saying that, are you trying to undo some part of that workaholism?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

No, no, I try to deal with it. Right. I try to deal with it, but I don’t try to undo. Uh, I learned this from my mentors. So, my mentor, her name is Christine Aswad. She just launched her own book as well. It’s very nice because it talks about all of this topic. She’s the CEO of Dunkin’ Donuts in Lebanon. And, uh, yes, she has this community and I’m part of her community, woman community, woman empowerment. And, uh, one time I was in one session and everyone was in this session so that I was not okay. I was in a phase where I lost 20 kgs. Uh, I was not doing well. And she looked at me. She’s an FNB. Like she’s why I say she’s my mentor.

She’s a role model because she’s a woman. She’s an FNB. She’s amazing lady.

And she looked at me and she’s like, remember the cycle of life. And this is a cycle. This is part, this is only a phase that you’re going to cross and it’s going to not going to be this way. So while I am still a workaholic right now, I know that this is a phase. I know that this is only, I am setting up the business with my partners. We are now in this phase, but it’s not going to be forever.

And we are building this business in a way that I’m not going to be workaholic forever because this is not my plan. I love life and I’m someone who likes to live a lot, but, but yes, I’m in a phase right now where I have to be fully focused on, on, uh, work. Uh, how I’m trying to deal it to answer your question is I started, uh, small habits like turning off notifications after 10 PM, Saturday, Sunday, lowering the pace of work, not stopping completely.

I can never stop. I guess no founder can ever stop completely, but lowering the pace, right? Like even if I’m, uh, if I don’t have the kids or family, right. But I, at least I lower it because sometimes when you tend to be like, when I tend to be on my own, I don’t have kids. People, uh, tend to be very drifted. Like, okay, I’m going to give it all. It’s fine. It’s my time now. So I’m trying like, okay, no, you’re not there yet, but still work on decreasing the pace because it’s not healthy. That’s on a, I had physical impact on me and I lost appetite. I lost weight and this is not healthy for the business and for me as well.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

This is in year one of starting business.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

No, year two, year two is very critical and year two, it’s either make it or go home.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

That’s a death valley.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Exactly. Exactly. It’s make it or go home in F&B. So, uh, so yeah. Yeah. Now we’re here. It’s good. Now I’m dealing with it bit by bit. Small habits. Again, introducing small habits.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

How important is mentorship? And you said you, Christine is your mentor, but is there a formal arrangement where you speak to her or how do you, how do you, how do you evolve? How do you nurture yourself?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Uh, mentorship is very important. No matter what stage in your business you are at, whether the beginning or more and more into the business or no matter what your age is or your background is. So mentorship, not just because I started as a young entrepreneur, launching our own business.

I was 27 and, uh, not because I was relatively young, but it’s important because you learn a lot from their experiences and not always mentorship is from people in F&B. Sometimes it’s just business and it’s very nice to have different type of mentors like business people, uh, F&B, same industry people. Uh, even I would say friends and family, they have been mentoring indirectly and this plays a huge role.

Your support system plays a huge role when it comes to, uh, well-being and mentors where are your well-being partners and professionally, if I, if I may say, I don’t know if you get my idea. So it’s very important the role because whatever a huge part problem you are in, they already went through this. They solved it. They went through it. They’re going to give you a solution, ABC, whatever works for your business. And this is what you don’t learn in books.

And this is where no course would ever tell you about it. And this is where sometimes no consultant would ever tell you about it. And this is why, when I told you, I was, I established my own consulting firm because I really saw the gap in the market where they, they, you have a lot of FNB consultants, look at their backgrounds, like how you never had, you are never owned an FNB entity, whether restaurant or cloud, how are you consulting people now?

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Oh, I mean, come on. If you, if you put that framework tomorrow, all the consultants will evaporate.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Exactly. So, so this is where I say like, okay, I really want to have one day a full team of FNB consultants.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

But Maura, I, I started by asking, don’t you find consultant, consultant superficial? You basically came back to the same.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Let’s agree. I tell you again, design consultants are something and implementations totally is something else. You get what I can design for you now, a restaurant and the brand. I sell you the idea in 15 minutes, right? Amazing brand concept, international menu from all you enter the fine dining restaurant here, this country, here, this country, the bar. And then I will sell you. This is going to cost you 15 million dirhams. You’re never going to make money out of it. So I can sell the idea. I can design for you amazing concept down the road. It’s not going to make money. So this is what I’m telling you, like implementation consultants who are with you on really processes, financials, implementation.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Who have been that, who have done that.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

This is where exactly this is consulting.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

You know, you know, I’ll tell you a very interesting story. I was, uh, I was at a, I was at some conference, uh, two weeks back and, um, there was, um, a friend of mine who was CEO of, uh, um, influencer, one of the largest influencer of management companies. And, um, and somebody walked up to him, uh, who was a business owner, a D2C brand owner.

And, and this guy walked up to him in front of me and asked, uh, you know what, I want to, I want to do influencer marketing campaigns. I want to build my brand and, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m doing this and I’m trying that. And then in, in that question, he, he said, I’ve just hired this brand manager. She’s telling me to do this and that and this and that, but I’m, I’m a little confused. So he had to be unstructured sort of question. This guy, you know, looked him dead in the eye and he said, the brand consultant, the brand manager that you hired, has she, uh, how many followers does she have on social media?

He was like, sorry. He said, how many followers does she have? He said, I don’t know. He said, that means not many. He said, yeah, I think so. He said, does she have a brand that has a lot of following? He said, no. So why did you hire her? And the guy was like, Oh, that was not my question. He said, yeah, but that’s my answer. And he moved on. And I was like, this is so cool. This is absolutely.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Yeah, exactly.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah. Because, because you’re trying to get consulting from someone who has a lot of experience in consulting, but not the experience in actually running the show, because running the show is going to distill your own advice in, in more brutal ways. But, you know, I see why you have this consulting, right? Why, why did you set up the consulting? I get it. But, you know, as an entrepreneur, this is my question.

Why to create a distraction when you can use all that energy back into the brands that you have built, because there’s so much, there’s so long to go and there’s so much more to do.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

There’s definitely so long to go. Definitely. Definitely. And it’s something that, you know, F&B business, whenever you are a co-founder, your involvement is never going to be less involvement. It’s going to be a different type of involvement. You’re going to, you’re going to have to always be very involved, but different type instead of day-to-day operations, maybe involved in many new creations and business development, et cetera.

When, and this is something I really thought of, right. But because number one, I would love, I am someone who loves consulting and I love this interaction and I love bringing new brands to life. This is something I’m very passionate of. And I discovered this after I launched our own brands. And after I launched the B2B line of business, I had a vision in my mind that in five years, host mind, I will have to step a bit back because physically I don’t want to do 18 hours a day anymore. Right.

So I want to step a bit back, but it doesn’t mean that I want to step back and do nothing. I want to step back, but I want to have something on the side where I can help people learn from what I experienced myself. Right. And, and this is exactly how I thought of it. Like in five, six years, I want my involvement to be different kind of involvement in hostmind. But at the same time, I want to have built something in parallel that will help me continue in FNB in a different way without being in the day-to-day operations.

I’m going to help people to pick the right and to hire the right team to do the day-to-day operations and to set the processes for them, et cetera, without me being involved in it. So exactly, this is the answer. It’s not going to take my focus right now because my focus is 90% hostmind.

And I’m always very clear. Any project I am working with, whether it’s a franchise that now I’m currently trying to bring from France, an amazing concept that I do believe in, and I’m trying to bring, uh, to, to, uh, to our region over here, whether it’s other concept I’m working on also from the UK. So I am very clear that I’m going to be budgeting 10% of my time for consulting 90%. I’m with the team. I’m with the hostmind.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I want to ask you a question that you may, you may feel that it’s, it’s cliched and, you know, overrated, but you know, what about Dubai? What’s happening? I mean, for restaurant industry and it’s, you know, I mean, the, the most amazing thing about cities like Dubai, because it’s not only Dubai, I’ve seen this in New York. I’ve seen this in London. I’ve seen this in Singapore, in Hong Kong. People always tell you that this is the worst time everybody’s there in the market. There’s too much competition. Uh, there’s too much crowding. Everybody’s eating into everybody’s business. But the fact is that life continues and city keeps growing and the brands keep launching, dying, also thriving and becoming big. Where are you right now? What’s your view of what are you, what’s happening in Dubai?

If a new, if new aspiring restauranteur comes to you, you know, who’s less successful in some of the market or who at least knows their stuff well, and is willing to come to Dubai to explore, what will you, what would you say?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Dubai is going to always remain a very competitive market. All eyes are on Dubai. It’s a melting pot. Everyone with investment are going to come to Dubai. It’s going to always be very competitive. It’s going to always be price sensitive because people have different agendas. Some F&B companies want to grow. Their strategy is to grow. They care about the number of orders, no matter what the bottom line to grow, to grow, and then maybe to exit to a bigger company, et cetera.

Some are homegrown. So no matter what your strategy is, you’re going to be finding a lot of competition, right? And it’s going to be always price sensitive. It’s going to be very expensive to open. It’s very easy to open. And there’s this perception. It’s very easy. Yes. It’s very easy to open. You can open a business in Dubai in 30 minutes. Online, nothing. You don’t need a lawyer. You need anyone. You know how to read. You are patient enough to scroll down to the websites. You’re there. The government has given everything for you to do. It’s super easy, but it’s very expensive to run the company. And it’s very expensive to keep up. But Dubai is the door to the world. And this is something very important that you need to know about.

It’s going to be expensive. It’s going to take some time to make money and to grow. But the moment that you sustain in Dubai, you can sustain in any country around. And you have eyes from all around the world in one city. You want to grow a brand. You are successful. You were able to keep the brand alive for five years. You’re going to receive in five years calls that you would have never received in your own country. Not only I’m saying this because I’m Lebanese. Any of my friends who have restaurants who are European, no matter what the country that they come from, Spain, UK, et cetera, they know this. The moment you survive five years in any industry, you are going to receive calls. You never had the opportunity to receive them.

If on LinkedIn, your location was something other than Dubai or on company website was not in location in Dubai, whether we like it or not, it’s a city that has people from all around the world. And we’re not talking about only single investors. We’re talking about private equity firms, investment companies from all around the world. So yeah, it’s always going to be competitive, but it’s a door to the world, I would say. That’s my opinion, at least.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

You know, that is amazing because that is one of the most balanced and most positive thought on competitive environment in Dubai I’ve heard in a very, very long time. And I concur. I agree. I am on the same boat.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

It’s costly. I’m telling you, five years, I didn’t say a year or two. You need to wait five years.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

And I think what you just said is like really deep because, I mean, it’s extremely overrated to set up a business here. And it’s really underrated on what does it take to just keep it up. Just keep the lights on. Exactly. And even get the construction done or, you know, or really bringing it to life. Like I know restauranteurs who took three years before they actually opened the doors, you know, to the world, which is crazy because for three years they were paying rents. And they were almost doing all kinds of OPEX, you know, for those three years. So it just blows my mind. You know, what does it take to get a great location in Dubai? It’s something else. It’s just not, you know, a concept, you know, a mall is going to really size you up and, you know, suck you dry to even test whether you can sustain.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

And they can remove you easily. And the contract, it says, like, if you don’t do well, you’re out. So you’re taking spot of someone who’s going to…

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, because the opportunity cost of that location is very high.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Exactly. Yeah. Also, in addition to what you said, I fully agree. And one thing is that there’s many surprise costs.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

And this is what is tough. Even if you work with the best consultants to set up a business, even no one will tell you what are the messages that you’re going to receive. A new license, one, two, three, new rule, one, two, three. There’s a license for this. There’s this. There’s this. There’s this. No one will ever really tell you the true setup cost until the last penny. Unless you pay them. This is where you’re never going to forget them. I will never forget anything I have paid from the company and what we have paid as partners. I will never forget.

The P&L in my mind is detailed up to the smallest penny, correct? Because we are very involved. And this is something really hard. There are licenses that cost you thousands of thousands of their diarhams, and they make a really huge change.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah. I tell this to people a lot that registering a company might take 30 minutes and a few thousand dollars. But the fact is that just keeping the company alive, you get hit by very similar costs and surprises in terms of regulations, licenses, people keeping them. I mean, yeah, that’s true. And I don’t think it’s hidden cost for Dubai. I think it’s just the cost of doing business and cost of doing business, probably the rightmost way.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Yeah.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Because it also weeds out the bad operators from the market. Of course.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

It’s not hidden costs, it’s surprise costs, what I call them. That when you are launching the business, if you don’t know, if you weren’t mentored or consultant by the right people, you won’t know. No one will tell you these specific details when you are coming, opening a restaurant in here, right? Except when you work with people, they say one, two, three. So this is something very important. But this is why I go back to something I said a couple of minutes ago, when you really know how to manage and to operate in Dubai, anywhere in the world, it’s going to be easy for you.

Anywhere, because how detailed and how, how do I say, like, how detailed the government is on some aspects, it can blow your mind. It’s amazing how they follow up. You register, 10 minutes, they will call you, we are coming to see your location. Like you didn’t even put apply. It’s automated. It’s organized. It’s you know what I mean? And this is the control that is in Dubai, that forces you to work a, b, c, d, to stay in line 24 hours a day. This is why I tell you can operate anywhere around the world.

You get what I mean? Because I come from a country where there’s not, we don’t have a government even. So, and this makes a huge difference in business. You open the business, you go, you launched and then you register. Then you worry about registering, you know?

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, it makes two of us. I mean, I grew up in India and I can tell you.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Exactly.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Quite similar.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

So this is why I said this sentence specifically, like, you know how to operate here, here? Easy. Any city in the world, you’re going to be operating because how these, and I worked with public sector before in consulting. Why? Why, for example, Dubai is like this or why, why Saudi Arabia is like this? Because they are, they are working their system on best practices around the world.

They are gathering people from all around the world, from all around the nationalities as consultant sitting on one table. What are your learnings? What are your lessons learned? We don’t want to do like you. No, we want to do GCC specific or Arabic specific, but what have you learned from your mistakes for us not to do them again? And this is where this control comes from.

And this automation and this sometimes I’m surprised. We knew the registration, the labor would call, we are coming to check up for the environment, for your location and to check that there’s actually a location. Number one, physical location that you exist on the trade license. Number two, to check if your environment is good for the employees to work in, especially in prime locations that you operate. Our central kitchen is Marina. It’s not somewhere at the end of Dubai. It’s in the middle of Marina, next to Marina mall.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Number two. Oh, wow. You’re, you’re okay. That’s a central kitchen.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

That’s a central kitchen. Okay. And this is a totally different story. Why there? All right. And then another kitchen on Hassan street, the biggest delivery hub and the, the, the delivery street of Dubai is Hassan street because it’s one of the biggest delivery radiuses for, for us in cloud kitchen. So yeah, in matter of minutes, you get a call. We’re there where this you don’t find anywhere. It’s different. It’s, it’s tough. You get what I mean?

 

Ashish Tulsian:

100%. Mona, you, did you, did you raise any capital? Did you take any investments or is it a bootstrapped business so far?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

So, so far it has been fully internal investment from our investment and us personally until now. And currently we are in the phase we are raising for launching our next four branches as well. We have some investors as well on board who are joining hopefully in the next month. And the conversations are going, some other investors are interested in more of acquisition, but I don’t think we are ready for a full acquisition right now.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

We still want to be, this is going to be the first time you will take outside capital?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Yes. It’s going to be the first time. Yes, yes, yes.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Exactly. Are you, you know, what made that change given, you know, your, your brother’s a partner in the business and your family business, you know, which is more autonomous all this while. What, what, what changed?

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Yeah, very interesting question. The partners we are looking for, and this is, I always say, and if they watch this, they’re going to know that I always say what you are looking for is not the money. We’re looking for strategic partnership for people who are bringing on the table, a strategic partnership in any, in any way, whether it is in connections and networking, whether it is opening new opportunities, opening new door, because to find money, to raise money in Dubai is not an issue. And it’s not a tough thing. There’s a lot of resources and sources where you can target money, but to target the right partners, where they’re going to bring on the table, something other than money, which is location, strategic partnership, knowledge, FNB experience. This is the tough part. You get what I mean? 

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah. 

 

Mona Al Sayah:

So, and I always say this.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Smart money. 

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Yes, yes. And I always say this, you are marrying someone, right? Brands are my kids. And then you are marrying someone and the divorce is very costly. It’s very costly, emotionally, money-wise, time-wise, killing the brands, you know, ruining their future. It’s the same example. So, so choosing the right partners is really tricky. And you really need to know who are you because we do believe in our business and we are not going anywhere. We are staying in our business. And when we launched the phase of us searching for capital, we never wanted to quit. It was never full acquisition. We want to be involved. We want to grow this, but we need the support financially to expand both our B2B line of business, where we supply coffee shop, restaurants, supermarkets with organic, freshly made food daily. And this is a whole line of business on its own that can grow massively and to grow our brands as well. So, and these two have two different types of investors that we target. You get what I mean? Yeah.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I do. Well, this is, this is fabulous. I think what I’m, what I’m experiencing in this conversation is entrepreneurship done and being lived well so far. So, so congratulations on the success so far. And, and I can see there’s a long way to go for all good reasons. Thank you for sharing your journey openly and also, you know, thinking through and going into the deep dark corners of your mind to come out with some truth. I’m sure this is going to be enriching and inspiring for whoever watches this.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

Thank you so much. I had such a pleasure. Time passed super fast. And, and I really had the pleasure with this conversation because it’s, it’s not only about the business side, but also about the personal stuff that brought you up to here. And at the end of the day, business evolves around people. So this is why I enjoyed this conversation because a lot of your business and how you shape your business comes from who you are. So I really enjoyed this and I’m looking forward for the, for the result of it. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Thank you.

 

Mona Al Sayah:

I appreciate it.