What’s happening with Insydo – UAE’s freshest startup

With so many startup’s emerging from the UAE, it’s no easy affair to pick something that stands out. Insydo.com has done just that, and we were here to interview the digital disruptor behind it. In case you’re interested to make best of the local startup scene, Tenaz Disadji has a few takeaways to benefit from.

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Insydo is a platform that helps Dubai residents make decisions easier. The website recently won for Best Design & User Experience at the Seamless Awards 2017.

The project launched with a campaign aimed to differentiate itself. This was entitled ‘Save Steve’s Job’. Instead of focusing on what Insydo can do for the people, they decided to focus more on the team & the character behind the brand identity. The campaign was effective in terms of leaving online users curious to know more.

The challenge after brand awareness was ‘how to get people to understand the brand’ + sell the benefits.

Being in the UAE, one of the biggest challenges that startups face is recruitment. In case you’re looking for the best talent, shifting a person’s dream (to work in cities such as New York & London) all the way to Dubai… can be a challenge.

“It is imperative to form a team that goes in line with the company's vision.”

Although it might be a bit risky, the key is to bring in talent from anywhere across the globe. Never the less, Dubai has gained a name for itself so the city does attract.

The website generates curated content that entices users to spend an ample amount of time in simple exploration. Although the team does have alternative content-based performance metrics (events, page views etc.), fortunately, their mission is not to make users buy anything.

The goals:

• Make decision simpler
• Get to the right place
• Create the ‘best experience’

Unlike other listing websites, Insydo stands out by focusing on saving people’s time through curation. They consider different criteria (locations, price points etc.) to ensure their content is note-worthy.

Their USP: Every business (listed) on Insydo is vetted physically & independently, way before businesses know who they are.

Startup life is a learning curve. You cannot get to the fruit without making a few mistakes. One must be able to see the direction in which the company is heading. Although it’s only a while later that one realizes decisions that could have been better taken, what’s more important is how quickly one must react to mistakes. These are general issues in startup life anyway.

Companies looking to hire talent from abroad must ensure that the UAE (or any other place) is not simply a transit place for the candidate.

One of the biggest wins for Insydo was ‘finding its two founders’. These are individuals willing to share the possibilities, the excitement and the risk. i.e. People to share the experience with.

“I would never recommend starting up a company by yourself.”

In case you’re planning to launch a startup business, here are 3 tips:

1. Create & focus on a business plan – You may have an awesome idea. And although your starting with assumptions, you have to start with something. This plan is used to build out something solid. For Insydo, ‘The business plan’ helped save a lot of time.
2. Try not to build a tech team (or tech specs) while you havent yet focused on creating a minimum viable product - Once you’re ready, never understand what you need to achieve without testing it. Get it into the market, see people’s reactions and start tweaking. Simply Google to buy website template samples for cheap, test them and find out which works best. Get a feel and then begin investing.
3. Find the right people to match your skill-sets - Think about how much knowledge and experience you have set about for that career. Tenaz had to spend her first six months trying to learn the basics, whereas this could have been better utilized through a resource is critical.

In Dubai, licenses are easy to set up and there’s so much flexibility. Rent may be an issue, but then, there’s plenty of schemes and incubators around. Astrolabs in one such example. That would ready help in setting things up. Insydo had a solid business plan and therefore, had it’s own independent formation setup. However, in case you have a risky business model, an unknown market or a shortage of necessary funding needed, you’re better off avoiding the stand-alone route.

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