r/uae_startups

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I have been doing outreach to local businesses lately and noticed a pattern: a lot of new startups launch with just an Instagram page, no website.

Feels fine early on, but it means anyone searching "[service] near me" on Google never finds them. Invisible to a huge chunk of potential customers before they even get a chance to compete.

I've been helping a few fix this with simple, functional sites built to actually be found, not just to exist.

If anyone here knows a founder in this exact spot, no website yet, or one that's been abandoned, I'd genuinely appreciate a connection. Happy to take an honest look and tell them straight if it's worth fixing.

Not selling here, just building something and glad to trade insight if anyone's tackling a similar problem.

Does anyone know any active WhatsApp groups in UAE for business owners and entrepreneurs?

I’m looking for a group where people actually share business ideas, referrals, customer opportunities, partnerships and help each other grow.

Not interested in groups where everyone just posts ads or promotes their own services 😅

Would be great if the group has people from different types of businesses in Dubai/UAE.

If you are part of any good group, please share the link or let me know how I can join.

I am a long term passive investor in sharia compliant businesses. Looking for like minded people to come together as an advisory board and eventually a syndicate where we can pool our expertise and maybe capital to take major stakes in boring but profitable sharia compliant businesses in UAE. I am a 20+ year veteran in FTSE 100 companies leading moderate businesses (P&L of $200m +) across O&G, Electricity , Aviation. Looking for folks who specialize in Legal, Investment Management, Operations... once I have a solid group we can discuss opportunities and frameworks

Hi guys,

NexGen Solutions here, small AI outfit based in Abu Dhabi, working across the GCC since 2020.

The enterprise side is nuclear power, private hospital groups, government health authorities, insurance and reinsurance, and FinTech in Saudi in a few cases the biggest name in that sector regionally, though I can't say who because NDAs. Predictive maintenance, big data migrations, actuarial reserving, on-prem LLMs, that sort of thing.

What smaller businesses usually come to us for:

AI receptionist picks up every call 24/7, answers the usual questions, qualifies the lead, books it, sends the follow-up email, transcribes the lot. Usually live in about a day.

Website chatbot trained on your actual services and pricing, not a generic FAQ widget that says "I don't have that information."

Website or web app built to convert rather than to look busy.

Automation whatever repetitive internal thing is eating a day of someone's week.

Digital marketing SEO, paid, CRO.

Honestly, don't take my word for any of it. Text assistant is at https://nexgen-solutions.org/ask-ai and there's a live number to call on https://nexgen-solutions.org/voice-ai. No signup, takes two minutes.

If it's useful we start with a 30 minute call, no deck, no pitch. info@nexgen-solutions.org

Or just send me a DM.

I’m a co-founder building in the UAE and one thing I’ve noticed is how fragmented the Founder journey can feel.

Sometimes you need advice. Sometimes you need someone who’s been through it. Sometimes you just need to meet other people who are building something and realise you’re not the only one figuring it out!

I’m working on something around this through Market Game-Point (MGP) which is a guidance and enablement hub for Founders and Idea Owners.

We’ve started with Social Wave, an intimate community initiative bringing Founders together for honest conversations, learnings, and shared experiences.

As we build what’s next, I’d genuinely love to hear from this community:

What’s one thing you wish you had more of as a Founder in the UAE?

Hi all. I own a small Airbnb management and cleaning company. Eight apartments in the portfolio so far — five with individual owners who live abroad, three with a newly formed company. I handle everything end to end, and all of them have stayed with me.
Looking to grow now.
If you own a property and are considering short-term rental, or know someone who is, I'd appreciate an introduction. Same if you're with a holiday home company open to working together.
Happy to answer anything in the comments or by DM.

Hey everyone,

​We are looking for an experienced freelance photographer for an upcoming studio shoot for our T-shirt brand.

​Requirements & Scope:

​Portfolio: Proven experience in fashion, streetwear, or apparel photography.

​Models: Ability to source or suggest suitable models for the shoot.

​Location: Must have access to or be able to recommend a suitable studio setup.

​Deliverables: High-res edited campaign photos and clean e-commerce product shots.

​How to Apply:

Please send a direct message (DM) including:

• ​Link to your portfolio / sample work (apparel shoots preferred).

• ​Your standard day/hourly rates and studio package pricing.

​• Your location and general availability.

​Looking forward to collaborating!

Hello, i have built a SaaS for short-term rentals management but it needs more investment and i am out of budget. I was planning to sell it on Uae/Saudi with an LLC.

Is there programs that can support me financially or do i need to own a company here at UAE? Or if there’s someone who wants to invest?

*still no sales

Looking for the other half of the oldest combo in business: the builder and the seller.

Naval Ravikant put it best: "Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable." I have one half of that completely covered, and I have stopped pretending I will ever love the other one.

A bit about how I got here, because the route explains the skill set.

I trained as a civil engineer and hold a Master's in it. I barely practised. I moved to Dubai and ended up in marketing instead, which I then did for 12 years, eventually running marketing departments with 7+ team members. Somewhere in the middle of that I started building software, badly at first and then not badly. Six of those years I was freelancing alongside everything else, across whatever came my way, which sounds unfocused and was. But the gaps between contracts went into stacking skills that do not normally sit in the same person, from videography to business and marketing strategies.

What I can actually do, concretely:

Build and ship complete products alone. Not prototypes, finished things. My own app is live on the App Store, Google Play and the web, including the backend, authentication, subscriptions and the infrastructure underneath it. https://kitchenbuddy.app

Design and code websites end to end. I run several content businesses on sites I built myself, one of them bilingual, sitting at around 130 published articles and roughly 10,600 organic visits a month, growing every week.

Run production AI agent systems. This is the part that has changed most for me in the last two years. I have autonomous pipelines that research, write, publish and report on their own every day, with human approval gates at the points that actually matter. I do not read about this stuff, I operate it daily.

Marketing at a professional level. I built a marketing department from nothing at a Dubai firm and ran the campaigns behind more than AED 50 million, roughly USD 13.5 million, of revenue in the first year, on a monthly ad budget of AED 110,000, while cutting cost per lead by 18 percent.

Plus the surrounding trades: videography, editing, social content, ad creative, SEO, analytics.

Now the honest half.

Who I am looking for:

I cannot sell. More precisely: I can generate demand through systems, campaigns, content and search, but I cannot do the human part of it. Walking into a room and working it. Cold outreach. Building relationships on purpose. Sitting across from an investor and asking for money. Negotiating. I have tried all of it, I do not enjoy any of it, I am not good at it, and after 12 years I have accepted that this is not going to change. That is why this post exists, instead of me quietly building yet another thing alone and watching it reach nobody.

Someone who finds all of that genuinely fun. Sales, growth, business development, partnerships, fundraising. Someone whose instinct in a room full of strangers is to work the room rather than find the exit.

Ideally UAE-based, since I am in Dubai and there is real value in being in the same city. But remote works, none of this is geographically bound. I also travel a lot and sometimes spend months in south east Asia

The shape is open. Either we start something new together, or you already have something moving and need a partner who can build whatever you can sell. I have ideas of my own, including one I keep circling about the state of the second-hand market in this country, but I am not attached to starting with mine.

To be clear about terms, because it saves everyone time: this is an equity conversation between partners. Not a job, not contract work, and not "technical co-founder" used as a polite word for unpaid developer.

If you read this and thought "I can sell almost anything but I cannot build any of it", that is exactly the gap I am trying to close. DM me.

Hey everyone,

I’m a technical founder building an AI voice agent + CRM automation platform designed specifically for high-volume B2B sales teams.

The product is fully built, live, stable, and ready for commercial deployment. I’ve handled the product, engineering, infrastructure, and technical side end-to-end.

My goal now is to expand into the UAE market, and I’m looking for a Commercial Co-Founder based in Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

What I bring:

• A fully operational AI SaaS product — no idea/MVP stage
• Full technical ownership and execution
• Product development, engineering, infrastructure, and scaling handled
• Enterprise-focused architecture with security/compliance considerations

What I’m looking for:

• Someone with a serious sales/business development mindset
• Strong UAE connections and local market knowledge
• Ability to open doors and drive B2B sales, particularly in phone-heavy industries like real estate
• Someone comfortable building partnerships and eventually leading commercial operations
• Ideally, someone with a network that could help with fundraising/pre-seed and establishing a UAE presence

I’m not looking for an employee or salesperson.

I’m looking for a genuine co-founder/peer partnership where I own the technical/product side and the other partner takes ownership of the commercial side.

If you’re based in the UAE, have the network + hustle to build something from the ground up, and want to work with a real production-ready product rather than another idea, feel free to DM me.

Hey Guys,

I’m working as a Procurement Executive in the automotive sector in Dubai. I handle American and European parts, plus lubricants and batteries. The problem is I’m only getting paid 4,000 AED with zero allowances ,no transport, no food, nothing.
Every time I open LinkedIn or Reddit I see people discussing whether 40k or even 70k AED is a good salary in Dubai, and it makes me feel like I’m falling further behind. I have a lot of responsibilities at work and I’m pretty solid in procurement, finance, IT, and a few other areas, but I’m clearly underpaid.
I’ve tried looking for better opportunities but haven’t had any luck so far. Any advice on how to improve my situation or land something that actually pays fairly?

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I run a cleaning company doing apartment and Airbnb cleanings. One of my biggest time sinks is chasing customers for overdue payments.
How do other small businesses handle this? Any systems or tactics that actually reduce late payments without annoying good customers or damaging the relationship?

Curious if this is a common problem in the UAE and what’s worked for you.

I’m looking for a hands-on technical co-founder who is currently based in the UAE to join SKAI (Safe Kitchen AI), an Abu Dhabi-based food-safety technology startup.
Please only contact me if you are currently living in the UAE.
Abu Dhabi is preferred, but Dubai / other Emirates are acceptable if regular in-person collaboration in Abu Dhabi is realistic.
SKAI has already completed its first live hotel-kitchen pilot and is now preparing Platform V2 and Pilot 2.
I’m looking for someone who can actually build and ship — not only advise.
Ideal experience:
Android / mobile engineering
BLE / GATT and connected devices
Offline-first systems and reliable sync
Backend / cloud
Multi-tenant SaaS
Security and auditability
Production engineering
Direct BLE / IoT production experience is highly valuable.
Before discussing a long-term co-founder arrangement or equity, we will work together on a short practical technical trial using real SKAI engineering challenges.
If interested, please DM me with:
Your current UAE location
Your current role / availability
Products or systems you personally built
Any direct BLE / IoT experience
LinkedIn / GitHub / portfolio
Applications from outside the UAE will not be considered at this stage.
Referrals within the UAE are welcome.

Hi UAE founders and business owners!

I'm Haris, based in Sharjah. I've spent the last 6 years in marketing and 3 years in web development, and I recently started helping local businesses get online with clean, functional websites. The ones that actually bring in customers, not just exist.

A bit about what I do:

• Build simple, professional websites for local businesses (399 AED to start)
• Include a WhatsApp button and Google Maps pin so customers can reach you fast
• Handle hosting and maintenance so you don't have to think about it
• Already built one for a landscaping business, and genuinely enjoy this work: the problem-solving, the back and forth with an owner figuring out exactly what they need, watching something go from nothing to live

If you're building something and don't have a website yet, or your current one needs a refresh, I'd love to help. And if you're not the right person but know someone who is, small business, startup, anyone- I'd really appreciate the connection.

Happy to share examples of my work or just chat about what you're building. No pressure, just putting myself out there.

Good luck to everyone building something from scratch here, it's not easy, and I respect anyone doing it. 🇦🇪

i almost got done setting up a google profile after a while of procrastinating. finally when i got to it i had to make a video of my space, thing is I do have a workshop but i don’t have an office like space as described in he google profile guidelines

can someone help me out this, a lil afraid of posting up a video of the wrong thing and being at the risk of my brand being flagged