Business
Introduction
Recent studies in business show that there is a steady growth on the number of female entrepreneurs in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia today as compared in the past decades (Aziz, 2015). The male-dominated business world in the KSA is beginning to expand in becoming a female-friendly business environment where entrepreneurs such as Safiah Sohail is thriving successfully in a conventional and the conservative culture of the Arab world. Despite the strict laws of the Arab nation in terms of allowing women to take part in socio-economic environment, Safiah is still able to overcome the challenges of the cultural restrictions, and in a very rare opportunity, an interview was conducted to know more about her local success. The interview with Safiah is to assess her achievements being an entrepreneur and determine the challenges that she had to overcome in order to achieve success. The conversation that follows is the transcript of the interview with Safiah Sohail
Demographic questions
Interviewer: Good morning Safiah, it is a pleasure of finally meeting and for giving me this opportunity to talk to you about your business, but before we get to that, can you give a few background about yourself, how old are you, or if you are married, your education, and your profession, whatever information you can say about yourself that you feel comfortable with.
Safiah: My name is Safiah Sohail, 25 years of age, not married yet, and I obtained my degree in Interior Design from the College of Arts and Design in King Abdulaziz University and I graduated just three years ago.
Questions about the business
Interviewer: After graduating, did you immediately start the business?
Safiah: I’ve been thinking about having my own design company ever since I was still attending college, but I thought I would wait for the right opportunity, and after a year of graduating I decided I want make a start up.
Interview: Now, the business is running for two years now, but it seems you are still focusing on the local side of the market, and I believe a lot of people would be interested to know more about your business. Can you tell me about the business?
Safiah: Ok, the name of my design firm is A3 Interiors, the name A3 stands for “Alttasmim Aljayd Alrrayiysia” or in English it is “Good Home Design”. It was established in 2014, it is still relatively new, but in the past two years the firm have seen a surge of clients from commercial to residential seeking for professional interior design service.
Interviewer: How was the business during its first six months?
Safiah: It has been rough since for the first month I only had one client and that is one of my relatives, but eventually, the word of mouth and referrals from friends and family got me to increase the client base from 1 to 20 projects in just a span of two months.
Interview: Quite a big leap from one client to twenty in just two months in the business, after two years how is the project volume coming along?
Safiah: well right now we have 18 residential design projects underway and 9 commercial design projects and we are still negotiating on the rest of the other contracts, but in average we get at least 20-30 projects, and we want to limit it to that volume since my firm is still not as big, and right now I only have 30 employees in my team including myself, so we do not want to burn ourselves too much with too much projects.
Interviewer: If you don’t mind me asking, how is the profit?
Safiah: I don’t know If I want to give you the exact figures, (a timid laugh), but ok let me give you an estimate, the project revenue in US Dollars including the revenue we got from the consultancy services that we also provide on a monthly basis that is US$50,000 to US$100,000. With all the taxes, employee salary and other expenses, the bottom line is pretty much on the positive side.
Question on Motivation
Interviewer: what is your main motivation in starting the business and how did you came with the idea that, I want to start a design firm, or why not in fashion or in food business?
Safiah: I can proudly say that the business was born out of self-motivation to fulfill my goal of applying my interest in interior design into a profession and eventually into a business. When I was a kid, I decorate my own room with my sister and I help my mother in picking the color of the sheets when we go shopping for furnishings. Regarding the idea of putting up an interior design firm rather than anything else, well its about passion, and I feel that I can do better with design, I consider it as my strength, so there is other idea for a business other than what I love doing the most.
Interviewer: Is entrepreneurship something natural to you and your family?
Safiah: Surprisingly, I am the only entrepreneur in the family because my father is an engineer while my mom is a teacher before she married my dad. It was funny when I first told them that I want to start my own design firm, they were shocked and anxious about what is going to happen considering that they fear I am going to meet stranger along the way, but it all worked out fine and my family understands why I am doing this and they also want to succeed, besides my family is also part of my motivation.
Questions on the Development of the Business
Interviewer: Let’s talk about how you were able to develop the business; what particular steps did you take in order to get started?
Safiah: Finishing my degree is the stepping-stone and my studies allowed me to learn the steps in starting a business because part of the curriculum is about business management. The next step is making the business plan; my final thesis in college is starting up an interior design firm and applying my knowledge in interior design to create a mock project. I used that as a model in creating the business plan for my firm. In addition, I took the time to attend business start up seminars, advertising, marketing, client relations, and financial management. Market research also became a fundamental part of the business process for me because I had to know my market before engaging in the business, otherwise I would not have any clients at all if the market for my business does not exist.
Interviewer: did you happen to get some help in doing you business plan?
Safiah: Some of my friends who are also my college peers helped in the process, in fact one of my closest friend in college spent several weeks with me here at home working on how we can perfect the business model for the firm, now she is my business partner.
Questions about Help, Support, and Encouragement
Interviewer: Let’s talk about encouragement and what support mechanism did you had, who encouraged you, and it is interesting to know how you gain the knowledge of managing your own business considering that entrepreneurship is something that is not natural in the family?
Safiah: As I mentioned before, my parents were shocked upon learning that I am planning on opening my own firm, but they support my decision and right now they are 100% supportive of my business. On the other hand, most of the encouragement came from my professor in college and told me that I could make a good business with what I have presented in my business model. About how I gained knowledge about business, well, Internet played a role in the learning process, I had to read self-help books, articles, and visit websites about entrepreneurship, and at some point like I mentioned earlier, I took the liberty of attending seminars about starting a business and all of that help in the process.
Interviewer: Now that you are both a professional interior designer and an entrepreneur, were you able to join any professional network, and how helpful was it to be in professional network?
Safiah: Honestly, I thought of joining a professional network, but that is very limited in my area and I cannot find one that has several female members at the moment.
Interviewer: How about government assistance? Were you able to get assistance from the government?
Safiah: No, I did not have any opportunity to seek for government assistance considering that that the idea of female entrepreneurship is not yet so popular with the men in the government.
Interviewer: What about your start up capital, how were you able to get the funds to get started and any particular resources or people that you consider important in the process of starting your business?
Safiah: It was a sole venture at first, I started out with a single project when I did the interior design of one of my relative’s home, and I was paid a good price for that project. I used that money to start up with funds from my parents to help me settled down on an office space, equipment, supplies, and enough cash to support the expenses for my first three projects. When it comes to people and resources, I think my family and my closest friend were the biggest assets in the business start up because everything that I built from the ground up was because I had help from my family and friends.
Questions about Challenges
Interviewer: What were your biggest challenges in getting the business going?
Safiah: I believe of the biggest challenges that I had to face in building the business is the patriarchal culture of the Arab society. At some point me and my friend had to seek for professional legal assistance to ascertain the legal requirements of business, and the men who had to work with us in the process is difficult to difficult to deal with because it is also difficult for them to take orders from a woman. The same thing with hiring members of my team, very few male talents approached us because of the fact their boss is a woman.
Interviewer: What barriers you had to overcome, what surprised you, and are these barriers specific in your country?
Safiah: I believe the biggest barrier I had to face is entering the interior design market considering culture we have in KSA. Acquiring projects are difficult at first when male clients learned that they had to deal with a female entrepreneur, that is when the let down occurs, some backed out not because they feel I am incompetent for the job, but the fact that am a female leading the team of designers, and that bothers the male clients. In the process, entering the market is very challenging; on top of that the biggest barrier for me is my being a woman in a male dominated society, but that is not very surprising because in KSA the gap between genders is very evident in almost all aspects of the Arab society.
Advice to other Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Interviewer: Thank you so much for this wonderful time and opportunity for an interview, any parting message or advice that you can give to other aspiring female entrepreneurs out there?
Safiah: I wish I could tell every woman in Saudi Arabia to go out and live their entrepreneur dreams, but I could only say that they should at least give value to their selves and do not be afraid to use their strengths, and talents to contribute something to the society. Entrepreneurship is an opportunity for growth and do not be afraid to take the chance to succeed.
References
Aziz, A. (2015). Female entrepreneurs find increased success in KSA. Arab News. Retrieved 29 April 2016, from http://www.arabnews.com/saudi-arabia/news/855451
