As I promised in my 1^st post about Dubai, I’ll talk in this post about the incubator that we were lucky enough to get accepted in, its called In5 (part of Dubai Internet City). In5 is an incubator that provides you with office space, mentorship, company registration and exposure to potential investors. In5 selects 10 Tech startups and supports them for a duration of 3 months. In5 doesn’t provide funding similar to Y Combinator and Tech Stars, but they also don’t take any equity. So yes they are an incubator and not an accelerator (I actually always confuse between the two, but you can find the best answer for the difference between an accelerator and an incubator here)

Let’s dig deeper into details of the things they provide:

1-    Office:

So we get a nice villa (for work, not to live in it) which is supposed to be shared for the 10 startups.  It’s awesome, we have meeting rooms, a lounge (with 2 huge TV sets, PlayStation, an X-Box), a terrace and a free wifi connection. Check the photos below (the photos probably need some editing, but I’m sooo tired right now, so my apologies):

The office is not completely free, they still charge us 1,000AED per month (US$270), which is very good deal for us. The parking is still an issue, we have many universities next to us and you can’t find a parking. They promised to solve this issue and I’m sure they will do soon.

2-    Company registration:

That was a major issue to us, registering a company is not that cheap. Usually it will cost you between 9,000AED to 15,000AED (US$2,500 to US$4,000) to register the company in Dubai Free Zone. But, with In5 we only need to pay 1,500AED. I didn’t finish registering the company, but it should pretty easy. I just need to sign the papers then open a bank account, transfer the minimum amount of capital (which is around US$13,500) and I should be done.

3-    Learning from other startups:

We are currently only two startups in the villa, us and doctorized.com.  I know that doctorized was part of In5 for a while now, and they are really doing an impressive job. I’m learning a lot from these guys, since they are offering a booking solution, but for doctors instead of boats. There are some other startups that I know that they got accepted, but didn’t move yet  (they are moving soon or already have other offices) www.travelervip.com/ and www.snapp.ae/.

 

4-    Mentors:

We didn’t get any mentors yet, but we know that we will have access to many great mentors and advisors. Dubai Internet City (or DIC) is the house for many huge tech companies such as Google, Oracle, Facebook, IBM and many others. Many of these companies are happy to help the small startup community and share their knowledge. So for this part we are still not sure who we will end up with.

5-    Funding:

As I said, In5 don’t give us money, however they’ll help us raise money. At the end of the 3 months program they will do a demo, so that all startups gets the chance to get on stage and pitch their company in front of investors (maybe around 20-30 investors).

You can still apply to In5 by visiting their website here.

That’s everything, see you all next week.

Ok so we made the decision to move our startup (fishfishme) to Dubai. First things need to get done is logistics. If you know me well then you’ll know that I don’t care much of how good my apartment, car or office looks like. I just want a place to sleep and a place to work (I spent 1 year in Hong Kong sleeping in the floor after finding that my bed is too short, and spend 4 months in Barcelona sleeping in a sofa!) Yet the apartment and office where two major concerns because they are extremely expensive in Dubai and a huge cash burner.

Office

So let’s start with the office, if you are a tech startup then you’ll have 4 options in my opinion:

1- Apply for an incubator like InFive or Seedstartup….(thats what I did, and was lucky to get accepted in In5, now I only need to pay 1000AED (270USD or 80KWD) for my office and 1,500AED (410USD) to register my company) – Note: More about In5 in my next post

2- Work in coffee shop co-working spaces (Make Business Hub or The Pavilion )

3- Rent a small office (not recommended because it’s still expensive)
4- Work from home (never do this, you’ll feel depressed very soon, unless you have a swimming pool or something)

You really don’t need an office, unless you have 20 employees or something. I actually just met a Dutch guy that works in a startup that is based in the Netherlands that just raised X$ million, and opened their office in Dubai, yet they don’t really have an office, he was working in Make Business Hub during the last 6 weeks. So never rent an office in the early days (will talk about registering your company in a later post).

Apartment

Next, is your apartment. Well after knowing where you want to be close too (your office, your customers or the beach) then you need to decide on where you are going to stay. Of course you need to decide on your price range and type of apartment. Lets take my case, I was searching for a studio apartment with a cost range between 3,500- 5,000 AED (950 – 1,250 USD) for a two months lease. I wanted to rent it for a short period because of two reasons:
1- Jose and the rest of our Spanish team might join me later to Dubai so we’ll need a bigger apartment.
2- I’ll probably find better deal or a better place when I spend more time in Dubai and get tot know the area.

Ok, then you need to find the apartment, the good thing is you don’t really need to visit many websites or property agencies, you just need to go to Dubizzle.com, there you’ll find all listed apartments in Dubai. I ended up in an fully furnished apartment located in a huge residential complex called Discovery Gardens  paying 5,000AED (1,360 USD) for a two months lease. The apartment is very close to my office in Knowledge Village (12min), but a bit far from DownTown (20-25min to Burj Khalifa).

Transportation

Car, yes car was very important to me because I’m doing a lot of traveling, meeting new boat owners in different cities. So I ended up renting a Toyota Yaris from Hertz for 60AED per day (almost 16USD) adding the  insurance to this, I’m paying around 550USD per month.

To sum up, its costing me 2,180 USD (270 + 1,360 + 550 = 2,180 USD) (around 600 KD) just the cost of apartment, office and car. Adding to that my other expenses (phone bill, food, fuel…etc) thats another 700USD so all in all its costing me around $3,000USD/month to move down to Dubai!! Ok some of you are better than me and will find better ways to save money (staying with a friend, using public transportation and working in a coffee shops),  I’m just sharing with you my own story and maybe you can help me take our expenses even lower