THE OPPORTUNITY - This is an opportunity to participate in the Equity Ownership of a FREE non-news publishing magazine (“the product”) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Dubai’s favorable image as a global tourist destination of choice its thriving and growing retail environment and its multi-cultural demographics make Dubai an ideal ground to kick-off a magazine that will directly cater to the retail industry.
THE PRODUCT - The product shall be mainly B2C and its vision will be to be a ‘Connect’ between retailers and consumers in Dubai every fortnightly (Note: In Phase 1, the product will be circulated fortnightly. In Phase 2, we expect to make it weekly). It will be an English publication and a direct retail marketing product with display advertisements, classified advertisements, discount coupons, retail vouchers etc.
BUSINESS MODEL - The product will be owned by a company formed for this purpose with the investor owning a majority stake through direct cash equity contribution. The minority shareholders would be a small team of professionals responsible for conceptualizing, strategizing and executing the business with the aid of other professional non-shareholder employees.
MARKETING STRATEGY - The product shall be positioned as a discounted and cost-effective means of communications as compared to traditional and high-end newspapers and magazines to advertisers.
COMPETITION - No similar product exists in the market at the moment. However the product would be facing competition for revenue space from more established newspapers and magazines in the market. The key to success and beating the competition would be to provide an efficient and cost effective product with additional value-adds through constant innovation.
THE TEAM - The team will be headed by Mr. Chinmay Chaudhuri, former Editor-in-chief of Times of Oman and Financial Writer/Chief Copy-editor of Gulf News. He has worked as a senior journalist in the Gulf for over 10 years now. He will be supported by a core team of well-experienced professionals, who have been working in the Gulf for over 15 years.
FINANCIAL - Revenue generation will start from Month 4 and progressively increase with Base revenue approximately UAE 300k Dhms from 7th month onward with a profit of Dhms 100k from that month.
The investment is expected to be profitable from month 6 onwards reaching cumulative positive earning in Month 7.
The initial investment shall be the cost of setting of the business, mainly salary cost of marketing professionals, office and administration costs and capex. We would expect a working capital requirement of 3 months from publication date.
The peak investment including working capital will be Dhms 800k in month 8 and thereafter it will start reducing. Full cash investment including working capital investment is expected to be recovered fully in 18 months. No debt has been considered in the model.
If working capital debt is considered then shareholder’s investment will be recovered much earlier in the first year itself.