If I put it simply, today I work at the intersection of three things: growth, AI products, and international partnerships.

My approach is practical. I have always been interested not so much in simply creating a product as in understanding how it actually earns, scales, and finds its place in a market. Over time, that led me to focus more deeply on growth strategy and go-to-market, especially in B2B.

Right now I am building a platform with direct AI involvement, and in parallel we are developing not only the product itself but also the partner network and route to market around it. We are in an active growth stage and open to dialogue with international partners and investors because projects like this grow faster through an ecosystem than in isolation.

I have lived in Dubai for more than eight years, so for me it is no longer just a location but a working environment. When I first came here in 2016, I already felt this was the place where I wanted to live, gain experience, and build business.

Here, it becomes clear very quickly whether a model works or not. There is no sense that you can keep refining in silence for too long. The market tests you immediately.

It is also a genuinely convenient point if you work across countries. In a short period of time, you can build contact with people from very different regions.

But one thing matters: Dubai does not simplify business. It accelerates it. And if you have weak points, they surface very quickly. I have been through that myself, which is one reason I now approach growth with more awareness and more discipline.

People often think it means opening a company and starting to sell. In reality, it is more complex than that.

The first thing is access to the right people. Without that, it is very difficult to move forward. A great deal here is still built through relationships and context.

The second thing is adaptation. At one point we faced the fact that transferring a model exactly as it had worked elsewhere simply did not work here. It was a useful experience, even if not an easy one.

Today we look at expansion as a long game: first integration into the environment, then growth. In my experience, that creates a much more stable result.

The most common mistake is to assume that a strong product is enough.

In practice, the product is only one part of the equation. The second part is trust, and without trust deals simply do not happen.

Another mistake is expecting fast results without the groundwork. Things can indeed move quickly here, but only after the base has been built.

We have gone through some of these mistakes ourselves, so today we look at strategy much more carefully. That changes how we build both product and partnerships.

Even companies with a global reputation can sink in the Emirates if they insist on pushing their own line without adapting to the market. I saw this personally in 2019, when I worked in construction. A European company wanted to enter the UAE not just as a supplier but by opening an office and delivering fit-out work for major clients. In Europe they had an excellent reputation, but after a year in Dubai they closed and remained only a supplier. Their core mistake was thinking that a big name and recognition in Europe would create the same outcome here. It did not. You have to adapt and learn how to work with people from different national backgrounds.

Honestly, without cross-cultural communication it is almost impossible to work here effectively.

Every day you speak with people from different countries, and each group brings its own style. In some contexts everything is very direct, and in others it is the opposite.

The main mistake is to speak to everyone in exactly the same way. That does not work.

Over time, you begin to sense how to build dialogue better: where to be firmer, where to be softer, and where to give more time. That directly influences deals, especially in partnerships and investment conversations.

Today everybody uses AI, but it is not always clear why.

For me it is simple: if AI does not affect the business in terms of money, speed, or quality, then it is just a wrapper.

We try to build our product around practical value. Without that, in B2B, you do not last very long no matter how attractive the presentation sounds.

The hardest part is not losing balance.

It is very easy to disappear either into development or into sales. You can get lost in both.

I have been through that, and it was a fairly painful experience. Now I try to keep everything synchronized so that product, strategy, and commercial execution move in parallel.

One more thing matters: from the beginning, our team treated partnerships as part of growth. That is why today we are actively open to investors and strategic partners who can strengthen us not only with capital but also with market access.

Today, the winner is not the one who speaks louder but the one who is more precise and learns faster from reality.

I increasingly see that broad strategies do not work. Focus works: a narrow niche, a clear value proposition, and fast proof points. If you can demonstrate a result in a specific segment, scaling becomes a matter of time rather than guesswork.

We came to this through experience. Earlier we wanted to go wider and faster. Now we deliberately narrow the focus so we can reach real traction faster.

Partnerships are another major factor. In B2B they often create a multiplied effect. So we do not think of go-to-market as merely entering a market but as integrating into an existing ecosystem.

Over the past years, Dubai’s role has changed significantly.

It is no longer just a convenient geography. It is a working environment where different markets genuinely intersect at the level of people, capital, and projects.

It is easier here to begin a dialogue and faster to understand whether an idea has potential. And if it does, things can move very dynamically after that.

We can see this in practice: interest is growing in technology solutions, B2B tools, and collaborations. It creates the feeling that you are inside the process rather than simply watching it from the outside.

For me, clarity and speed matter most.

I try to understand quickly what really affects the result and what is unnecessary, and I do not want to waste time on complication for its own sake.

With experience came the understanding that perfect decisions do not exist. It is much more important to make a decision on time and be ready to correct it if necessary.

That is especially important in an environment where everything moves fast. Sometimes the delay in making a decision costs more than the mistake itself.

Probably the main change is that you begin to look at reality much more honestly.

At first there are expectations, ideas, and your own picture of how things should work. But in an environment like Dubai, that image quickly collides with practice. In fact, that is a healthy process because it removes illusions and leaves only what truly makes sense.

I have become faster in decision-making and calmer about the fact that not everything works on the first try. Mistakes stop looking like a problem and start looking like part of the process, something from which you need to draw conclusions quickly and move forward.

At the same time, your standards for results rise. You are no longer willing to spend time on things that do not create return. You begin to sense more clearly where there is potential and where there is not, and you act from that understanding rather than from emotion.

One more shift is attitude to speed. What once felt fast becomes normal here. You either adapt to that tempo or begin to fall behind.

Speaking from practice, I would not advise treating market entry as an isolated task.

It is much more effective to first understand how the market works from the inside: who makes decisions, how relationships are built, what is truly important for business, and what is only a surface layer.

Very often companies begin with product or sales without understanding the context. As a result, they lose both time and resources. The stronger approach is the reverse one: first the environment, then positioning, and only after that scaling.

The second point is not to try to do everything alone. In today’s reality, growth almost always happens through interaction: partnerships, collaborations, shared access to audiences, and shared expertise.

And perhaps the most important thing is to be ready to revise your decisions. The market changes quickly, and what worked yesterday does not always work today. Flexibility is not weakness here. It is an advantage.

If you keep that openness to learning, to people, and to new ways of working, the number of opportunities grows, and they often come faster than expected.