> what business partners want in a deal is enhancing prestige, aligning with family business values, and offering something genuinely unique in a market where exclusivity matters.

There must be some awfully corrupt shenanigans selling stuff out there so. No wonder the Chinese telcos run all Dubai's backbone infra, those guys are old hands at liberally distributing "incentives" to patriarchal organizations to get their way.

> Here, the market demands you come dressed in a tuxedo, not the jeans and blazer that passed for formal back home. Your packaging, your experience, your digital presence – everything needs to exude a level of sophistication that would seem excessive in most Indian markets.

The gist of the article just seems to be that the business environment in Dubai is (shocking!) different from that of India, with people needing different things. I don't quite understand or agree with the "competing with the best in the world" though, it just seems like the money people in Dubai just expect you to be better dressed, more presentable, and form a personal relationship before business deals.

I find articles like this super interesting, but they remind me that I’m a deeply technical person and as such would never be able to thrive in the ‘business’ world.

The modern YC startup philosophy of ‘make something people want’ seems to be only partially true. There’s this whole world of coffee dates, relationship building and salesmanship which always feels slimy to me.

Super well articulated! I loved seeing the learning process

Unsurprising.

Dubai investors (Khaleeji, Indian, or Russian) are looking for a "dhandha" - not a business.

Any story that can't be easily translated into an "arbitrage" or "commodity" play just isn't going to land with them.

Abu Dhabi has fairly good growth stage investors, but that's also because they tend to let the money managers and investors remain in London, SF, NYC, etc.

You're better off remaining in the Indian market, or if you want deal flow abroad, then building relationships in the US, ASEAN, UK, or Australia unless you're a "VC" who's trying to land a Dubai Golden Visa in order to evade taxes back in India (these kinds of personas tend to overlap with the kinds who run real estate or export/import "dhandhas" back in India).

Interestingly I’ve seen what felt like almost a directionally identical article written about Dubai -> Saudi, eg it’s all about building the personal relationships first, but even more so

Why doing so if they can do it in US where there's little to no bullshit of that sort, and way more investment dollars than in Dubai?

The article is an example of someone who didn’t do their homework of research. How do you fly to a new country to establish a business without researching it, understand the culture, how business is done?

The other point of “networking”, I don’t know how you could even make a business without networking, why this is shocking to OP?!