The most profitable investment

The founder of the business club Vision Club Dubai, Alexey Nakazny, is sure that all opportunities come to us through people, and creates the best conditions for this.

– Alexey, what has changed in the atmosphere of Dubai in recent years with the influx of visitors?

– Dubai has always been a city of expats, 95% of its residents come from other countries. But recently, due to well-known events, the number of Russian-speaking population has really increased, which has a positive effect on the level of service. If earlier there were many questions about it, today the service in Dubai is better than in Western Europe, Great Britain and the USA, and precisely thanks to visitors. They open many good restaurants and all kinds of businesses, which contributes to comfort.

Vision Club is focused on lifestyle. It is for successful, established entrepreneurs who strive to surround themselves with smart people in order to further develop professionally and personally.

– What niches are currently at their peak? What is promising to develop?

– In Dubai, you could always make money on real estate: they build quickly here, although sometimes not very well. Therefore, one of the promising niches is flipping. The competition is high, and there are more people willing to invest than decent properties, but you can try. Everything related to biohacking and life extension is also in demand. The rich want to live long and happily and are ready to pay for it.

I must say that not everyone will go to Dubai, since everything is very expensive here. Just one license to open a business costs more than 10 thousand dollars, and, according to statistics, only 25% of entrepreneurs renew their license for a second year. On the one hand, this is good, because the strongest players remain on the market, but on the other hand, it creates a risk that someone will not fulfill their obligations to you, simply because they close their business.

In addition, with all the number of rich people in Dubai, there are also plenty of adventurers here. But the police also work well, so for me it is the safest city in the world.

– There are several business clubs in Dubai. How are they different?

– There are indeed many communities: business, about 20 of them, and interest-based. Each of them has its own characteristics. There are clubs only for Ukrainians, only for investors, only for those engaged in real estate, and so on. Vision Club is focused on lifestyle. It is for successful, established entrepreneurs who strive to surround themselves with smart people in order to further develop professionally and personally.

– How did the idea to create a club come about and how has it changed since its foundation?

– I have been involved in clubs for over 10 years. For the first five, I had a main business and a youth business club, participation in which was free. We organized breakfasts, forums, meetings where we shared experiences and mistakes, trips. After 5 years, I realized that business brings me money, but does not bring pleasure, and that it is in the development of the community that I would like to invest my time and effort. This is how the first joint project appeared. In 2021, my wife and I settled in Dubai and opened a club there, and with the outbreak of the war, we bought out our share, rebranded and began to develop independently as Vision Club Dubai with the same composition. We now have 174 members. Our goal is to build a strong ecosystem where people feel safe, trust, can relax, freely communicate on various topics, and most importantly, are ready to invest in other members and the community as a whole. After all, giving without expecting anything in return is the most profitable investment in life.

- The maximum number of Vision Club participants is 200. What do you plan to do when the number of people interested exceeds this figure?

- This limitation is due to the fact that we carefully study psychology and in this case we focused on Dunbar's number: 200 is the maximum number of acquaintances that a person can fit in their head.

Therefore, a limited number of participants is necessary to maintain trust and effective interaction in the group. If there is greater demand, we will open one or more clubs in Dubai, but each will have a maximum of 200 people.

– What are the main requests and wishes of people who come to Vision Club?

– While studying the needs of entrepreneurs, we identified four main pains: loneliness, loss of meaning, fear of death and boredom. We work with each of them, but the first two are a priority. Loneliness appears because the higher your level becomes, the fewer people understand you. And this is a paradox: in Dubai there is a lot of communication, but often there is no one to talk heart to heart with, which creates an inner emptiness, and it really interferes with living and developing.

The second common pain for many is the loss of meaning. A person gives it their all, reaches a certain level, but there comes a moment when the question arises: is this what I really want, do I need it?

And often cannot answer it. And here we help to understand yourself, attracting the experience of other participants who have probably gone through something similar.

Then you have a specific goal, and with it clear requests, which again can be addressed to our community.

- What formats and topics of meetings are the most popular?

- CustDev helps us choose relevant topics and formats - in-depth interviews with our participants, which clarify their requests and needs. For example, this could be a desire to exit operational activities or scale up faster. Based on the wishes, we select relevant speakers and mentors. For example, we recently had a very successful workshop with Oscar Hartmann on building a high-quality business model. We hold meetings in such formats as mastermind and forum groups, discussion clubs, where we raise complex questions about meanings and values. We have an intellectually developed audience, and there is a demand for this too. Also, at the initiative of our participants, subclubs are created. For example, long life, dedicated to longevity, specialized (real estate, IT, marketing), sports. We even put together a hockey team Vision Stars. Each participant chooses what is closer to him.

Since we mainly have married couples and many have 3-4 children, we created a subclub "Children". For example, today the children visited the construction company of one of our participants. He gave them a tour, told them why he chose this profession and what results he achieved. This encourages children to take an active position in life.

- Which off-site business events of the club are the most successful?

– We love traveling and have already organized business trips to Saudi Arabia, partner clubs in Poland, Germany, Uzbekistan. We hold alliance meetings twice a year: we gather in one location for three to four days, learn and have fun.

The last such meeting for 210 people took place in Dubai in October, and the plan of events was scheduled from morning until late evening. We organize trips for the soul: a 10-day retreat in Bali, a regatta in Turkey, a cruise with businessmen.

In the near future, we are planning a joint trip to Africa, where we will go with families with children, as well as a camping trip in Socotra. In May, there will be a 7-day bootcamp in Silicon Valley: we will visit global corporations, listen to lectures at Stanford and be inspired by the spirit of innovation.

– What do you need to join the club?

– To join the club, an entrepreneur must meet formal criteria, which is at least a year of activity in the UAE and at least a million dollars in turnover for the previous year. At the same time, we are looking for people who are close to us in spirit, so it is important for us that our values ​​coincide. And this is trust, interaction and development. Trust is the basis of everything, without it you cannot build a business, a family or friendship. It also ensures the speed of interaction, as a result of which new partnerships are created and development occurs.

We evaluate the candidate in two stages: an interview and a dinner with the Club Council, where we can get to know each other better, and as a result we come to a consensus.

– Can you share success stories of club members without naming names?

– There are many such cases. In the first year of our work, two of our members met at the same table: the first dreamed of opening high-class coffee shops, the second - to invest in a profitable business. This is how Roasters coffee shops appeared, loved by locals and tourists.

After this interaction, there were many other success stories. Literally at the last meeting, one of the entrepreneurs said that he earned 840 thousand dollars this way and joked that he had recouped his investment in the club for 100 years to come.
But in addition to professional achievements, you can find true friends in the club and even meet love and start a family. And I am especially pleased to note this.

– There is a huge focus on networking in Dubai. How can you get the most out of it?​

– You need to understand that networking is a tool. For it to work, you first need to formulate goals and make a plan. Then you see what you are missing and contact the club with a specific request.

At the same time, the most successful people in the community are those who are focused on giving. They want to be useful, so they immediately win people over, and they are always met halfway.

– And finally, a question about motivation: how to maintain it in different life circumstances? Do they work with this in the club?

– In my life, I have seen different stories of our entrepreneurs. There was a case when one club member went bankrupt and got a job with another.

Our life is cyclical, and if you imagine business development on a graph, then an upswing is followed by a downswing, during which you understand what you need to change, and then an upswing begins again, and then a downswing again, and so on, up and down. But if despite all efforts the results are moving towards zero, you need to understand that in the club with you there are people who have been through all this. I do not believe in a single entrepreneur who has not had failures. If they have not yet happened, they will soon. Our entrepreneurs constantly face problems, solve them and move on. But support is important for this.

In general, there are two components of success: the state (physical, mental) of a person and his environment. And they are interconnected, because in a bad state it is difficult to find a good environment, and a good environment has a positive effect on the state. That is why we are developing our club, so that more people can realize themselves and thus make this world a better place.