In order to secure the partnership with our manufacturer Meshtec, we had to sign up our first five clients. Our aim was to ensure there was a market willing to pay for a premium screen product while also ensuring our design was sound.

Having discussed the business concept with many of our friends we were confident the screens would be of interest to villa owners. But it’s one thing to have someone say they’re interested and another for them to actually pull out their cheque books to buy. Our initial sales concept was to simply email some of our friends who owned villas in Dubai and asked if they were interested in purchasing mesh screens for either their doors or windows.

The response rate was unbelievable. Nearly all of our friends responded quickly to say they were interested. Some even sent us photos of their old torn fly screens saying they’ve been waiting for a product like ours. This was the most positive feedback we’d had to date. We weren’t completely comfortable at first asking friends to purchase what isn’t a cheap product. However with the enthusiastic response we received we were confident that our screens met a major need in the market.

Now the next hurdle we faced was developing a pricing model.