Nidhima Kohli, CEO, Beauty Tribe

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What does your company do? 

Beauty Tribe is the first regional beauty pure play e-commerce site offering customers a curated shopping experience provided by beauty professionals – with a unique three-hour delivery time. 

It improves on the experiences shoppers are having elsewhere online: struggling with many counterfeit products, long delivery times, or lacking information on how to use the products. 

Beauty Tribe is a game changer because we are only selling authentic products that are tried-and- tested by beauty professionals. We are now also starting to scale 30-second video clips and tutorials on how to use each product.

Our motto is “Beauty by the pros” to create a highly trusted and elevated beauty shopping experience.

• Ziad Bushnaq and Faisal Al Majali, Delektia founders
• Erika Blazeviciute Doyle, Drink Dry
• Aidan Christofferson, co-founder, Flashy

What do you look for when hiring talent?  

I always say ideas are easy, execution is hard. I look for people smarter than me, who are passionate and hard working in their field. Startups are hard work, yet a lot of fun.

I look for people who are intellectually curious and always learning, and for people who are driven and self-motivated. 

What is more important, luck or hard work?

I would say hard work. In reality both play a part, however there are many examples of people who were born into unfavourable conditions who have achieved great things all due to their hard work. I believe you can create your own luck and take matters in your own hands. 

What was your biggest ‘lucky’ moment?  

I would say getting into the graduate programme of Credit Suisse, one of the world’s top investment banks. Of course, it was not “luck,” but hard work to pass through several interviews. 

I had worked since I was 16 in part-time or summer jobs, so that experience helped a lot. 

However, working at Credit Suisse I learned a lot about data analysis, financial forecasting, processing, working in different countries, and it allowed me to earn enough to qualify as a BABTAC qualified beautician in the UK, which later propelled me to enter the BeautyTech world. 

Beauty Tribe is now my third startup. 

What one thing do you wish you’d done differently?   

I have had a few burnouts in my prior beauty businesses. I wish I knew beforehand that it is important to rest and to recharge oneself to be able to scale. A startup is not a sprint but a marathon. 

If you could rule the world for a day, what would you change?   

I am a passionate humanitarian and even got 44 trucks and 300 tonnes of goods into Ukraine within three weeks. 

I would remove all violence against innocent people. I am also vegan, for the planet and the animals, so the next change I would make is to stop all animal torture. Lastly, I would want every beauty expert in haircare, skincare or make-up to get in touch with me to work with Beauty Tribe for a win-win situation. Of course, I sound a little biased here.

What three factors do entrepreneurs misjudge about the Gulf market?

1. Processes: We are opening a new office within Dubai and a new one in Saudi Arabia soon. It is good to get the help of a local agency to help with the processes.
2. Opportunity: People forget that the region is still very “new” so this creates a huge opportunity to thrive as a business.
3. Talent: We have started hiring, and the feedback we get from all recruiters is that as it is a new region so sometimes we will need to hire from abroad to increase our pool size.

Dream mentor?

Ray Dalio (American billionaire investor).