Alaa Al-Balushi, dreamer and goal poacher, as he identifies himself, founded a startup called Hadaya (translated to gifts in Arabic), is a marketplace based in Oman for flowers, confectionery, and gifts. “We basically sell and deliver happiness,” Alaa says.
The startup recently participated in the Seedstars GCC competition that was held in Bahrain last September 2017. Seedstars is an annual global startup competition that covers around 65+ emerging and developing markets. Alaa says that the competitive atmosphere was incredible, and the startups they competed with turned out to be great supporters.
According to the founder Alaa, Hadaya came to life when he wanted to send flowers to his home while abroad, but he struggled to find a simple and efficient way to do it. So he took it upon himself to resolve this problem.
Hadaya provides an online platform for gifting related businesses, ranging from flowers, sweet and cakes and various other gifts. The platform encompasses a variety of stores including the local ones, high-end brands, and even home businesses. According to Alaa, they all get a fair chance to display their products and services on Hadaya. The startup also provides delivery services. It doesn’t matter if you order from different vendors at the same time, you will have all your products delivered at once to your designated place. So if you ordered some flowers and chocolates to your loved ones while being on a business trip, you don’t have to worry about the logistics of it at all, Hadaya has got you covered.
When asked about the challenges he faced while launching Hadaya, he said that the starting point is always the hardest. “It requires leaving the comfort zone and free fall for a while,” he told Startup MGZN. However, once you begin, Alaa says it’s impossible for the upcoming challenges to stop him from going forwards.
Even when entrepreneurs launch their startups, there’s always the fear that their product or service won’t work out or people won’t be receptive to the idea. With Hadaya it was quite the opposite. After its launch, Alaa tells us that a lot people came up to him and his team and thanked them for what they’re doing. It motivated them to keep going and work harder on developing their service.
An advice Alaa gives to aspiring entrepreneurs is that out there, there’s always someone who’s thinking of the same idea you’re thinking of. “Execute it and don’t be concerned about perfecting it. If you believe in it, you will make it and there is no better fuel than passion.”
If you’d like to know more about Hadaya, you can follow their social media accounts on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. You can also check out their website here.