As a founder, product lead at Pinterest and PM for a couple products at Google, as well as a growth partner for Initialized Capital, I’ve seen many product teams struggle to grow. Many products start out with a bang. Some find product-market fit with sustained growth. A few have gone through spurts of hyper-growth. But more often than not, I’ve seen most of them linger then fizzle. “Founders launch their product, wonder why it isn’t growing like gangbusters and then immediately try to fix their growth problem.” They turn to growth tactics like optimizing their on-boarding funnel, SEO or push ..read more

Enterprise applications are complex — there is an insane amount of information that is to be displayed that contains data from various sources, modules and users. There are complex graphs, usage patterns, and lists of data that need to be skimmed through before one can make sense of what the console is getting at. “The biggest challenge with designing enterprise applications is the lack of examples of patterns that work or don’t work in specific scenarios.” Since most enterprise applications contain sensitive data pertaining to the company, there are very few examples out there that talk to ..read more

There are certain topics that even some of the smartest people I talk with who aren’t startup oriented can’t fully grok. One of them is whether profitability matters. It’s common cocktail party chatter to hear people confidently pronounce that some well known startup is sure to blow up. Or you know the other one — the one where Snapchat lost $2 billion in just one quarter. Two-fucking-billion! What a disaster! Except that they didn’t actually lose $2 billion in cash. It was a stock option incentive related “expense” but I bet you didn’t know that because in an era where we only read the headli ..read more

Why is the UAE introducing corporate taxes? In January of 2022, the Ministry of Finance in the UAE announced that they will introduce a corporate tax in the year of 2023. By the end of June next year, businesses in the UAE could be facing a new tax of 9% on their net income. History The UAE does not have a long history of taxes for foreigners. Up until 4 years ago, they were well known for having a 0% tax rate. It attracted many foreign entrepreneurs and professionals to work and invest here. In the beginning of 2018, they introduced a 5% VAT on all goods and services being sold to UAE custome ..read more

How you can best prepare for the UAE Corporate Income Tax? The recent announcement from the Ministry of Finance (MOF) in the UAE has stirred up some commotion and confusion. Are you also a bit intimidated? Don’t worry, there are quite a few things that you can do as a business owner to prepare yourself for these changes. Find out here how you can best prepare yourself for the UAE Corporate Income Tax (CIT). Educate yourself As with any change in government ruling (or any professional matter), the first, and best, logical step is to read. Read as much as you can about what is going on so that y ..read more

Who is Exempt from the New UAE Taxes Coming in 2023? The new UAE tax announcement from the Ministry of Finance has made many people question how profitable businesses will still be. As you may have already read, there are some good news in store for certain groups. Let’s find out more. If you want to find out more about the new corporate income tax (CIT) legislation, please feel free to read the rest of the articles on this series on our website (link to series page or blog page). You will learn when the legislation comes into play, why the UAE introduced it ,&nbs ..read more

How you can best prepare for the UAE Corporate Income Tax? The recent announcement from the Ministry of Finance (MOF) in the UAE has stirred up some commotion and confusion. Are you also a bit intimidated? Don’t worry, there are quite a few things that you can do as a business owner to prepare yourself for these changes. Find out here how you can best prepare yourself for the UAE Corporate Income Tax (CIT). Educate yourself As with any change in government ruling (or any professional matter), the first, and best, logical step is to read. Read as much as you can about what is going on so that y ..read more

UAE Taxes For Multinational’s The corporate income taxes (CIT) which have been introduced by the United Arab Emirate’s government will exempt many companies , but multinationals will not get away with it. Our previous blog about multinationals  covered the basic information. This includes which companies are considered multinational as well as the rate of the tax which will be payable. The subjected companies are ones which make an overall annual income of €750 million (AED 3.15 billion). The presumed payable rate of CIT is 15%. Disclaimer: Since the UAE Ministry of Fi ..read more

The 2 Pillar System of the UAE Corporate Tax The UAE has very recently announced that it will be introducing a corporate tax system in mid 2023. The Ministry of Finance (MoF) announced that there will be a separate system of tax filing for multinational companies. This system is a combination of the two-pillar system and the general CIT rules. What is the two-pillar system? The two-pillar system was introduced by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It tackles some of the challenges arising from the digitalization of the economy as well as the globalization of comp ..read more

Why you should hire an accountant? The announcement of the new tax regime in the UAE coming into effect in the year 2023 has many business owners wondering what the next step is. How do you prepare for the UAE taxes? What rules must be followed? In the previous post, we talked about what an accountant is and some functions that they can do for you. In this article, we will discuss a few reasons why hiring an accountant is the next step forward. Peace of mind If you have a business that makes an annual income of more than DHS 375 000 (roughly $102 000), then you will have to file a tax return e ..read more