August 2019 / ENTREPRENEUR.COM / 79WHEN THEY STARTED OUT
WITH FLUIDMEET, THE
FOUNDERS KNEW THERE
WERE OTHERS WHO FACED
CHALLENGES LIKE THEM,
AND SO THEY STARTED WITH
ASKING COLLEAGUES IN THE
CONSULTING INDUSTRY, LIKE
TRAINERS, LIFE COACHES,
AND RECRUITERS WHO OFTEN
NEEDED SPACES ON DEMAND.
Cove Beach in DubaiTAPPING INTO TRENDS | FLUIDMEET HELPS ENTREPRENEURS AND SMES FIND THE RIGHT SPACEThe Swae team"THE INDUSTRY WAS HIGHLY FRAGMENTED, AND
IN DIRE NEED OF STANDARDIZATION- FLUIDMEET
STEPPED UP TO THE PLATE.”Jareer Oweimrin, founder and
Executive Director, fluidmeet
NEST Dubai co-working spaceSuleiman Salloum, founder and
Executive Director, fluidmeetso, the team developed the
platform to accommodate both
user journeys. The startup
today offers meeting rooms, co-
working spaces, serviced office
spaces and event spaces on an
hourly and daily basis online,
while those seeking for spaces
on a monthly or annual basis
can request for calls or tours
as well. The fluidmeet team
also began to understand the
differentiating factors between
a meeting room request and
an event space request with
regards to guests and func-
tionality of the space, and, as
such, functionalities for food
and beverage requests and
accommodations were added
online then. Besides offering
various free and paid subscrip-
tion agreements for hosts,
they also noted how providers
sought business efficiency and
productivity- this prompted
them to create a customer
relationship management tool
to manage space listings, book-
ings, production, advertising
and marketing. “They began to
see new performance metrics
related to their spaces that had
been on Excel at best, or some-
times on paper, if not anywhere
at worst,” Oweimrin says.
The founders recall that
fluidmeet’s visitors didn’t
exceed 500 visits in the first
few months, but it currently
receives over 40,000 visitors
on a monthly basis, with more
than 2,000 spaces show-
cased on the platform today.
Noteworthy milestones for
the startup include gaining an
undisclosed investment from a
family group based in the GCC
as an angel investor, which
paved the way for a large
marketing campaign in Janu-
ary 2016, which was followed
by forming strategic relation-
ships with travel agencies,
aggregators, and law firms.
The following year brought in
the introduction of an auto-
mated request for quotation
service for event seekers, plus
diversification in the form of
moving from corporate book-
ings to include social segments
as well, such as a wedding
and anniversary inquiries. In
2018, fluidmeet implemented
subscription-based featured
listings, launched its apps, andalso kicked off operations in
Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
The rise in popularity of
co-working spaces is another
trend that Oweimrin seeks to
capitalize on when it comes
to fluidmeet. “The ability of
these spaces to be more dy-
namic than other workspaces
are quite profound, and it will
have major implications on the
real estate market in the fu-
ture,” says Oweimrin. “Our be-
lief is that the WeWorks of the
world have played an impor-
tant role in this evolution, and
our role as aggregators and
enablers will help shape this
transition.” For the next few
months, the team’s focus is on
building a scalable technology
and operations platform that
works with external providers.
They’re also preparing to raise
around $2 million in a pre-
Series A round to grow their
business- the team’s expan-
sion is on the cards, as is en-
tering new markets like Egypt
and the Levant. Oweimrin
also asserts fluidmeet’s aim ofgrowing to multiple geogra-
phies over the next few years
from Asia, to Africa, and then
Europe. “It’s already on that
trajectory, but guiding the ship
takes calculation, finesse, and
a little bit of luck,” he says.
“Our dream has always been
to grow fluidmeet into a global
brand. We have always looked
to fluidmeet as a realization of
the Dubai dream. Its value is
synonymous with everything
that’s been built in Dubai. It’s
a land of dreams and oppor-
tunities, and fluidmeet is just
one of those opportunities that
has been growing beyond its
peers.”