Starting a business can be a daunting experience considering all the risks involved. That being said, with a good concept in hand, taking a leap of faith can be highly rewarding. This rings true for the Bahraini startup, My Gold Souq, which recently won top honours at a highly prestigious GCC-wide competition. Farah Baig speaks to My Gold Souq co-founder, Amy Vaya, about her family history, and her journey to conceptualising the award-winning business.
Being an ambitious woman and coming from a family that has a long-standing history in Bahrain’s gold industry, Amy Vaya always knew that she wanted to delve into entrepreneurship.
Ten years ago, when her friends quit their jobs to start their businesses, Amy wished to do the same but hadn’t zeroed in on her winning concept just yet. “I think when it came to it, my frustration in life was not that I didn’t have a business so that I wasn’t an entrepreneur, my sole level frustration was that I am an extremely creative, talented and intelligent person and these gifts were not being fully utilised,” she says.
An Entrepreneur at Heart
Amy fulfilled her role at various full-time positions but still had a burning desire to start a business. “When I was working a job, I would think that one unit of time equals one unit of money, but when you’re an entrepreneur one unit of time can be worth 10, 15, 200 units of money. With a full-time job, your return doesn’t change,” she says.
Hoping to be struck by a great idea, Amy went on to establish a couple of businesses that didn’t quite go as planned. “This is not really my first rodeo, but it’s something that I always wanted, and that my brother Priyesh wanted too. So, when he moved back to Bahrain there was just this synergy,” she says.
That synergy, combined with the Vaya family’s understanding of Bahrain’s gold industry, struck gold with the founding of My Gold Souq – the region’s first direct-to-consumer jewellery platform. “Our family has been in Bahrain for four generations and my family business since 1937 is jewellery. My great-grandfather came to Bahrain and was one of the first jewellers in the country, but the interesting thing in this story is that my father retired around 15 years ago as he did not feel that the business was worth passing on to his children. He couldn’t figure out a way to modernise it and make it worth anybody’s time,” she explains.
Improvise, Adapt, Overcome
“When my brother and I got together, we realised that maybe the problem isn’t with the business, but rather the way that it was done. This is an industry that hasn’t been modernised in about 200 years,” she says.
When brainstorming, they considered various factors as they understood how difficult it was for the business owner. “Retail is very expensive, especially for this industry – you need to cover the costs for a storefront, electricity, bills, people’s salary, security and an inventory of at least 10 kilos of gold. We are cutting out all of that and pass on the savings to our customers,” she says.
In May 2020 they came up with the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for My Gold Souq, which invigorated the Kingdom’s modern-day gold industry. “In solving my dad’s business problems, we are actually delivering something for the customer – better prices, convenience, affordability, and stylish jewellery. Now we have a winning proposition!” she adds.
In addition, they hoped to eliminate the inconveniences associated with jewellery shopping. “Standing in a gold shop can be overwhelming with thousands of choices and having to ask for the price of each item. On our site, it’s very transparent with the weight of the gemstone, gold, price and other details listed so you don’t have to ask anyone anything,” she explains.
“Sometimes shopkeepers charge customers different prices based on how they are dressed, or whether they are a man or a woman. With us, you could be in your pajamas shopping at four in the morning and would still be charged the same price because we are transparent,” she adds.
The Winning Concept
They’ve since secured the first place in the Eureka! GCC competition, beating ten other GCC-based startups for the honour. Eureka! GCC is the Gulf edition of Asia’s largest business model competition, founded by the Entrepreneurship Cell of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, one of the world’s leading educational institutions. The 10 finalists were shortlisted from over 150 applicants and underwent two months of extensive training before the finale, which was held at the Taj Exotica Resort & Spa at Palm Jumeirah, Dubai. All finalists were then hosted for a four-day programme in Dubai that included networking opportunities, pitch workshops, and a trip to Expo 2020
“It was really very affirming; it told us we are absolutely on the right track and need to keep going. The caliber of the competition was really amazing. So even before the results were announced just being around like-minded people was confidence building. It really amplifies the effect of that little seed of self-belief,” she says.
The startup, which was among the top five winners of the first cohort of the Standard Chartered Women in Tech Incubation Programme and was accelerated at Flat6Labs Bahrain, received USD25,000 in prize money to invest towards their business. “The startup ecosystem in Bahrain is actually quite good. At Women in Tech they were able to help us grow our initial idea into so much more, since we received excellent training. I’m very grateful as the education was invaluable,” she says.
“One of the biggest struggles of being an entrepreneur is believing in yourself, you know? They believed in us for us until we could do it for ourselves. You cannot put a price on that kind of encouragement and motivation,” she says, adding that they would not be able to grow their business to its current level without the quality of education received at Flat6Labs.
Feeling Fulfilled
“I feel very fortunate to be able to hang out with my best friend in life all the time, and build this business with him. We have a great relationship; I couldn’t have done it without him,” she says when asked how her experience of working with family has been.
She finds that their skillsets are complementary and that they have the perfect understanding when it comes to delegating work. “It’s the dream team. We definitely had some serious challenges, but what pulled me through was the fact that my brother was on my team. We were there for each other at the lowest moments and I think that’s why a co-founder is very important because they will just get you to show up for another day,” she says After years of pursuing her entrepreneurial dream, Amy now feels fulfilled. “My business actually uses all of the fragmented skills that I’ve picked up along the years and brings it into this one cohesive whole. It needs everything that I have ever learned or been good at, and that is a deeply satisfying feeling,” she says.
“A mediocre idea can be very successful if you just show up for it every day versus a very good idea that could just fizzle out into nothing because you failed to show up for it every day. That’s really what it comes down to,” she concludes.
