One of the most exciting times in any entrepreneur’s career is growing their business on a global scale. But all the hard work they put in during its early years can suddenly look easy compared to all the responsibilities of establishing their brand abroad. What’s more, some countries are more difficult to break into than others, requiring much more planning than initially expected.

Kuwait is one of these countries. The nation’s rocky history has seen it fall prey to a volatile financial market, but recent years have seen a dramatic turnaround in its fortunes. In fact, the government is planning on building a new city to address urban issues faced in the country, such as housing and traffic. Plans include a new airport, a free zone, an Olympic stadium, and a tower taller than Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. These plans will not only benefit local communities, but also national and international entrepreneurs, providing them with increased opportunity to start a business in a new city.

But in order to get set up in Kuwait, there are a few things you will need to do first. From the initial approvals, to marketing planning there are some key facts you must take into consideration.

Understand the different business entities

Businesses in Kuwait are filed under the country’s commercial companies law (CCL), with foreign entrepreneurs only able to establish certain types of business:

Limited liability companies

Usually referred to as With Limited Liability (WLL), the closest UK equivalent would be private companies. They are not permitted to operate within the banking or insurance sectors, or as a pure investment fund, and the maximum shareholding by a non-Kuwaiti is 49%, unless approved otherwise by the Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority (KDIPA).

Joint ventures

A joint venture can be formed by at least two people, who are jointly and severally liable. These companies don’t have legal existence and do not need to be recorded by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Each partner in a joint venture, however, must be separately registered in their own names. These kinds of businesses are best suited for construction projects.

Branch companies

Foreign corporate bodies can only set up branches in Kuwait if they have permission from the KDIPA, otherwise, they should operate through shareholding or limited liability companies. Alternative options include running the business through a Kuwaiti commercial or service agent.

Shareholding companies

These companies can either be public or closed, but must be made up of at least five shareholders. Foreigners can be shareholders, but must only own a maximum of 49% of the company, collectively. Any founders are obliged to own at least 10% of the capital.

Partnership companies

The two types of these companies are the simple limited partnership, which consists of joint liability members (general partners) and sleeping members (limited partners). The second type is the partnership limited by shares, which is a limited partnership where capital is divided into shares.

Complete thorough research into the new market

Expanding into a new market requires plenty of research. You may already have a detailed business plan, but Kuwait offers a brand new target audience that you may not fully understand.

Market research

The cultural differences between Kuwait and western countries are big enough that you will need to conduct thorough market research in order to guide your business plan. This includes research into your target market, distribution channels, established competitors, and marketing forms.

The culture is much more conservative than in many other major markets. The distinction between men and women is much stronger and more defined, so suggestive imagery for advertisements is strongly advised against. It’s also illegal to drink alcohol in Kuwait, so any marketing would need to avoid this.

Competitor analysis

Understanding your competition is important for businesses at any stage, but breaking into a new market brings its own complications to the process. For instance, competitors might be far better established in the community, which can make your entrance even more difficult. Analyse your business through factors like price and the services and products offered, as well as the market share and marketing strategies.

Management and workforce

Expanding your business overseas brings about a situation you may not have thought of—do you hire a brand new team in that country, or take existing employees who know your business to the new location? Both options have their own benefits and drawbacks. Hiring local employees ensures you have staff who are likely to understand your audience, as well as knowing the best way to conduct business in that country. However, they won’t have the background knowledge regarding your business that older team members may have.

Expats can certainly be beneficial as you first set up your company overseas, by helping to establish your company culture abroad, and assisting in the hiring and training of full-time Kuwaiti staff. However, you will need to consider employment and immigration laws and ensure your business abides by them. Expats will need written permission from the employer in Kuwait as well as a medical report in order to obtain a working visa to the country.

Develop a market entry strategy

Once you’ve completed your research, you can create and develop your entry strategy document, which will be your blueprint for how you run your company in Kuwait. This should clearly outline the research findings, goals, budget information, action items, and timelines. Your market and competitor research should highlight audience behaviour, as well as how your rivals are selling and promoting similar products. This allows you to decide on your specific entry points into the market.

The best strategy to connect with your new audience is through using specific marketing techniques. Localising your website, for example, makes it culturally and linguistically accessible, which will help you build a better, more stable relationship with your target audience from the start of their customer journey. Launching a Kuwait-specific website allows you to alter things like the layout and phrasing in a way that will resonate well with a Kuwaiti audience, without sacrificing the content or overall visual style of your existing website.

A revolutionary form of low energy nuclear reaction was demonstrated by entrepreneur Andrea Rossi in 2011 in the form of the E-Cat device, which stands for Energy Catalyser. The device has received much attention in the scientific community and in the media, being the first of its kind to be publicly demonstrated and verified by third parties. The E-Cat has been shown to produce useful heat to the magnitude of at least ten times any previously known chemical reaction.

LENR

LENR has for many years been hypothesised by scientists as a type of nuclear reaction that takes place at or close to room temperature. Nuclear reactions take place naturally within stars, at temperatures reaching millions of degrees, so this process is known as hot fusion. Humans have recreated hot fusion in prototype reactors and in hydrogen bombs, but until recently there was no accepted evidence that LENR were possible. Studies in the 1980s by leading electrochemists reported evidence of LENR, but the results were impossible to replicate and interest soon died away. Interest in the field has significantly increased since Andrea Rossi’s demonstration of the E-Cat.

Andrea Rossi responds to questions about the E-Cat and LENR in the Rossi Blog Reader.

Unique Process

Original studies into the possibility of LENR involved experiments with deuterium and palladium. Later experiments looked at the possibility of generating an anomalous heat reaction using hydrogen and nickel. The process known as the Rossi Effect uses nickel as the catalyst, but with a fuel comprised of lithium aluminium hydride. The Rossi Effect is patented, with the patent held by the Leonardo Corporation.

Energy Catalyser

The current design of the E-Cat is table-top sized and has a reactor core surrounding a thin layer of finely granulated nickel and lithium aluminium hydride within a cylindrical rod. This reactor has cooling elements in the shape of wings attached and is placed at the bottom of a box. The heat generated by the reaction is transmitted from the reactor to the surrounding water by the cooling wings, heating the water to produce hot water or steam.

Andrea Rossi is an Italian inventor and entrepreneur, born in Italy in 1950. He is a Doctor in Philosophy and obtained his Doctorate in 1974 at the Universita’ Degli Studi di Milano (Italy).

Organising a conference is definitely not a piece of cake. To do it properly you have to rise up to the higher heights of your organisational skills and resistance to stress because, despite sounding innocent, it is a highly complex and labour intensive task. But don’t worry – there is a hack to make it smoother and less stressful. And that is choosing a perfect conference venue.

I know it may sound cliché but truth being told – a conference venue matters most of all checkpoints in event organisation as it influences the further decisions and amount of work to be done. By choosing a conference venue recklessly you deprive yourself of powerful weapon which could help you wrap your head around it all. So how to choose a perfect one?

Features of a perfect conference venue

Accessibility

The very first thing to consider is a location. You must think where your attendees will be coming from and which place will be easily accessible for them. It will not only pamper a little bit your guests but also will increase the turnout of the event. Check whether the chosen place is close to the airport if needed and well-served by public transportation, like for example conference center Kraków in Poland. 

Perfect size

When choosing a venue you also have to take into consideration the size of your conference. Don’t bite off more that you can chew and try to match the venue size to the conference size. If you choose too big one you will end up in a half empty room which would make your event look not very successful. And on the contrary – if you choose too small the guest will be squeezed and the place overcrowded which also isn’t desired. Define first how many attendees you expect and choose wisely.

Solid technology

An important thing is also checking whether the venue of your choice is technically viable and whether you will be able to organise the whole event the way you want. You have to make sure that it has all the necessary audio and visual equipment, multimedia setups, solid sound system and sufficient network capabilities in order not to be surprised at the last minute.

Additional facilities for guests

Last but not least – one of the most crucial factors when choosing the venue is its potential for being attractive for guests. Before deciding on any venue you should consider what facilities it provides, what catering options are available, whether the alcoholic drinks are allowed, what are the décor restrictions or how many parking spots there are and where they are located. Checking those will save you a lot of stress and will make the conference a memorable experience for your invitees.

When you launch a marketing campaign, you hope that your business will become popular and many people will find the ads interesting. Unfortunately, things do not always go as planned. It is possible that the reverse happens. Instead of enticing potential buyers, they end up getting turned off. Although you don’t expect everyone to like the campaign, you don’t plan for things to get worse. These are the possible reasons why instead of boosting your popularity, the reverse might happen.

The information is insensitive

You need to be cautious with the information you put out there. Sometimes, in your effort to be funny, you end up offending people. Make sure that you think about all the words or even the photos you use in your marketing campaign before releasing them. Ask your other employees if they find the injected humour offensive. You can’t pursue a campaign that will most likely hurt your chances of boosting your company’s popularity.

You didn’t make any effort

When you release a marketing campaign, you need to ensure top quality. Whether you are going to post wide roller banners or publish a YouTube promotional video, you can’t settle for anything less. Give people the reason to at least view the ads and eventually buy. When they see that you didn’t even care about the aesthetic appeal or the quality of the content, they will not feel attracted at all.

There were tons of errors

Imagine putting up a roller banner riddled with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Instead of convincing people to buy what you offer, you end up pushing them away. They will think that your company is careless in all its dealings. If you couldn’t get the correct spelling in a banner, it could be worse with the quality of your products. Therefore, it helps if you proofread any information you put out there.

You used an inappropriate photo

Your ads need images to make them alive. It helps if you use exciting images of people using your products or symbols that best represent your brand. The problem is when you use a picture that doesn’t represent your brand and it’s also inappropriate. For instance, you might use one that contains sexy models when you are advertising to kids.

Another problem is when you use a stock photo showing images of people that are not representative of the target audience at all. You need to use original pictures and use real people as your models. Let your marketing team determine the appropriateness of the images, along with the other employees in your company.

You need to think twice before you post any campaign online or print any poster. You can’t take things back when they are already out there. You can apologise for the mistake, but people will already have formed their opinion of you. It might be tough winning their hearts back after breaking their trust. They will move on to other options.