From Bahrain, it's theCUBE. Covering AWS Public Sector Bahrain. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services. Welcome back everyone, it's theCUBE coverage for Amazon Web Service Summit in Bahrain in Middle East. I'm John Furrier, Cloud Compute Star, startup panel. Got two great guests, Sahab Abdullah, who's with Flat Six Labs. Incubator, investor, same Dolbett with Sync. Sorry, I got that wrong with a little glare on my screen there. Thanks for coming on, appreciate it. Guys, startup scene here is robust. Last year from this year, more energy, more deployed capital, you guys are deploying capital, you're building a company. Give us the update, start. Yeah, what would say over the past year, just our Bahrain location alone, we've already hit 23 startups that we've invested in and we're looking to increase that number by about six to eight startups every six months. As you've seen over the past year in the MENA region and in the GCC, there's rapid growth in the startup scene and we're slowly starting to see each vertical fill up with relevant startups and get a bit more saturated. I think for a while we were one of the regions that were a lot less saturated when it came to our local startup ecosystems than the rest of the world. The good thing is now that we've got a lot of the financial infrastructure into the place, Flat Six Labs is one of them and I think that's where we really were lacking support before. And so we're starting to feel C players come into every stage of startup growth to be able to help the startups raise their seed funds, series A, series B. And your role here is outreach, building out Bahrain. Yeah. We're going to the Economic Development Board trying to figure out that, put together that entrepreneurial strategy and not figure it out, we know what it is. You get money, you build a company. Yeah, exactly. Just get into parties together. Yeah, so what we're trying to do is there's two main things. One is that we're trying to finally be the first kind of financial investor that can help people going from a full-time job into full-time entrepreneurship roles and to give them access to three of the biggest barriers that they usually will face, which is a business development network, mentorship and capital. And another thing that we're doing is we, so personally what I take care of is that I go to a lot of the international events around the globe with startup ecosystems and try and find very early-stage founders and educate them on the market, the region, see where people would fit, where the gaps are in the market and kind of raise awareness of all the advantages that we have here in Bahrain. What makes you guys different? What's the differentiation? As a country or as Flat Six Labs? Both. So I'd say as a country, Bahrain's in a very unique position where we have a cultural mindset that is very easy for a lot of foreigners and expatriates to adapt to. I think we've even been ranked number one in the world as a place for expatriates to live several times. And another thing is that we have a very high-skilled workforce. Overhead costs are a lot lower. So for example, when it comes to the cost of rent, when it comes to hiring a team, you also have subsidies that come into place like Tamkeen, which Sam has also benefited from, where if you go and you hire fresh graduate Bahrainis, you'll get a large margin of that subsidized by the government. So you're looking at a mix where you have a high quality of life, but at the same time, it's the best starting point for a lot of startups because you can extend your runway. You have a much lower cash burn. And at the same time, you've got one of the biggest market places right next door, which is Saudi Arabia. It's a 30-minute drive across the bridge. So we've kind of got the best of all worlds over here. And because we're a small country, we have a government that's incredibly reactive. So the regulatory authorities are very close with the startup ecosystem. For example, we're always involved in the economic development board round table meetings. And the ministry is all working closely together to try and make this as friendly an atmosphere as possible for the startups. And they're authentic. This is interesting to see government authentically aligning the interests of entrepreneurs. I'd say one thing we really have going on is it's really a nationwide initiative from the founders to the private entities and investors like us and to the governmental agencies where we all are really dedicated towards making this a startup hub. San, talk about your company. What do you guys do and what's your situation? Right, so my company's name's Sink and we're a software as a service company that helps businesses manage the really hard aspects of managing their employees. Like things like time sheets, scheduling, job safety is a big one for us and job costing. And our target market is actually US small businesses. And we were early stage company and we met Salar and Flatsix Labs and they convinced us to come set up here in Bahrain and we've never looked back. The access to talent here is just amazing. The costs are very low and we're able to do a lot with a very small amount of money. And so far we've got to a total of 4,500 US businesses using the platform and we've done that all here from Bahrain. So a very low cost, leverageable model and that's because of the subsidies of just talent. It's a mix, it's a little bit cheaper to hire people. You've got more access to talent. But I mean, it's a number of things. It's both of those things. Yeah, the university programs are interesting. They're got a degree in cloud computing. They announced that we heard that news today. I mean, that's compelling. I mean, hell, if you want to make the market just teach it. Yeah, exactly. This is good. I think the good thing is that everyone's come to an understanding that all parties have to get actively involved to make it the right atmosphere. So the universities are also working very closely with us hand in hand. And I've seen personally a gigantic improvement over the past year where their senior projects of universities are turning out where they've got legitimate startup pitch decks and some of them are even ready to go straight into acceleration, which was not the case a few years ago. So everybody's really on board. That's one of the things we met last year in the economic development board, that round table, a lot of, I won't say complaints, but concerns. And they're very listening. They have the whiteboards out there, flip charts. How are they doing, checking the boxes? Are they checking the items off, moving these blockers and what's remaining in your mind in terms of things to make it frictionless? Yeah, I'd say like there's, so far we've done a great start and in the space of a year we've accomplished a lot but of course they're still shifting the whole mentality to understand the startup scene and also to get people to be less as a cultural mentality risk averse and start letting people feel that failure is an okay thing. It's okay to go straight out of university and give it a shot and try and start your own startup and also educating people of all the tools that are available to them. So although we do a lot of outreach and road shows, still there's a lot of people that need to be educated on how acceleration works, how the VC side of it works and I'd say another thing we need to see come in is bridge funds. So we've got people that are ready to come in at series A, at pre-seed, at seed but then there's usually these gaps where we need to kind of help fill as well to keep people on target towards series A. You like a bullpen capital kind of model like Paul Martino's company, SaaS companies that are in between A or B or B and C that just need that little bridge. Yeah, exactly. Just that extra runway so that they can hit the targets but the later stage investors want to see. Guys, give a plug for your reference. What are you working on now? What are you, what's your to-do item? What's the plan? Give a pitch for the company. Look, so we're not the first company to attack time in attendance and we won't be the last but where we think that we can win is job costing and job tracking which is something that the customers that we talk to are really screaming out to. So we've been building a really complex but simple to use system for managing jobs for the last three to six months and we're about to deploy that to our users in a few weeks. We're very excited about that and that's really our secret source. We're just, you know, a lot of guys doing the time in attendance, we're doing it very well but we want to be the best at jobs and we also want to stay laser focused to our particular users which is actually employers with one to 20 employees in the States and that actually makes up 89% of all employers in the States and it's very hard historically to find these guys but with everyone having a smartphone in their pocket it's actually becoming easier and easier for us and we find that- And those companies need the most help too because they're the ones that could grow to 50 employees next. Yeah, exactly, yeah. So what's a URL or website app that can download? What's the, how does someone contact you guys? Yeah, so they'll go to sync.business and they can use the web version there but we also have two mobile apps so we can be found in the app store and in the Play Store. Awesome, congratulations. And updates for you guys, what's next for you here in Bahrain in general? Well in Bahrain, in the MENA region we're continuing to expand. There are several locations that we're gonna launch again as accelerator programs and locally over here we're always accepting applications from international startups. We're actually having our demo date tomorrow so you should drop by if you're in the country. I'm gonna be here. Yes, so that'd be great if you come down. And as that happens, we're accepting applications to the next cycle and they can just log on to flaskslabs.bahrain.com all the information's over there and if they wanna get in touch with me they can just put my name into LinkedIn. So I have a password. You feed them up into a system and then when they're ready to accelerate, they go. Good to go. Good to graduate. Good job guys. Thanks for the update. Startup scene is robust here in Bahrain. The CUBE coverage for our second year covering Amazon Web Services Summit. I'm John Furrier. Stay with us for more coverage after this short break.


is T.F.N.N. The Tiger Financial News Network. Headline News Update. Good morning everyone on this 13th day of December Tuesday we're looking at this is the 10 o'clock Tiger Financial News Network Market Update. Don't forget that we're just about to wrap up the Tiger sale. Anyway, here we go. $590 at $34,587. One of the reasons why I did not put a down arrow here in the Dow chart and the daily chart on the left is that the MACD was still pulling back while the nine-period moving average was still above the 14-period moving average. So there was a bifurcation, there was a divergence there and that said that there was still some internal strength. We'll talk about that as soon as I get back from my Tiger technicians hour in a few moments but let's just finish this update. We're looking at the S&P up 102. Up 2.5 percent. Dow's at 1.7 percent. This is fabulous. This is exactly the action I couldn't believe we would get but we are getting because the higher 4100.51 on the 1st of December is being tested as we've gone to 4100.96. The number of times we get to within fractions point of the previous high. It's just a remarkable phenomenon. Anyway, that's where we are right now. Could it be a double top? We'll talk about that in my show coming up. Even if it's just a short-term pullback, we'll see what happens. QQQ. Index 100 up 3.3 percent. Up 9.6 near 295.17. Gone to a new recovery high. That's the very quickest weekly peak A, peak B, peak C and we've gotten to the channel wave target of a P, a leg D. In the weekly chart that is amazing action. It's something that we'll talk about. In the meantime back at the ranch 294. This is really good. The 303 level is the 200-period moving average. That's quite a way. Looking at IWM, IWM went to the 200-period moving average up 2.5 percent. Up 450 at 185.20. Good action, not great action. Looking at gold, talking about good action, not great action. This is great action. Up 41. At 18.34, it started a leg D. This is really important for gold, especially because it's doing exactly the opposite. This is the counterpoint where the dollar goes down, gold goes up, dollars down and dollars 31. At 103.82. Looking at crude oil, we've got crude oil up as well. It's up $1.92. It's 75.08. Still lagging very badly, but this is a balance. And looking at the TLT, this is Bond. Bond spikes up 2.2


अतर्द प्रुमआशणी धुठ तेई्द करूब सात्डाद. तवाम प्रुमआशनडाल सब सब से दोग. सब से पाली बात लीग थी मैस मर्छिन्टीजन, अपनना ड़ा ही चविल, ड़ा आप चविल, वी ती है अई अपनना चविल ती एक ज़़ा. तो हमारे पास अगर आंप सब दईख तता है प्रोमोछन के हभाले से, तो देरार सब सब बैसिक ही शापते है, तब से पहला point है, what you have to do is you have to apply mass merchandising. तब आरा focused point यही है, आपको bulk में products को display करना है, products को bulk में जब display करतने है, it is considered as mass merchandising. उसके बाद आपको क्या करना है, promotion के अंदर जो articles है, you have to place only promotion articles. आप ने असा नहीं करना के you have to mix both normal articles and non-promotional articles. यह में प्रमोशन अन प्रमोशन, so what you have to do is to promote the promotion articles यह आपको main locations के उपर place करना है, you have to highlight them. उनी को आपने है, then third point हमारे पास है, you have to respect maximum number of products, link to the number of pallets, baskets, shelves, or hooks. यह एक सामपल के अंदर नहीं के, कहा कहा pallets use onghe, कहा कहा basket use onghe, कहा कहा shelves use onghe, कहा कहा product make hooks use onghe, especially अगर shirts लगने है, then let's say you have to place them on the hooks. तो वो यह हम दिसकस करते है भी, details के साथ, फिर हमारे पास है, match product on the end cap with aisle. तो जो फैमली है, aisle के अंदर जो products मुजुद है, आपको normal products को match करना है, यह नहीं के अगर main aisle के अंदर अगर grocery के products है, तो जो उसकी main shelf है, जो उसकी main v cap है, end cap है, जो उसकी head shelf है, यह वो main जगा है, जाहा आपको इसको match करना जाही है, आपके products यो aisle मोजुद है, उनके साथ, अगर असा नहीं है, अंदर जो है, वो let's say oil की काटेगरी पडी है, और end cap के अगर असा दिलेग वो, बेव्रीज़े एस की काटेगरी पडी हुई है, शो May be it will not go with the same theme, तो customer उसको बहुत जैदा एंग्रउच नागरे, चो the principal is you have to match the products in the aisle which are placed on the end cap. तो उसके बागत नहीं बागत ना थादे को you have to use promotional signage, अगर और था, ता के कUSTERMER को जो प्रणूड प्रूट्र्त प्रूट्र्मोशन के उपर है, बौपर तरीके से KUSTERMER को जो प्रूट्र्ट प्रूट्र्मोशन के उपर है उचलिके से COMMunicate हो, अकर आप देक है यहाप एक आंपल के औगन आप देक फ़ाँईं दर तो।० आप दे is actually following the promotional principle religiously follow it if we look at the map of a store if we look at the store let's say could be the promotional area we have a store map in front of you I am going to highlight those areas which are actually considered to be promotional areas because these are the areas where the customer's natural flow customer's movement goes this way so these are those areas which are highlighted in front of you this is the area you are seeing this way this is the passage this is the path which is actually used as a promotional area so we have a guideline that how the customer's flow moves in any retail store so what you have to consider what you have to keep in mind when we have to design a layout promotional layout so now you know the key areas now you can easily plan the promotional layout in a particular store so what are the guidelines for this first of all palettes, baskets and shelves only promotional articles should be there high rotation articles those articles which have a very quick movement whose sales throw is very high those articles you have to display here maximum height of any pallet presentation should be 150 cm it should not be more than this so that the product is connected linked with the department so that the customer can easily take the product over view so that the customer can easily see the product and the product which is placed on the display should be connected in some way with the department whose end cap or promotional area that is the product so that in the household the display of fruits and vegetables will be made so maybe of course the customer will not like it because the customer in the household area has gone to buy a related product from the household he has not gone to buy fruits and vegetables so this will create a bad thing bad word in the eyes of the customer now we come to mass merchandising how to reflect into the picture so this is number one way which is called massive presentation of one article massive presentation of one article is that where any one article is presented massively it is not mixed with any other article it is not merged so the customer sees the bulk display and the customer feels that this product retailer has put a very cheap price because in so much quantity they have displayed it so retailer has actually mass merchandising its reading for the customer is completely different similarly the second thing about mass merchandising is that if you want to make a powerful presentation then you have to do it on the pallets pallets are the rack which is the wooden rack on which you are displaying the product here we have these visible pallets so for power presentation the display of the product mass merchandising is properly palletized so that the customer can clearly see the customer clearly see the customer if you see the product is presented in a very good way the product has been presented the customer has been given a good message in promotion we have to display the maximum number of products we have to display and for that which equipment we have to use this is very important but I give you an understanding in general so that you get an idea that if in a store you have been assigned as a retail as a retail operations then you know which steps we have to take in this series for example we start with non-foods so if in non-foods we are talking about especially products which are clothing related so hooks and shelf you are using it 2-3 products are being used and we are following a theme there will be some products in non-foods which you display on the shelf and normally in such cases there should be 2-3 products or a particular theme in the third case in non-food basket or in the form of a box there will be a copy paper so the maximum number of products or maximum number of baskets you have to display there are 4 types of items for example generator you want to sell and you have to display it on the pallet so maximum number of products and maximum number of pallets you have to manage it in food case you are displaying the product through the shelf and through the pallets you are managing 2-3 products or any theme and if it is in pallets then the number of products can be displayed you have to ensure that it comes on the display let's see an example of this food example on the end cap if you see the rule then you can understand 2-3 pallets display and a shelf this is a good example in the second example there are 6 pallets and if there are 6 pallets then there is one product on every pallet which means if there are 6 pallets then there will be 6 products if there are 4 pallets then there will be 4 products so this is one of the rule for display non-food example we have already given if there are 6 baskets in the cage then there has to be 6 different products in every basket similarly if we talk about the shelf then there are 2 pallets pallet number 1 and pallet number 2 so there are 2 pallets so 2 different products and plus one shelf which you can see here this is an example of non-food there is another example of non-food if I talk about thematic then if you see the theme then 1 theme which is the theme of the bag and on that number of products are also present and the clothing example we have already discussed that normally the clothing shirts, coats, jackets you have to hang them in the hooks and normally the end cap is displayed in one product or one theme we have some shelf which you have to expose the product in which we have a micro wave which is one of the good examples or similarly we have another example of cash till how you have to expose the product in the shelf the product on top should be visible to the customer there is a double placement that products are normally stacked that when you have to keep the product on display then you have to stack the products to avoid the shelf what is out of the shelf because this product is high running its sale rotation is very high so to avoid it you have to double stack so that the customer quickly buy the product so that it is not out of the shelf and you have to immediately mention that through its promotional signage that this article is on promotion it is a complimentary article normally when we are promoting the product then we have a set of complimentary articles to display the vacuum cleaner with the vacuum cleaner bag it is visible in the picture so actually we are connecting through the complimentary article the main article was the vacuum cleaner and you complimented it with the vacuum cleaner bag and mentioned it in the same display similarly the last example is of comparable articles sometimes the retailer is having his own brand so with the comparison of the brand with an A brand like the double A copy paper maybe with a local copy paper as an example you both do mass merchandising the customer compares and then he can buy the product which actually the retailer wants to sell so the important point is in promotion promotion in general as a principle is very important because it communicates with the customer and the customer will be able to buy more the store will be able to sell more through following the basic principles of promotions