09 Jun 186 0  

Throughout the stress of planning weddings, an idea has come to change your views on the process of every “Farah”.

Nadine Farag is a passionate entrepreneur who graduated from AUC with a double degree in marketing and journalism.

Nadine is a 30-year-old Founder & CEO of Farahy, a one-stop-hub for all your big day's needs and dreams. Starting from finding your perfect venue to help you stay on top of your expenses.

Meet Nadine Farag who will tell us more about her story and steps in Farahy!

• Where did you get the idea of Farahy?

Many people around me were getting married, and I was helping them out. I love weddings, and I find it very enjoyable.

But when I entered the process of the wedding I knew how stressful it was and not enjoyable at all. Although it is the happiest day of your life.

I found girls forgetting a lot of things and being scammed and I never found something that collected all the processes and things that should be done in one place. So from there, I got the idea of “Farahy”.

• What were the obstacles that faced you when you started your own business?

When I started the website I got scammed, and that made me change my mind about starting that business for a while, but after some time I returned to think about it again and made it.

Also, the concept of “Farahy '' is new and it was hard to convince people that we’re not wedding planners, we’re a one-stop hub for everything you’ll need on your happy day starting from the reservation of the wedding’s venue to the honeymoon hotel.

“ Farahy is our baby”

• Who's the biggest supporter in your business journey?

My biggest supporter is Aleya, my partner. Farahy is our baby. My fiance-to-be, my family, and a lot of my friends are very supportive too.

• How do you balance your business with your personal life?

It is very extremely difficult! As the business gets bigger day by day it turns out to be close to impossible to balance. Every month we have a day that we don’t work at all as a team. We call it a “silent day”. We don't even call each other on that day.

• After marriage, do you think that having kids will make it harder to balance kids needs and business needs?

I have a dog if that counts haha. But my partner Aleya has a kid and it is very hard for her to manage the house, kid, and business. I know she’s struggling but she sent him to the nursery now so we have the morning time for ourselves.

• What are your upcoming plans for Farahy?

We want to transform the wedding industry to be the largest not only in Egypt, but in the middle east. We want the process to be easy for everyone who wants to get married and tell them that it is simple and fun. So we want it to be the first one-stop hub for every wedding in the Middle east.

• What's the most valuable advice that you can give a woman who's planning to start her own business?

My advice to anyone who wants to start a business is to have experience first. Work on startups, make a network, it really matters, do not graduate and start your own business but first get exposed because it is very hard.

Also, advice for women specifically is to be more confident! You definitely can do anything any man can do and even more. A business like “Farahy”  will not succeed if run by a man, it needs a woman who understands the process. Women need to believe more in themselves and their abilities.

• How do you help other women in their careers through your business?

The wedding industry has a lot of women, like makeup artists, wedding planners, and so on.

We support them with our marketing channels. We help people know them for free and our team is 100% women so we help them by hiring more and more women.

• Did your marketing degree help you with your business?

My marketing degree definitely helps but I don’t know if it is my marketing degree or my marketing experience, as all the work I got into was in marketing. So both helped me.

• Your job requires being full of energy and in a good mood so what do you do when you’re not in the mood?

I know how to separate between my mood and my work. This is something that I am genuinely good at, not just at work, in my personal life as well.

• Out of all the weddings you helped arrange, Which one was your favorite and why?

Every wedding has its own flavor! But my favorites are the hard ones because they’re more challenging and everything goes well at the end of the day. Also, the big-budget weddings are my favorite too because it helps us work freely and we can make things prettier and easier.

• How do you feel while helping every bride on her happiest day?

It feels great when a bride tells us at the end of the day that we saved her day or we were the best thing that ever happened to her, only then we forget all the stress and the hard effort made!

• How do you help brides on a low budget plan their wedding?

Not all the weddings we do are high budget. A lot of people come with a very tight budget and we can manage it because we have a lot of connections, suppliers, and thankfully some very strong research skills. As long as the bride understands that it is a limited budget wedding and we want to cut in some things and put our priorities in order, it goes fine. And we try to make the best of the day with any budget.