Behind the Scenes with BTV

We're all chicken nuggets (westernised Bahrainis) here at Eat so doing interviews in Arabic is something that is completely out of our comfort zone.

The program Hala Bahrain by Bahrain TV approached us to do a feature on team work and how we started Eat. For a moment we all fell silent, this is a great oppurtunity to get exposed, however, how in the world are we going to pull this off?! We reached out for some help from friends and family to practice what we probably needed to say in Arabic.

Hala Bahrain is putting together a four minute feature and then a live morning show with Eat's CEO, Nezar Kadhem, at Hala Bahrain's studio. The live show will take place on Thursday, April 2nd, at 10 am (GMT +3). Nezar will be discussing how the project started, how we work, and a few more juicey details about Eat. Don't miss the show!

For the feature, Tahani and I talked about our experience working with a team. We talked about Asana, the project management web app, and how that's helped us stay organised. We also talked about how we diveded up our roles. Based on experience and personality. Unfortunately, we couldnt get too creative with our answers as our Arabic vocab is quite limited. How do you say delegate again?

I must say it was tough articulating ourselves in Arabic, but we did practice and learnt a bunch of new words and felt very confident. It really wasn't as hard as we thought and was actually quite fun to find out that our Arabic is much better than we expected.

Here are the questions we received:

What's your experience working as a team?

Tahani: Working as a team with Eat has been a refreshing experience to say the least. For starters, you can definately feel the energy and excitement in the local team here in Bahrain from the very first moment we meet at HQ. We more or less feed off each other when it comes to daily tasks and you can sense the fluidity in each of our roles working together. Knowing that each one of us comes from a different entreprenuerial background and trusting our past experiences to add to what we bring to the table takes the overall experience to a different level all together. I believe working in a positive atmosphere and keeping confidence in each other plays a huge role in working as a team, especially in such a close team.

Zain: My experience has been very positive due to many reasons. First of all, our communication is clear. We use Slack, a work messaging app. So any conversation I need to have with the team would happen on Slack, not email! It's instant and organised. We also delegate tasks efficiently on Asana, a project management app. We have a system in place that's super organised. The third reason is that we click. We all get along and have similar interests. So communication becomes easy. Given that it's a startup means we have to spend a lot of hours together so it does help that we get along.

How did we execute the project?

Zain: I joined the team about a month ago. I do know that it all started with a survey at Seef that was quite successful and after that a website where you could place your reservations and it was all done manually by Nezar, who called restuarants himself to give them reservations, and proved that the demand for such a service does exist before building the app.

How did we divide up roles?

Tahani: With experience in starting up my own company and a background in Advertising and Design (and not to forget, a very clear case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) it was natural for me to take the reigns on Consumer Aquisition and manage the Design and Marketing at Eat. I have a thing about perfection and I tend to micromanage a lot of things, but whats great about that is at Eat that it's part of my job. I absolutely love what I do, and I make sure I do it well. With a need for organisation comes the ability to create rules and set standards, which with time and planning I will be able to create procedures and systems for the bigger picture.

Zain: Our roles are divided based on experience, expertise ofcourse, and personality. I am the youngest and graduated with a Global studies major therefore without a profession but tons of conversation power, so I started a project of my own called Localppl, a travel website to find and book experiences with locals and small tour companies in Bahrain. While working on Localppl I learnt a ton of things about how to run a startup, how to test your concept, how to build a product that people want, and how to manage team members. Because of that I wanted to join Eat and offer what I know and most importantly learn. I enjoy working with people and a role of Customer Service and Client Relations fit me so I was really happy to take on that role along with a whole other bunch of things. It's a startup, you dip into it all!