#334. The Truth About Dubai (51 Mins Documentary) - Dodge Woodall

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1:56Ollie Ollerton: to not pay tax and for the weather. I can see why people are coming in. What does Dubai do really well? That everywhere's a different sort of league over here. There's no street crime. No one's robbing anyone. 500 people are moving to Dubai a day. It's no longer making all of its money from oil, but what it is making money from is entrepreneurs. If you've got to think big and make shit happen, this is the place to be. If a country's taxing people, I don't want to see a pothole in the street. Yeah. This is Great Britain. How we remember Great Britain is not great and it's under a huge decline. The entrepreneur is being pushed out.

2:28Ollie Ollerton: Nothing's holding you back. You've got your own business coming here. Great, great place you can hit the ground running. I think if you come in here and you haven't got a job, 10, 15k to get yourself secure. After every 30 days, how much you earn? 3 ,200. 3 ,200? Yes. You're not getting what you're paying for, so what exactly am I paying tax for? Cash has gone out of that system. There's no Funtime Frankie money anymore. The government has just squeezed everything.

2:54Ollie Ollerton: So myself and my two producers flew out to Dubai and we wanted to find a bit more information about what's going on out in this country. There's 4 million people live out here and about 80 ,000 of them are multimillionaires. And actually we're coming out to Dubai to find out what the actual truth is. William Brown is a multimillionaire. He built an online digital business. He ended up doing over 10 million pounds in turnover and sold out a couple of years ago. Did you move to Dubai on purpose that you wouldn't have to pay tax? Yes, I moved here for two reasons. To not pay tax and for the weather.

3:21Those were the two reasons that got me here.

3:24Ollie Ollerton: Two very good reasons. Two very good reasons. The thing is, Dubai is a very heavy, intense, fast place. And it's not somewhere where you come to relax. Everybody comes here with a purpose. They want to build. They want to grow. They want to learn. They want to network. So if you want to do those things and build and grow a business or build and grow a network, this is the best place in the entire world to do it by far. Is there lots of opportunities out here where people are like, hey, here's a contact. Go and meet them. Or you go and meet at a certain night. What would someone actually do if they flew out here?

3:53So there's networking events that you can go to out here specifically for different types of entrepreneurs. So find one of those, go to one of those. You'd be surprised who you can bump into in like the lobby of these fancy hotels or at beach clubs and events and stuff.

4:07Ollie Ollerton: When you look back at your friends in the UK and you chat to them, what are you noticing between them and you? Apart from the financial gain, what you're gaining out here, but what are you noticing in the mindset between your friends back home and your mindset here? One thing is ambition and drive. Yeah, I've noticed from different places around the world, some places like UK is one, Bali is another. People are not as ambitious, they're not as driven, they don't want to go hard and scale and go crazy. Dubai they do. Like, no one is relaxing in Dubai. No one's coming to Dubai to coast and chill.

4:38Everybody that lives and functions in Dubai is on a fucking mission. They want to grow, they want to scale, they want to make money, they want to build wealth. How have you seen Dubai change in the last four years? Things are a lot more expensive now. When I first moved here in May 2021, pretty much everything has doubled. So all real estate has doubled or tripled in that time. Costs have doubled or tripled for everything. It's got mad expensive. Dude, I paid£50 for an omelette and two coffees the other day. It's got a worse reputation, but only with people that haven't been here, which is quite interesting.

5:11More people hate it now, but all the people that hate it have never fucking been.

5:15Ollie Ollerton: Yeah, okay. So it's quite interesting. Yeah, that's interesting. I'm seeing that on LinkedIn. So people who are bigging up Dubai, me being to Dubai three or four times, I get it. People who haven't been to Dubai might just see, West Dubai, isn't it an Arab country in the middle of nowhere? And okay, it's hot. And they would just make up their own mind. They'll visualize what they think Dubai actually is. But actually it's not. Because you've got here amazing infrastructure. You've got amazing transport. You've got amazing gyms, wonderful food, super safe. Like at the moment, the UK is the most, one of the most unsafest places in the world.

5:49Ollie Ollerton: This is Great Britain, how we remember Great Britain. It's not great and it's under a huge decline. So there's so many things I, when I look at it and go, I can see why people are coming in. And if you don't like it, you fly back home. Definitely. For me, the safety is a big thing because you just feel, it's hard to describe until you've experienced it. When you've lived in Dubai and I remember I was at dinner once and I was winding my watch and I put it down on the table. stupidly didn't pick it up and we left, got in a taxi and left. And then I realised, came back, it was still on the table.

6:22And this is a full busy restaurant on JBR. People don't even dare to touch things, you know, and my girlfriend's left a purse here and a laptop here and stuff. The safety is a massive thing. The no tax is a massive thing for building

6:37Ollie Ollerton: wealth. So is it actually zero tax? Is there any tax you've got to play on your business here? There is now. Yeah, okay. There is now. Was it 9 %? Yeah, when I first moved here, it was just net completely zero. You didn't even have to do accounting. You didn't have to do books. There's no accountants. There's no accounting to do. It's fucking crazy. So that was nice back then. Now they've introduced 9 % corporate tax. And it applies to most businesses, but not all. Is there any tax on employing people? In the UK, so if I employ a managing director 100 grand, I've got to pay the government 15 ,000 pounds on top of that 100 grand every year.

7:10Ollie Ollerton: Is there anything like that in Dubai? No. So if you came here as a young 25-year-old, how much money would you have to make a month just to survive? To survive, I would say to survive three to four thousand pounds a month. So in England, survival is a lot less. Yes. I would say two grand a month survival in England if you've got your own property and you're renting with a mate or da-da-da-da-da. Here, you're saying three to four grand. But the beauty of it is if you actually build a business here, you'll gain that back tenfold because there's no tax. Well, exactly. Yeah, so I would say it's about double.

7:57Ollie Ollerton: Okay. But obviously, it depends where you live. There's really cheap areas. There's crazy expensive areas. There's big talk about them. Go to Dubai. It's tax-free. It's simple. It's easy. It's da-da-da-da-da. But actually, there are levels you've got to pay because the rent is high, the food is higher, the drinks are higher, everything is higher, the shopping is higher. We've got four rules. If you don't break them, you're going to have a wonderful life. If you do, you're in trouble. Forget about that. What are those four rules? No PDA. PDA? Public displays of affection. So you're not like tonguing your missus in the street, which isn't, at my age, I don't want to be doing that anyway.

8:32No stealing.

8:33Ollie Ollerton: Yep. No drugs. Yep. And I think there's another one, but I haven't reached that one yet. I've been all right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sex and offenses or whatever. And that's what you'll be. 100%. I think the big thing is what we spoke about before is there's no gatekeeping. Yeah. In England, I always got the sense of, oh, I might not get another chance, or I can't let anyone share any of this. I need to get it all. Here, you meet people, and it's literally like you've gone to a weird networking event, but you're not. You're just at the mall. Yeah. Or you've just met someone, and he's given you five contacts of people to call just because.

9:05Yeah. You know? And that's what I think is beautiful. And you can see just by the country. Every time you come here, there's something new, whether it's a motorway or a street or a hotel or whatever. They're just going. So everyone else goes with them. If a country is taxing people, especially the numbers that the UK is, I don't want to see a pothole in the street. I don't want to see, you know, buses that aren't coming on tax. You want to see policemen walking around the street. Exactly. You're not getting what you're paying for. So what exactly am I paying tax for? Where here, there's videos, and I'm not lying, where someone will take a video of a pothole in the street and they'll report it to the RTA and they'll come back in the evening and film that it's been fixed the same day.

9:49Ollie Ollerton: My God. And we're not talking about cracks. We're talking about potholes. Potholes. And this is not one video, thousands of them. This bin's not working or this streetlight's not working. And it's always like, thanks for letting us know. Go and have a look now. And it's like, I would pay taxes. Yeah, absolutely. I would pay tax for that. You don't mind paying tax if you're getting value back. If you're paying tax in the UK and you're not getting anything back, you can't even get into the hospital. You've phoned up a cop or a policeman if there's a crime, your house has been robbed. Sorry, someone will be over there.

10:19Ollie Ollerton: Five hours later, someone will pop in, here's a crime note, it won't be followed through. 500 people are moving to Dubai a day. A day. Residence, becoming residents. So they must be doing something, right? Is it easy to move out here? 100%. So it's easy to say, right, I fancy going out there. Is there a certain amount of time you're allowed to live here for? Can you live here for the whole? As long as you've got a visa. And again, for people like me. So I got the golden visa. So someone, they're looking after people coming from the outside and giving them a 10-year visa and saying, you're bringing something to the country.

10:51So I got a visa as a creator because they recognized that I'm bringing value. I'm not just sitting around here doing nothing. So there's opportunities. You can come, open a business, get your visa, and the world's your oyster. Dubai is not for everyone, though. if you come and decide to live that fake life i will say this that i'm going to nobu and i'm going to that and that's not your your life or what your bank is saying yeah which people do tend to do yeah um then it's not for you and you'll find out real soon that it's not for you yeah you know so

11:25Ollie Ollerton: would you would you agree that the dubai is more expensive to live here but you're getting quality but at the same time you're not getting taxed anything but that's the thing you make more money here too so for the same job that you'll do in the uk you make more money you're not getting taxed on it and you're getting all the benefits and a better quality of life better quality of life being british what things do you miss from the uk i would say the only thing i miss is my i have one or two friends that still live there that are my like they're my longest friends i've had you know from when i was young till now and they're the closest people i would say even closer than my family having access to them as much as i used to um that's the main thing but when it comes to everything else name me something the uk has that we don't the seasons but what are you spring just that feeling when you're in the countryside you do have that i do enjoy that listen i'm all for sun i love sun every six weeks i've gone holiday different places that's that's my thing yeah the seasons uh

12:38shouldn't take that long should it and it shouldn't be that hard crazy isn't it let me

12:40Ollie Ollerton: tell you if i reversed it yeah you go what do i get into by i go oh entrepreneurial spirit i'm getting the weather everything's five star people are happy yeah there's no crime i could list i could go on i could go on i could go on i could go on no tax yeah really small amounts of tax beautiful accommodation yeah don't get me wrong you can absolutely love england and what it gave me and and you know just growing up there when i was growing up because i'm an old man now um back in the 80s it was it was the place to be in the world because we're driving the economy it just changed and and when it comes to um seasons and stuff like that i'm i'm happy with just being hot all the time to be honest you know they got kafu do you know what kafu is here so if you run out of petrol there's an app you press it and then they'll bring the petrol to your car wherever you I'm joking, mate.

13:29Yeah, yeah. They'll come to your car. Can you use carefully, if the car's outside your house, you can't bother to go to the place? Yes. And they fill your car off for you? Yes. Outside your door, they'll come with the tank and they'll fill it up and charge your car. I can't tell you Dubai's better than anywhere because some people like Chile. Yeah. Some people like, you know, Colombia. Some people, it's what's good for you. Like right now, for me, there's no other place in the world like Dubai.

13:53Ollie Ollerton: It's stuff like this that he's mentioned I just find absolutely fascinating. You can press a button on an app on your phone and someone will drive to your car to fill your car up for you.

14:18Ollie Ollerton: Oli Ollerton is ex-Special Forces and you probably know him as SAS Who Dares Wins from the TV programme. He's out there now living in Dubai coaching leaders and high performers. What a fantastic episode this was.

14:57Ollie Ollerton: a very good human being. If you met five people, right, in the UK, how many of those people do you think would be an entrepreneur that's hustling and wanting to work with each other? Very little. Very little. Very little. If you met five people in Dubai... There'd be four of them who are entrepreneurs. You probably... Or maybe even five, yeah. Exactly. And the people we've met, because I've gone up to a round of people, do you live here? What do you do? I'm a creator. I'm asking questions. And then we're getting people on the podcast asking questions about how they enjoy it, because they're living out here.

15:25Ollie Ollerton: What are your thoughts about living out here? everyone has spoke so highly and what i learned this morning i came out the swimming pool this morning i was in the lift got chatting to a guy do you live out here he said oh i've just i've moved here i said what you thought he said i've been here for like four months he said i didn't expect it to be like this i had a misconception i'm moving to dubai i was thinking oh what am i gonna do he said every day is unbelievable i'm the happiest i've ever been yeah just to hear those words i think really you know at the end of the day we've got to understand that there is so much that human connection first of all secondly whether you like to believe it or not we are a salt battery right that's the system we are charged by that thing in the sky that we've been told to demonize yes right so you imagine that you know you're out in the sun every day you meet people that are connected like-minded like-minded it creates a circuit of energy where you are empowered agree you know and that's just incredible now dubai itself is such a thriving place with such your vision for the future now i'm not going to sit here going on too much about what's going on the uk because it is sad to see and i don't like to focus on it too much but i have got a lot of friends back there but the entrepreneur is being pushed out the small business person is being pushed out what does dubai do really well well it's no longer making all of its money from oil quite a low percentage but what it is making money from is entrepreneurs now what do you think they're going to do for an entrepreneur.

16:52Make the environment great for you. Make the environment great for them. Make it as feasible as possible for you to thrive.

16:59Ollie Ollerton: No tax. No personal tax. VAT, no income, no national insurance. There's taxes everywhere in England. You come here, you're like, this is how it should run. It should be. But the thing is, it's not like then saying, you can see where the money's going. You look around Dubai, you can see where the money's going. You go around England, you're going through potholes. you can't see where is the money going for saying they're taking all that money where's the money going because i don't understand it i know well i do and we won't get into that but the thing is um this place is just here thriving and not only that something that really shocked me or was a surprise not a shock is the amount of focus on wellness yes everywhere everyone like everyone's into their fitness you know i mean i'm the i'm the fittest i've been since and mentally as well but you know Some time ago, I was not as ripped as I am now, but, you know, I've not been this fit for 20 years.

17:55Yeah. For 20 years. And it's because every single day I know that I want to get out in the sunshine, the morning sun, and I'm doing so much. It's incredible. In addition to that, everyone sees Dubai as this urban mass. You know, it's like, you know, people refer to Vegas and all this and all the other. You go an hour that way. Yeah. you are in like i was in the mountains just two days ago in my monster truck and i was just like you can't hear a pin drop you're in the mountains i slept in there every night woke up in the morning meditated and i'm just this is just bliss and a lot of people don't even venture out that far yeah you know i mean but there's so much more to dubai than just the mass of the city and everything

18:35Ollie Ollerton: just the hotels and yeah there's so much more yeah and everything they do is just the levels are unreal yeah it's an extraordinary place yeah and i want to learn more about it well i'll tell you what another thing is right you and my the amount what i love about to buy another another thing i love about lies you know there's no state handouts you can come here you work it's as simple as that you don't work you leave you know i mean so everyone you know it's like i i can make a phone call right it can allow you to be extremely lazy or it can allow you to have a lot of time to focus on your core responsibility, your passion, your business, everything else.

19:12So yes, I can make a phone call. I can press a button on my phone and my car gets filled up with petrol overnight while I sleep. You know what I mean? I can get a pint of milk with minutes because I've run out in the fridge. But if we use that, a lot of people say, oh, it's just lazy. I can use that type of thing to free myself up to focus on. It's a full 360 service community.

19:39Ollie Ollerton: The thing is, when you come here, this is my fourth time, Dubai 7s, where you come for three days, you go stay in a hotel, you go to Dubai 7s, you get on the smash, meet old rugby mates, you jump on a plane home. The last time we come here was with Flo and Alfie, we're in a hotel environment. But they're here now, booting around to different podcast studios, meeting faces, meeting different people. People know you're in Dubai, doors opening. It's just been the best buzz. I used to get this buzz years ago when in London. because London used to buzz London was a safe vibe when people had money people it had a vibe to it but now I've got I've kind of got this vibe in the sun where it feels like everyone from different parts of the world are all coming here and like you're saying it's only a 20 minute 10 minutes that way 10 minutes that way and everyone's just gone bang so if anyone's out in Dubai and wants to come on the podcast they're 10 minutes away from the podcast studio the vibe I've got from from you speaking to all these guys is there like a similarity with Dubai now compared to London in the 90s, 2000s.

20:43Ollie Ollerton: Yeah, there is a different, there's the same sort of vibe as London. Obviously you don't have the weather, but in London back then, everyone was out having fun, there was lots of money, it was cash back there, so there was lots of money being passed around, people selling stuff, people going on holidays, people were just, there was just an abundance of abundance of money and lots of beautiful energy and it was really safe. But now you come out here and I'm just seeing the safety out here and I'm seeing the weather and I'm seeing the facilities they got and the gyms the restaurants and the cafes and how everything just works and clean and clean yeah London you know how it is here where everyone should just help each other out and just help each other do well yeah it's like that people were buzzing people had a spring in their state people were earning money people had money in their pocket so they could go and do stuff what's happened in the UK at the moment people don't got any excess money to go have fun with there's no fun time there's no fun time frankie money anymore cash has gone out the system the government has just squeezed everything taxing you high and people have just haven't got money to plow around if people haven't you need billionaires in countries when you've got billionaires in countries it generates lots of millionaires and lots of millionaires generate lots of jobs so you take the billionaires out everyone's all the billionaires leaving london and going to dubai or going to italy or going to portugal you're losing that entrepreneurial spirit and that mind of people who create wealth.

22:04Ollie Ollerton: Gino Cross also come onto the podcast. He's built a wonderful business in the property world out here. He moved out here in 2019, set up a business with his two other partners, and what he's created in the last five years is really quite remarkable. I'm intrigued to find out what it's been like for him and his family to live out in Dubai. And I remember thinking, you've got three different sort of types of people in Dubai. You've got the types that are going to come here that are going to live, you know, an okay life, get by, you're going to struggle, but, you know, you've got a bit of sun and whatever.

22:31but you've got the types that are going to make a decent living, but they're probably going to go home one day with the same as what they came out here with. But they've had this amazing life. They've been to the beach clubs and probably got a watch and whatever. And then you've got the ones that, yeah, which is what everyone means everything to out here. But then you've got the ones that change their lives. You've got an opportunity. I always look at, you know, you get these people that will talk to you about the dot-com boom. And back then I was driving this and now they're in a whatever, right?

22:55And they had these heyday years, but they didn't make any money. That scares the shit out of me. I look at it and think that will never be me. I looked at this opportunity and thought, I'm lucky enough to be here. I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by the people I'm surrounded by. I've had really, really good influential people that have influenced me in a really, really good way. I have to take advantage of the opportunity. And not just about making a few quid, because that's messed with me as well. But my dad always says to me, he's not getting it. He's keeping it.

23:23Ollie Ollerton: He's keeping it. Old man always says, always so for a rainy day. Always so for a rainy day. It's stuck with me for life. Yeah. Because the pandemic, when things happen, if you ain't got money, you're sort of into trouble. Yeah. And if you're not clever here, very easy, as I imagine you've seen the last couple of days, to spend. You can spend. And it's lovely, but it feels like you're spending monopoly money. If I tell you 5 ,000, yeah, sweet. It's 1 ,000 quid in the world. No, I'm not doing that. So it's a totally different concept. I also had Kieran on. He's been out here now for four months, and I'm just intrigued to find out what he had to say about what Dubai is actually really like.

23:57So I've been here for eight weeks. This is my eighth week. So I'm fairly new to doing business out here. But there's a few differences I've noticed already. It's worth mentioning Cardiff is a wonderful place, but it's quite small in comparison to London. So the opportunities are far, far less. The one thing that I've noticed is the people and their willingness to help out here. Yeah, most people that I speak to and meet for coffee are offering introductions, connections when it makes sense. In the UK, perhaps that wasn't the case. I also sense that people don't mind encouraging someone to get better or offering an opportunity for someone to get better whereas unfortunately what i experience sometimes in the uk is someone might not give you a leg up or a connection because you might be doing a little bit better after that connection there's not that out here as well it's been the best thing that i've ever done moving over here for a change of environment change of circle equally does come with some hardships as well but because it is a totally different culture dodge yeah you know the culture is really different respect over here is you know it's a high integrity place and if you're able to identify like the differences in culture and how the local emiratis you know want to do business then it's a great place but you need to understand that you're in a different world yeah have you

25:08Ollie Ollerton: found it more expensive here than about back in cardiff so cardiff for all the cities i've been to the uk was the fairest price on everything it was very very realistic over here you know things are 30 % more expensive. I would compare it to London for me. And do you know what I do? I always have like a marker of how to measure if things are expensive. Coffee in the UK, for anyone wondering, £4,£4.50. Over here, I'm paying anywhere between£6 and£9 for a coffee. So I think that's just a great little marker to estimate. So that's a four-quid coffee in London or four-quid coffee in Cardiff? Four-quid coffee in Cardiff, like a really good coffee, like a nice coffee.

25:42Here, it might be£6 to£9. So that would give you a great indication of the differences in price. but then yes it's more expensive however the quality the service and the consistency you know they really do pride themselves on hygiene standards over here and the quality

26:00Ollie Ollerton: of what they put out yeah and that comes at a price also if you were to do like a two-bed apartment in bournemouth or london versus a two-bed apartment here maybe say you pay two grand at home what would it be here three grand three and a half monthly yeah so we are in a one bed in a brand new apartment that was handed over two months ago and we're paying 115 000 dirhams which is roughly four grand no no no less uh i think that 2500 oh yeah i think roughly 2500 pounds yeah but we're in business bay if you go to somewhere like the marina for example you're probably looking at for a two bed a two bed yet easily three five to five k per month.

26:43For two better,

26:44Ollie Ollerton: in the UK it might be two and a half grand and over here it might be four or five grand. Oh yeah, just a comparison from where I was in the UK, yeah, so a one bedroom nice, well we were living in a small penthouse before and that was about£1 ,400 and yeah, the same thing over here, yeah, two to£2 ,500. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So you can't come here without money and if you do come here for a certain amount of money, there's a certain amount of time you're going to last in Dubai. that's kind of what I'm sensing there's a few different variables we were very fortunate that we work in the I guess the online space where we work in multiple different countries the only thing we had to worry about was time zones at the minute I'm doing like 8 till 9 because I'm working across 4 different time zones which is you know I'm very fortunate to do so if you've got your own business coming here it's a great place great great place you can hit the ground running I think if you come in here and you haven't got a job I see 10k online about you to say easily 10k 10 15k to get yourself secure yeah something that's just happened recently actually so prior to i think uh so 2026 they're actually changing the way that you can pay for rent over here so if you notice but prior uh right now it is checks and you often have to pay six months in one bulk payment or 12 months from the new year 2026 january you can pay monthly okay which is the first time ever in the buyer so that would be a big amount that you'd have to invest so that's changing but i think 10 10 15k because you know if you haven't got a car taxis add up yeah food add up taxis are cheap uber everywhere is like i find out really cheap out here it is if you're getting four or five a day you know because i'm going to work and podcast and i might go for some food after this everyone's got their own reasons for doing it but i i think it's i think it's a great thing to do as we just spoke about i think it's really important to go out there with a skill set that someone really wants or even more importantly to take your business out of there just to save the amount of money you will on tax.

28:33I'm looking over my shoulder to see if someone's going to rob it

28:35Ollie Ollerton: and nick off me with a bike or anything like that. I just feel like I'm freely walking around. It just feels lovely. It's so simple, I haven't got to think about it. So simple. Phone, don't rob it. No one robs it here. It was great to bump into my old management director and good friend, Ed Brown. He's been out here now for four months with his girlfriend, Kira. Kira worked for me for about four or five years on the Bournemouth Sevens Festival. Her and Ed have gone out there. They've been out there for four or five months and are absolutely loving it. From being with them, I totally get it. There's this app.

29:03Ollie Ollerton: Scan. Is that your app? Yeah, it's the app. It's your wrist scan. Yeah. Scan the QR. Yeah, it's basically like a normal scooter. That is accelerating. Push the accelerator. There you go. The handlebars are your brakes. What was great was popping into the supermarkets just to see what the prices were like. And I was blown away that the prices were cheaper than they are in London. Two quid for that. Back home, that's like a tenner. Listen, if you go into the posh hotels, you are going to be paying£25 for a cocktail. If you think big, you can achieve anything in Dubai. Entrepreneurs are being retained here because there's opportunities everywhere.

29:36Ollie Ollerton: It's blown my mind. It really has blown my mind. And I think more entrepreneurs in the UK, I can see why they're coming. Even young entrepreneurs, even like in the mid-20s, even entrepreneurs in the 30s, 40s, 50s. Things are happening here, moving quickly. Nothing's holding you back. We had a meeting booked in at the Address Hotel. Didn't really know what I was coming to until I opened the doors and it was extraordinary. The amount of money they spent on this hotel. So we had a fantastic meeting, and me being me, loves a party. I was like, right, how do you get onto the top floor? Got to the top floor, found out it was the tallest infinity pool in the world, looking over the palm.

30:09Ollie Ollerton: House music playing, bongos, people dancing, having a right laugh. This just topped it off for me, and it just made me think, the amount of money that has been spent in Dubai is extraordinary. And how many hours every day? So you work 12 hours every day for seven days? and at the end of the month you get 6000 dirhams which is the equivalent of 1200 pounds yeah you happy with this? yeah it's fine it's fine and what you do, you send your money back to a family in Pakistan? yeah okay if you did this in Pakistan would it be 2000 dirhams? yeah same like 2000 dirhams or 1500 dirhams really? yeah Wow you've worked every single day for three whole years driving this car guaranteeing to get 1 ,200 pounds at the end of each month.

31:03Ollie Ollerton: Oh my god, but no days off? No. So who pays you? My company. Your company pays you? This car is under the company. Okay. My god. So we timed our trip going out to Dubai making sure that we go to the Dubai 7s. Got in contact with the owners of Dubai 7s and very kindly they looked after all three of us, vvip all weekend the difference here is that emirates own dubai sevens and emirates pump the money into this and the levels they go to on their hospitality it's a free bar free food for three days wonderful from start to finish i thought the energy at dubai sevens i went there in 2008 and 2009 before the difference they've taken it from those last 18 years to where it is today was wonderful to see and you can't beat the energy mixing sport and music in a festival environment where are we the by sevens yeah sevens baby happy days kira we're back goodbye sevens baby again what's crazy about dubai dubai in 1970 50 odd years ago was just desert they built a stadium in the middle of the desert and created a festival all around it where there's 30 40 000 people just partying and having fun at dubai sevens been very very lucky to be given looked after by matt tate ex-england center very kind of him this place is unreal what they've built Last time I was here was 2009, and the improvement on this place, this festival, is off the charts.

32:26Ollie Ollerton: It really is. The energy, the weather, the amount of money that's been pumped into this tournament, this festival, is a dream for whoever is organising this. It really is. If you've got a pound note and you're flying in, you can set up business here. It's like the dream for any entrepreneur. Yeah, but they're attracting all the people who are making the most money because they don't have to pay any tax. Any tax, yeah. And it's super safe. The thing that might put people off, I think a lot of wives or girlfriends might see it as, I'm not going to go to Dubai. It's not for me. I want to stay where I am.

32:52Ollie Ollerton: Don't need to. But every bloke who's an entrepreneur is like, I've been there. Now I've seen it on the business side of things. This is the place to be. Yeah. If you've got to think big and make shit happen, this is the place to be. It's quick. It's quick. Everyone wants to help. Yeah, and everyone wants to help. Mate, this food is unreal. You've got all of that chicken. They reckon Dubai is expensive. You've got all this chicken here. Six pound. Singapore noodles. Four pound. Mate, this place is unreal. It's mental. And all the best food. Thank you, mate. All that food for 31 quid. So basically that's half price and the taste is wonderful.

33:22Ollie Ollerton: Basically, everything's half price if you choose wisely around here. And Dubai is not as expensive as everyone seems to think it is. Listen, if you go into the hotels, it is. The big posh hotels, you're going to be paying London prices. But there's so many places where you can eat and drink. You don't get stitched up. After every 30 days, how much you earn? 3 ,200. 3 ,200? Yes. Wow. And do you get given accommodation? Yeah, accommodation 500. 500. 500. Yes. Accommodation. And how many people sleep in one room? Six. Six people? Seven, eight. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Youth mental health is a complex challenge that requires comprehensive solutions.

33:59We must strengthen after-school programs. We must make digital literacy tools available in our schools. We must work with mental health professionals to support children. and we must empower mentors, educators and parents to keep kids happy. Learn more about our commitment to finding lasting solutions at empowerourfuturecoalition.com slash solutions. Paid for by the Coalition to Empower Our Future.

34:26Ollie Ollerton: You work seven days a week? Good man. Thank you. Wish you all the best. People from India, Pakistan, Sudan, Bangladesh, Uganda, Philippines, The average wage basically is roughly about£500 a month. Everyone then pays£100 accommodation a month. But everyone's sharing rooms between four, six, eight people. And everyone works 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Apart from the people who are on the construction site, where it's serious heavy labour, they work six days and have one day off. Where everyone else works seven days, 12 hours a day, all year round. no holiday time no rest time and then when you when you dig deeper and speak to everyone about are they happy and are you earning more money here than you are at home everyone is saying i'm i'm earning double or triple being in dubai than i am back home so i know it's cheap labor but it's also the people who are on cheap labor are also doubling their salaries to send them back to their families as well so it's a real it's kind of a catch-22 but if you're earning double or triple you'll take it and I also understand like this is really cheap labor building one of the most fascinating extraordinary cities in the world that is super super bloody safe you can walk the streets at two three o 'clock in the morning and be so safe with a girl people off running on their bikes no one's arguing there's no there's no people on the streets there's no drugs there's no anything going on here like we get back home international people are coming in flying in from all different countries now to move here because it's no income tax and you're only paying nine percent on your profits you make of uh incorporation tax here it's an extraordinary city doing massive things and if you're entrepreneurial this is the place to be if you've got that entrepreneur mindset but you can't come here you have a bit of money in your pocket uh to come here i was eating up quite quickly but what a wonderful city this is i've got to say and it's only feels like it's only just started everywhere you go they've got the most amazing convenience stores like literally every street is a massive convenience store really healthy good food in basically it feels like they've taken the best of every city around the world and tried to make this as efficient as possible and they are certainly nailing it they really are i wonder how much it is to rent let's go find how much is to rent how much is that to rent how much is this to rent three thousand dirhams how much what's that in english what's that 500 pounds do you get a lot of influencers who hire it for a day and get all their photos next to it.

36:55Ollie Ollerton: You can see why people come out to Dubai and maybe want to be an influencer driving around that in a day. I've just found out it's like£600 of rent for the day. So be careful who you're following people because there'll be people out there who aren't the real deal. Villa we can buy and underground there is floating in the sea. How much is this? 22 million dirhams. 22 million dirhams. What's that in pounds? 5 billion. 4 million. 4 million pounds. What is it? Wow. Can you hear the tunes? I can hear Oak Beach now. Let's go and see Truman and see what Oak Beach is all about in Dubai. I find it amazing, fascinating how they managed to get Oak Beach, which is a big party Ibiza day club, which is absolutely smashing it in Ibiza.

37:35Ollie Ollerton: I think it's about a£30 million turnover business in like six months. And then the other six months, now they're coming to Dubai. You hear the tunes? I'm going to go and see Truman and have a chat with him. I can't wait to see what everyone's buzzing around. I popped into Obeach Club to see my old pal Tony Truman. He's the owner of Obeach. And that man knows how to do hospitality. He's the most generous human being I've ever met in my life. And he's a visionary. And if he say he's going to do something, he'll do it. He's showing me around. And he was like showing me the cabanas they built, the VIP cabanas.

38:03Ollie Ollerton: And what he was showing me and what they've created. and for them to follow through and the money they spend is massive, massive respect. They are the best in the business of what they do. And I think what they've added there is a huge asset to Dubai City itself. Bloody hell, O Beach Club Dubai is off the charts. The amount of money they've spent in there on creating a pool party is unbelievable. It's extraordinary. It really, really is. If you come to Ibiza and you go to O Beach Club and you love that, if you come to Dubai, you go to O Beach Club, you're going to absolutely love this. He really is a wonderful, wonderful human being.

38:33Ollie Ollerton: and what he's doing out in Dubai now is really going to a whole new level. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being extremely hard, what's Ibiza Obeach Club building that brand and business model there? And what is it on a scale of 1 to 10 doing exactly the same in Dubai? Harder here. Harder. Harder. I'll definitely say that. Because it's a different market. Ibiza is built on tourism. Right here, people actually live here. They work here. They go to work Monday to Friday, normal like routine. So you're appealing to an element of tourists. We're probably getting about 20 % tourists, but it's 80 % of people who live here.

39:13So they spend in different ways. They're not all like, you know, when they come to Ibiza, it's full of weekend millionaires every day of the week. And it Mondays, Tuesdays, every night's a Saturday night. Out here, it's a lot more, right, we'll go out on a Friday afternoon, Friday night, Saturday's the big day out here. Sunday, you get a semi-decent day. But in the week, people just don't go clubbing so much. They go to restaurants and things like that. So, you know, that's one of the many, many challenges here. I think one of the biggest challenges was about the dance floor. Yes. For me, it was getting people on the dance floor.

39:45Where in Ibiza, you – because over here, it's over 21, all the places for drinking. So you're losing – You're missing out on those people of three years. You're missing out on those people of three years. And those people between 18 and 21 are the people who buy a ticket to come in, buy a drink at the bar and go on the dance floor straight away. You know, they're the vibe of any club, any business. You've got to have a... Yeah, but here, people don't. They want to stand around the table, smoking shisha, a lot more reserves. So they don't sort of let loose so much and everything. So that was one of our biggest challenges was how can I get people on that dance floor?

40:18Ollie Ollerton: What's the biggest challenge and who have you got to deal with? Like, at home, you'd be dealing with the council or the government or who are you dealing with out here to get everything passed? Same here. There's loads of different... municipality things that you have to get past and local tourism stuff and everything a lot still a lot but i think in ibiza that can take a long time that can really drag out here they're like right we'll give you an answer in seven days we'll give you an answer in 30 days and everything it's a bit more structured in in that sense you know there's a lot more people on it where ibiza you know there's local town hall great that they are but they're stretched their limits in in personnel out here there's there's jobs galore isn't there that everywhere's a different sort of league over here everything in Ibiza's a bit more rustic and stuff like that and over here everything's very polished very marble very bling so I think we've done that but I think we've done it too much so okay in hindsight really how much do you spend from start to finish to open that club roughly oh how much yeah uh dodged you know i actually don't like talking about numbers really i'll tell you privately i'll tell you privately but a lot a lot a lot of money are we talking north of 20 mil or south of 20 mil north yeah but but but that is with rent up front as well because it's very different over here.

41:46You get offered an opportunity if you're going to take somewhere, either buy it, lease it, or joint venture on it and everything. We had an opportunity where they were going to give us a certain fee, what they're going to charge us. We could have the option to pay that 10 years in advance or they take a percentage of your turnover, right? You've got two options. What did you pick? We chose to pay 10 years rent up front. big move big big gamble big ballsy gamble and everything but we thought we was quite confident in our predictions of what we forecasted with turnover we thought well if we pay 10 years up if we give them percentage of turnover after 3 years you know and then with things

42:28Ollie Ollerton: when you're on percentage of turnover they're now looking at your books they're looking at your they're on top of you on your shoulder you don't want that you don't want that go away let me pay my rent exactly same with me with the festival that's my rent because the initial one with the festival was like okay I'll charge you per person that comes in. Yeah. Oh, 30 ,000 people come. I don't even charge me a per person. No, exactly. There's your rent. You know where you stand. We know where we stand. Yeah. So that's what we thought. We thought, all right, we'll go for that option. But it was a big, big financial outlay.

42:53Huge financial outlay. Like I say, ballsy. You know, it's sort of wiped us out at the moment, you know, financially. It takes a few years to get that back as well. So the last couple of years of not all the other challenges in Dubai, the financial challenges of like, you know, where you're not earning any money. Everyone sort of looks at you and thinks, oh my God, you're super loaded, got all these venues, blah, blah, blah. But you don't realise what we actually put back in and what we actually put back into Ibiza each year as well, what we spend on maintaining that and as well as our other businesses.

43:25Ollie Ollerton: I want to take you back to the year when Dubai was serious. When you were in Ibiza, you've got a well-oiled machine there going 13 years, ticking all the boxes, lots of boxes. It's ram-o'd as we know. I want to know the year when you were like, right, we're definitely going to go for Dubai now. What year was that? That came about, what year was the pandemic start? 2020. Yeah, 2019, about 2018, 2019. So before the pandemic came, you're thinking, right, we want to be doing this. Oh, yeah, we had another site. Yeah. I don't know if you know this story. We had another site on West Palm. West Palm Beach on the palm now has come a really sort of big area now with all the bars, February 13th, surf, everything up there.

44:05Right at the end, there's this huge, great big unit. It was sort of split in two, this unit. And we got the opportunity off Nikhil, who owned the Palm, to take this unit. So it was a big, big place as well. What was it? It was just a commercial space. They were in the process of building it. Their original idea was for a giant beach club, which was going to service all the people on the Palm. And then I think they got cold feet about doing it themselves. They looked out for a couple of operators and they approached us. They said, would you be interested in this place? So we jumped at it. We thought, amazing.

44:37but West Palm wasn't anything there. There was not one venue open apart from five right down the other end. So we took it. We'd done a deal. We paid the rent and everything got it. What, 10 years up? Not 10 years up. No, this one was a yearly rental fee. So you gave them a year up front, so we definitely won it. Yeah, we paid the year up front. We paid the deposit on the derelict space. We had all the plans done. We had all the drawings. They gave us the keys. Me and Dwayne done this big video, us walking through the door on this building site. Look what we were open. And got millions and millions of views.

45:07two weeks later, we get a call from them. We get a call from them. Hi, guys. And then we started hearing about this outbreak in China and this was going to cripple the world and this pandemic. But obviously, we're all still, really? Is this really going to happen? But then it started coming more and more real. So then the owners called us and they said, listen, guys, there's this thing going on in the way, you know, there's a potential pandemic. Do you want to have your money back? Because we're probably not going to be open. They said that to you. They said that to us. They called us in. Fair play to them.

45:39Yeah, well, we thought fair play. We thought fair play at the time. But after something else totally transpired from it, they'd had actually an offer for four different beach clubs to take that one space that we had with the same amount of rent per thing. Right, okay. But we didn't know that at the time. We just thought, you know what? This is going to really be bad for the world. Let's take our money, which I'm so glad that we did because that money that we got back gave us enough, really, to get through the pandemic ourselves. You know, Dwayne had been very prudent in all the money that he'd sort of saved up and how he sort of handled all of that side of things.

46:13And Dwayne is your business partner? Dwayne's my business partner, yeah. Bang on the ball? Bang on the ball, absolutely. How old's Dwayne? Dwayne is 40, I think he's 41 now. He's 41 the other day. Okay. Top fella, great fella. Been my business partner for 17, 18 years now. And who's that? Wayne's son? Wayne's son, yeah. Are they very similar?

46:33Ollie Ollerton: Everyone thinks of me and Wayne run it. It's people who know it's me and Dwayne who do it, you know, as well as Maxi and our other partners that are involved and stuff. So that deposit you put down, how much deposit did you have to put down for that venue there? Can you remember? I think it was about three million. Pounds? Yeah, euros. Yeah, euros. We're always talking euros, yeah. I think it was about, you rent deposit, you rent it up front. It was round about that. And then obviously we had the money that we were going to build the place. we still had to build it out. How much would that come in that roughly?

47:05That would have come out about 10 to 15 million.

47:09Ollie Ollerton: Bloody hell true. Yeah. Jumping straight into Dubai with that. Mate, that's fucking... I started this podcast off with, I was saying we're mad, didn't I? We also had Maximilian White on the podcast, who's one of Dubai's first British billionaires. He's got over 9 million followers on Instagram and he's known as that boy you hate. He earned his money through events, hospitality and selling weed. Who would have ever thought weed and Dubai go together? Being known as the first billionaire in cannabis. Are you a billionaire? Yeah, a single billionaire, yeah. So not a... Mate, hold on, hold on. Yeah.

47:43Cheers, brother. Thank you.

47:44Ollie Ollerton: How would you explain a billionaire? A million seconds. Do you know how long that is in time? I think it's like three days or something, yeah? But do you know what a billion seconds is? That times a thousand, right? It's 30 years. You know, because everyone would say, oh, you're a billionaire. You say, oh, yeah, my mum's a millionaire. I think anyone that owns a nice property in the UK is a millionaire now. I don't think they're... That's one way of looking at it. The other way is, have you got a million liquid? Yeah. So I've been both. I've been liquid and in assets. Look, I mean, now with your company, I mean, when I exit my company, that's where I'll become very, very liquid.

48:20You know, there's a lot of debt. There's a lot of, you know, it's not as, you know, like, what's it called? Notorious B.I.G., more money, more problems. it's you know your problems are excel but the company's the company in essence is is is worth a lot of money you're rich but you're not wealthy you know it's very easy to become rich it's very hard to stay rich you know and you know that's something i'm navigating through my life now to make sure that i have multiple passive incomes you know and i know where my next bread and butter coming from even as a billionaire you don't know because a lot of it's debts a lot of it's you know lucrative debt which means working debt which is healthy yeah yeah as we were talking before the podcast and he started saying to me about money and what money does so I I don't believe money buys you happiness but it gives you more options to make better decisions and one thing that I've found in life is that you know um the more money I have the the better options I can the better decisions I can make the more options I have and then I don't have to be around people I don't want to be around or work with people I don't want to work with some people say to me oh well let's make money together I don't like I'm not interested how much money money's not an issue it's not about money it's about success and enjoying the journey but then same time rewind it you know if you work in a dead-end job in i mean excuse me for this a mcdonald's or something you know and you don't like your boss you haven't really got a choice the unemployment rate in england is flying up like that so if you're middle class the uk the uk the uk is in real big trouble the uk is in serious

49:42Ollie Ollerton: trouble you think you're middle class you've got there is no middle class there are more middle classes blending in with the poor right now and then they've got control of you the middle class was wiped out by COVID. There was an exchange of money, finances, 14 trillion exchange during COVID. There is no middle class. The small businesses have suffered. They're gone. There is no Royal Mail no more. It's DHL, it's FedEx. The big companies have come in, they're controlling everything now. I mean, it's very, very sad. It will never affect the poor people because you're poor, you're poor, you live inside your means and stuff.

50:15The wealth you're going to get, as they always say, the rich gets richer, the poor get poorer.

50:20Ollie Ollerton: This is the biggest I've seen in my adulthood. Now what's going on? We've had a fascinating week out here. What I found interesting is the amount of people from different countries working out here. And all the ones I spoke to were really happy with their wages because they were double bubble compared to what they're getting at home. Listen, I'm sure there are people out here who aren't happy with their wages, but I guess that happens all around the world. But from what I saw, there was a lot of happy people working out here earning a lot more than they would do back home. So we're here now. We're outside the Burj Khalifa.

50:50Ollie Ollerton: It's the tallest building in the world. 2 ,700 feet tall. It is absolutely huge. Walking along, there is no problem whatsoever. Like in London now, I'll be looking over my left shoulder, looking over my right shoulder before I'm about to WhatsApp. So left, right, left, right, then I'd WhatsApp. Here, just walking along, there's no street crime. No one's robbing anyone. Everyone's really respectful. They've got laws here that if you break them, you're in trouble. and I just wish at home, if you broke laws at home in England, you'll be in serious trouble. Shopping here and you've got Rolex, you've got Cartier, Hermes, Valentino.

51:29Ollie Ollerton: It's like there's so much money around here in Dubai. Whether it's people, whether it's investment, this is mind-blowing. Even in one of the Dubai moors now, we've got Ben Francis' Gymshark. He's done well for himself. I know it's not all down to him, but he was the brainchild of it and the team around him, what he's built and what they've built. And the investment's been pumped into it. It's been on another level. Massive respect, Ben. Everything you've done, Jim Sharp, goodbye. The biggest thing that I got from this week is that everyone wants to help everyone. There's a lot of optimism. There's a lot of positive energy.

52:04Ollie Ollerton: They've got the suns out as well. People are wanting to help other people succeed in business. And what I realised, people flying in from different parts of the world, entrepreneurs just opening doors. There's no gatekeepers. I can't speak highly enough of this place. I know I was only there for a week and I'm sure there's lots of different things going on behind the scenes. But for me, Dubai was absolutely wonderful.

52:46Learn more about our commitment to finding lasting solutions at empowerourfuturecoalition.com slash solutions. Paid for by the Coalition to Empower Our Future.