Idea to Empire | Founder Stories from UAE

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Harrison Moore had already seen the inside of a short-term rental business before he started Vacationer. He had also seen the spreadsheets, the patchwork of software, and the chaos that came with it. He decided he would build it differently.

In 2022, with Dubai reopening and everyone piling into the holiday-home market, he launched Vacationer. Three years later: 500+ homes, 29 people, eleven neighbourhoods.

In this episode, Jenna sits down with Harrison to talk about what he saw in the market that others missed, what scaling from ten properties to three hundred actually felt like, and why he believes complexity is the thing that quietly kills growth. They also get into one of the hardest parts of the business: looking after people’s most valuable assets while hosting strangers inside them, and how you build that trust on both sides when one bad night can undo months of work.

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Yasmin Hussain left Manchester, landed in Dubai in 2012 with a camera, and started again. What followed was a photography studio, a makeup institute, thousands of faces through the door, and a live crocodile that required thirteen hours of makeup.

Then in October 2020 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and chose to share the whole thing publicly.

In this episode, Jenna sits down with Yasmin to talk about what it actually felt like to arrive in Dubai with nothing but a vision, how she built YH Studios from scratch, what the city taught her about making people feel beautiful, and why she decided her cancer journey was not something to keep private. They also get into the belief that has shaped everything she does: there is no such thing as a bad subject, only a photographer who has not found their best yet.

It is one of the most honest and genuinely moving conversations we have had on Idea to Empire.

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Melissa McAllister was a professional dancer in Dubai. Then the glamour stopped being enough. She found breathwork at one of the lowest points of her life, broke in Dubai with no home and no money and built something from that place that she has refused to let lose its soul ever since.

Lucy Trott’s world is people and culture. What she saw inside companies and inside women told her that a space like House of Her had to exist.

Together they built it.

In this episode, Jenna sits down with both founders to talk about how they met, how an idea became a brand with a name on it and what it actually means to build an empire when the foundation is softness and healing. They also get into the question neither of them had said out loud to each other yet.

Two founders. Two very different backgrounds. One genuinely honest conversation.

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Thirteen years. AED 2.2 billion in sales. A front-row seat at the very top of the Dubai property market.

Liam Jeffrey has closed nine-figure deals, built AI tools to sharpen his edge, and built a reputation for saying what the rest of the industry keeps off camera. In this episode, he takes us back to the beginning, breaks down what buyers at the ultra-prime level actually want, and shares his predictions for where the Dubai market goes next.

Idea to Empire is hosted by Jenna Jenkins, sitting down with entrepreneurs and business owners from across Dubai and the UAE to hear how they actually built what they built. No scripts, no corporate answers, just honest conversations.