Tyra Banks launches Smize & Dream in UAE

Gulf News

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00:00Good afternoon, I'm right here at a cafe in Jumeirah and I'm waiting for supermodel Tyra

00:13Banks.

00:14She's turning entrepreneur in Dubai and she's introducing her own brand of ice cream here

00:19in the UAE.

00:20In a few minutes, we will talk about how she launched her own empire perhaps, and can women

00:26have it all?

00:27These are the questions that I intend to ask the supermodel, who now is a super businesswoman

00:31we are told.

00:32Let's find out what her dreams are just like the title of her ice cream.

00:36Yes.

00:37My favorite ice cream memory is every Friday night when I was in elementary school, primary

00:41school with my mama, we would get in the car and drive to Hollywood Boulevard and get ice

00:48cream.

00:49And we would sit in the car and my mama would tell me all of her dreams.

00:52Sometimes she would cry, she was a single mom, you know, about like what she needs to

00:55do to make our life as our family, my brother and my life better.

00:59She dreamed that every year we would get another bedroom because she was sleeping in the living

01:03room.

01:04She was sleeping on the floor.

01:06She gave my brother and I the bedroom.

01:08And so these were these moments over ice cream, dreaming, crying, laughing.

01:13And so ice cream means so much more to me.

01:14It means dreams and it means nostalgia, it means family for women to be entrepreneurs

01:18at all.

01:19No, so many things are against us, you know, when it comes to market entry, when it comes

01:23to raising money.

01:24There are so many things.

01:26So when you see a woman entrepreneur and she's successful, just know that she went through

01:30hell to get there and it's not a destination that she has to continue to fight for her

01:35place and her right to be that entrepreneur.

01:38But my hope and my dream is that women entrepreneurs, even, you know, working women, that we're

01:44doing these things, you know, to open the doors for our children and our daughters so

01:47they don't have it as difficult as we do.

01:50My biggest cheerleader, hmm, I would love to say it was my mother because my mother

01:55has been my cheerleader for everything, but she hasn't been in this.

01:59She is like, you are working too damn hard.

02:01I don't ever see you.

02:03All I see you doing is eating ice cream all the time and you're not taking care of yourself.

02:07And what are you doing?

02:08So like it's the opposite.

02:09My mom feels like I'm actually too focused.

02:12And normally she's like, yes, go, go, go.

02:13This time she's like, slow down.

02:15But I think she doesn't understand that entrepreneurship is so much different than actually you being

02:21the model or the host.

02:23Like there's a whole separate nonstop work that I have to do to make sure that this business

02:29is successful.

02:30So it's R&D, it's traveling the world, it's strategy, it's marketing, it's finance.

02:36And my hands and feet and my whole body are in every single part of this because 90% of

02:41new businesses fail and Smize and Dream will not fail.

02:46I think that women can have it all.

02:48But the one thing that we have to realize is that we can have it all, but it's not going

02:50to be perfect.

02:51You know, when you are working hard and you're at work or you're an entrepreneur, you know,

02:57like you're not necessarily going to be there every single day, you know, to make dinner.

03:01You're not going to be there every single day to read to your baby.

03:04Or if you're a stay at home mom and you are, you know, because that is a full time job,

03:09a serious hardcore job, you're not going to really be able to be there and, you know,

03:13to do certain things.

03:14So it's like, we can't be perfect with everything, but having it all is also a mindset, a state

03:20of mind.

03:21So it's all about expectations, where are your expectations?

03:24And if you are meeting those expectations, you have it all.

03:27And if you're not, then you just have to dream harder.

03:29So I chose the UAE because there's many, many, many reasons.

03:34First of all, we have, we're flying on an airplane, we're flying on Qatar Airways.

03:37So that was like a natural thing, you know, like we're flying on Qatar Airways.

03:41We've been spending so much time here.

03:43I actually hadn't really spent a lot of time in the UAE.

03:45I had one trip to Dubai with one of my classmates.

03:49I went to Harvard Business School's owner president management program, friend of mine

03:53named Ashraf.

03:54What up Ashraf?

03:55He invited my friend Marie and I to Dubai, like totally treated us to like an amazing

04:00experience and I hadn't been back since.

04:02Then I started coming back for work and I was like, whoa, this place is all about family.

04:06Whoa, wait.

04:08You know, like there's women in these boardrooms, whoa, they're like in 50 years, they created

04:12this?

04:13Like, you know, so there was just, I felt like there was opportunity.

04:16I felt like there was, you know, even though I do see women doing the things in boardrooms,

04:19they still have a long way to go and I want to be a part of that.

04:22And I feel like, and Smize and Dream is a global company and we're starting here and

04:27then we will expand to other continents, to other countries.

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