Founder and Managing Director of Drink Dry, all-round wonder woman, Erika Doyle offers some sage advice worth bookmarking
NAME: Erika Blazeviciute Doyle
AGE: 34
INSTAGRAM HANDLE: erika_drinkdry
JOB TITLE: Founder & Managing Director, Drink Dry
Entrepreneur extraordinaire Erika is the Founder of the GCC’s first and only premium non alcoholic drinks marketplace, headquartered in the UAE. With a carefully curated selection of alcohol free beers, wines cocktails and other craft beverages to suit everyone’s palate, Drink Dry prefer quality over quantity and only offer the very best that the category has to offer. Always on-the-go, Erika admits she is part of the '5am' club. Waking up before her children and husband ensures she has an extra hour in the house before the rest of the 'house' wakes up and says: "My mornings are most definitely taken up by family routine, school drop offs and I am usually in the office by 8am. Running a fast growing start-up is the same – quite literally. Some days I have to wear my marketing hat on, and then switch to commercial calculators and work closely with our social media team – all at the same time. I do have an active fitness lifestyle and so I work out a minimum of 3 times a week as well."
#LIFELESSON – 1
The most important lesson I have learnt in life is that actions speak louder than words, always. I strongly believe that this is valuable in our personal lives as well as in the world of business. For example, my children very often fail to hear what I tell them but they never fail to imitate me. So if I am trying to teach them and tell them about generosity and kindness, it is a lot more powerful to show them what it looks like in real life by being generous and kind to those around us. The same applies in the world of business – our actions are what defines us.
I started my business in 2021 and we have grown from a one woman show to now almost 15 people in the team full time. I have been able to attract the top talent in the market to come and join us with a promise of offering a supportive and flexible working environment above all else. Every single day, I show the team that they are the most important asset in our business – by supporting working mums with paid time off when their kids are sick or offering the option to work from their home country in the school holidays without having a cap on the number of days they can work from abroad. The company also supports the people by offering them financial support if they have any significant changes in their personal lives like house moves or family members relocating and joining them here in Dubai.
#LIFELESSON – 2
The second biggest lesson I have learnt in life is that it is much more beneficial to focus on solutions rather than the problems themselves. A lot of businesses, or families for that matter of fact too, have a blame culture that exists within. When a mistake happens or if there is a problem, a lot of people tend to go down the route of looking someone to blame for the mistake or the problem that has occurred. This is incredibly counter productive and does not solve anything. I am a strong advocate for ‘solution first’ so when any of my team members come to me and tell me about the issue they are facing, I always look to find a solution first. After that, we look into why it happened and how can we prevent it from happening again. This increases productivity and makes everyone around you more relaxed and at ease.
#LIFELESSON – 3
The final and probably the most personal life lesson that I have learnt is that our environment and the people we surround ourselves with is of paramount importance to our wellbeing and success. From our family lives and the spouses or partners we have and the support we feel from them, to the work colleagues and friends that we associate with. Humans are not robots and our emotions and our emotional wellbeing has a direct impact on our physical wellbeing, our happiness and our day to day performance. Time is too precious to have any negative people around us who do not support us and people with whom we don’t share the same vision in life. Be protective of yourself and focus on making your environment a really positive one.
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