My Dubai Salary: ‘I did not take a salary for seven and a half years as a tech start-up founder'

The National

a day ago

Sophie Smith recalls how she decided to never be financially dependent on anyone while growing up in the UK. However, as the founder and chief executive of Nabta Health, a UAE-based healthcare platform for women, she has not drawn a salary in all but several months over the past eight years.
As her company is fully backed by angel investors, the Briton, 36, does not feel comfortable receiving monthly pay and instead takes an incentive every quarter. She's currently financially dependent on her husband since moving to Dubai in 2016.
Before founding Nabta Health, Ms Smith owned four companies in three years – a doctor-finding, appointment-booking platform in Pakistan, a plastic recycling company in Sierra Leone, a health tech consultancy and a software development company, both in the UK.
Nabta Health combines digital and traditional health care to offer preventive care to women.
'Our platform supports in diagnosing chronic health conditions and navigating specific stages as a woman, for example, support with fertility and family planning, after birth, and menopause,' she says.
'To date, my company has been entirely backed by angel investors. We have 68 angel investors in total, most of whom invested through special purpose vehicles, but with investments ranging from $1,000 up to $1 million.'
The company has raised $4 million to date and opened a pre-series A funding round of $6 million to expand the platform and acquire new clinics in the UAE.
Ms Smith lives with her four children and husband, a lawyer, in a villa in Al Barsha South.
She has an MA Cantab (masters in history) from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from the Quantic School of Business and Technology.
What was your first job and salary?
I started as an analyst with Accenture and worked there for four years before leaving to found my first company. I started on a salary of £32,000 ($43,348) per year and it came with a golden handshake of £5,000, which felt like an absolute fortune for a new graduate in 2010. I was promoted to consultant after 14 months and was on track to be promoted to manager when I quit. I left because I wanted to chart my own growth curve.
I had put part of my salary into Accenture's stock programme and by the time I left, I had about £25,000 saved. I took that money and put it into my first company, a health tech consultancy.
What is your salary now?
When I started work on Nabta Health, I closed down the businesses I had in the UK and was dependent on my husband and the salary he was drawing from his new job in Dubai in 2017. Nabta was self-funded in very small parts by me and my founding investor, to the tune of $92,000 over 15 to 18 months. Since we have raised capital in non-traditional ways, we've never had a significant amount of runway, and I have never felt comfortable with the notion of taking a salary because the company needs the money.
I didn't take a salary for the first seven-and-a-half years of Nabta's life until we'd achieved product-market fit in July 2024. I attached myself to the company as the general manager and started to take a salary of Dh33,300 ($9,067) per month after we closed our first $1 million investment, plus an additional Dh12,200 per month which accrues and is paid out quarterly only if we hit our revenue targets. I took the salary for two months before reverting to 100 per cent accrual to support our runway.
Not taking a salary has placed a huge financial strain on our family. When we came to the UAE, we had no children and now we have four. Our costs as a family have increased 300 per cent.
Do you manage to save and invest?
I had savings before I started my first business. But since then, I've put every penny into my companies. I have a small cryptocurrency account, a couple of savings accounts and a few investments in different start-ups that are mostly through sweat equity.
I'm a firm believer in having a diversified portfolio of investments and putting your capital to work, especially as a woman. If I had more liquidity, I'd have a more structured investment portfolio. I would also invest into stocks, bonds and safer and more traditional asset classes. I hope to be able to invest in real estate at some point. In the next couple of years as Nabta continues to grow and stabilise us financially, when I'll be able to start taking a regular salary, I hope to put aside probably 10 per cent of that every month to invest into different asset classes.
Do you have any debt?
We have a couple of credit cards as a family and try to pay them off every month. At different points over the years, we have ended up taking out loans, usually secured against my husband's salary. Within the business, I've taken debt at various points.
Growing up, were you taught how to handle your finances?
I was not. My father was the sole breadwinner in a house with eight children and he took quite a lot of risks. He co-founded four schools, so he remortgaged our house to support these schools. He managed his finances very closely, but on the flip side, he gave my mom a hard time about money. Growing up, I remember thinking that I'm never going to be financially dependent on anybody. It was one of the reasons why I was so determined to start my own business.
What are your major monthly expenses?
Rent and school fees. My personal expenses and company overheads are separate. If my husband and I end up covering any of Nabta's expenses, which has occurred when cash flow has been tight, those are rigorously documented and paid back when the company can afford it.
Do you have an emergency fund?
Yes, our family's emergency fund can sustain us for three months.
What do you spend your disposable income on?
I spend it on things to manage my health. I take dancing lessons, run, get regular massages and buy new sports equipment every now and then. I also see a Chinese energetics practitioner once a quarter.
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Do you worry about money?
I worry a lot about money in the context of the company, specifically making payroll and the implications of financial instability of everybody we employ because I am their support system.
In the context of my family, I worry about money less because of a very strong support base in the UK. If anything were to happen, we could go back and stay with my family for however long it takes us to normalise.
What are your financial goals?
Financial sustainability for the company, first and foremost. And then I would like to get to a position where I could sustain my family as a sole breadwinner. I never intended to be in a position where I was financially dependent on somebody. Everybody should enter adult life assuming they can be financially independent. There are all sorts of hidden power dynamics associated with money. In an increasingly volatile world, entering the workforce and adulthood on an even footing is a good thing.
What is your idea of financial freedom?
To be in a position where you aren't actively worrying about surviving day to day, either in a professional or personal context. I want my company to be able to capitalise on growth opportunities to hire the right people and pay them good money to create financial stability.