The voices behind RA TechGroup are Raghad, myself, and my supportive husband, Adnan. Having our own business is a new adventure in our lives, a new chapter with challenges that we seized the opportunity to explore and confront.

Our journey started when my husband lost his job due to sickness. We started thinking about some sustainable business model that we could both run and that could be managed anywhere and anytime.

Prior to running this site, Adnan had more than 14 years of experience in customer service. Dealing with hundreds of customers every day, his customers realised his passion, honesty, and trustworthiness at work. Then, I asked him, "Why do you not start your own store?" After much deliberation, the concept of an online store emerged.

With the idea of an online store, I was thinking about this new challenge in my life, but with our own business, now for the two of us. As someone who has spent a significant amount of my life in academia as an educator and researcher, I have come a long way in my career in higher education (I have a PhD in engineering, a professional engineering Canadian license, and now work as a college professor). I was thinking about how I can balance my currently busy work schedule with our new business. I need to learn a lot! Do I have time for this? I've always been a person who organises her time to get her work done, so I can do it. I told myself that I faced many challenges, especially during my PhD, and I was able to manage them successfully and beyond my expectations. Why can't I do it now? To be honest, being an engineer helps you develop a mindset that allows you to manipulate and overcome any obstacles; every engineer is wired to succeed. Then I see an opportunity for myself on this website! I came up with the idea to start a blog section on our website to share my thoughts and information in my specialist with others.

 

Challenge ourselves

We had a long discussion about "how we start," since Adnan’s previous business model was in a physical store, not online, and I, as a person working in academia, have no previous experience running an online store business. I have told Adnan that we can learn; now that all resources are available online (courses, tools, blogs,  etc.), let’s start and build it step by step. After months of learning, discussions, and debate with each other, we are here. launching our website.