In an off-record session designed to encourage candid discussion, we hosted Ghaida Al-Atiwi, founder and CEO of Aleena. At just 17, she began her entrepreneurial journey and went on to build a brand now competing with global fashion giants such as Shein and Zara.

 The conversation was moderated by Lubna Al-Zahim from Sifr Li Wahid

Ghaida’s journey began at 17 when she invented a travel bidet and joined the Bader incubator program. The product performed reasonably well at first, but its success was limited as similar products soon appeared and manufacturing costs favored larger corporations

She then shifted gears into a new space: stylish travel care kits filled with essential items for frequent travelers. This transition led her to develop a product that would open the door to fashion, a silk pillowcase

She launched her silk product with a single influencer and saw strong initial results. Motivated by this, she increased production and marketing significantly, only to face challenges when the results did not match the first trial. At that point, she hired a marketing agency that failed to deliver, so she and her team learned marketing themselves through trial and error, an experience she describes as a turning point.

All these ups and downs eventually led her to discover the fashion sector and achieve significant success. To identify what direction to take in fashion products, she began attending gatherings and asking women where they shopped for clothes and which pieces they spent the most on. She stressed one key point: she never revealed she was planning to start a business in the sector, because once people know, they tend to give “perfect” answers that don’t reflect reality.

When asked about the hardest part of running a business, she emphasized cash-flow management: always keep your forecasts extremely conservative and leave yourself a comfortable margin, otherwise you risk being stuck. She also pointed out that medium is consistently the size with the highest demand.

Ghaida highlighted how vast and diverse the fashion sector is, with many tiers and each having its own competitors. She noted that Shein, for example, operates in fast fashion, where quality and customer experience are compromised in exchange for low prices. She added that in fashion overall, a reasonable profit margin to target is around 15 percent, though it can be much higher for luxury brands with premium pricing.

Asked about marketing, she explained that what benefited them most was running many small-budget experiments. She gave the example of Ninja, which targeted TikTok users with very limited budgets in its early days, achieving excellent results while keeping costs under control.

She also shared that she has completed three rounds with angel investors. All the products fell under one company; legally she could have created a new company for each successful product, but her investors’ trust from day one made her view them as true partners.

The session ended informally over coffee, giving the audience a chance to connect with one another and reflect on the insights shared.