UAE: How $1 Course, Borrowed Money Helped Resident Build Growing Media Agency

In 2016, a university student in Abu Dhabi clicked on a $1 digital marketing course - an investment that would set him on a path he never imagined. Yazan Bassam, then struggling to find his place in higher education, had experimented with aerospace, aeronautical, and automotive engineering before finally enrolling in civil engineering. Nothing seemed to fit. But that $1 course changed everything.

“I was a student at the time, so I had no resources, no budget. I invested this dollar and this is where everything literally got started," Bassam told Khaleej Times.

“To get into the game, I had to invest more money. I had to borrow money from my co-founder-it was her tuition fees. We had to risk it and invest it into marketing courses.”

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The early days were far from easy. Bassam faced the challenges of starting from zero: no reputation, no portfolio, and endless rejections.“There were so many people who didn't even reply to my emails or calls,” he recalled. With no team to support him, he handled everything himself - building websites, managing social media accounts, creating content, and editing videos late into the night while attending classes by day.

Challenges

His very first clients were a local salon in Abu Dhabi-still with Bassam's agency , YAZ Media, to this day-and Tramontina, a billion-dollar kitchenware company.

For Tramontina, Bassam said,“They were in 14 different regions in the world, but in the UAE, they had no online presence. We created their website from scratch, launched their social media accounts, and started creating campaigns. By now, they were making the most sales across all the other 14 regions.”

With trust slowly built, the agency expanded through referrals.“Honestly speaking, it's fully because of the great work that the team has been achieving,” said Bassam.“We were delivering value, and clients were referring us to everyone else around them.” Even the COVID-19 pandemic became a moment of resilience rather than collapse.“Our business model is digital, so we assisted our clients not to fully shut down but rather take the opportunity and make it to their advantage,” he said.

Today, YAZ Media, has more than doubled its growth in the past year in terms of client base, employees, and turnover, according to Bassam. The agency has also been recognised regionally for its creativity and innovation, winning accolades in 2022 and 2023. The latest milestone came this week when the company was named 13th on Adweek's Fastest Growing Agencies 2025.“We applied for it, and then they fact-check everything-client base, number of employees, growth percentage. Adweek is the most prestigious one ever,” he explained.

Looking ahead

Despite the crowded UAE market, Bassam believes his agency stood out by adapting quickly. In 2019, the team produced one of the country's first viral CGI social media videos-a Valentine's Day campaign projected onto the Burj Khalifa-garnering millions of views.

Now, he is steering the company toward what he calls an“Arabic-first” future.“We want to be the first kind of Arabic-first agency here in the Middle East,” he said.“We don't just translate or localise content. We create it originally from Arabic, with the culture and words that people actually use here in the region.”

At just 30 years old, Bassam says doubts never stopped him from pushing forward.“Of course I felt doubts-what am I doing? Is it right? Is it not right?” he admitted.“But it felt like this is it. This is where I want to be. This is what I want to do all the time.”

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