Sometimes the biggest business ideas begin with something almost ordinary.
For Azem Alkam, it started with a visit to a pharmacy. At first, the 24-year-old Dubai-born entrepreneur thought the nasal strip he had discovered was simply another kind of bandage. Then he learned what it was designed to do: help open the nasal passages and make breathing feel easier.
That small discovery eventually became the foundation of Strideit, a UAE wellness brand built around a simple question: what if better breathing could become part of everyday performance, training and wellbeing?
Today, Azem is building Strideit around more than a product. His ambition is to create a community that encourages people to move, train, recover, work and live better.
From Dubai to the World
Before becoming a founder, Azem took a different kind of journey.
Born and raised in Dubai, he graduated as an engineer but chose not to immediately follow the conventional professional path. Instead, he went travelling alone across the world.
The experience became an education of its own.
Solo travel exposed him to different cultures, languages and ways of life. More importantly, it gave him time to think about what he actually wanted to dedicate his life to.
While exploring the world, Azem was also developing ideas in his head. The concept that would eventually become Strideit began taking shape during this period of travel and self-discovery.
Eventually, he returned to Dubai with a clearer purpose.
He was ready to build.
The Moment Strideit Began
The idea behind Strideit was not created overnight.
After discovering nasal strips, Azem began using them himself and experimenting with how they could fit into his own training.
The experience changed his perspective.
He began asking why a product associated largely with sleeping and snoring was not being discussed more seriously in the context of training and sport.
That question became the starting point for Strideit’s identity.
Azem did not want to simply sell another version of an existing product. He wanted to rethink the experience around it, particularly for athletes and active people.
On January 22, 2025, he officially started Strideit.
For him, the business was never simply about chasing revenue. It was about building something from scratch, developing products he could believe in and creating a community around the idea of better everyday routines.
Reengineering a Familiar Product
Creating the brand meant going much deeper than marketing.
Azem and his team spent months testing different ideas and experimenting with samples involving friends, family members and athletes.
The goal was to develop a nasal strip with a skin-friendly adhesive, effective nasal opening and premium fabric that also looked and felt like a modern performance product.
That process became an important part of the Strideit philosophy.
The product needed to work, but Azem also believed it needed to feel like something people would genuinely want to use as part of their lifestyle.
This combination of functionality, aesthetics and performance became central to the brand.
From Product to Performance Culture
According to Azem, one of Strideit’s biggest breakthroughs came from changing how people perceived nasal strips.
Rather than positioning them primarily around sleep or snoring, Strideit focused heavily on training, athletes and performance.
One of the moments that reinforced this vision came during the first HYROX event in the UAE in Sharjah.
Azem recalls seeing only 17 athletes using nasal strips during the race. Thirteen of them were Strideit athletes, while four were using generic pharmacy strips.
For Azem, the moment represented more than a statistic. It showed that the product could become part of a training culture.
Then came the second HYROX event in Abu Dhabi.
This time, he says, hundreds of athletes were using nasal strips.
The contrast became a powerful source of motivation for the founder and his team. It showed them how quickly an idea could move from something relatively unfamiliar to a product increasingly visible within the athletic community.
Building a Community, Not Just a Brand
Strideit’s growth has also been driven by the people using it.
Azem says the brand now has thousands of customers, partnerships with major retailers across the region and hundreds of brand ambassadors.
But the numbers are only one part of the story.
What excites Azem and his team most is the constant stream of consumer experience content shared every day. Training sessions, personal records, tournaments, achievements and everyday routines continually make their way back to the brand, creating what has become a daily motivation machine.
Each story adds to the next, showing the team how people are using Strideit and pursuing their own goals. At the same time, that content becomes a source of motivation for others within the community and for the team behind the brand itself.
The relationship between brand and community has therefore become reciprocal.
A Wellness Brand With a Bigger Vision
Azem’s ambition extends beyond nasal strips.
His long-term vision is to build what he describes as a cool wellness brand that genuinely understands what its community needs.
The idea is to support people across different parts of life, whether they are sleeping, working, training or simply relaxing.
That means Strideit is being imagined as more than a performance product company. It is becoming a lifestyle and wellness community built around the motivation to do better every day.
For Azem, the ultimate goal is to create an environment where people feel supported, inspired and encouraged to become better versions of themselves.
The Founder Looking Ahead
Azem Alkam’s story is still in its early stages.
At just 24, he has already moved from engineering graduate to solo traveller, from curious consumer to product developer, and from first-time founder to the leader of a growing UAE wellness brand.
The journey began with something as simple as discovering a nasal strip in a pharmacy.
But the ambition behind it was much bigger.
Azem wanted to change the conversation around breathing, performance and everyday wellbeing. He wanted to create products people could trust, but also a community that would keep moving long after the purchase was made.
For him, Strideit is ultimately about creating a better daily experience.
And perhaps that is what makes the story interesting: the founder did not begin by trying to build a giant brand.
He began by asking a simple question about how people could breathe better.
Then he decided to build the answer himself.
Do Follow: To follow Azem Alkam’s entrepreneurial journey, Strideit’s latest products, community stories and wellness movement in the UAE, follow the brand on Instagram for updates on the next chapter of the journey.
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