Dubai Entrepreneur Urges Brands to Stop Creating Content for Algorithms and Build Long-Term Business Narratives

Dubai-based entrepreneur Candace Braganza is urging brands to stop tailoring content solely to appease platform algorithms and instead focus on building long-term business narratives. Braganza, founder of Sculpt25 Creative, says the agency — launched in 2021 and self-funded from the outset — was born from her own experience running an e-commerce pet products business in the UAE and confronting marketing problems that visuals alone could not solve. Her clients include Boho Salon, Zabeel House, Thea Restaurant, More Cafe, Savoir Health and City Dog. (Photo credit: Virendra Saklani/Gulf News)

“It didn’t start as a business idea, it started as a problem I was experiencing myself,” Braganza told Gulf News, explaining how the gap she observed was not a lack of effort but a lack of direction: “I realised the gap wasn’t effort, it was direction.”

Braganza began her professional journey in the corporate world before moving into entrepreneurship after adopting a German Shepherd, Darko, and launching a pet product venture. As she handled photography and social media in-house, she noticed stockists and small brands were producing frequent content without seeing proportional returns. “They didn’t just need great visuals; they needed a sustainable, strategic marketing approach,” she said, describing the pivot from delivering images to building marketing strategies.

Sculpt25 Creative now positions itself as a strategic creative agency offering photography, branding, social media management and marketing strategy. Braganza said the company evolved from a one-woman photography shop into a business thinking in campaigns rather than single shoots: “I started purely as a photographer, focused on delivering content. But as I started working with more brands… a shift happened.” She emphasised the firm’s current philosophy of “thinking in campaigns, not shoots” and “delivering strategy, not just images.”

Business model and market context

The agency operates across hospitality, beauty, wellness and personal branding, reinvesting early client revenue and proceeds from previous ventures to grow without outside capital. “The business has been self-funded from the beginning,” Braganza said. She also credited the UAE ecosystem for easing company formation and helping build networks through referrals and collaborations: “The UAE makes it very easy to start a business.”

• Founded: Sculpt25 Creative, 2021
• Founder: Candace Braganza
• Clients: Boho Salon, Zabeel House, Thea Restaurant, More Cafe, Savoir Health, City Dog
• Service focus: Photography, branding, social media management, marketing strategy

Braganza moved to Dubai during university, completed further studies including a master’s in the UAE, and cited the city’s combination of safety, opportunity and mindset as reasons to build her business there: “What stood out back then — and is still the case — is the combination of safety, opportunity, and mindset. As a woman, the sense of safety is unmatched.” Personal priorities also influenced her career path; she left a traditional nine-to-five partly because she “didn’t want to spend most of my day away while my dog was at daycare,” and now brings Darko to the studio.

Outlook

Looking ahead, Braganza says Sculpt25 aims to move beyond a founder-led model and become a more established agency, with the possibility of seeking external funding in future. She urged new entrepreneurs to plan for scale and structure rather than rely on personal capacity alone: “Many founders focus on launching without thinking about how to truly scale or structure the business long-term. If your business depends entirely on you, it’s not scalable.”