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Praxis Model · Sample Feasibility Study

See it on paper.

A complete feasibility study, from the first assumption to the final verdict. The exact rigour we hand every founder, opened here for you to walk through.

The ConceptThe CapitalThe DemandThe NumbersThe Verdict
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A note, before you begin
In our part of the world, trust is not given on a promise. It is earned in the details. So rather than tell you how carefully we work, I would rather show you. What follows is a real Praxis study, built for a restaurant that lives only on paper, so you can see exactly how we think long before a single penny of yours is ever at risk. Read it the way an investor would. Then imagine it built around your idea.
Ralph Homer signature Ralph Homer Founder, Praxis Model
Ralph Homer, Founder of Praxis Model
The Sample Study · À La Rose Café

Watch it become a verdict

Concept · Capital · Verdict · the way we'd weigh your idea
A curated excerpt · the full study runs far deeper
Illustrative example · not a real client
À La Rose Café
01 · The Concept
The idea
The Parisian all‑day house.
Viennoiserie and eggs by morning; a candlelit brasserie by night, one address that earns a guest three times a day, in the gap Gate Village's dinner-only icons leave wide open.
100
Dining seats
3,200 sqft
Gate Village · DIFC
All‑day
French café · brasserie
Q3 2026
Projected opening
CatchmentDIFC finance core
PositioningAll-day French
White spaceNo all-day peer
Zuma · LPM · Cipriani · Gaia own the night. À La Rose owns the day.
A concept only matters if the market is hungry for it.
Next: The Market →
Illustrative example · not a real client
À La Rose Café
02 · The Market & Demand
The demand
The customers already work upstairs.
DIFC is the Gulf's densest square kilometre of high income: 40,000+ professionals with a culture of breakfast meetings, business lunches and after-work dining. Three services capture them across one day, so no single sitting has to carry the venue.
40,000+
Professionals inside DIFC
18 M+
Dubai visitors a year
3
Services a day · one venue
AED 22.0M
Demand, built bottom-up
Breakfast · commuters & meetingsAED 150
Lunch · the towersAED 260
Dinner · residents & occasionsAED 430
Seats × turns × spend, per daypart. Never one heroic service.
Demand is real. But who else is chasing it?
Next: The Competition →
Illustrative example · not a real client
À La Rose Café
03 · The Competition
The competition
Everyone owns the night. No one owns the day.
Gate Village's icons, Zuma, LPM, Cipriani and Gaia, are dinner-led and reservation-led; most skip breakfast and treat lunch as an afterthought. Below them, the café chains own the coffee run but can't host a client lunch. The hole is the middle: an all-day French house a banker can use three ways in one week.
3 / 3
Dayparts owned · one venue
1
Address, used three ways a week
Fine-dining icons · Zuma · LPM · GaiaDinner only
Café chains & grab-and-goCoffee run only
À La Rose · all-day FrenchBreakfast · lunch · dinner
The play isn't to out-glamour Zuma. It's to be indispensable Monday to Friday, and desirable at the weekend.
A great idea needs the right address to prove it.
Next: The Site →
Illustrative example · not a real client
À La Rose Café
04 · The Site
The location
One address. Three catchments.
Gate Village is DIFC's landlord-curated art-and-dining precinct, where F&B is programmed, not accidental. The catchment is modelled in three tiers, each feeding a different service, so the day never falls quiet.
Primary · DIFC workforce, 10-min walk60–70%
Secondary · Downtown · Bay · City Walk15–20%
Tertiary · hotel guests & destination dinersthe rest
Rent is barely 9% of sales: at this address, the location pays for itself.
A great idea in the right place still has to prove its numbers.
Next: The Foundations →
Act II · The Money

A strong idea, in the right place, is still just a hope.

Until the numbers agree. So we open the books: capital in, and every dirham it has to earn back.
Illustrative example · not a real client
À La Rose Café
05 · The Foundations · Every Number Sourced
The foundations
Every number traces to a source.
Before a single figure is read, each assumption is logged with its live value, its evidence, and the date it was verified: lease drafts, bank term sheets, menu costings, UAE law. The model then checks itself, that the mixes total, the equity balances, the depreciation ties, before it dares reach a verdict.
18
Key assumptions logged & dated
7
Integrity checks · the model balances
Food cost · 28%Menu costing v2
Base rent · AED 120k / moDraft lease, Gate Village
Debt · 6.5% over 7 yearsEmirates NBD term sheet
Corporate tax · 9%Federal Decree-Law 47 / 2022
No number is a guess. Where a source is missing, it's flagged, never quietly invented.
Trust the inputs, and the money starts to speak.
Next: The Capital →
Illustrative example · not a real client
À La Rose Café
06 · The Capital · Sources & Uses
Total investment
AED 12.5M
Funded 50 / 50: AED 6.25M of founders' equity beside AED 6.25M of senior debt. Enough to open fully fitted and carry the ramp, with contingency held in reserve.
● Equity 50%Debt 50% ●
Leasehold improvementsAED 3.43M
Working capital & contingencyAED 3.16M
Equipment & furnitureAED 2.35M
Pre-opening expensesAED 2.02M
Professional & organisationalAED 1.54M
Every dirham placed before a single guest arrives.
These numbers only hold if they respect the local rules.
Next: The Gulf Factor →
Illustrative example · not a real client
À La Rose Café
07 · The Gulf Factor
Built for the Gulf
Modelled to the local dirham.
This isn't a template with the currency swapped. UAE corporate tax at 9% above AED 375k, VAT as a 5% pass-through recoverable on CapEx, Dubai's 30% municipality levy on alcohol priced straight into beverage margin, labour fully loaded with housing, medical and gratuity, and the Ramadan shift and summer trough carried by the reserve.
AED 625k
Input VAT recoverable on CapEx
0
Generic, non-local assumptions
Corporate tax9% above AED 375k
VAT5% · pass-through
Alcohol levy · Dubai30% · in beverage GP
Labour23.3% · fully loaded
SeasonalityRamadan + summer modelled
A study that ignores local tax, licensing and loaded labour isn't a study. It's a guess in a nicer font.
With the local rules baked in, here's what a dirham becomes.
Next: The Economics →
Illustrative example · not a real client
À La Rose Café
08 · The Economics
The economics
Where every dirham goes.
Three services fund one fixed-cost base. After the plates, the people, the rent and the tax, roughly 14 fils of every dirham stays as profit, the top of the GCC range, on ordinary volume.
AED 22.0M
Annual sales
52%
Prime cost (food + labour)
13.6%
Net margin, after tax
AED 3.0M
Net profit, year one
Cost of sales29%
Labour23%
Running costs16%
Rent & occupancy9%
Depreciation, interest & tax9%
Net profit14%
Healthy numbers, but are they honest? We hold them to the market.
Next: The Benchmarks →
Illustrative example · not a real client
À La Rose Café
09 · The Benchmarks
The reality check
Held to the market's own ruler.
Every assumption is checked against GCC full-service rule-of-thumb ranges. À La Rose doesn't beat them by dreaming; it beats them on discipline: leaner prime cost, tighter labour, and a margin at the very top of the band.
5 / 5
Ratios at or better than GCC norms
0
Assumptions outside the range
Prime cost · GCC 55–65%52% · leaner
Cost of sales · GCC 25–33%29% · in range
Labour · GCC 25–35%23% · leaner
Occupancy · GCC 6–10%9% · in range
Net margin · GCC 10–15%14.8% · top
Not optimistic. Disciplined. Every ratio earns its place.
Good in a good year. But does it survive a bad start?
Next: The Ramp-Up →
Act III · The Proof

Anyone can model a good year.

We model the bad ones, on purpose. Because your money has to survive them, not just the sunny days.
Illustrative example · not a real client
À La Rose Café
10 · The Ramp-Up · Year One
The ramp-up
No venue opens at full speed.
Month one rides a novelty peak; months four to six dip into the red as the newness fades; then the room rebuilds to roughly 85% of mature revenue by year-end. We model the honest curve, not an instant success, and the AED 3.3M working-capital reserve is sized to carry the trough.
AED 3.3M
Working-capital reserve
AED 0
Deepest cash shortfall in the dip
M1
M2
M3
M4
M5
M6
M7
M8
M9
M10
M11
M12
Months four to six trade at a planned loss, the novelty dip. The reserve covers it with room to spare: a decision window, not a cliff.
The slow start is real, and it's funded. Now, the floor.
Next: Break-Even →
Illustrative example · not a real client
À La Rose Café
11 · The Cushion · Break-Even
The margin of safety
Sales could fall a quarter, and the doors stay open.
Break-even lands at AED 16.0M a year, 27.4% below the planned top line. That gap is the cushion: the room a founder has before a soft year turns into a losing one.
AED 16.0M
Break-even sales · year one
27.4%
Room to fall before a loss
Planned salesAED 22.0M
Break-evenAED 16.0M
Everything above the green line is profit, and there is a lot of room above it.
A good year is easy to model. We model the bad ones on purpose.
Next: The Stress Test →
Illustrative example · not a real client
À La Rose Café
12 · The Stress Test · Scenarios & Sensitivity
The stress test
We assume it goes wrong.
Four ways the year can break, from a boom to a recession stacked on a cost shock. The concept stays profitable in three of the four. And the one number that moves the result most is the average check.
3 / 4
Scenarios still profitable
−AED 2.2M
Hit from a 10% price cut
Upside · strong demand+21.6% margin
Base · the plan+14.8% margin
Downside · soft year+5.7% margin
Stress · recession + cost shock−7.3% margin
The single biggest lever is your price. Protect the average check and the model holds.
The numbers survive the stress. But does the whole venture?
Next: The Pre-Mortem →
Illustrative example · not a real client
À La Rose Café
13 · The Pre-Mortem · Risk Register
The pre-mortem
We imagined it had already failed.
Eighteen months after opening, we asked the hard question: why did it die? Every reason was ranked by likelihood and impact, and each was handed a named mitigation. One risk we didn't just plan for, we caught and fixed it on paper, before a single dirham was committed.
5
Failure modes, five mitigations
1
Red-line breach caught pre-signature
Occupancy trapCaught · lease renegotiated
Slow demand ramp27.4% margin + reserve
Prime-cost driftWeekly track · trigger at 57%
Key-person riskSuccession bench
Licensing / fit-out delayPre-opening rent buffer
The first lease draft breached the 10% rent red line at 10.4%. We renegotiated it to 9.3% on paper. That is make every mistake on paper, demonstrated.
Attacked from every angle and still standing. Now, the payoff.
Next: The Long View →
Illustrative example · not a real client
À La Rose Café
14 · The Long View · Returns
The long view
Every partner's capital back in under two years.
Years two to five grow sales at 4% and hold cost growth to 3%, widening net profit from AED 3.0M to AED 4.8M by year five. A 55.7% equity IRR, an AED 8.45M NPV at a 12% hurdle, debt covered 4.4 times over, and each partner's stake recouped in under two years of distributions.
55.7%
Five-year equity IRR
AED 8.45M
NPV at a 12% hurdle
4.4×
Debt-service cover (DSCR)
< 2 yrs
Partner capital payback
Year 1 net profitAED 3.0M
Year 2AED 3.4M
Year 3AED 3.8M
Year 4AED 4.3M
Year 5 net profitAED 4.8M
The numbers and the judgment agree. Time for the verdict.
Next: The Verdict →
Illustrative example · not a real client
À La Rose Café
15 · The Verdict · Investment Committee Summary
0 SURVIVAL SCORE
GO.
Strong across the board · every red line clear
A concept that clears its costs with room to spare, and returns the founder's capital in three and a half years.
AED 22.0M
Annual sales · year one
13.6%
Net margin, after tax
28.6%
Return on investment
3.5 yrs
Payback period
Net profit margin (after tax)Strong
Margin of safety vs break-evenStrong
Return on investment (cash-on-cash)Strong
Payback periodStrong
Prime cost (% of sales)Strong
Leverage (loan / total cost)Acceptable
✓ All five hard red lines cleared · NPV AED 8.45M · IRR 55.7%
This is the exact rigour we would bring to your idea →
What you've just seen

A glimpse, not the whole.

This walkthrough is one curated thread from a study that runs far deeper: 27 worksheets, a full five-year three-statement model, every assumption sourced and dated, a complete risk register and pre-mortem, and GCC tax and licensing modelled to the dirham. Too much to fit on a page. Exactly enough to build a venture on. What you receive is the whole thing.
Your Move

This was one idea, built to survive contact with reality.

Yours is next, costed to the dirham, stress-tested, and judged the way an investor would, long before a single fil is at risk.
Start your study →