Anant Singh's entrepreneurial journey started with selling postcards to fellow students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Singh found his passion in building a business block by block.
When Singh arrived at NYU Abu Dhabi in 2019 as a 17-year-old film student from Chandigarh, India, he never imagined he would graduate four years later to launch an ice cream business. Yet today, at 24, the NYUAD class of 2023 NYUAD alumnus, is a co-founder of Mina Creamery, a locally inspired ice cream shop in Abu Dhabi’s MiZa district, with his business partner Rihab Al Gurg.
Mina Creamery not only celebrates local flavors, but also creates employment opportunities for NYUAD students, and supports regional businesses.
With flavors like salted saffron halwa, aseeda, and karak chai with toasted biscuits, the creamery pays homage to its founders’ roots while encouraging people to explore their own choices.
Choosing the path less travelled
Singh's path from student to entrepreneur wasn't straightforward. Still, it was quintessentially NYUAD, shaped by interdisciplinary learning and bold experiments.
Singh's entrepreneurial instincts first emerged during his second year, at the height of the pandemic. Confined to dorm rooms, he and his roommates launched Campus Postcards.
"We made 10 postcards that were photos of NYUAD, and then we commissioned two of our friends to make illustrations that we would feature on the front side of the postcard," Singh recalls.
They ended up selling almost 4,000 postcards. Orders poured in from alums worldwide, and NYUAD university offices bought sets as well. With the profits, Singh bought his first car. The memories of his university days adventures are among his fondest.
After graduating with a degree in film, Singh began working at a production company in the UAE, but soon found himself seeking more. He decided to launch something of his own with his parents' support.
Why ice cream?
The idea of starting an ice cream shop struck Singh while he was travelling to NYU New York as part of his program. His travels took him on a journey of culinary exploration. "I think ice cream is such a democratic vessel – everyone likes a scoop of ice cream,” he says.
When he decided to go into business, he bought an ice cream machine to learn how to make it, and laughs as he reminisces about his disastrous early experiments. "I made all those mistakes at the start," recalling using cream cheese instead of cooking cream, resulting in extremely hard ice cream.
But Singh was determined to create something meaningful. Inspired by the Indian brand Naturals, which uses local fruits like sapodilla and custard apple, he wished to apply the same philosophy to ingredients sourced locally in the UAE and the wider region.
Singh’s first successful attempt was creating a date ice cream made without added sugar. It is still on his menu today.
"In business, you're doing something new every day. Some days, you're a delivery boy, a chef, a person behind the counter, a cashier, or a cleaner. I find a lot of excitement, and I take a lot of pride in that,” he said.
The business launched in 2023 and evolved from pop-ups to online sales and from Al Gurg’s kitchen to a commercial kitchen in Mussafah, and finally being open to the public at MiZa district.
Building community while creating opportunity
Singh has remained deeply connected to the student community at NYUAD. Some students now work at Mina Creamery, and Singh is intent on making these opportunities meaningful. They are involved in the creative process, such as flavor development, seeking out their advice, creativity, and individual talents.
I love to work with NYUAD students, because it's a win-win situation for me… just the fact that they are such well-spoken and smart people who also have these passions beyond what they're doing.
Celebrating local produce
At its heart, Mina Creamery is about storytelling through flavors with a focus on locally-grown produce. The brand collaborates with local bakeries, olive oil manufacturers, and even clothing brands. "I think people don't realize how much good produce grows in the UAE," he says.
Mina Creamery sources rutab (early-stage dates) from local farms every summer, lavender and honey locally, dairy from a dairy farm in Sharjah, and mangoes grown in the Emirates. Their sourcing philosophy extends across the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, reflecting both founders' backgrounds.
Each flavor has a story with names like Loomi Sharbat, Crunchy Balaleet, a floral Orange Blossom, and Regag ice cream.
The NYUAD journey
At university, his professors and friends shaped Singh’s university experience. "I think NYUAD had almost a parental role in my life, because I was still growing," he says. "I was there from 17 to 21, and I think that's still an age when you're growing, and you're learning a lot about the world."
The liberal arts model shaped him, and he took courses across different majors ranging from psychology and music to theater, sciences, and statistics. "The fact that we were put in that one place from all around the world, had been given these immense amounts of resources, knowledge, and freedom, I think that really meant a lot,” he says
NYUAD gave him the confidence to take risks in a country where he had no background or connections. "I had never lived in the UAE before.Usually, people assume that if I'm doing business, I've grown up here. I don't actually have that connection," he explains. "Nothing really felt unachievable or impossible because of how much we were able to do at NYUAD."
Advice for students
For students arriving at NYUAD, Singh’s journey offers a lesson: be willing to experiment, fail, and try again. "The biggest challenge of starting anything is that when you're doing it for the first time, you do it with a certain kind of blindness, which is good," he says.
His advice to students was to embrace the village. "I think any project and business requires that. You literally have the best interest group in the world,” he says
Today, as Mina Creamery grows, Singh continues to experiment. "We started the business with literally nothing," he says. What they did have, and what NYUAD gave him, was the strength to believe that nothing was impossible, and a community willing to taste-test every ice cream along the way.
