Youcef Haibaoui, the Business Fighter Giving Dubai’s Gyms Their Soul Back

Karate taught him discipline. Business and computer science taught him to build. In 2026, most gyms are still trapped in outdated systems. The VictVest founder is freeing them with ComeBack, which gives each gym its own digital soul and brings back the members who left.

Youcef Elamine Haibaoui, founder and CEO of VictVest.

Put five Dubai gym apps side by side, cover the logos, and try to guess which is which.

You can’t. The same grey calendar. The same “Book now” button. The same Gold and Platinum tiers.

Now walk into those five gyms. One smells of mats and has a cage in the middle of the floor. One is a quiet Pilates room with soft light and wooden floors. One has a neon sign over the café and loud music on Friday nights. Different people, different coaches, different reasons to walk in.

Somewhere between the front door and the phone screen, all of that disappears.

“Honestly, I’m tired of it,” says Youcef Elamine Haibaoui, founder and CEO of VictVest. “Every gym I’ve trained in had its own soul. Then you download the app and it’s the same template as the gym down the road. Members feel that. Why would anyone stay loyal to a copy?”

VictVest is an Official Kommo Partner and a Bitrix24 Partner, and it was accepted into the Claude Startups program by Anthropic (October 2026).

The business fighter

TechBullion called Haibaoui a business fighter earlier this year, and the label fits. He spent fourteen years in karate and earned his black belt before moving into MMA, Muay Thai and grappling, and he still trains and coaches in Dubai. He arrived in the city with $200 and built VictVest from there.

Today VictVest is a Dubai-based technology company that builds custom apps, AI agents and CRM systems. That puts Haibaoui on both sides of the front desk: he knows what members feel when they walk in, and what owners see when they open their software. This year he made gyms and fight academies the company’s flagship.

Fourteen years of karate and a black belt: Haibaoui in his gi.

Paying for systems that don’t do the job

The UAE health and fitness club market is worth about US$537.5 million in 2026, according to IMARC Group. In July, The National counted 1,344 gyms and fitness facilities across the country and asked whether the UAE has hit “peak gym”. In a market that full, looking like everyone else is expensive.

Yet much of the industry runs on the same few systems, and many of them struggle with the basics. When VictVest reviewed gym apps in the region in October, it found one provider behind dozens of them, with store ratings between 1.5 and 3.4 stars. Some clubs that have an app still take class bookings over WhatsApp.

“Owners pay for a hundred features and use five,” Haibaoui says. “The booking breaks, the app is slow, the systems don’t talk to each other, and the front desk fixes everything by hand. So the gym pays for software that doesn’t do its job, and on top of that it takes away the gym’s identity. That’s the part that hurts me.”

One gym, one soul

VictVest’s answer is to start every project from the gym, not from a template.

The colours are sampled from the gym’s own walls, signs and photos, down to the exact shade of the neon over the bar. The type is traced from the gym’s own logo. Membership levels can be named after the gym’s own story instead of Gold and Platinum. A check-in gesture can come from the logo itself, and the digital member card can match the one members already carry.

Then come the features that make members open the app when they don’t have to. The apps VictVest designs can include an AI assistant that plans your training week and books all three classes in one tap, a countdown to your next class on the lock screen, points for showing up, squads that train together, rewards for bringing a friend, and an Apple Watch app for the session itself. For the owner, there is one screen that shows everything happening in the gym, right now.

“A member should open the app and feel the gym,” Haibaoui says. “The same feeling as walking through the door. If you cover the logo and still know whose app it is, we did our job.”

The clearest example is 971 MMA, a martial arts academy in Dubai’s Al Quoz, where VictVest built the member and coach app for iOS and Android. Members carry a digital card with a rotating QR pass, see their classes, keep a check-in streak, follow their belt and stripe progress, and earn points with real value. Coaches run roll call in seconds, see who is ready for the next stripe and send announcements to one class or the whole academy. Even the feed speaks like the academy: “Your mats, your people.” The full case study is at victvest.com/work/971-mma.

The 971 MMA member app, built by VictVest.

Other projects are still under wraps, but this year the company has designed concepts for fight gyms, wellness clubs and fitness clubs across the city.

AI that sells, not just chats

The second piece is speed. Gyms pay for ads, then answer the messages hours later, if at all. VictVest builds AI agents that reply on WhatsApp day and night, answer the real questions about prices and schedules, book a trial and hand the person to the gym’s team to close, with every conversation tracked in the CRM.

“Every lead a gym pays for and answers late is money thrown away,” he says. “The agent answers in seconds, in the gym’s voice. The coaches stay on the floor.”

The boldest bet: bringing members back

Then there is ComeBack, the service Haibaoui calls his door opener.

Every gym has a list nobody opens: hundreds of former members, the month they stopped, the plan they had. ComeBack sends each of them one personal WhatsApp from the gym’s own number, telling them what has changed since they left and offering a session reserved in their name. No “we miss you, 30% off” blast. No chasing.

The gym pays nothing upfront, and VictVest earns only a share of what returning members pay. Member data stays with the owner. Part of every list is left alone on purpose, so the owner can see how many people came back because of the invitation.

“If I believe in it, I should carry the risk,” Haibaoui says. “Owners have heard enough promises. I’d rather show them the difference.”

The first Dubai gyms are getting ready to launch it, and he plans to share the results next year.

Built like a fighter

Haibaoui runs VictVest with a tight team: tech lead Bahaa, who led the engineering on the 971 MMA app; Sadia, who runs operations and holds a Master’s degree in psychology; and a sales partner who knows the city’s gym owners.

He says the way he works comes straight from training. “On the mat you can’t hide behind a pitch deck. You did the work or you didn’t. Gym owners should judge us the same way: by how their members feel, and how many walk back in.”

The plan is to start with independent gyms in the UAE, then take the same thinking to every place people belong to: martial arts academies, Pilates and boutique fitness, padel and wellness clubs.

In his view, the big chains can afford to look the same. An independent gym can’t.

“Equipment can be copied. Prices can be copied,” he says. “The soul of a gym can’t. We make sure members feel it, even on their phone.”

About VictVest

VictVest is a Dubai-based technology company building custom apps, AI agents, CRM and automation for gyms and service businesses. It is an Official Kommo Partner and a Bitrix24 Partner, and was accepted into the Claude Startups program by Anthropic (October 2026).

Follow Youcef Elamine Haibaoui: Instagram @youcef.haibaoui · LinkedIn · victvest.com