They say to succeed in business you have to fail. And Ferhat Kacmaz went from owning restaurants, a nightclub and a gym business to sleeping in his car with the air conditioning on. The 39-year-old German invested heavily in electric muscle stimulation devices before they were popular and had a host of top Dubai hotels lined up. “We purchased more machines, brought in certified trainers; we were ready to start once we got our licence," he says. Deals with Burj Al Arab, Jumeirah Group, and Fitness First were all set to commence. But the company's business licence from the government never came. Complications in 2013 and 2014 led to an eight-month delay. "There were the partners, me, the trainers, the machines: we rented hotels, cars to start the business, but we could not because we could not get the licence issued," he says. They burned through money and savings and by the time the licence came in January 2014, the company was in trouble. His two partners sold their high-end keep fit machines to recoup losses and returned to Germany. And only one fitness trainer, Ella Toews, stayed on with him. The blow was a setback for a young businessman who made his "first million euros" (Dh4.1 million) at the age of 19 in the Rhine region city of Bielefeld. The nightlife business in Germany is like mafia... either you kill somebody or you get killed or you end up in jail He made a small fortune running Deliveroo Editions-style kitchens long before that business boomed, when he realised you only need one kitchen to service six restaurants. And very few eateries offered home delivery at the time. “I made different menus with different food for people under different names,” he says. "If we were late to deliver to a certain customer and he said ‘I will never order again from you again’, I would tell my delivery guy - 'no problem take another menu of ours and put it on his doorstep'.” “We made each menu with a different design and different prices. “For students we made it a little bit more cheap and funky. For areas where rich people live we made it nice design and fine dining, and for families, we made family-size meals.” The ambitious youngster did not stop at delivering hot food to people, and moved into nightlife - which is when things got “very dark”. “The nightlife business in Germany is like mafia... either you kill somebody or you get killed or you end up in jail,” he says, pointing to a scar on his hand. “This was from a knife; five Russian gangsters came into my office in the middle of the night.” He says they stabbed his hand on his desk - like the famous scene from The Godfather - and demanded he pays them money to “be safe”. Mr Kacmaz soon found himself paying protection money, living an unhealthy lifestyle and significantly overweight.