These 15 start-up companies are literally reshaping the way Pakistanis work and play.
These young innovative Pakistani minds are increasingly making inroads into technologically advanced ways, resultantly, life is going to get a whole lot easier.
Payload

Payload's Amin Shah Gillani.
A recent graduate of the Lahore School of Economics, Muhammad Amin, has founded Payload – an app that is introducing Bitcoin technology to Pakistani users. Bitcoin is a type of digital currency used to verify and transfer funds.
With $121 million worth of transactions taking place through Bitcoin every day, the technology is fast becoming a reliable method of transaction for individuals and businesses worldwide.
And the best thing about this system is that it’s foolproof – it cannot be hacked. It's fast and cheap, with minimal transactional fee.
Pakistan is a predominantly cash economy, where many people are not comfortable making payments via credit cards which makes Payload extremely relevant here. The start-up is planning to create awareness drives for university students to educate them about this improved way of transacting.
Healthwire

Healthwire's Hamza Iqbal with co-founder, Harris Durani.
Want to find a healthcare professional? Check outHealthwire. It is the easiest way to find a doctor.
Founded by partners Hamza Iqbal and Harris Durrani, this mobile app is currently in its developmental phase.
You can, however, book your appointments through their website, and rate your experiences too. It charges a nominal Rs. 1500 monthly subscription fee from medical professionals. While the website currently deals with dentists only, the platform will soon bring various specialists on-board. So far, it has signed up more than 80 dentists.
And the best thing is; only PMDC-certified doctors can register on the website.
Healthwire verifies doctors through their registered numbers. At the moment, the app can segment by gender and location only, but more sub-specialties like cardiology and neurology are set to be included soon, now patients can easily filter doctors according to their needs.
Dockit

Dockit — Muhammad Uns' team.
While there is no shortage of discount cards available in the market, Dockit is doing something different.
It is offering discounts for up to 12 months, and charging a membership fee of Rs. 999 per year. If it is able to acquire 50,000 users per year, well, you can do the math.
It is currently seeking endorsements from various fashion brands. HSY & Maria B have already agreed to keep Dockit discount cards in their outlets. The start-up has successfully taken 380 vendors on-board.
It will also offer a free voucher magazine for its customers that will cover categories ranging from electronics to apparel, groceries and food. It is now in talks with Oppo and Haier.
As far as competition from e-commerce giants like Daraz.pk and Foodpanda is concerned, Dockit has got that sorted too. It plans to integrate with both and offer their customers an additional discount, if they choose to buy from Daraz.pk/Foodpanda via the Dockit card.
The co-founders are graduates of IBA and FAST and have a pretty comprehensive understanding of the online world of business.
Meezaj

Meezaj's Ahmed Izhar.
With a catchy tagline 'My Fashion, My Meezaj', Meezaj aims to cut the middleman out and connect fashion designers directly with customers.
Once it is up and running in January, it will serve as a platform for professional growth to talented young fashion designers from various universities who seek to develop their own brand name and business.
Meezaj has already taken nine fresh designers on-board and will also be organising fashion shows in the near future. The National College of Arts and Home Economics College have agreed to become its strategic partners.
You would be surprised to know that Meezaj has already got popular brands like Charcoal, Coogar and Hadiqa Kiani hooked, and will charge them a 10 per cent commission if their products are sold through the portal.
What’s more, these big brands will also sponsor their fashion shows.
As for student designers and new faces, Meezaj will charge a hefty 25-30 per cent commission from them. Meezaj also plans to be an event management company, and will charge a ticket fee from entrants and a registration fee from designers seeking to partake in their events.
ShaadiBox

ShaadiBox's Talha Rehman with a team member.
ShaadiBox provides an online marketplace that connects you with wedding vendors. The website is expected to be up and rolling in a couple of days. It aims to lessen the hassle of booking banquet halls and salons, and that too, on a discount.
While it is currently in talks with Damas and Solitaire as vendors, Mahfooz Jewelers and Hanif Jewelers are already on-board. The platform will charge a subscription fee from jewellers – roughly around Rs. 5,000 – and a commission of 10-20 per cent from wedding halls vendors.
The only competition it faces at the moment is Wedding Planit. But, while the latter is planning and executing the entire shaadi event for its clients, ShaadiBox will simply connect you to the right people. It is founded by programmers from the University of Management and Technology, Lahore.
Chimera

Chimera's Sadoon Javaid and his team.
Chimera, which is a Greek word for ‘vision’, offers users a unique virtual dressing room experience.
It already has five to six major clients on-board, including the likes of Charcoal, Splash Dubai, Breakout, Nishat Group and Servis Shoes.
The website uses a 3D model, which allows its customers to rotate an image fully and see how a certain item (shoes/clothes) looks on them. It earns revenue via a deployment fee and is expected to reach break-even within a year.
Virtual dressing rooms are already a big hit on the international retail scene, and Chimera will be a forerunner in bringing the technology to Pakistan.
Auto Genie

Auto Genie's Abdullah Cheema with his team.
Auto Genie is a car repair service which has raised 10 million rupees from PakWheels. The CEO, Hamza Abbas Baksh plans on utilising these funds to tap into the Karachi and Islamabad markets, after Lahore.
This isn’t just a useful service for car enthusiasts, but also for a lot of people who don’t know much about the technical aspect of automobiles, except for how to drive one.
So if something is wrong with your car but you can’t tell what the problem is, don’t worry! Instead of going to the nearest petrol station and getting overcharged, just ring Auto Genie’s hotline and let them do the job for you.
You can order regular car maintenance services, like an oil change and tuning or A/C servicing, now from the comfort of your home.
Edutative

Edutative's Hira Irshad with the co-founder.
Edutative plans to take all local universities on-board and compete with the likes of LinkedIn for education in Pakistan.
It will offer student reviews and ratings for various Pakistani universities and host student societies online for users to discuss issues pertaining to their specific field of study.
Currently, it is running on investment from friends and family. The founders of Edutative are Economics and Business Majors. Out of the 180 universities in Pakistan with 220 campuses across the country, 40 universities are currently collaborating with them.
The website will also offer online tests for SAT, MCAT and ECAT, along with various other test papers, and will generate evaluation reports for students to monitor their progress.
Home Foodies

Home Foodies: Rana Waleed Asmat with co-founder Adeel Nur.
Home Foodies aspires to be a platform to enable housewives to set up their own food businesses from within the comfort of their homes. It will charge a 20 per cent commission per order.
They have already signed up the famous Aunty Samina (Samina's Kitchen) and Sir Kaiser (La Masion). Although, it currently gets 40-50 orders a month, the volume is expected to increase exponentially. The website targets hostelites and office workers at the moment.
It has a strict quality assurance system where the owners of Home Foodies personally go and visit each kitchen before signing up a client. It plans to take over the Lahore market within the next six months.

Smart Devices: Abdul Ghaffar with his team.
This is perhaps the first IoT (Internet of Things) start-up in Pakistan that aims to sell smart devices directly to consumers. It is currently in the prototype phase and considers Effective Labs and Apple Homekit to be its competitors.
The founder says that by 2020, your home devices will consume more data than your mobile devices. While it currently only has 10 beta users, international giant Infotech has already shown interest in buying the company.
The start-up has also made many of Super Asia's devices WiFi-enabled and has developed a browser extension for Chrome and Opera so that your home devices can be operated, but the technology still needs to be certified. The company recently won a ‘Smart Home’ award at the IoT awards hosted by Telenor.
Rabbit Drop

Rabbit Drop's Aitizaz Khan with his team.
Rabbit Drop helps deliver grocery anywhere in Lahore within 60-90 minutes. Its name comes from a twist on the words 'Rapid Delivery'.
The start-up earns revenue via commissions from retailers. While it currently has only 70 registered users, it is expected to expand its user base once the website is officially launched.
One of the founders has a degree in Modelling and Simulation Engineering, while the other has studied Computer Engineering.
Patari

Patari's Humayun Haroon with a team member.
Patari is simply the Gaana (song) of Pakistan and seeks to become a hub for the local music scene.
While Tune.pk and Zemtv.com have done the same for Pakistani dramas and talk shows, there was hardly a platform where one could get high-quality Pakistani music and SoundCloud's song remixes didn't make the situation any easier.
This is where Patari comes in. It boasts of more than 50,000 registered users with 750,000 tracks streamed per month. Its mobile app has been downloaded by 20,000 people already.
Khalid Bajwa, the founder of Patari, claims to have created the most viral campaign in Pakistan for his mobile app by using innovative social media engagement techniques.

Sahr Abbas, the CEO of Beauty Hooked.
Beauty Hooked allows you to find and book salons and parlours near your location and avail exclusive discounts for their services.
Labelled a beauty with brains, Sahr Said, the CEO of Beauty Hooked, aimed to create an online platform for Pakistani women to compare the services of various beauty salons.
The website currently offers discounts in over 30 salons in Lahore and plans to sign up a lot more in the next few months. What's more, all of its subscribers are top-tier salons.

MangoBaaz's Ali Gul with his team.
Put simply, MangoBaaz is the Mashable of Pakistan. It is an online channel for news, information and entertainment that highlights stories for Pakistani youth that are not picked up by mainstream media.
It portrays a very lively, and fun-loving image of Pakistanis to the international audience. The website also plans to redefine digital advertising in the country by analysing user data, and using it to generate stories that are more meaningful and connect brands with an engaged audience.

GesDrive' S. Saghir Hussain with his team.
Ges-Drive is a start-up that creates a gaming experience for special children. These children can play video games through it via simple gestures. It is a proven fact that video games relieve chronic stress.
The Al Umeed Rehabilitation Association (AURA) Karachi is using the prototype to test how this might work. The system costs $850 per package and will be sold for $1,200 per piece to hospitals and medical institutions.
Acrobatic At Home was one such competitor that developed a shoulder pad but it wasn't commercialised.
Ges-Drive aims to tap recreational centers like Sindbad, Wonderland in Lahore, and Arena in Karachi. The founders are Computer Science graduates from FAST Karachi and are putting their genius to good use.
Curtsey:DAWN.COM NOV 28,2015

Now is the right time to invest in Pakistan startups: report

In a recently released report titled the Pakistan Startup Report, the organisation reveals the potential the Pakistani market possess. — File photo
KARACHI: With Pakistan's population expected to reach 210 million by 2020, experts term the world's sixth most populous country as a perfect place for startups to launch their businesses, says the World Startup Report, a Silicon Valley-based organisation.
In a recently released report titled the Pakistan Startup Report, the organisation reveals the potential the Pakistani market possess. A hypothetical online-market comparison was drawn keeping in view the expansion of the industry at current pace to become a lead player in the future.

According to the report, 136.5m mobile phone users 110m were likely to subscribe to 3G/4G by 2019, with the issuance of license for the third and fourth generation network in the country and the services' increasing popularity among users.
The report also quoted 12,500 Pakistanis working in the Silicon Valley, imparting their skills to technological advancements taking place across the globe.

There is hope that if the trend in working for corporations is shifted to setting up individual businesses, it would act as a booster not only in terms of individual growth but is also expected to effectively exploit a massive 180m population to its maximum, benefiting the country's economy at large.
The report quoted that educational institutes such as Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and Institute of Business Administration (IBA) encourage their students to become entrepreneurs, deeming it a step in the right direction.
"The target is to contribute to the evolution of a more efficient business ecosystem in the country," the report quotes Jamal Khan, founder of software house Arpatech, as saying.
Many would agree that with the policy shift by the current government air for investment is fresh. The government is offering local entrepreneurs loans of up to $20,000 with a fixed eight per cent interest cost including a year's grace, whereas 50 per cent of the loan is designated for women entrepreneurs alone.
The report also highlights that the Punjab IT Board (PITB) is pioneering in entrepreneurship, m-governance and e-governance by empowering workers with smartphones.
The PITB is using custom apps to report the water levels in canals and monitor the spread of diseases. Utilising robot calls and SMS messaging, the PITB has also implemented a Citizen Feedback Model as a proactive measure to curb corruption, improve service levels and customer engagement, the report adds.
Oliver Samwer of Rocket Internet says that "building a business in Pakistan is like Germany, but only 20 per cent more difficult. But we are in it to do whatever it takes, if we have to build a Pakistani Post, we build a Pakistani Post."
The report further argued that lack of competition provides a great opportunity for entrepreneurs and investors alike. Recently, online classified sections have begun to face stiff competition with the entry of Schibested in the local market to challenge Nasper's OLX.
"There is competition in the ecommerce sector, however this is still primarily limited to the electronics market. For most players to make a dent in this market they will have to enter with significant funds," the report stated.

It also advises local entrepreneurs to approach incubators and accelerators, participate in startup competitions and always remain optimistic.
The report also advises foreign companies to have reasonable expectations as the market in Pakistan is still growing, and asks them to adapt to local norms.
It also reminds foreign companies that there is no intermediate liability protection, meaning Pakistan has no cybercrime laws at the moment. However, a cybercrime bill awaits approval by the parliament and a cybercrime agency is supposed to be established shorty.
The reported established few facts which determine a key potential in the Pakistani market: 60 per cent of the population is aged between 15 to 45, Pakistan has the fourth largest middle class population in absolute numbers in developing Asia — 25m to 45m broadband users are expected by 2020 — and investors in the country are allowed to hold 100 per cent equity and full repatriation of capital.
Future seems bright, Pakistan is generally five years behind India in terms of growth and development, the report estimated, adding that now is the time to start building up startups.
"Pakistan will grow, the only uncertainty is the speed at which it does," the report concluded. Curtsey:DAWN.COM, JULY 07,2015

Report:Right time to bet money on startups in Pakistan

By Farooq Baloch

An insight to Pakistan’s startup culture, the report highlights the country’s potential as the next possible destination for serial entrepreneurs and investors. CREATIVE COMMONS
KARACHI:
“Pakistan will grow; the only uncertainty is the speed at which it does,” Pakistan Startup Report concludes while noting “now is a very interesting time” for both entrepreneurs and investors to bet their money on startups in the world’s sixth largest population base.
An encyclopedia of the country’s startup culture, the document, along with its wiki, has been compiled by the World Startup Report, a Silicon Valley-based organisation that builds community-driven entrepreneurial guides for every part of the world.
The World Startup Wiki – a World Startup Report’s project that maps out business opportunities worldwide – has released its Pakistan chapter on its website.
The project will go live from Monday, July 7, as the officials provide the latest updates on Pakistan’s startup ecosystem. This is an ongoing work-in-progress as the data and insights are continuously subject to change, they say about the Pakistan Startup Wiki.
The World Startup Wiki was launched by Bowei Gai, SV-based serial entrepreneur and founder of CardMunch that was acquired by LinkedIn in 2011. The Pakistan chapter was co-authored by Gai and Adam Dawood of DYL Ventures Pakistan with contributions from the country’s startup community.
The purpose of the report is to document Pakistan’s startup ecosystem as a chapter of the World Startup Report through detailed analyses and reports based on the local culture, trends, key players and challenges, the document says. “We wish to share this report pro bono to encourage investors to take advantage of current opportunities.”
An insight to Pakistan’s startup culture, the report – which is loaded with statistics about the country’s Information Communication Technology sector and demographic details – highlights the country’s potential as the next possible destination for serial entrepreneurs and investors.
There are 12,500 Pakistanis working in Silicon Valley, the report says, and many Pakistanis who have studied and worked abroad are returning to start their own ventures.
“Recent investments are testament to the increasing interest and confidence of investors in local startups. Investors can see beyond the short-term issues in Pakistan and have foresight to capitalise on the long-term future potential,” the report said, quoting an official that went by @Kayzafar.
With its 180 million plus people – of whom 60% are between 15 and 45 years of age – Pakistan is the world’s sixth most populous country and the fourth largest middle class population in absolute numbers in Developing Asia, according to the report.
Despite a 16% internet penetration, about half of its 30 million internet users access internet through mobile phones – the country’s mobile penetration stands at 74% or 136.5 million subscriptions.
With the recent introduction of third-generation (3G) mobile technology, the country’s broadband user base is expected to be somewhere between 25 to 45 million by 2020. With most of its internet subscribers being active users of social media, the country is home to 14.4 million Facebook users (as of June 2014).
Pakistan lays claim to some of the world’s best IT engineers and designers many of whom choose to go into freelancing. There are approximately 1 million freelancers working online in the country, the report says.
Besides data and statistics, the report also highlights the country’s pro-investor policies. Pakistan has one of the most liberal policies in the region, it says. For example, foreign investors are allowed to hold 100% equity and full repatriation of capital.
It is impossible to quantify number of startups in the country, said Dawood who is also a frequent contributor of TechinAsia – an online technology media company based across Asia and the US. The report, however, mentions some successful startups originating from Pakistan.
The list includes Mindstorm Studios, Pakwheels.com, Cricout, Rozee.pk, Sofizar, Symbios.pk, Solotech, Groopic, Homeshopping.pk, Convo, Zameen.com and EatOye to name a few.
The report also mentions several international players that have already invested in the country to build a startup ecosystem – Rocket internet and Naspers for example.
The challenges
The report would have been incomplete had it not mentioned the challenges entrepreneurs are likely to face in the country.
“Due to the sensitive nature of certain religious and cultural issues social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter have been banned at various points in the last five years,” it said, adding, “YouTube is still offline, and recently Twitter has been blocking certain tweets.”
Lack of basic infrastructure is another challenge facing Pakistani startups. “Low penetration of credit and debit cards means most orders are via Cash-on-Delivery,” it said – Pakistan is also the second highest country for credit card fraud. Beside this, poor transport infrastructure makes logistics suffer at times while power outages add to cost of business.
However, despite these challenges the authors are optimistic about the country’s growth and advise investors accordingly.

Pakistan’s startup ecosystem has much to offer,
but perceived violence holds it back

It was about 4 am when my colleagues and I touched down at Allama Iqbal International Airport, Lahore. Worn out and dazed from close to 24 hours on the road, we were overwhelmed by the sheer number of locals – a tiny fraction of Pakistan’s 182 million-strong population – in the airport.
I experienced my first Pakistani “entrepreneur” while walking out of the restroom. An old man guarding the entrance offered me a wad of tissues to dry my hands, and then rubbed his thumb and index fingers together after I accepted it – the international sign for “show me the money.”
I opened my hands up to indicate that I had none, half-expecting a violent outburst, but instead he grinned and waved me on by. Stereotypes began to fall away.
Curious glances accompanied us as we made our way through the crowd. “Chinese! They’re Chinese!” whispered a couple of young men as we went by.
We were met at the exit by our host, Faizan Aslam, who gave us a warm welcome. The co-founder of local online ticket booking portal BookMe handed us some supplies, and responded to our fervent thanks with a smile and a shrug. This level of hospitality would continue to follow us over our three-day long stay.
Mainstream media would have you believe that death and destruction are commonplace there. The Daily Times recently reported that 824 people were killed and 2,339 others injured in 372 bomb attacks across Pakistan in 2014. Aslam, however, claims that most of the tension lies in a small area near the Pak-Afghan border, which “is far, far away from any residential area.”
Yet, Pakistan continues to make the headlines of international news for all the wrong reasons, and a purportedly dangerous political and economic climate naturally puts investors off. A pity, given that the nation is ripe with opportunities – probably more so than any other country in Asia right now.

What’s really happening

Startups in Asia – or any other developed country, for that matter – often complain of a lack of talent in their respective countries. Yet Pakistan boasts of a massive freelancing population. In 2013, there were reportedly 2 million Pakistani freelancers on oDesk, making it the fifth largest contributor globally. oDesk vice president Matt Cooper told The Express Tribune that the “quality of projects delivered by Pakistani freelancers is at par with our top freelancer countries from around the globe.”
Pakistan is slowly but surely joining the high-speed internet world as well. It was late to the game with 3G and 4G mobile services. The latter arrived only in April last year, but ended 2014 with close to 8 million subscribers – slightlymore than Singapore, who first got 4G in early-2013. Meanwhile, another 15 million people access the internet from their mobile phones – that’s half of the total number of internet users in the country. It is expected that the number of broadband subscribers will rise to 45 million by 2020.
There are a number of local startups who have made a name for themselves on the world stage, too. Enterprise social network Convo, who raised US$5 millionfrom a US-based VC firm Morgenthaler Ventures in 2013, is widely hailed as an example of Pakistani ingenuity. Morgenthaler Ventures has invested in big names such as Apple and Evernote.

Fashion-with-a-mission startup Popinjay has produced a series of high-end handbags that have received rave reviews from several national and international media platforms, and even in fashion shows. Online car portalPakWheels also recently grabbed US$3.5 million from Malaysia-based VCFrontier Digital Ventures.
More importantly, the high-flying founders of these startups constantly mentor and give advice to the next generation in local startup programs and competitions, of which there are many.

The pieces are in place

Tech in Asia held its first meetup event in Lahore at Arfa Software Technology Park, a grey mass of buildings that we would end up spending most of our time in. Security here is tight – my colleagues and I passed through a grand total of four checks before getting the all-clear, and were asked where we were from multiple times.

Jazib Zahir, founder of games studio Tintash, tells us that it is generally the case for establishments that the government considers to be of national importance. Despite being a regular in the premises, Zahir himself had to show his identification card along for verification purposes, as did other locals.
Much like Singapore’s Block 71, these buildings are home to many local startups, many of which are housed in the resident accelerators and incubators. These organizations account for many of the current batch of budding Pakistani startups, and hence quite literally hold up the local startup ecosystem.
The Punjab Information Technology Board – a governmental body – is responsible for the development of two key programs located here: PlanX andPlan9. As the names suggest, the two are close relatives – PlanX is an accelerator born out of Plan9’s incubation program. While the latter focuses on idea-stage startups, only those who have a product and are looking to expand further can join the former.
A round of introductions at PlanX’s quaint working space reveals startups with raw but fascinating products. Several of them have in fact gone on show and won accolades at international startup events, such as Startup Turkey and Startup Asia – these trips are fully sponsored by the government. PlanX’s BookMe, for example, was one of the finalists at Tech in Asia’s Arena competition in Jakarta last year.
The other major players in Lahore are LUMS Center for Entrepreneurship (LCE), which has a incubation and acceleration program called The Foundation, and the Microsoft Innovation Center.
Beyond its borders, there’s Pakistan Software Houses Association’s recently opened incubator Nest I/O in Karachi – which is supported by Google, Samsung, and the US State Department – as well as Islamabad-basedInvest2Innovate, which focuses on social enterprises.
These three cities are the centers of innovation in Pakistan, though many entrepreneurs pointed out that Karachi is a fairly dangerous territory to be in – in 2013, it was called “the most dangerous megacity” in the world. Most of the country’s startup activity happens in Lahore and Islamabad. Even so, international startup training and launch program Founder Institute picked Karachi as the location to “create a startup ecosystem […] similar to that of Silicon Valley.”

Many hurdles

As can be seen, Pakistan has all the makings of a promising startup ecosystem. Still, investor interest in the region is scant, and Aslam found this out first-hand at Tech in Asia’s Jakarta conference in 2014.
“There were about 30 investors with whom I had a conversation, out of which only five percent showed any interest in the Pakistani market,” he recalls. One of the investors, who was based in Singapore, even offered an investment amount that would double BookMe’s valuation if it shifted and deployed its model in Singapore, Indonesia, or Malaysia.
“But he was not interested to invest in a Pakistan-based startup that was generating revenue and had a lot of potential,” Aslam says.
At the same time, few global tech conferences take place – if any at all – in Pakistan as people feel unsafe travelling to the Islamic nation, which means limited access to international investor networks for local startups. There are several local tech events, such as TechJuice Circle and the Digital Youth Summit 2014, but attendees are typically limited to, well, the locals.

To be sure, there are some foreign investors and angel syndicates – wealthy individuals of Pakistani origin – who have started taking early risks and funding some startups at the seed stage, according to LCE’s executive director Khurram Zafar. His hope is that “as these startups grow and succeed, others will hopefully follow suit.”
“But the real solution is for someone in the private sector to put together a multi-stage investment fund to finance the entire funnel of deal flow from early to late stage,” says Zafar. “The government can incentivize such investors, but so far I am not aware of any program that does so.”
Besides the Plan9 and PlanX programs, Zafar does not know of any other initiatives or policies from the government that directly support tech startups. Even the aforementioned programs were conceived at the provincial level by the Punjab government. At the federal level, none exist.
The result is an environment that is not very friendly to fledgling entrepreneurs. “For example, the State Bank [of Pakistan] requires US$2 million in paid-up capital for anyone to offer payment services,” Zafar says.
A lot more can be done by the government – such as making regulatory policies more startup friendly and offering tax incentives to startups – to sweeten the deal for those who take the path less traveled. “Currently there is a tax holiday on software export income only, but that too is coming to an end in 2016,” adds Zafar.
To make things worse, startups aren’t able to tap on the huge amount of talent available within the country’s borders. Most would rather join large corporations, or go freelance. “There isn’t enough evidence of early employees leaving secure jobs to join startups and making it big,” explains Zafar.
“So I see a lot of startups who have closed funding, but still struggle a lot to hire top notch employees – a critical factor that drives the success of young businesses.”
All things said and done, changing the widely-held perception of Pakistan as a danger zone is probably most crucial to the survival of the local startup scene. And it is up to the current batch of entrepreneurs to make this happen – by hustling their way to success. As more Pakistani startups follow in the footsteps of local heroes, and enter the consciousness of the international tech community, you can be sure that everything else will fall in place – slowly but surely.
Editing by Terence Lee and Paul Bischoff, images by zerega, ShoAib AnsAri
Curtsey:www.techinasia.com, Published: on Mar 2, 2015

Want to Start a Company in the World's Sixth-Most Populous Country? Time to Move to Pakistan.

Helen Coster ,
CONTRIBUTOR
FOLLOW ON FORBES
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own
.

I recently returned from a reporting trip to Pakistan, one of the most fascinating countries I’ve ever visited. My first story, “Into the Fray,” ran in the July 20 issue of Forbes. It’s a profile of Monis Rahman, an entrepreneur who was born in Lahore and educated in the U.S., where he started a tech company during the height of the dot-com bubble. After running out of money in 11 months— and unable to raise more— Monis realized that if he started another venture, he would need to be hyper-vigilant about managing expenses. To do so, he took a drastic step, selling everything he owned and moving back to Lahore. Read below to find out how he did it, and whether his bet paid off.

During my trip, I had the privilege of meeting with members of the Lahore chapter ofThe Indus Entrepreneurs, a networking group for entrepreneurs from the region. We spoke at great length about the challenges and opportunities facing entrepreneurs in Pakistan, the world’s sixth-most populous country. High on their list of grievances was the absence of a strong rule of law: Entrepreneurs have limited legal recourse if a competitor steals their IP, or an investor violates a contract. Pakistani entrepreneurs also struggle to attract talent, both because they can’t offer new hires equity and the prospect of big IPO, a la U.S. startups, and people working outside of Pakistan often refuse to relocate there, due to safety concerns. VCs, angels and incubators are nonexistent, and banks rarely give commercial loans. But for entrepreneurs like Monis and many other people I interviewed, the promise of doing business in Pakistan outweighs the frustration. The country has over 187 million people, a nascent online economy, and—for startups—limited competition from big multinationals.

I could spend days writing about what it felt like to travel alone in Pakistan as a blond, female American, a month after U.S. forces killed Osama Bin Laden. The very fact that I got there was something of a miracle, courtesy of the consulate staffer in D.C. who agreed to give me a journalist visa. I’ll write about my trip in subsequent blog posts. For now, enjoy Monis’s story and, as always, feel free to comment below.
In the game of can-you-top-this entrepreneurial hardship–who slept the least, whose office was tiniest, who choked down the most Ramen noodles–Monis Rahman holds some formidable trump cards.
Four years ago Rahman, a serial entrepreneur, launched Rozee.pk, now Pakistan’s largest jobs website, with 500,000 unique visitors a month. While Rahman was raising money in 2007, terrorists bombed the homecoming procession of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The Pakistani government subsequently suspended its constitution and declared a state of emergency. (A gunman assassinated Bhutto the following month.) When one of Rahman’s potential investors called to express his firm’s misgivings, Rahman e-mailed him a “Top Ten Reasons to Invest” list. Reason number nine was: “‘We’re headquartered in Lahore, where there haven’t been any blasts,’” he recalls. “Then I pressed ‘send.’ The next day in Lahore, the high court was bombed.”
Welcome to the Wild East of Web prospecting. Over tea on a 102-degree morning in Lahore, Rahman explains why now is the time to invest in Pakistan, the world’s sixth-most-populous country, with 187 million people and plenty of inexpensive labor. Obstacles abound, starting with the fact that only 17% of Pakistanis have Internet access. The country also suffers from low literacy rates, massive corruption, frequent blackouts and a weak judicial system.
“You tend to hear the worst 5% of the Pakistan story 95% of the time,” says Rahman, 41. “There’s a perception arbitrage, and it’s providing a window of opportunity for entrepreneurs.”
Rahman was born in Lahore but spent his childhood in the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, where his father worked as an urban-planning advisor for the United Nations. He studied engineering at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and then helped develop the Itanium microprocessor chip at Intel. That experience led to his first venture, a chip-design consulting firm that he abandoned after a year, seduced by the dot-com boom. In 1999 Rahman and a partner started a company that installed cameras in day care centers, allowing parents to watch the video streams online in real time. Edaycare.com attracted $2.5 million from investors, including Ron Conway, an early backer of Google and PayPal. A year later the men ran out of money, forcing them to sell the company for stock that was ultimately worthless.
After living on consulting gigs for four years, Rahman–inspired by the success of Friendster.com–decided to start a social networking site for Muslims in the United States and United Kingdom. He named it Naseeb.com, or “destiny” in Urdu, Arabic and most other languages in the Muslim world. “I decided not to go head-on as a matchmaking site,” says Rahman. “‘Dating’ has a negative stigma from a Muslim viewpoint.” There was a dating hook, though: Users could fill out a personality test with questions about whether they drank alcohol and how often they prayed–topics Muslims often discuss before they marry, says Rahman. Intrigued, LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman invested $25,000, as did Mark Pincus and Joe Kraus. (The latter two founded Zynga and Excite, respectively.)
To conserve cash Rahman moved back to Pakistan and into his parents’ house, where he converted a guest room into an office. (He registered his parent company, Naseeb Networks, in the U.S. to make it easier to raise money and subleased a small office in San Jose, Calif.) This time he spent only $60,000 in total startup costs, in part by doing some of the initial programming himself. To prime the market, he used equity in the company to buy the electronic greeting card site eidmubarak.com, which Muslims used to send cards for Eid, a Muslim holiday. Three thousand people from the site’s 1-million-strong mailing list signed up immediately. Annual memberships cost $40, and by 2005 Naseeb.com was generating $300,000 in revenue.
Rahman soon needed more programmers and support staff, and buying ads in local newspapers was expensive. So he decided to build a “quick and dirty” job site to post his own job openings. Other local companies noticed, and Rahman agreed to post their ads for free to help boost Naseeb’s traffic. He offered the largest companies the ability to search for résumés, as well as software to power their own company job boards and the right to post their logos on the front page of his new site. He named it Rozee–which, roughly translated, means “Blessed Livelihood.”
By 2007 Rozee.pk was generating more traffic than Rahman’s thinly veiled matchmaking site. He used Naseeb’s proceeds–and $2 million from Draper Fisher Jurvetson and ePlanet Ventures–to hire salespeople to go after large corporate clients, most of which still advertised job openings in newspapers. Today 5,000 companies actively post openings on Rozee.pk, paying between $29 for a single ad and up to $20,000 for a suite of services. (For now Rahman isn’t focusing on Naseeb.) Curtsey:www.forbes.com,Aug 9,2011 Read on web: http://www.forbes.com/sites/helencoster/2011/08/09/want-to-start-a-company-in-the-worlds-sixth-most-populous-country-time-to-move-to-pakistan/

Changing Pakistan One Idea at a Time

With its startup industry booming, Pakistan is the right place for entrepreneurs to invest in technology.
By Ahmed Khan
THE tall claim that Pakistan ‘has a lot of talent’ has echoed across its short history. It has been coupled with even taller claims of immense resilience, opportunities and prospects. Generation after generation has been born with a sense of entitlement, whether it has its base in religion or ethnicity, or even some elaborate social promise is not the question.
The question facing our socio-economic fabric today is whether that immense potential can be realized and the sense of entitlement can be justified. The country has been on the verge of greatness and on the precipice of despair.
Keeping the above rhetoric in mind, one can be forgiven for viewing the current buzz in the country regarding vigor and energy with a hint of cynicism. The past three years have seen nothing short of an entrepreneurial revolution in the country. As always getting exact and reliable data in the Third World is challenging. Reasons vary from lack of interest to fraud and tax evasion to general paranoia or the Big-Brother-is-watching-you syndrome. Estimates put the number of Internet users between 20 and 30 million.

Of course this number is increasing rapidly, albeit from a low base. Internet penetration currently stands at 29.14 percent, and mirrors the absolute number of users. Of these, over 50 percent are on Facebook. The relevant consumer generation − 18 to 34 age group− is the one taking the most interest in this technological progress. Statistically and demographically, things are looking bright for a country maligned in the international media by overemphasis on terrorism, sectarian violence and political and economic instability. These numbers will only continue to rise.
In Brief

This is because the number of cell phone subscribers has been constantly rising. Added to it is the launch of 3G and 4G by all leading cellular network providers. Millions of Pakistanis will have the Internet at their fingertips at a blazing speed in the next few years. Hopefully, it will be used for purposes other than self-gratification, tabloid consumption and random socialization. This provides investors and startups with an interesting opportunity to explore the fertile landscape of Pakistan’s economic sector.
For starters, the successful startups over the past few years have mushroomed dramatically. Pakistanis are realizing the huge potential of technology and social media that has truly been unlocked with all the leading brands adopting it to engage with current and potential customers.
Online channels are gaining prominence for shopping, information dissemination and collection and networking. While traditional forms of businesses need huge capital investment, technology and online businesses need minimal investment and offer high rates of return. Even well-established corporate giants are increasingly engaging customers through digital mediums. This is why digital advertising budgets of leading companies are being increased. Reliance on traditional marketing is still there but the companies have realized the massive untapped potential of increased sales and profits through digital marketing. Brands, like Shan Foods, are showing their advertisements on their social media pages before telecasting them on television.
To add to the agony of traditional businesses, incubators backed by the government, educational institutions and the private sector have popped up to support entrepreneurs to come up with innovative ideas and business plans. These incubators help entrepreneurs through funding and mentoring in all business aspects.
Pakistan’s largest province, the Punjab,has established an incubator and accelerator, Plan9 and PlanX, which have been responsible for several success stories. Incubators in the country usually have an incubation cycle that lasts a few months where they provide rent-free office, training and a platform for entrepreneurs to connect with potential clients. The Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) Center for Entrepreneurship (LCE), MIT Enterprise Forum (MITEF), NetSol and Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT and ITES (P@SHA) Nest i/O are some other notable entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Assets and Challenges
All ecosystems are providing Pakistanis with opportunities to explore the hidden value of the startup world. People from all over the country are coming forward and developing their unique ideas with these incubators. By filling in an online form, the idea is presented to an unbiased panel of judges who evaluate the business plan and then approve and disapprove it. Lesser-represented factions, like the minorities and women, are given special consideration.

The challenge is whether these ventures can realistically eclipse the returns offered by more traditional sectors like real estate, stock market, textiles, cement, and sugar where the annual return on investment (ROI) stands at around 25 percent. But like all traditional businesses, they have also had their share of lean periods. The year 2013-14 was the stagnant period for real estate. The Karachi and Lahore stock exchanges behave erratically and are volatile, coupled with the fact that they are constantly manipulated by a few powerful players, for smaller investors, they represent a serious risk.
The others are inherently commodity businesses and the recent global crash has served as a warning at the end of the day; this is speculation and borderline gambling. Of course, the jury is still out, but the initial signs look exceedingly positive. PakWheels.com and Zameen. com have exceeded $10 million in valuation and raised multimillion-dollar funding at this valuation.
All they need now is to continue this trend and other successes will follow. Smaller startups like Markhor, BookMe, Interacta, XGear, Travly, Eyedus labs, EatOye and MARO Tandoors have all exceeded $1 million in company valuation while investing a mere fraction of that amount. There is still a constant challenge of infrastructure. While being housed in incubators where startups are sheltered, lack of office space and inferior facilities and services will hamper their growth. Kudos to the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB), LUMS and P@SHA for providing not only a conducive environment but credibility, access to experts and investors and of course the moral support.
The private sector now needs to step up to take charge and pave the way for these businesses to truly flourish by international standards. International acceptability and access to global markets still need to be figured out. Regulation is another challenge: more protection needs to be provided to investors so that they can feel secure. The founders also need equal amount of protection to ensure they are not bullied out of their own companies. The current laws are archaic and will continue to be a deterrent to progress.
Key Catalysts
Despite infrastructure and regulation challenges, the claim that the ‘startup revolution’ is here to stay and could be the key catalyst for a significant economic upheaval is pretty strong. Looking at the first-year data from the LCE, we see some remarkable numbers. It has incubated 29 startups since its launch in September 2014, with 26 of them still operating.
The first-year failure rate of only 10 percent against global averages of 20 percent is commendable.
Admittedly, the base is small, but we are only concerned with directionally correct data and not absolute values. The startups have raised cash amounts in excess of $600,000. An approximate spending by the LCE, including infrastructure and operational expenditure, is $400,000. The LCE takes about 7.5 percent equity for incubation and, as its Director Khurram Zafar says, the approximate value of all the startups is north of $6 million, placing the LCE equity value at $475,000. So in all accounts, the numbers add up.

And as mentioned earlier, the startups are headed in the right upward direction. Some other interesting statistics are that LCE startups have combined annual revenue in excess of $200,000 and managed to create more than 120 jobs directly and over 350 indirectly.
The PITB was a pioneer for setting up the first government-backed incubator in Pakistan in 2012, which paved the way for startup culture in the country. The PITB’s projects, Plan9 and PlanX, have housed over a 100 startups to date, out of which 58 percent are continuing to grow and flourish. Again global averages place three-year failure rates at 40 percent, so the performance exceeds expectation. Being a pioneer and having a much larger surface area and impact sphere, the PITB has spent about $5 million to date. That really shows the government is promoting this space.

Locally, PITB-backed startups such as Pantera Energy, Bookme.pk and Patari have made a substantial impact. Pantera Energy, an engineering company providing solar energy solutions has net revenue exceeding $50,000 a month. Whereas Patari, a music streaming website and mobile app, has an exponentially growing user base of over 30,000 active users per month within just a few weeks of launch.Both Plan9 and PlanX are also actively engaged in bringing global attention towards Pakistani startups in the form of various international collaborations with Blackbox Connect, Startup Istanbul, Funding Lab, so on and so forth. Their startups have also received prominent coverage in international blogs and media like TechCrunch, TechinAsia, Hindustan Times and CNN, which has brought the world’s attention to this progressive side of Pakistan. Markhor, Plan9’s first incubation cycle startup, became the first company from Pakistan to be accepted into Y Combinator (a seed accelerator based in the Silicon Valley). Markhor also conducted Pakistan’s first known successful Kickstarter campaign where they raised over $ 107, 000. Another PITB backed startup that has created waves internationally is Travly, which brought the world’s attention to the untapped local market of public commuting, leading to speculations regarding Uber launching in Pakistan soon.
It’s ironic how initiative and impetus have come from the government rather than the private sector, especially in a lucrative space. The startups have not disappointed, rising almost $3.5 million in cash capital from local and foreign investors, which include angel and institutional investors. Being a Punjab government backed initiative, both plans have no financial stake in any of its residents; otherwise, the combined valuation of $60 million is pretty mouth-watering.
DotZero, a co-working space in Karachi, has just launched a fund for startups. In a recently released statement, it valued its startups at $20 million. This includes the ones they have invested in and housed. The P@SHA incubator, called Nest i/O, is still at a very early stage.
Success Story
A rough estimate puts the value of startup industry somewhere above $150 million. This represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of almost 150 percent if we look at it over three years. Such returns are not offered by any other line of business. One more argument in favor of investing in startups in Pakistan is the small-ticket size.You can get into a startup right with amounts as small as $10,000.
Enough has been written on these companies for the audience to be aware of their success and scale. One such highly motivating success story is that of Markhor, developed by two college dropouts from one of the most conservative parts of the country. Together, they succeeded in selling online and exporting high quality homemade leather shoes and sandals (known as “Peshawari Chappals” in local parlance), in the process also aiding craftsmen by sharing 70 percent of profits with them. This is just one success story out of many others out there which highlight how incubators have had a great impact on the lives of the common man in Pakistan. Markhor is now at Y Combinator, which is the premier accelerator in the world. That alone speaks volumes of its progress.
There have been many large-scale success stories as well, reshaping the way businesses will be conducted in the future. Rocket Internet, an Internet platform, has shown its faith in the country by developing projects such as Daraz, Kaymu, Lamudi, and Food-Panda. These are all inspiring stories of e-commerce ventures which have used the Internet and technology to come up with unique business models. These ventures have given traditional models of businesses a run for their money and are providing a level playing field for smaller sellers who don’t have enough capital to compete with retail giants.
For instance, Kaymu has actually listed more than 30,000 active small vendors from all over Pakistan, providing them with a platform to sell their products online and compete against the corporate giants. These vendors have a collection of over 200,000 products available for sale. This venture has changed the lives of many small vendors.
“One of their vendors is a guy who works as a courier delivery man. He sells lipsticks on Kaymu and is actually doing pretty well. This guy is leading his category and making tons of money,” says one insider in the know who prefers to keep his name out of it.
Reshaping Shopping Patterns
There are many other ventures reshaping the shopping patterns of Pakistanis. For instance, PakWheels and Zameen have provided ordinary citizens with platforms to buy and sell cars and property online. A decade ago, deciding to trust an online listing would have sent jitters down the spine of the previous generation, but now it is a common occurrence. Like all rare and unorthodox ideas, most innovative ventures in the initial stages face resistance in establishing trust and taking time to gain familiarity. For instance, another venture, Savaree, a cab service, is reshaping social interaction while traveling. But once the benefits of cost, convenience and the desire to interact with like-minded individuals are realized, this venture will become the Uber of this region.
There are many other unique ideas currently in work in incubators of many leading organizations. For some, the time is just ripe to make an instant impact while there are others whose time hasn’t come yet but is just round the corner. Nevertheless, ventures like these provide a golden opportunity for investors to put faith in Pakistani startups and earn huge dividends in return.
While it is true that e-commerce has had a huge impact on businesses in Pakistan, it is also true that Pakistan joined the party late. In comparison to its neighbor India, and similar-sized markets, such as Indonesia and Nigeria, Pakistan is lagging behind. And comparing it with more developed countries in Asian region, such as Malaysia and the Philippines, Pakistan is way behind.
The Numbers Game
The data shows a huge gap between Pakistan and the developed Asian countries in terms of the number of Internet users.
Most people would interpret the image as Pakistan being way behind other countries but, more importantly, this is a huge investment opportunity to take a large untapped market with immense potential. The greater the gap, the greater the rate of return will be on the investment. One thing is certain that Pakistan will grow. This is because the number of Internet users is bound to increase given the large number of people having access to cell phones and the recent launch of 3G and 4G packages by all mobile network companies as mentioned earlier.
Tackling Traditional Hiccups
If there is ever something causing hindrance to the massive potential of technology in Pakistan, it is the lack of proper infrastructure. Data shows that the number of fixed broadband Internet subscribers is the lowest for Pakistan mong the selected countries. This means that a major part of the population is unable to explore what e-commerce has to offer because of absence of connection.
Major parts of the country don’t have access even to proper roads and wire systems, meaning a majority are unable to use the Internet. This is one reason why Pakistanis from the far-flung areas have to come to major cities (Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad) to get into incubators. With the right infrastructure, these far-flung and rural areas can get instant access, allowing them to explore the countless opportunities e-commerce has to offer.
Another reason for Pakistan joining the proverbial party late is because of consumer lifestyle. The media hype of the much publicized war on terror caused the common man to become paranoid and society polarized. People were wary of scams and frauds and couldn’t trust any online activity blindly. There were many news items reporting several frauds and how a few wrongdoers had run away with people’s money without keeping promises they had made. Online shopping websites, such as Homeshopping, Symbios and Shophive, had to work extremely hard to overcome this resistance from the public.

Building trust is never an easy task, especially in a fragmented society. With the passage of time, these online companies did succeed in gaining people’s trust. This is evident from the massive growth of the e-commerce industry in Pakistan as data indicates.
One major way Pakistani e-commerce ventures managed to gain the public confidence was by making modes of payment easier. Most Pakistanis were wary of paying before the product actually got delivered. Unlike developed countries, the shopping pattern of Pakistanis was quite different. People wanted to see the product first and then pay. Realizing this, online companies followed similar trust-deficit countries, such as Mexico, to adopt the cash-on-delivery system allowing buyers to pay once the
product reaches their doorsteps.
Another important step in building trust was offering effective return policies in case the product was defective or not up to the expectations of the customer, which most traditional retailers were reluctant to do. These two steps played a crucial role in winning people over. Word of mouth and peer validation were also an important factor.
Using social media, people got together and shared their online experiences. As is the nature of our culture, criticism is always more prominent than praise. So, negative experiences were always in the majority. Therefore, online companies made extra efforts to ensure that customers had a good experience and shared it. These companies raised their game to come up to customer expectations and given the rising numbers of transactions and visits we can safely say the battle is being effectively fought.
The parallel must be drawn with what is now the more traditional IT services sector. Companies that started in the last decade like NetSol, InfoTech, Systems and Arbisoft went through their economic cycles but are now global behemoths. Even these companies have established their forte in newer technologies that benefit from Apple and Google app stores. The emergence of Mindstorm studios, TkXel and Gen IT whose revenue is mainly built on building apps and games traded on these stores further add credence to this claim.
The more cynical readers will argue that compared with Indian giants like Infosys, they are still insignificant but the progress cannot be denied. It is no longer a case of labor arbitrage, the country possesses a higher skill level than is available in other parts of the world and international companies have realized that and started respecting them.
Keeping this success in mind, the argument can definitely be made that given the proper dedication and attention the upcoming startups will attain similar levels of success. The government, albeit after lobbying by an increasingly powerful sector, abolished tax on the export of software. If the PITB continues its trend of educating the government in business-friendly policies, hopefully the policies will continue evolving to deliver a positive impact.
The Prospective Scenario
The new startup sector in Pakistan is gaining prominence and relevance with each passing day and trends show a positive sign. The numbers of Internet users are rising and with proper infrastructure and the right investment, these numbers can go even higher. A majority of customers still prefer traditional means but online businesses are being increasingly considered as an acceptable alternative. The question now is what the future holds for this new found industry and, more importantly, can significant foreign investment be attracted?
The sheer population, spending power and economic growth show that this is a massively untapped market, especially in the lesser-served areas. The Cybercrime Bill and government protection against harassment also shows online political will. The younger generation is accepting more of this new culture and businesses. Almost everyone has an interesting anecdote of their elders, surprised with knowledge of systems and companies that only exist online.
Making the case for enticing foreign companies to consider investment can be built on the fact that cost and difficulty of starting a business have gonedown considerably.
The number of people with the Internetaccess may increase as well. As World Bank data shows the influx of 3G has led to the Internet population to increase by several magnitudes in other nearby countries. Looking at India and Sri Lanka, we can see that their Internet user population skyrocketed after the induction of the 3G technology. Pakistan has arrived late to the party but we can expect a similar rise in the country, as well.
Infrastructure is a problem which hasno short-term cure but positive news is coming out of Pakistan. China and Pakistan have agreed terms to make the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to ensure the construction of new infrastructure. The corridor will pass through some of the most far-flung and neglected areas of the country. So, new roads and line networks will be in place, allowing local people to get instant access to technology. With many potential projects in incubation centers and huge Chinese investments coming in, the time is ripe for investors to invest in the diversity of Pakistan.
The entry of cellular companies and banks in the cellular and digital world will also help these new technology companies enhance their reach. Being able to collect payments and deliver money remotely and electronically will play its part in the growing of the ecosystem. Of course, it still needs to grow to be significant, but the contention is that directionally it is consistent with the claim that the signs are optimistic.
Other countries in the region such as India, Malaysia and the Philippines are full of success stories once their ecommerce industries took off. India’s Flipkart is one such a great success story. Founded in 2007 by an Indian, it quickly became India’s leading online store. Snapdeal is another leading player in India. Such e-commerce ventures have led to a healthy competition in India and as a result, the country, the people and the investors have benefitted greatly. Lazada in Malaysia and eBay in the Philippines have changed the way people shop and achieved widespread acclaim from all parts of the world. These countries identified the opportunities pretty early on and capitalized on a non-existent competitive environment.
The Right Direction
Taking all these things into consideration, Pakistan seems to be on the right track. Up to 70 percent of the population is below the age of 35 and the landscape is changing. Cellular subscribers are on the rise. The recent launch of 3G and 4G by all cellular networks of the country means access to a blazing fast Internet on the fingertips. The right idea can make an instant impact.
With favorable government policies, minimum initial investment requirement, and several high quality incubators and an ecosystem that is fast maturing, the startup industry is the most happening place in the country. Innovative ideas with solid implementation plans and viable traction are validating the system, with both foreign and local investors actively looking to invest.
The next few years will be crucial to determine whether this is a false dawn or an actual emergence of entrepreneurship. With conventional businesses unable to keep pace with the rising population, a thriving educational system that is churning out millions of high quality graduates every year who are eager to make their place in this new global village this is the right time to be an entrepreneur in Pakistan.
Ahmed Khan is an entrepreneur with a background in technology and strategy consulting. He is also a mentor for startups, academics and researchers. He has an MPhil from the University of Cambridge.
Curtsey: www.technologyreview.pk/,Published Nov 9,20155
Read on web: http://www.technologyreview.pk/changing-pakistan-with-idea-at-time/

In Turbulent Pakistan, Start-Ups Drive a Boom

Fast-Growing Economy Lures Entrepreneurs; Liposuction and Pilates

By PETER WONACOTT

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistan's political scene is growing more clouded, but a clear demonstration of confidence in the country's future is coming from an emerging economic force: entrepreneurs.
Scores of new businesses once unseen in Pakistan, from fitness studios to chic coffee shops to hair-transplant centers, are springing up in the wake of a dramatic economic expansion. As a result, new wealth and unprecedented consumer choice have become part of Pakistan's volatile social mix.

Volatility has erupted often in recent weeks. Yesterday, two bombs exploded outside this city, killing 25 people. Adding to the political uncertainty is the expected return Monday from exile of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted in a 1999 military coup led by Pervez Musharraf. To counter that challenge, President Musharraf is close to sealing a power-sharing pact with another former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. The two aim to join forces in a government that would take on Islamic extremists who have recently launched a series of suicide attacks around Pakistan. (See related article.)
Clashes between militants and security forces have pushed Pakistan toward an uncertain future. But they have largely overshadowed some of the broader changes taking place.
A new class of entrepreneurs is emerging who, in small but significant ways, have challenged the religious orthodoxy. They provide a stark counterpoint to the rising Islamic radicalism that the U.S. and others view as a threat to Pakistan's position as a staunch Western ally. And with many importing ideas from abroad, they are contributing to Pakistan's 21st-century search for itself.
"Can you be modern and Muslim? How is Pakistan going to link into the global economy?" asks Ali Cheema, an economics professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences, who has researched Pakistan's entrepreneurs. "These people are posing important questions."
By sheer demographic weight, the younger generation will determine Pakistan's direction. Of its 160 million people, 100 million are under the age of 25. Many are rural, poor and unprepared for a role in the global economy. But fast economic growth has also drawn more men and women to the cities, propelling some up the income ladder through education and new jobs.

On a recent summer afternoon, clerics from a Muslim seminary here walked across the street to a new boutique, which purports to be the first couture store in Islamabad. The bearded men, clad in white cotton tunics and trousers, were patrolling the neighborhood for signs of moral laxity. Upon entering the store, they walked over to a rack of slinky shirts.
"Our women don't wear such clothes," declared one of the visitors.
"You're right," replied Yasser Anees, the boutique's 26-year-old co-owner. "Those are for men." The patrol soon departed.
Overall, the entrepreneurial class remains a sliver, just over a million people by some estimates. Much of the business is confined to pockets of urban wealth that most Pakistanis won't experience in their lifetimes. And yet, the brief business careers of many entrepreneurs show how rapidly dramatic change can unfold in Pakistan. That change also helps explain why Gen. Musharraf remains relatively popular among this group.
Following recent events that have engulfed his government in turmoil, Gen. Musharraf can use all the support he can get. His efforts earlier this year to oust the country's Supreme Court chief -- which were unsuccessful -- provoked months of street protests from people worried about the loss of civil liberties, many of them from Pakistan's new middle class.
Meanwhile, many fear the country has become less safe. The Pakistani army has battled militants in the northwest and on the border with Afghanistan, which is where the U.S. government believes tribal chieftains harbor key figures of al-Qaeda, possibly including Osama bin Laden. In July, Pakistani security forces raided a heavily fortified mosque in Islamabad, killing dozens of armed militants.
With Pakistan's past leaders preparing to return from exile, the turmoil is likely to intensify.

Mr. Sharif and Ms. Bhutto will be coming back to a country that is much different, economically at least, from the one they left.
Since Mr. Musharraf's coup in 1999, Pakistan has become one of Asia's fastest-growing economies. In the past eight years, sales of cars have climbed 20% annually, televisions, 29%, and air conditioners, 206%. Over the past four years, economic growth has averaged 7%, according to government figures.
The consumer-driven growth has signaled the spread of a middle class in Pakistan's biggest cities. For decades after independence in 1947, a handful of extremely wealthy industrial families dominated the economy. In the 1970s, nationalization of important industries gave the government a major economic role. In recent years, a privatization program has sought to shrink the state's hand, while
Curtsey:The Wall Street Jourbal,Published Sept 5,2007
Read on web: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118894873025017472

Can young entrepreneurs transform Pakistan into a high-tech powerhouse?

May 25, 2015
After attending college in the U.S., Pakistani-born tech entrepreneur Umair Aziz returned to his home country to start one of Asia’s fastest-growing startups. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports from Karachi on how some are hoping to tap the labor potential of the country’s young population.

TRANSCRIPT

Editor’s Note. In the following broadcast segment, we incorrectly stated that Karachi is the capital of Pakistan. Islamabad is the country’s capital.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Tonight, we begin a series of reports from Pakistan, a nation that’s been gripped for years by political instability, sectarian violence, natural disasters, and poverty.
The country is also home to one of the world’s largest populations of young people.
Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro met with some innovators in the capital, Karachi, who are hoping that generation will fuel Pakistan’s rise to becoming a high-tech powerhouse.
The story is part of our Agents for Change series.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: It’s one of Asia’s fastest growing tech start-up companies. This team of Web site developers is on a project for Coca-Cola.
UMAIR AZIZ, Tech Entrepreneur: So, this is going to go up in 27, 28 different markets.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Umair Aziz, the founder, can name-drop other blue-chip American clients.
UMAIR AZIZ: Sears. We have worked with Amazon in the past. We have worked with Microsoft. We worked with Intel.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: One secret to his success — actually, it’s pretty much a secret, period — is where this company, called Creative Chaos, is located, Karachi, the teeming and indeed chaotic commercial capital of Pakistan, a country beset by terrorist violence and political instability, a city that ranks as one of the world’s most violent.
UMAIR AZIZ: We don’t want to be out of the race by advertising that we’re based in Pakistan. There’s a very negative stigma associated with the country.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: So, prospective customers see nothing on Creative Chaos’ Web site about its location. Technically, it’s headquartered in San Francisco. They soon learn that almost all workers are in Pakistan. Once hired, Aziz says, his company has never been removed from a job.
UMAIR AZIZ: People in the U.S. really don’t know that there’s a world outside of Talibans, and there’s a world outside of, you know, everything that they hear on CNN and BBC all the time.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: It’s in that world that Aziz carved out a profitable niche. Back in 2000, he was fresh out of college in Ohio and working for a Boston tech firm when he decided to return to his native Karachi.
UMAIR AZIZ: I knew there were hundreds and thousands of people like me who could join, you know, my organization. It was a risk, but I was betting on the talent. I was betting on people just like me.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: His is one of a handful of thriving Pakistani start-ups, designing Web sites, databases and applications for global clients. The tech sector is seeing a healthy 35 percent annual growth and Aziz expects his firm to grow fivefold by 2020.
In raw numbers, though, that talent pool could be a lot larger, says Jehan Ara, herself a tech entrepreneur.
JEHAN ARA, President, The Nest: The country is about 200 million people, and 70 percent of them below the age of 30. So it’s a very young population. So, the potential is amazing. How to channel that potential is something that we are all sort of thinking about.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Ara is leading an effort to scout that talent, trying to create what the technology business calls an ecosystem to foster creativity and new business.
This is The Nest. It’s one of a handful of so-called incubators that have been built in Pakistan. Here, 13 teams of techies chosen from more than a hundred applicants are working on what a panel of judges decided were promising business ideas.
JEHAN ARA: We are looking for young people who’ve developed a minimum viable product themselves while at home or at university and we know that they are committed to doing this. And then, once they get here, then we can help them further.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: For Pakistan, this is a rare work environment, and not just because it’s offered for free to these would-be tech titans. They have reliable power, broadband and hardware many could not afford on their own, plus a connection to global resources from donors to the facility, including Google and Samsung.
The U.S. government also financially supports The Nest. They practice their pitches in speed dating sessions, a classic Silicon Valley approach to lure investors. And they subject each other to sometimes withering critiques. This argument was about the Web site of a start-up by 23-year-old Shoaib Iqbaugh. It’s a kind of local Angie’s List that provides certified workers vetted not just by background checks, critical in this crime-ridden city.
RUMAISA MUGHAL, Tech Entrepreneur: But it’s so cluttered.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: What would you like to see in it, specifically?
RUMAISA MUGHAL: Less clutter and, as we talked about, their brand personality. If their best brand is so mess up, their — probably the organization is also messed up, right?
MAN: I think that she is right in many ways, but I would disagree, with due respect, on many points.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Rumaisa Mughal has her own start-up, a design business called Artboard. Her presence in this mix is also significant.
RUMAISA MUGHAL: I.T. and the new economy are certainly opening doors for a woman. However, the progress, sadly, is slow, but definitely more women are coming in this field.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: While The Nest has attracted some investment from abroad, Ara says Pakistan’s own business community has been slower to provide the venture capital that’s fueled so much of the information tech business globally.
JEHAN ARA: It’s only when the local investors get really interested that the industry is going to take off, the start-up culture is going to take off.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: One big worry is Pakistan’s precarious security situation, which she fears could drive many entrepreneurs to take off, but for jobs abroad.
In fact, we had interviewed Sabeen Mahmud for this story. She was social activist and one-time tech entrepreneur who ran a performance space for the arts and sometimes controversial political debates. Days later, she was assassinated by gunmen who have yet to be identified.
For the PBS NewsHour, this is Fred de Sam Lazaro in Karachi, Pakistan.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You can see Fred’s next story from Pakistan later this week. Fred’s reporting is a partnership with the Under-Told Stories Project at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota.
Curtsey:www.pbs.org
Read on web: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/can-young-entrepreneurs-transform-pakistan-high-tech-powerhouse/

This Pakistani Startup is tapping the multi-billion
dollar industry beyond biometrics

Almost 10 years ago, Farhan Masood started his journey of creating technology which at that time was limited to Sci-Fi Hollywood movies. “Iris scanners” and “3D facial recognition” were common tools Ethan Hunt and James Bond used in their fight against evil with high-tech devices and gadgets. It made us wonder about the future of tech and whether or not these fantasies from the silver screen will ever see the light of the day in the real world.
Farhan, at that time, was working as a futurologist with Dubai Government. His interest in what will be more prevalent in the upcoming years, made him explore some of the areas in technology, which were unheard of. He came up with the idea of SoloInsight while watching Tom Cruise walk into a GAP store and be instantly recognized by an iris scanner in Minority Report. He instantly decided to work on that.
TechJuice asked him whether or not this idea was a turning point for him. He said that things didn’t come easy for him early on, but his true passion and heart was always into developing futuristic technology and bringing it to the everyday life of people. His company, SoloInsight, has developed one of the world’s fastest 3D facial and iris recognition algorithms. In addition to that, the startup has developed a wide array of biometric devices that provide access control and serve as physical enforcement of compliance including but not limited to the fingerprint scanner, palm readers, facial and voice recognition devices. Their products, Smart XS and Biogate, are deployed in over 140 locations across Pakistan and now SoloInsight is preparing for the launch of its latest category leading IoT smartgate, named Cloudgate, in the US.

Secret to Success, 10 years of unparalleled hard work, research and patience

A decade later, SoloInsight is tapping a billion dollar biometric devices market. According to Wintergreen research, right now, the massive biometric devices’ market is generating as much as $6B in sales and this number is expected to triple by 2019, amounting to about $17B. Soloinsight is a pioneer of cloud-based global recognition platform termed as Internet of People. Its latest creation, CloudGate, is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) and hardware based Global Identity Platform with embedded on-spot decision making intelligence to simplify, enrich and enforce rules based real-time workforce access management for large organizations.
It was years of unparalleled hard work and research that has owned Farhan his patented technology and an edge in the industry. He is considered to be an innovator and inventor and, as he proudly told TechJuice, “SoloInsight products are a result of 10 years of research and sweating. Currently, our industrial-strength products process over 110,000 users at over 140 different locations at 96 different national destinations. Our blue chip customer list includes Tetrapack, Nestle, and Pepsico.”
SoloInsight’s Attendance Management System can help track different employee related data of the client factory. The system uses iris and facial recognition to avoid cheating, extra holidays, peers marking attendance for a co-worker (buddy punching), and other similar incidents. SoloInsight’s solutions for workforce management have proved to be very beneficial for their clients, thereby drastically reducing ‘Ghost Employees’ and saving companies as much as 5 Billion worth of loss.
The company, now closing its first round of investment in US, will be a 100 people strong this year and is expected to see exponential growth in the next few years.
Nowadays, SoloInsight is aggressively testing their new platform Cloudgate and the team is busy in preparing it for deployment in the US. CloudGate is a unified system to manage time, access and safety for hourly workers; salaried employees as well as for contingent workforce like independent and supplied contractors, vendors, suppliers, visitors, customers and event attendees. The CloudPass messaging system makes it easy to pre-clear temporary visitors through digital badge distribution, which works with the Apple Watch, iPhone, Android or almost any other phone that has a display.
The CloudAccess engine empowers the client to enroll permanent traffic into their choice of their proprietary 3D Facial, Iris and Palm Vein recognition. If a client has already invested in cards, we support 45 different types of RFID and NFC cards, so SoloInsight has got them covered.

How did Farhan take the plunge?

The simple answer is, he took a huge risk with prior calculation. Farhan left a lucrative job with the Government of Dubai and came back to Pakistan to start a company of his own based on his interest, experience, and passion. “I knew it was a huge risk, but I really wanted to give back to my country and in order to validate the idea, this market seemed the best.”
Young entrepreneurs, take note! As unbelievable as it may sound, Farhan never looked for any kind of investment while he worked in Pakistan, rather he searched for other smart options to raise money for the startup. For example, he participated in plenty of local and international competitions, where he got feedback, mentorship and a chance to meet some of the best minds. He worked hard or each presentation and made sure he gave his best. Luckily, he won majority of those competitions which led to a flow of money for his startup. The first round of investment in SoloInsight has been similar. Raising 3 million dollars for the company has not been an easy journey.
“Nobody came over with a cheque in hand saying, hello Farhan! here is the money.
I reached out to people, I asked for help, I asked for feedback. It was hard but not impossible.”
Farhan believes that a team is the most important ingredient behind any startup’s success. This is why he hired the best talent, let them do what they were good at and gave them autonomy to make constructive decisions for building his startup from ground up.

Farhan Masood, CTO of SoloInsight with Carter T. Kennedy, CEO of SoloInsight
“Founders shouldn’t have ego problems. I am a technical person. Look! I am not the CEO because I will not make a good CEO, I am a technical person, a scientist but not a great manager.”
Farhan still works 16 to 18 hours a day. He said that there are no holidays, no Saturdays or Sundays for him, there are only good and bad days. When TechJuice inspected, he said, “I have never, (even for) in a moment, felt like I am working. I am enjoying what I am doing. I keep thinking about the next big things, our future roadmaps and strategies even when not at work. It’s something that can’t be helped, it’s just because I am passionate about what I am doing.”

A few lessons from the 10-year-journey of Farhan Masood and SoloInsight

Patience, persistence, perseverance and undivided attention to the cause are some of the attributes behind the success of SoloInsight. Farhan saw an opportunity, envisioned the future and prepared his startup for the right time and right technology. Today, SoloInsight has more than 96 clients at more than 140 locations in Pakistan, processing over 110,000 users on daily basis.
As we signed off, we asked Farhan if he is interested in investing in local startups. He politely said, “Well, I can’t really cash out right now so I won’t be able to invest in terms of money. But, I am advising a lot of startups by giving my time and expertise. This is an investment from my side in the talent of the country.” Farhan has also been requested by the MIT BAP 2015 to guide the participating teams as a mentor and, in general, he dedicates a large chunk of his time to this activity.
Curtsey:www.techjuice.pk Read on web: http://www.techjuice.pk/this-pakistani-startup-is-tapping-the-billion-dollar-biometric-devices-market/

Pakistan’s startup scene is booming and there’s room for you

By Haseeb Tariq

180 million plus people out of whom 60% are between 15 & 45 years of age – Pakistan is the world’s sixth most populous country and the fourth largest middle class population in absolute numbers in Developing Asia.
Despite a 16% internet penetration, about half of its 30 million internet users access internet through mobile phones – the country’s mobile penetration stands at 74% or 136.5 million subscriptions.

Pakistan at a Glance

It was through the aid of Startup Weekend Karachi (the first in the Pakistan back in 2012), as well as other Startup Weekends in Lahore,Islamabad and Peshawar by what local startups started getting more attention internationally.
Groopic winner of Startup Weekend Lahore is an app which lets you take group pictures which include the photographer recently got funding from KimaVentures and also got incubated and made their way to Blackbox.vc. CloudClinik runner up of the same event is a SaaS/Web based EMR & Practice Management System for small-to-mid size medical centers is making its mark with its customer base not only in Pakistan but in Qatar and still going beyond.
Oliver Samwer of Rocket Internet says that “building a business in Pakistan is like Germany, but only 20 per cent more difficult. But we are in it to do whatever it takes, if we have to build a Pakistani Post, we build a Pakistani Post.”
International investors are showing Increasing interest and confidence because of fact that these investors can see beyond the short term issues in Pakistan and have the foresight to capitalize on the long term, future potential. Rocket Internet, for example, already has 8 different ventures running in Pakistan which include daraz.pk, foodpanda and lamudi. Naspers backs OLX.com.pk and Shibsted Media Group recently launched asani.com.pk in direct competition to OLX.
There is competition in the ecommerce sector, however this is still primarily limited to the electronics market. For most players to make a dent in this market they will have to enter with significant funds the lack of competition provides a great opportunity for entrepreneurs and investors alike.
The World Startup Wiki – a World Startup Report’s project that maps out business opportunities worldwide – After months of collating crowdsourced input, a group of Pakistani techies have released its Pakistan Startup Report.
The Pakistan Startup Wiki is here. Click below for the full report:
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pakistans-startup-scene-booming-theres-room-you-haseeb-tariq 07/12/2014

Pakistan Startup Report Reveals the Country’s Incredible Potential

Pakistan is the 6th most populous nation in the world with almost 60% of its population between ages 15 and 45. Over 30m Pakistanis have access to the Internet, almost 14.4 m of them are found on Facebook and around 6.8 million are the smartphone users. That’s not all: Pakistan Startup Report reveals that by 2019 there will be 110 3G/4G subscribers and by 2020, the country is expecting its broadband users to grow up to almost 45 Million. Pakistan’s 90 Universities combined with various incubators and accelerators as well as different co-working spaces are working to bring about a startup revolution in the country.
Pakistan Startup report has been released under World Startup Report, founded by Bowen Gai, a serial Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has set out on a quest to understand the conditions it takes to build a startup in different parts of the world. Till now he has traveled almost 29 Countries and compiled several country based startup reports. The idea is to create World Startup Wiki, a tool that entrepreneurs all over the world can use to learn about different markets and broaden their horizon.
Pakistan Startup Report has been compiled in collaboration with DYL Ventures, Creative Chaosand TechJuice. The Contributors include known names of the industry like Jehan Ara, Khurram Zafar and Shakir Husain.
“Pakistan with its nearly 200 million population is simply too large and too attractive a market to ignore.” – Ehsan Malik, CEO of Unilever Pakistan
Truer words have never been said. Pakistan is a market with immense potential and its growing. According to the recent Pakistan Startup Report, the eCommerce market size of the country alone is valued at 15M. Currently, there are various startups that are working hard and showing significant success in the Pakistani market. These startups include those which have been independently founded as well as the teams that have benefited from incubation or accelerator programs.
The growth in Pakistani startups also became the key factor governing TechJuice’s decision to start StartupJuice, a Pakistani startup directory with the aim of giving relevant parties access to startup information. Although still in alpha mode, StartupJuice has garnered the attention of many startups and investors. In the future, more features are planned for StartupJuice which will aid the startups in getting recognition and will make them easily accessible.
“Pakistan will grow, the only uncertainty is the speed at which it does. ” – Pakistan Startup Report, 2014
Foreign firms have already identified Pakistan as a growing market. Rocket Internet, for example, already has 8 different ventures running in Pakistan which include daraz.pk,foodpanda and lamudi. Naspers backs OLX.com.pk and Shibsted Media Group recently launched asani.com.pk in direct competition to OLX.
“Foreign firms are rushing in to compete in some of the most easily monetized parts of the web.”-Steven Millward, Editor TechinAsia
The findings of Pakistan Startup Report are very encouraging. Moreover, the report is a great starting place for companies that are looking to build new businesses for local consumers.
Source: http://www.techjuice.pk/pakistan-startup-report-reveals-the-countrys-incredible-potential/

First Ever Pakistan Start up Report Reveals
Great News for Investors

ALINA SOFIA

We Pakistanis are witnessing a quick rise in the field of entrepreneurship and marketing. With all these workshops and growing startups the future scope of Pakistan does seem fine and concrete.
And to reinforce it, a report has been published by the “World Startup Report” about Pakistan named as Pakistan Startup Report. It is basically a compilation of a brief encyclopaedia of the country’s startup culture, the document, along with its wiki.
Just in case if you aren’t familiar, World Startup Report is a Silicon Valley-based organisation that builds community-driven entrepreneurial guides for every part of the world. It was launched by Bowei Gai, SV-based serial entrepreneur and founder of CardMunch that was acquired by LinkedIn in 2011.
Pakistan Start up Report is co-authored by Gai and Adam Dawood of DYL Ventures Pakistan with cooperation from the country’s startup community.
Report says:
We wish to share this report pro bono to encourage investors to take advantage of current opportunities.

According to the report, interest of the international players in Pakistan has increased to a noteworthy extent and they are collaborating with various Pakistani firms to expand and multiplicate their businesses. This of course is mutually good for both considering the dynamic potential of Pakistani market.
For example Rocket internet is running 8 different ventures in Pakistan; namely, foodpanda, lamundi, daraz.pk, etc. Naspers sponsers OLX.com.pk. Shibsted Media Group has also launched asani.com.pk in contrast to OLX.
Pakistan’s 90 Universities combined with various incubators and accelerators and different co-working spaces are on their way to bring about a startup revolution in the country.
According to the statistics, the coutry’s pro-investor policies are considered to be one of the most broad-based liberal in nature.
Right now, there are innumerable amount of startups working in Pakistan and a square of it is heading towards the industry.
Report mentions the fact that entrepreneurs have to face lot of obstacles to achieve their position due to the lack of the country’s basic infrastructure, poor transportation system, religious extremism and no proper law and order condition in case of cyber crimes which not to mention are second highest in Pakistan.
The report said,
Due to the sensitive nature of certain religious and cultural issues social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter have been banned at various points in the last five years. YouTube is still offline, and recently Twitter has been blocking certain tweets.
Now if we reveal some exciting and encouraging facts then Pakistan bears the sixth largest population of 180 million people on the planet out of which:

More than half of it are under the age of 50
30 million Pakistanis are hooked on the Internet
Almost 14.4 m of them are found on Facebook
Around 6.8 million are the smartphone users

Moreover, with the advent of 3G/4G technology GDP value is getting high and according to a survey, it is expected that the rise will result between 380 billion/PKR and 1,180 billion/PKR up to the advent of 2020.
Now withstanding the stated facts, report said, global players are looking forward to the country’s growth which is pretty much in the hands of the juvenile lot. And they are working firmly towards the improvement of the start up industry.
We can foresee that the country is on the right path of evolution and development and indeed this is the most fertile land to invest right now.
Source: http://propakistani.pk/2014/07/10/pakistan-start-up-report/

Meet Plan9, Pakistan’s First Technology Startup Incubator

Headed by Nabeel A Qadeer, an experienced entrepreneur himself, Plan9 is Pakistan’s first technology startup incubation program, and it’s being run by the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB). Like many other incubators, Plan9 provides space, mentorship, electricity (yes, electricity), and legal support for startups who are incubated. Plus there’s financial support.
How much money exactly?
Instead of getting a lump sum of funding, Plan9 told us that each startup team member receives a monthly stipend of PKR 20,000 (US$204) for six months. A Plan9 representative told me that in Pakistan power outages can last for 12 hours a day, so the reliable electricity is just as enticing as the money. Plan9’s office provides a conducive work environment where founders can code and work all night.
Plan9 also has a pretty extensive list of advisors, including Zafar Khan (CEO of Sofizar), Khurram Zafar (CIO, Lahore Stock Exchange), Jehan Ara (president of Pakistan Software Houses Association), and Badar Khushnood (Pakistan country consultant for Google). Plan9 also told me:
In addition to [our advisors], Plan9 is building a network of early-stage investors, and mentors from around the world. Hussein Kanji (angel investor), Shoaib Makani (Khosla Venture), Russell Smith (partner, SmithDehn) and Jawwad Farid (founder, Alchemy Technologies) are just some of the people who visited Plan9 in first cycle.
10 Pakistani startups to watch in 2013
Plan9 kick-started its first chapter in September 2012. 14 teams were selected from four launchpad competitions held in Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, and Lahore (again). The teams officially joined the Plan9 incubator in November 2012 with the caveat that each team had to reach certain milestones during the first two months. That resulted in four teams exiting the program early, with the 10 startups below currently still in the program:

Eyedeus Labs: Making smartphones smarter by giving them eyes. The team develops ‘computer vision’ technologies for mobile devices, particularly enabling technologies for augmented reality and human-computer interaction.
Nosh Genie: Local businesses reviews and social recommendation engine.
Piclome: An app to upload event pictures on a single repository data storage to help involved users interact with each other.
Hometown: An e-commerce startup working with craftsmen in Pakistan to make and sell high-end leather products. We previously covered Hometown on TechinAsia.
LAMP: It stands for ‘Location Aware Management Platform’ and helps collect location field data. Provides business tools for user-driven analytics as well as customizable management dashboard.
Hybrid Signals: Digital and social media marketing company to assist brands in calculating the ROI from campaigns.
Peercloud: Peercloud is building Pagify. Pagify provides a web-based visual designer enabling documents to be designed completely within the browser.
Geniu: Working on system integration and technology products.
Travel Distribution Network: This startup claims to be Pakistan’s first B2C and B2B tourism platform, providing information and travel booking services domestically and internationally.
Roxcial: A Facebook store to handle orders and collect payments on your business’ Facebook page.

Plan9 has two incubation cycles each year and 15 teams are selected for each cycle. Teams for the next cycle are scheduled to start in March. To be eligible for Plan9’s program, founders have to be a Pakistani national with a team of two to five people. The applicants’ business ideas will go through a pitch test at one of Plan9’s launchpads held in Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad.
When asked why the Punjab Government is involved in a technology startup incubator, the Plan9 representative explained that the vision is to build a conducive startup ecosystem for tech entrepreneurs all over Pakistan. Umar Saif, the chairman of PITB added:
Plan9 is very close to my heart, I hope to see some, if not all, teams make a mark on the international arena.
Today, Pakistan has over 30 million internet users which represents about 16 percent of its entire population. 15 million Pakistani are using mobile internet.
Last update: October 26, 2015
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Likewise, we hope that we can do well enough to keep bringing you news about Asia for years to come. Curtsey:www.techinasia.com Read on web: https://www.techinasia.com/plan9-pakistan-first-technology-startup-incubator/

CAUSESLane AndersonWednesday, November 5, 2014

Young Pakistanis embrace start-up culture to create local jobs

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Without money or even a laptop to call her own, young Pakistani entrepreneur Sidra Qasim moved from her small hometown in 2011 to the big city of Lahore to start a business.
Her friend, Waqas Ali, asked her to join him as his business partner, and she moved into a hostel and took a job tutoring during the day. In the afternoon, she would walk 30 minutes to Ali's college campus where the two could use a free computer lab to work on their website. When the lab closed at 8, they went to the library and pored over copies of Harvard Business Review, reading case studies about start-ups.
Ali and Qasim are examples of a philosophy that some of the world's leading thinkers and philanthropists have been betting on: that the Internet and technology will help entrepreneurs in developing nations build wealth and pull themselves and their communities out of poverty.
In 2012, they had their first production run, and launched their business selling handcrafted shoes online. Within six months, their company, Markhor shoes, had sold 200 pairs of shoes in 17 countries.
"We were able to give jobs to 24 local craftsmen," says Qasim, who acknowledges that there is still work to be done, but it's a start. "In our next run we would like to increase their pay by two, and offer health benefits."
Technological advancements
Entrepreneurial advancements are especially impressive in the case of Pakistan, where power outages sometimes last 18 hours a day and foreign investment plummeted by almost a quarter in 2012 alone, according to the Central Bank. Facebook — the poster child of the new Internet age — was banned in Pakistan for a time in 2010, and YouTube, though easily reached through proxy servers, has been officially banned for four years.
And yet, information technology and communications is one of the fastest growing sectors in Pakistan's growing economy, which has seen its middle class double since 2002. In 2001, just 1 percent of the population was on the Internet; now Pakistan has 19 million Internet users, according to Census Bureau data.
"Even in small villages, people, especially young people, are using Twitter and Facebook," says Qasim. "People from my village order mangoes on their mobile."
Access to the Internet has made all the difference for young people like herself, says Qasim. Indeed, Ali, her hometown friend and business partner, got the idea for the online shoe business when he met local craftsmen in their village whose families have been making handmade shoes for generations, and saw their beautiful product. He thought they could find a wider audience by using Facebook and the Internet to market their goods.
Markhor's business links the old Pakistan with the new — in the glossy, hand-stitched shoes made in their local village, Ali and Qasim saw an opportunity that would exploit a hole in the market and employ local craftsmen who had been struggling to make ends meet.
Since 2000, Pakistani shoemakers had lost 90 percent of their business to China, leaving thousands without jobs. But the quality wasn't there with Chinese products. Ali and Qasim suspected that an international customer would appreciate a hand-crafted product that was hard to find, but available on the Internet.
Incubating innovation
At the same time, Pakistan’s government was looking to promote start-ups like Markhor. Pakistan's Pasha Social Innovation Fund is a collaboration with Google that funds innovators trying to solve social problems — such as poverty, access to health care, employment, and literacy — with technology. Pasha received 200 applications in its first round of funding in 2011, and Markhor won a grant for $10,000.
Not long after, Markhor got a break from Plan9, Pakistan’s first technology incubator, that launched in August 2012.
Plan9 is funded by the Punjab Information Technology Board, a government entity, so it doesn’t take a cut in equity like some traditional incubators. Plan9’s program takes on start-ups for six months and outfits them with free office space, electricity, laptops and a small stipend. In the first three months of the program, start-ups work on their business plans and Plan9 helps put them in touch with resources they need — programmers, graphic designers, legal advice. For the second half, they match them with mentors and prep them on pitching to investors.
It has the components of an incubator in the States, says Sarah Gilani, assistant manager at Plan9, but it’s more “raw.” “It’s a crash course,” says Gilani. “It’s like a mini MBA.”
Like many young people in Pakistan, Gilani grew up hearing about the Pakistan before 9/11 — a Pakistan that had a more robust economy and a burgeoning tech sector before war broke out and foreign investment fled.
“People here with money now don’t understand tech, they are industrialists, landlords, people who would rather buy land and are skeptical about technology,” says Gilani. Her hope is that the success of local start-ups will help spur local investment — or circumvent the problem with foreign money.
One of Plan9's current incubation companies with a social media app is in negotiations with Microsoft UK, she says. Groopic, an app that includes the photographer in the picture through photo-merging technology, has been Plan9's biggest incubation success to date. It was funded by Kima Ventures, based in Paris, for an undisclosed six-figure amount, and has been listed as a top 10 photo and video app on Apple's app store earlier this year.
Jobs, not charity
Plan9 gave Markhor the boost to complete its first production run of 200 shoes, hiring 24 craftsmen from their hometown. The local shoemakers said the product wouldn't sell on the Internet because people want to try before they buy. But within weeks they had sales from France and India, and within six months they had sold out their first run and had customers in 17 countries.
All of this was done with no paid advertising — all of Markor’s marketing is done through the Internet on social media. "Using Instagram and Twitter are best for us," says Qasim.
Twitter is her best advertising platform "because you can reach a large audience that's very specific, and share pictures that people re-tweet."
The most recent step for Markhor was to use yet another Internet tool — crowdfunding — to raise their latest round of funding on Kickstarter earlier this month. They raised $67,000, more than four times their original goal of $15,000.
With the Kickstarter money, they hope to employ their craftsmen full-time and provide benefits like health insurance. By giving employees permanent jobs, it's more likely that their kids will be able to stay in school instead of getting pulled out to help support the family, says Qasim.
"People want a permanent job and they don't want charity,” she says, noting that she knows the craftsmen well because she’s a local herself. “People want their work to be valuable.”
Markhor wants to give a new meaning to "Made in Pakistan," she says. "Some people think that's cheap, or made by unskilled or child labor. We are saying no to all these things."
"We want people to feel that by putting money in this product they have made an investment in the universe."
Youth unemployment is high in Pakistan, even among college grads: a recent survey found that 68 percent of young men and women said they experienced "many problems" securing employment, especially without connections or "bribery."
"I believe that start-ups can get our economy out of this disaster and give jobs to young people," says Qasim.
Plan9 has since expanded to Karachi and other provinces and receives 300 applications for each round of funding, says Gilani, and most are under age 35. She believes that Pakistani culture is a good fit for entrepreneurship.
“They are very hard-working,” she says, “and they are crazy passionate and determined.”
Email: laneanderson@deseretnews.com

Curtsey:www.national.desertnews.com

Read on web: http://national.deseretnews.com/article/2702/young-pakistanis-embrace-start-up-culture-to-create-local-jobs.html

Pakistan crawls into the top 100 in the
Global Information Technology report

In the Global Information Technology report released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) for the year 2015, Pakistan has crawled into the top hundred, obtaining the 97th spot.
The Global Information Technology Report is a special project within the framework of the WEF’s Global Competitiveness and Risks Team and the Industry Partnership Programme for Information and Communication Technologies. It is the result of collaboration between the World Economic Forum and INSEAD. The report has been published since 2001 and from the start it has measured the drivers of the ICT revolution using the Networked Readiness Index. For each of the 143 economies covered, it allows areas of priority to be identified to more fully leverage ICTs for development.
Pakistan has seen a lot of ups and downs in its ranking in the Global IT report since it was first mentioned. In 2012, our ranking slipped from 102 to 105. In 2013, our ranking further slipped to 111. This year is a great improvement, as we have gone up 14 places to achieve the 97th spot in the world rankings. This ranking reflects on the growing trend of technology awareness in the country. Pakistan has about 30 million internet users and according to a recent report the number of 3G/4G users touched the 18 million mark. Our CMO’s have invested $1.1 billion to expand 3G/4G internet services.
This year’s report has four important messages: first, the ICT revolution holds the potential of transforming economies and societies and of addressing some of the most pressing global challenges of our time. Second, this ICT revolution is well under way in some parts of the world where its is accelerating as a result of the ubiquity of broadband Internet, the democratization of technologies, and the accelerating pace of innovation. Third, the ICT revolution has not so far reached large parts of the planet. Many of those who stand to gain the most from it are not yet connected. In order to better leverage ICTs for development, a higher level of preparedness and better infrastructure and access are needed for which government leadership and vision are critical. Finally, the report mentions about the digital divides that exist within countries. Even in the most advanced economies, only certain segments of the population are benefiting from ICTs. Many are left behind because of their age, limited digital literacy, lack of access, or remoteness.
However, the solution to fixing the digital divide won’t be to just blindly try to increase the ICT use. The report, therefore, concludes with a call for action. Government officials will need to work with the concerned stakeholders to come up with long-term strategies that can bring about lasting changes so that a greater portion of the population leverages ICT.
Curtsey:www.techjuice.pk
Read on web: http://www.techjuice.pk/pakistan-crawls-into-the-top-100-in-the-global-information-technology-report/

Pakistan’s 2nd Annual Start-Up Cup competition launched

ISLAMABAD: To promote and assist the local entrepreneurships across the country, the 2015 Pakistan Start-Up Cup, an intensive, nationwide business competition launched here on Saturday.

The Start-Up Cup is locally driven business model competition open to any idea. This innovative community-based approach is designed to increase the quality and quality of entrepreneurs in the community.
The US Embassy in Islamabad and the Islamabad Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Chapter, in collaboration with the US Pakistan Women’s Council, launched the 2015 Pakistan Start-Up Cup, an intensive, nationwide business competition. Entrepreneurs selected to participate in Start-Up Cup will receive coaching through multi-day “Build-a-Business” workshops and regular mentoring to help turn their ideas into a commercial reality. Prize money of $10,000, $7,500, and $5,000 will be awarded to the winner and two runners-ups with the best Start Up concept.
At the opening ceremony, Deputy Chief of Mission of the US Embassy in Islamabad Thomas E Williams, said, “Programs like Start Up Cup foster greater inclusiveness in Pakistan’s economy, particularly for women. The entrepreneurial solutions that arise from competitions such as Start-Up Cup foster inclusiveness, grow economies, promote stability, expand the international supply chain, and spread the exchange of ideas.”
Over the course of the seven-month programe, aspiring Pakistani entrepreneurs will learn to design viable business models, develop customers, and launch their start-up business concepts in the marketplace.
This year’s programme will build on the success of last year’s Start-Up Cup, which saw over 400 entrepreneurs compete for one of the top three prizes. Last year’s winning team went on to defeat 170 other entrepreneurs to win the first-ever World Start-Up Cup competition in Yerevan, Armenia.
The 2015 Start-Up Cup in Pakistan will introduce new partnerships with entrepreneurship centres across Pakistan, including the world’s first Women’s Entrepreneurial Centre of resources, education, access, and training for Economic Empowerment (WECREATE) in Islamabad sponsored by the US Department of State in collaboration with the US Pakistan Women’s Council; the Lahore University for Management Science (LUMS) Centre for Entrepreneurship; and Karachi-based technology incubator “The Nest I/O.”
The partnerships between Start-Up Cup and these centres will ensure that newly established businesses receive sustained support and mentoring, essential tools for long-term success. Numerous US Embassy programmes assist Pakistan’s entrepreneurs by increasing their access to financial resources, supporting opportunities for entrepreneurship education, and nurturing an entrepreneurial culture.
There are four base stations for this program, Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar and Karachi with overall prize money of Rs22.5 million.
During the opening ceremony esteemed businessman and Islamabad TiE Board member Imtiaz Rastgar said, “StartUp Cup has only came to Pakistan two years ago and already tremendous feats have been achieved as new voices and ingenious minds have been brought to the fore. One can only imagine how much advantage this competition will bring as the years progress”.
Curtsey:Daily Times, February 22, 2015

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