STARTUP GUIDE MONIS RAHMAN & QASIF SHAHID
ISSUE 9
ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE DIGITAL AGE
THE FUTURE OF FINTECH IN PAKISTAN
9 FINTECH STARTUPS ON OUR RADAR
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Editor Shehab Farrukh Niazi Art Directors Aleeza Javed Mahnoor Haroon Niazi Operations & Outreach Abbas Khan
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EDITOR’S NOTE Fintech is an emerging trend in Pakistan, one that comes with many hurdles that make it hard to venture into. At the same time, the fintech landscape has so many verticals that offer tremendous opportunity to innovate and add value. In this issue, we focus on many of these aspects and speak to the innovators who have managed to make a mark in the fintech space at man its nascent stage. Monis Rahman and Qasif Shahid talk about Finja and SimSim.They talk about the opportunity that the fintech landscape offers, how they came up with the idea that has disrupted the digital payment systems. Owais Zaidi, founder of the Fintech Factory highlights the promising future and the kind of sandbox environment futu that would help us realize the potential that the fintech industry has to offer. Noman Azhar, the man behind the app that digitized the challan system for the Islamabad Traffic Police, talks about the importance of creating use cases to bank the unbanked population of the country, which has extraordinary value and importance if we want to fulfill our financial impo inclusion goal. Who is making a mark in the fintech arena in Pakistan? We list the 9 startups you need to watch out for. Arzis Azam, Chapter Director for Startup Grind Arzish Islamabad discusses what community-building means to him. We also bring you highlights from the Gilgit Baltistan Entrepreneurship Summit and GDG Cloud’s Extended Next Event. Who took that prize home in the Pakistan Startup Cup finale and what did they learn from the experience? We talk to the startups and the Executive Director of TiE Islamabad to ask what’s next! Happy Reading!
SHEHAB FARRUKH NIAZI
CONTENTS GILGIT BALTISTAN ENTREPRENEURSHIP SUMMIT
THE POWER OF STRONG COMMUNITIES
10 PAKISTAN STARTUP CUP 2018-19
News and Events
05 08 10 12 17
28
32
08
EDITOR’S NOTE GOOGLE CLOUD NEXT EXTENDED 2019 GILGIT BALTISTAN ENTREPRENEURSHIP SUMMIT 9 PAKISTANI STARTUPS TO WATCH OUT FOR
FEEDBACK ANALYSIS FOR ENTREPRENEURS
18 20 24 28 32
OWAIS ZAIDI ON THE FINTECH LANDSCAPE OF PAKISTAN
NOMAN AZHAR
ON USING DIGITAL PAYMENTS FOR ISLAMABAD TRAFFIC POLICE CHALLANS
COVER STORY ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE DIGITIAL AGE
ARZISH AZAM ON THE POWER OF STRONG COMMUNITIES
PAKISTAN STARTUP CUP 2018-19
WHO WON AND WHAT THEY LEARNED FROM THE EXPERIENCE
FEATURING “As people become more financially savvy with easy access to financial tools, they will invest in the future of their children and the future of Pakistan” Entrepreneurship in the Digitial Age With Monis Rahman and Qasif Shahid
Cover Story
“There has been so little done that we have immense opportunity across the spectrum” On the Fintech Landscape of Pakistan
Owais Zaidi
“I’ve observed over time that everything I’ve achieved is because of this spirit of giving first” On the Power of Strong Communities
Arzish Azam
“We need to fulfill the need that anyone sitting in any area of Pakistan should be able to link their idea with a payment solution and start making money” On Using Digital Payments for Islamabad Traffic Police Challans
Noman Azhar
GOOGLE CLOUD NEXT EXTENDED 2019 IN A NUTSHELL On the 15th of June 2019, Google Cloud Developer Community (GCDC) of Islamabad organised the first ever Google Cloud Next Extended 2019 event in Pakistan, supported by GitHub, TechJuice, The DaySpring, RedBuffer, Anzen, AIYIN, NUST ACM Chapter, Devenings, Developer Circles from Facebook, Startup Guide, ProPakistani etc. and judging by its success, it was worth the wait! Held at KNCT Hub in I-10/3, from 10:00 A.M to 6:00 P.M. The attendees largely comprised of recent graduates and undergraduate students, including various innovator and lead thinkers, who were thrilled to be attending this flagship event. GCD Islamabad is a local community that brings GCDC together developers who share a keen interest in resources and technology from Google Developers. With an aim to connect and spread knowledge, GCDC often organises workshops and various events that allow the community to enhance their skills, and Google Cloud Next Extended 2019 was no exception. With the focus this year on Artificial Intelligence, here’s a rundown of all thi that happened.
True to its goal of equipping the community with skills, the event kicked off with 2 hands-on workshops. The first of which was a Study Jam on Machine Learning APIs on Google Cloud Platform, led by Codistan members Sumbal Malik, a multi-talented QA engineer and Beenish Khan, experienced software engineer. They explained the basics of cloud computing and led the audience through the process of creating an object detection application using tensor flow. Googl Cloud Next Extended 2019 Google was truly one of a kind as it perfectly walked the line between informative and engaging. With an event that imparted so much hands- on knowledge yet never lost touch with its fun side, the only question on everyone’s mind’s as they left was “When is the next one?”
Gilgit Baltistan Entrepreneurship Summit
The Gilgit Baltistan Entrepreneurship Summit was recently organized by PISE (Pakistan Innovation Summit for Education) with the objective of promoting the spirit of entrepreneurship in the region.This three-day workshop, organized with the support of the US Embassy in th Pakistan was conducted specifically for women, especially mothers who are playing a fundamental role as micro entrepreneurs in the economy of the region.The workshop focused on introducing design thinking among women running cottage industries, along with better marketing and product design sessions.The workshop was a first of a series of trainings designed to introduce more learned and globally recognized ideas and practices in entrepreneurship and product development for the women and men living in rural communities.
09 PAKISTANI
FINTECH
STARTUPS TOWATCH OUT
01
FOREE
Aiming to become the backbone of a digital society, Foree enables access to citizen and financial services with ease and trust to empower and enrich people by delivering financial inclusion and economic justice while enabling job creation and formalization of economies. Foree does this through its mobile centric, real time thi citizen services and payments platform, which leverages high penetration of mobile phones and growing adoption of smartphones, data and Internet.
KEENU Working on the philosophy of removing the need for paper money, Keenu has introduced NFC payment acceptance for the first time in Pakistan, allowing users to make digital payments directly from their bank accounts. Amid other offerings, Keenu allows buyers to make in-store payments, and offers loyalty programs for merchants, tailored to their pr own likings, with customers benefiting, thanks to the rewards. The company has three major offerings, each of which is designed to aid wholesalers, telcos, banks, and consumers. Keenu Pay, Keenu NetConnect and Keenu Club.
02
03
KUICKPAY Kuickpay aims to bring payment gateways on one platform so that member organizations can provide a one window payment solution to their customers and hence receive payments timely and effortlessly. With online payments, it offers a channel for hassle free consolidated collection for all branches and networks reconciliation and settlement; real-time notifications offer alerts with pre-connected banks networks and their loyalty program provides an API engine for integrating a loyalty program for customers.
TEZ FINANCIAL
04
05 TPL RUPIYA
Incorporated in 2015, TPL Rupiya is an e-payments company. It offers solutions that facilitate payments through mobile account, government and bank transactions. Through the TPL Rupiya payment ecosystem, users would be able to pay for services and goods through a mobile wallet, bank account or mobile phone account. Through this technology, daily consumer transactions become easier from utility bill consume payments, grocery shopping, school fees, bus fare and e-commerce to money transfers, taxi fare and more.
FINJA Founding by veterans of tech and banking industry, FINJA is a zero-cost payment platform that integrates the loan and e-commerce market place – the startup operates with the aim to make payments free, frictionless and real time. FINJA has also launched the very first digital wallet of Pakistan, th SimSim. The company offers digital banking projects in Pakistan and other emerging markets, and engages in digital transformation providing methods for rolling out payment types, systems, platforms, and building related ecosystems; business process management; and more. Finja’s products include the Finja Wallet, a digital wallet, Finja Retail, a CRM solution, and Payrollplus, a cloud-based payroll solution.
06 07 FONEPAY
With FonePay, users can pay at a store straight from their account using a mobile. It also brings loyalty cards, virtual cards and gift card options to users with simply scanning a QR code.
08
CREDITFIX
Launched in 2016 CreditFix is a digital lending platform that uses alternative data to assess and provide loans to Pakistan’s underbanked population. CreditFix was part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backed accelerator DFS Lab.
09
UNIKREW SOLUTIONS
Unikrew makes use of cutting-edge technologies to improve financial inclusion, from machine learning and data analytics to improve existing customer experiences and offer customer centric products. Unikrew Solutions’ most popular poducts includes FastPay, which is a platform that provides access to earned but unpaid salaries. Another product is Maestro, a chatbot, which helps users in making Maest financial decisions.
Feedback Analysis for Entrepreneurs – the path to your success!! by Nazia Hamid You are a startup; an entrepreneur in making or fervid professional, feedback analysis is what you need to start practicing for many reasons. Mos people think they know what they are good Most at. They are usually wrong. More often, people know what they are not good at - and even then more people are wrong than right. And yet, a person can perform only from strengths. One cannot build performance on weaknesses, let alone on something one can do at all. Th Throughout history, people had little need to know their strengths. A person was born into a position and a line of work: The artist’s son would also be an artist and so on. However, now people have choices. We need to know our strengths in order to know where we belong. The only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis.
“Whenever you make a key decision or take an action, write down what you expect will happen” Weeks or months later compare the actual results with your expectations. This method has been practiced for decades now! “Th feedback analysis showed me, for instance “The – to my great surprise – that I have an intuitive understanding of technical people, whether they are engineers or accountants or market researchers. It also showed me that I don’t really resonate with generalists.” Practice consistently, this method will show you Practiced within a fairly short period of time, may be 1-3
years, where your strengths lie – and this is the most important thing to know. The method will show you what you are doing or failing to do that deprives you of the full benefits of your strengths. It will show you where you are particularly not competent. And finally, it will show where you have no strength and cannot perform. Several implications for action follow from feedback analysis. First and foremost, concentrate on your strengths. Second, work on improving your strength. Analysis will rapidly show where you need to improve skills or acquire new ones. It will also show the gap in your knowledge and then th usually can be filled. Third, Discover where your intellectual arrogance is causing disabling arrogance and overcome it. Work on acquiring the skills you fully need to realize your strengths. It is equally essential to remedy your bad habits – the things you do or fail to do that inhibit your effectiveness and performance. Such habits will quickly show up in the feedback analysis. Comparing your results with expectations also indicate what not to do.
OWAIS ZAIDI ON THE FINTECH LANDSCAPE OF PAKISTAN
Owais Zaidi is the man behind the first Pakistani VC funded company in 2000 called 2B Technologies in call center and CRM space; he has managed the first third party Payment network in Pakistan covering over 15,000 merchants and running Visa/MasterCard/Private Label programs. He has also run the first managed loyalty platform with market share of over 90% in 2000’s and built the first cloud based Mobile payments platform in the emerging markets in 2008. He has also co-founded the first and only fintech incubator of the country, called the Fintech Factory.
You have co-founded the first and only fintech incubator of the country. How do you see the fintech landscape evolving and what is the potential?
“There has been so little done that we have immense opportunity across the spectrum�
Fintech is not like li other domains; it requires deep domain understanding, access to proprietary platforms and regulatory understanding. The potential is huge as Pakistan is struggling to democratize the financial offerings. Our National Financial inclusion goal was 50% by 2020 and we have only reached 20% so far. The upside for entrepreneurs bringing financial solutions is huge ent with the right guidance and capital availability. Unfortunately both are in short supply. We are trying to address the training, platform availability and guidance issues primarily with assistance in acquiring capital.
Considering that the opportunities for bridging gaps in the country’s financial ecosystem are incredible, what do you think are some steps that need to be taken to allow the fintech industry to grow? I think two t key things are around capital and regulatory structures. SECP and SBP need to streamline the process for controlled experiments through simplified registration in regulated categories and a sandbox environment.
In your view, what are some of the areas that offer potential based on people’s needs for startups to offer sustainable and scalable solutions? scal Within fintech, the scope is huge. There are so many steps in financial inclusion – entrepreneurs can look at building interesting use cases, or customer experiences that will create compelling reasons for the excluded to jump on the bandwagon. There has been so little done that we have immense opportunity across the spectrum, from use cases for wallets, savings, micro investments, insurance, bill payments, infrastructure services, inclusion etc.
The is a huge Chicken and Egg problem today, you need There huge expenditure to obtain a license, register your financial company, get fit and proper testing for key executive staff, capitalize the corporation and then commence business. This is the exact opposite of what is required, you want to execute fast and fail fast so you can learn and see if there is a product market fit. The current environment excludes any such possibility. If we allow for a regulatory sandbox, an which will enable startups to do quick turnaround experiments without going through the whole process albeit in a controlled way, they can establish viability of the idea and then raise funding relatively easily and go through the rigmarole of regulatory environment.
After having interacted extensively with fintech startups, what do you believe are aspects aspiring and existing fintech startups need to consider to realize the potential that the fintech industry has to offer? o The potential is there like for any other industry and domain across the country, but the regulatory and structure challenges are really holding back a mass uptake and interest in this domain.
Noman Azhar On Using Digital Payments for Islamabad Traffic Police Challans Noman Azhar, EVP/Country Head – Branchless Banking and Digital Implementation at JS Bank is the man behind the bank’s monumental th collaboration with the Islamabad Traffic Police for challans. At the GSMA Global Awards, this policing initiative got shortlisted in the ‘Best Mobile Innovation for Payment and Fintech’ category. Startup Guide catches up with him on the vision behind the initiative and what the future holds for Pakistan in digital payments and futu fintech.
“Our focus as a bank is to increase adoption of mobile wallets by creating use cases and developing sources of funding for Mobile Wallets”
embezzlement when challans are deposited manually. To counter these issues, we proposed this solution to the Islamabad Traffic Police in 2016 – to the SSP Traffic, Malik Matloob. He appreciated the initiative and was very committed to the cause since the beginning, He was an important partner in this activity and used to engage with all the concerned stakeholders personally for getting all necessary approvals, which was never an easy task and necessa finally his commitment made it happen. Were there any hurdles in terms of training the staff to use the technology?
For a bank to work on such a large scale with the Traffic Police is something that has not been done before. What was your vision behind this? Promoting branchless banking and mobile wallets is a formula, which many have been working on, but none have been able to quite crack the case. Our focus as a bank is to increase adoption of mobile wallets by creating use cases and developing sources of funding for Mobile Wallets– something that requires people to have funds somethin land in their mobile wallets firstly and then to use them for their day-to-day activities. The offering should provide value for people to open up Mobile Wallets and keep funds in their account. I think that Public to Government and Government to Public are two of the most commonly used use cases which can motivate people to not only open Mobile Wallets but to also keep funds in them and generate regular activity. One key aspect of Public to Government fund transfers is Traffic Challans. Our objective was to look at public pain points e.g. paying challan loo was a difficult task. There is also a chance of
When initially handed over for testing to ITP officials, the technology was not noticed. It took two years and multiple trainings to change the mindset towards the technology and make it user friendly for the target customers and finally it happened after almost 11 revisions into main version of the solution. When we launched it, the best decision that was taken by the IG then Islamabad Mr. Sultan Azam Temuri and the SSP then Malik Matloob was to take back the manual th challan books from ITP Traffic Wardens, leaving them with no other option than to issue challans using the new technology. This also resulted in improved efficiency of the force since number of challans issued and paid was now visible in real time. Constant feature improvement is still being undertaken. Eventually, when the officers became comfortable with using the technology, it became easier for them and also for the public. We collaborated with National Bank for payment digitization, which is a great example of public- private partnership where an entire government organization became paperless by using latest technology. People are comfortable to pay extra if they get convenience. In addition com to this it is worth mentioning that we not only digitized the payment system, but the fact that we digitized a public sector institution, which eventually helped us getting to the Oscars of Technology i.e. nomination for GSMA GLOMO Awards.
Are you working on any other solutions? Th agenda I have been working on for the last few The years is that we should help the public sector in making their processes easier. This started out while I was at my previous Job. We started a service five years ago for verifying vehicles via USSD short code *15# – that was the beginning of digitization of police. I’ve had the fortune to work with leadership that has been supportive of technology driven change. technolo We digitized multiple operations of Lahore police, saving time and enabling real time recording of all the actions. We introduced two-way communications through Skype during police interventions and introduced the complaint resolution through SMS texting along with many other digital applications, which replaced the manual practices of the Police force and made them digital. We are into a lot of initiatives and soon they will be launched as well. lo There is much to do in Public Sector and it is a real source of motivation for me as well since it actually improves the life of common citizen of Pakistan including myself. Where do you see the future of digital payments? Specifically talking about JS Bank, we realize that the future is in digital payments. Looking at the past, we should realize that the banks in Pakistan have had a free ride so far. This is not the case anymore – things have seriously changed. One way to reduce the costs associated with the fluctuations in dollar and KIBOR is digitization. We need to not only make our processes digital, but also to offer digital products to our customers. digital
“We need to fulfill the need that anyone sitting in any area of Pakistan should be able to link their idea with a payment solution and start making money”
In the overall banking sector, the realization is there, but the processes do take time. On the fintech front, in Pakistan it’s a bit haywire. There are initiatives being taken, but they are not focused. Rather than applications, we should develop use cases. Every app is working in isolation with certain vendors. So, in order to avail an offer, a customer has to install various apps – as a result, customers would be more inclined to use apps only once to avail the offering. This model is not going to work. If everyone is working to digitize certain processes, they should all be on a ce centralized platform. This way, companies can earn based on transactional revenue. This will create use cases and promote the use of digital payments. We have opened up the digital challan system for everyone – whether it’s JazzCash or anyone else who wants to integrate it via National Bank of Pakistan. The intention is to not have people download an app, but to do transactions from which ever channel they want to do it as per their convenience. It’s about changing the mindset from competition to complementing each other. This is a phase that we’re going through and it will get better.
How do you see the entrepreneurial landscape and how digital payments fit in? I’ve been associated with the Hult Prize – it’s an international platform that is working with students on incorporating the mindset that it is not about getting a job, but creating jobs. I’ve been working with them for almost two years. I’ve seen that people have amazing ideas – one realizes that Pakistan has thousands and thousands tha of segments. If you’re catering to a market segment, no matter how small, in Pakistan, there would surely be another market segment with the same needs somewhere else in the world. It’s important for the banks to realize this as well. Anything that is digitized opens up opportunities. We have created a platform for making payments digitally – people who have a website or app can try the API on our open API platform i.e. developer.jsbl.com, if it works for them, they can sign a digital contract and start the transactions. The effort we are doing is to provide an enabling environment for the startups where they do not have to go through the whe traditional methods of engaging and
meeting with people to get access of their systems rather a simple website provides them access to our standard APIs of JS Bank for them to link their ideas with a banking solution. That’s the way forward. We need to fulfill the need that anyone a sitting in any area of Pakistan should be able to link their idea with a payment solution and start making money. Generally, that’s the biggest hurdle right now – the process of integrating payments is lengthy and difficult. To foster innovation, banks and financial institutions need to open up and support the innovation happening around them.
MONIS RAHMAN & QASIF SHAHID ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE DIGITIAL AGE Monis, tell us about your entrepreneurial journey and what you are doing. How did it all begin and how did things build up to where you are now? When I moved back to Pakistan in 2003 from Silicon Valley, I clearly saw the tremendous potential online connectivity was about to bring as a positive disruptor. With the massive investment in telecommunications infrastructure made 15 years ago, it is no surprise that today we have 70 Million people in Pakistan with smartphones and high-speed Internet access. That's 70% of the country's adult population. I saw the potential of the Internet in Pakistan when few took it seriously. And I invested my career in it. I am passionate about digitizing key use cases to maximize scalable impact. My jobs platform, ROZEE.PK, today is used by over 9 million Pakistanis to find jobs. Over 65,000 employers post jobs and receive more than 40,000 job applications a day through this platform. ROZEE.PK has helped over 1 Million people find jobs which has a ripple effect in improving the lives of people around them. Employed Pakistanis educate their children and join a middle class whose purchases fuel our economy. Pakistan has one of the fastest growing g middle classes in the world who are now all online. One of the biggest hurdles we saw for these newly minted online citizens was the friction to pay digitally. After the State Bank of Pakistan formally launched branchless banking regulations, we saw a huge opportunity to financially include millions of people who didn't have bank accounts into the economy. Qasif and I co-founded Finja along with Umer Munawar which has partnered with Finca Microfinance Bank to launch SimSim, Pakistan's first two-minute digital bank account. Through SimSim, anyone with an ID card can open a bank account in a account little over one minute – a huge contrast from the nearly two week painful process of visiting a bank branch and processing onerous paperwork. Around about 15% of adults in Pakistan have bank accounts! SimSim was the first mobile payments app in Pakistan to process retail payments by scanning QR codes. Our first vendor was a biryani stall near our office. In a very short span of time, SimSim has over 400,000 customers sending money to each other with zero transaction fees. They are paying bills online, ordering food, buying movie tickets and getting instant cash advances based on their usage patterns all at the click of a button.
“Our first vendor was a biryani stall near our office. In a very short span of time, SimSim has over 400,000 customers sending money to each other with zero transaction fees”
As someone who hates carrying cash and standing in lines, I built EasyTickets.pk to digitize ticketing. EasyTickets lets you buy movie, bus and event tickets on your mobile phone. Payments can be made through any mobile wallet, bank account, credit or cash agent. We are account now selling 2500 tickets a day through this platform and have sold well over one million digital tickets since we launched. No paper. Simply show up to your Daewoo bus adda or favorite movie theater with your mobile phone, scan your e-ticket at our kiosk phon and you're in. The convenience is addictive and this is all happening in Pakistan. We are leapfrogging the west. We're now working on online air tickets, hotel bookings and Internet enabled devices to connect payments and digital platforms. Pakistan today is a Disney Land for entrepreneurs.
Tell us about Sim Sim and how the idea came to you. Several years ago I was invited to join the board of directors of what was then Kashf Microfinance Bank by Roshaneh Zafar, who I had met as a speaker at Pakistan’s first TEDx event. This was also my first exposure to banking as a business. It was clear that the industry was ready for disruption through technology. However, the regulatory environment at that time made it very difficult to innovate. inn Fast forward several years later, the State Bank of Pakistan launched the branchless banking framework and there was growing regulatory support for fintech initiatives. Kashf Microfinance Bank had been acquired by Finca Microfinance Bank where I still had strong relationships. I met Qasif while he was pioneering digital wallets at MCB. Qasif, Mudassar Aqil (CEO of Finca Microfinance Bank Pakistan) and I got together over Mic coffee and chalked out what we now know as SimSim on the back of a napkin. We convinced one of the world’s leading fintech venture capital funds,Vostok Emerging Finance, with whom I had a relationship after their sister fund invested in Rozee, to make a bet on us. The rest, as they say, is history. The vision at inception was to make it super easy for people to get bank accounts without visiting a bank branch and make payments frictionless and real-time. Qasif infected us with the vision of removing transaction fees altogether and make it completely free. It was a killer combination of people with very strong tech expertise, digital banking experience and solid banking operations knowledge. And the timing couldn’t have been any better kn with online identity verification available through NADRA, the accelerated smartphone and 3G adoption and support from State Bank of Pakistan. We were the first mobile wallet to deliberately target the top of the pyramid with a smartphone led play while others were focused on feature phones, the bottom of the pyramid and USSD transactions. We believe that money flows from the top down to the rest of the pyramid and that’s the natural place to begin.
One of the biggest challenges in fintech in Pakistan is creating use cases and capitalizing on the unbanked population. What is your take on overcoming these challenges?
Given your individual backgrounds and experiences, what is your take on the fintech landscape of Pakistan? Pakistan is one of the most exciting places in the world to be in fintech, as validated by the strong interest from global venture capital funds to back us. It is rapidly evolving and the landscape is changing at a very fast pace. Opportunities are being created and lost on a real-time basis. What is clear is that five years from now, the way Pakistanis transact will be radically radical different from today. Their relationship with money and how it moves will change. And this will create an entire ecosystem of new opportunities for fintechs and businesses to transform and become more efficient. Businesses that do not ride this wave seriously risk becoming obsolete.
With about 70% of adults today equipped with internet connected smartphones, we have the opportunity to make a serious dent on very low financial inclusion by banking the unbanked. Use cases will naturally follow and incrementally increase. We were the first ones to let you buy a movie ticket on your mobile phone. Buy biryani by scanning a QR code. cod Use friends as virtual ATM machines through free and instant peer to peer payments. These use cases are coming online quickly. We don’t see that as the challenge, it is inevitable. The main challenge is continuing to come up with process and tech innovation to remove the friction in onboarding people to digital accounts. With the increased focus by State Bank on fighting money laundering and fraud, the regulations have become quite onerous for opening digital accounts. For example, the requirement for biometric fingerprinting adds requi physical logistics to a process that should be purely digital. The transactional limits on mobile wallets prohibit many use cases. We are coming up with ways to solve these problems through consultations with regulator, process innovation and technology. There will be many more similar hurdles that need to be overcome to achieve a hu tipping point. As more people become comfortable with mobile wallets and digital payments, use cases will rapidly migrate because it makes incredible business sense.
What do you think it will take to change people’s behavior when it comes to fintech? It is inevitable in and simply a matter of time. We’ve seen this story play out all over the world, we have a crystal ball. We need to accelerate this behavioral change by investing in awareness, early key use cases, incentives and stellar execution. Several large players are already spending large sums of money on these and more are entering. We are a very near a tipping point moving from early adopters to mass market.
There are a lot of fintech startups emerging in Pakistan. What would be your advice to them in terms of fulfilling the needs of the end customer, keeping in mind the market dynamics? The landscape landsc is changing every day. New fintechs need to carefully evaluate their strengths and how they will compete with deep pocketed incumbents who may not be as smart or nimble. There are so many pieces in the fintech food chain remaining to be conquered. Don’t just build another wallet. I think it’s too late for that. There is so much opportunity for innovative new fintechs. oppo
What is your vision for Sim Sim and where do you see it in the next 5 years? SimSim’s vision is to promote financial wellness. As people cross the digital divide, we aim to improve their lives through easily accessible savings products, financial health guidance, digital credit, access to employment and education. We have the opportunity to improve people’s lives on a massive scale digitally. As people become more financially savvy with easy access to financial tools, they will sa invest in the future of their children and the future of Pakistan. It’s time to give back a bit and make it profitable while doing so.
“SimSim’s vision is to promote financial wellness as people cross the digital divide”
ARZISH AZAM ON THE POWER OF STRONG COMMUNITIES Arzish Azam is the CEO of Ejad Labs, a collaborative innovation hub for South Asian Entrepreneurs. He’s the Manager for Google Business Group (GBG) Lahore, a non-profit community supported by Google and the lead organizer for BizFest Lahore, the first Google supported technology and business conference con in the region. Arzish is also the Islamabad Chapter Director for Startup Grind and has helped expand the world's largest independent network of entrepreneurs to 10+ cities, 5+ universities in Pakistan. He’s also the Founder of the PAK-US Tech Exchange, the largest independent exchange program p for Pakistani entrepreneurs to Silicon Valley which is powered by Startup Grind.
Arzish has represented Pakistan at Obama's Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2016 in Stanford, Organization of Islamic Corporation's Youth Entrepreneurship Forum 2017 and 2018 in Kazan, Russia, Startup Grind Global Sta Conference 2018 & 2019 in Silicon Valley, Web Summit 2018 in Lisbon, Startup Grind Barcelona Conference 2018 in Spain, SXSW 2019 in Austin, TIEcon 2019 and Google I/O 2019 in Silicon Valley. He’s an alumni of Plan9 – Punjab Information Technology Board’s Technology Incubator, the National Incubation Center in Islamabad and the world's youngest entrepreneur to graduate from f the Founder Institute in 2015, a Silicon Valley based idea stage accelerator. We talk to Arzish about all the work he does to build the entrepreneurial community and to bring communities closer.
You also do exchange programs to provide opportunities to Pakistani students and startups. Tell us more about that.
You work with a lot of different organizations and do active community building. What is your inspiration behind running these communities? I started sta off by joining Founder Institute's inaugural semester in Islamabad when Yusuf Hussain was the director of the chapter. Founder Institute gave me access to the country's top experts in technology and business. I became part of this prestigious global community and have benefited a lot in terms of finding new opportunities. I revived the Startup Grind Chapter Ch in Islamabad back in 2016 with the intention to open up my network to the general public. I've observed over time that everything I've achieved is because of this spirit of giving first, helping others and making friends. My primary motivation behind running these diverse communities is to make this culture of helping others a common norm because that's the only way we can grow as a community and country. We are missing this culture of collaboration in our community com and I'm hoping that by creating these small spaces, we can create this culture of collaborative innovation.
We run the largest independent exchange programs for Pakistani entrepreneurs to Silicon Valley and are growing to more markets including Barcelona, London and European markets. The exchange programs are targeted towards students, startups, corporates, IT professionals and corporates government officials in order to help them build connections in these ecosystems and achieve growth for their personal and professionals objectives. Our flagship program is the PAK-US Tech Exchange to Silicon Valley.
What are some of your learnings from your work that others can benefit from? I strongly believe in the Startup Grind values of making friends, giving first and helping others. I've learned from all my experiences that if you honestly practice these values in your life, you will achieve significant growth and become part of a supportive community where others start doing com the same for you.
What are your plans with these communities for the next three years? We are working on some initiatives of international significance, which will be announced as we move forward. One such activity is the first annual Pakistan Tech Summit in Silicon Valley that we're co-hosting along with the Consulate General of Pakistan in Los Angeles, NetSol Pa Technologies Inc. and OPEN Silicon Valley. We will be making some big announcements at this event.
“I strongly believe in the Startup Grind values of making friends, giving first and helping others”
Pakistan Startup Cup 2018-19: Who Won and What they Learned from the Experience Th 5th edition of Pakistan Startup Cup, the country’s The largest startup competition presented by TiE Islamabad Chapter and US Embassy in Islamabad, has come to a close with 4 startups emerging winners! More than 2,000 startups applied to the competition; the shortlisted ones underwent rigorous evaluation, mentoring and coaching. under After the finale, we take a look at how the finale turned out and talk to startups that won the coveted prize!
Zeeshan Shahid, Executive Director of TiE Islamabad shares, “This was the 5th edition of Startup Cup and it was quite a journey. I say so because the quality of startups was so amazing that it was very difficult for our judges to make selections. We had approx. 2000 applications this year from all over Pakistan. More than 550 went through some form coaching and 55 mentoring. For a country like Pakistan, programs such as Pakistan Startup Cup is the way to go for achieving economic uplifting. There is huge entrepreneurial talent in Pakistan. I say so with confidence because I travel all around Pakistan to see it. There are ideas everywhere that can disrupt conventional industries and practices disrup and create huge impact. All we need to do is handhold them, support them and equip them with the right entrepreneurial sense to help them bring about change. Startups can solve the larger problem of unemployment in Pakistan and fulfill prime minister’s vision of jobs creation. Entrepreneurs can solve various other problems Ent faced by our countries, be it education or financial inclusion because they can offer cost effective, affordable and highly scalable solutions to these problems. For me all the Startups who are doing that are the winners. However, at the end of the day it’s a competition and there have to be a select number of winners. We have previously never had the winner from outside Lahore, Karachi or Islamabad. This time we had two Startups from Peshawar emerge as winners, which shows how the ecosystem all over the country is thriving.”
NanoIT Solutions, a startup from Peshawar, which took home the 1st prize talks about what they learned during the journey, “We learnt a lot through this journey. We improved our customer experience of individual products, we improved the whole VRHere experience to make it a better Edutainment Arcade for every age group and family members. We also learned that in spite of being too good at your product development and research, you better be good at articulating your product to a layman. Also, you need to have good numbers based on sweet equity before thinking of investments. Think very far ahead and think of it as a business rather being obsessed with being a startup. Remove any sort of sentiments that you have for your product and think of business numbers.”
According to DeafTawk, which took home the second prize, “It was a great honor for DeafTawk to participate in Pakistan Startup Cup Challenge. The journey was indeed filled with rich experiences for team members. The mentors provided us with great inputs and advice such as improving the business model, and scaling the service across Asia Pacific. Moreover, it was a great chance to learn from fellow startups about various challenges and their solutions particularly bootstrapping. We learned a lot of other things. First, a strong business idea and engaging revenues. It is good to have impact, but if its not sustainable, then all efforts will be in vain. That’s why it’s important to have strong business ideas, which generates revenue for sustainability. Secondly, developing a strong team with vast knowledge in background and maintaining business model is important. A strong team will always be there to support each other and make it a very successful social enterprise. Because of that, DeafTawk is able to accomplish many other competitions, and achieve higher targets. Lastly, persistence is the key for achieving higher targets.”
Irfan Sharif from ReceiptBot shares his experience, “When I started my business back in 2015, I struggled with startup support. Lack of mentoring was one of the biggest challenges that we had to face. I found this opportunity to participate in Pakistan Startup Cup really helpful. The level of mentorship, competition and stakeholders’ engagement, everything exceeded our expectations. A few of the things I learned ou – having a business plan in mind is not sufficient, drafting it on paper with the numbers attached is an eye-opener. Good mentors are important, they can make you think about the considerations that you did not think of earlier, of course, there is an experience gap. Pakistan has great opportunities to offer, the startup ecosystem is flourishing, mentorship of and investment opportunities are available, and the market is ready to adopt new and advanced products. Following Pakistan Startup Cup, we are very optimistic about the opportunities here. Previously we were solely targeting the developed markets, having realized the opportunities here, we have decided to launch our product in Pakistan as well and decide we look forward to working with the thriving startup and entrepreneurship eco-system here. Aprus, which was also the 2nd Runner Up thinks, “Pakistan Startup Cup was an exuberant experience for us. During the journey we felt that we grew as founders, we learnt how to think big and most importantly, we learnt key business concepts and why design thinking is extremely important. The learning through mentoring sessions was unparalleled.”
What’s next after Pakistan Startup Cup 2018-19 for TiE Islamabad? Zeeshan Shahid highlights, “TiE Islamabad aims to create opportunities for all the budding entrepreneurs. We are a platform that encourages and inspires youth and budding entrepreneurs to pursue their innovative ideas. Currently, we have some great projects in pipeline that we are working on. In addition to our current tha initiatives, we plan to add an acceleration program to our portfolio of programs. Under this program we will induct 5 companies each year and help them scale by providing necessary resources. Secondly, we plan to form a Think Tank based on stakeholders of Pakistan’s Startup ecosystem. The idea of the Think Tank is to combine the scattered efforts of Thin the community into one big platform to create a better impact. The Think Tank will brainstorm over the challenges faced by Pakistani entrepreneurs, and provide solutions for the government policy issues that need to be addressed. It will also act as an agent to influence policies. TiE Islamabad, being the biggest platform for entrepreneurship development bigges in Pakistan, intends to perform its role as a thought leader along with all other stakeholders.”
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