Startup Guide Issue 2

STARTUP GUIDE

ISSUE 2

SHAHID MIR

The Art of Pitching FUTURE IS NOW Digital Media in Pakistan

ZOUHAIR

KHALIQ

Seasoned Businessman & Serial Entrepreneur

DANIELLE

SHARAF Technology

Entrepreneur

AHMED

KHAN

Making it Online

FOLLOW US

t Editor Shehab Farukh Niazi

Finance Ahad Wazir Art Directors Aleeza Javed Mahnoor Haroon Niazi Operations & Outreach Abbas Khan Video Content Producer Rayyan Toru

CONTRIBUTORS ZIA S. HASAN Zia is the co-founder and director of NShield Solutions (Pakistan & UAE). She is the first and only woman in Pakistan who is successfully leading a surface protection company, breaking barriers and setting an example for other professional women to lead non-traditional businesses. NShield is a Nanotechnology based surface protection company, which offers nano-ceramic glass coating services for automobiles, and liquid steel & antimicrobial coatings for various industries. NShield has a nation wide presence in Pakistan with corporate branches in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar.

Janet Kozak Janet Kozak is a Content Strategist, Digital Marketer, Copywriter, Community Manager and the founder of JanetKozak.com. She’s been interviewed for publications like My Corporation, Huffington Post, Glassdoor, Unread Magazine, Work at Home Success, and NBC News. Janet’s articles have touched hundreds of thousands of readers and can be found in over a hundred print and online publications. She can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

OUR PARTNERS

EDITOR’S NOTE Seasoned businessman and serial entrepreneur, Zouhair Khaliq, in our cover story, discusses his journey, which comprises of many failures and successes – “failure teaches you to learn better and to be humble.

It puts that empathy for other people in you to be able to recognize that someone is struggling. That is why I believe that failure is st essential to success.”

In our second issue, we talk to a number of entrepreneurs who have made it in diverse industries through the process of learning from previous experiences – the common underlying aspect amongst all of them is that they’re not afraid of making mistakes as long as they learn from them.

Learning and evolving continuously lies at the core of the ultimate success of entrepreneurs. When we talk about success and failure, an important question that arises is what is success and what is failure? Talk to various entrepreneurs – seasoned and novel and you would discover that the definition yo of success and failure varies widely – they’re both relative.

As Mark Cuban says, “it doesn’t matter how many times you have failed, you only have to be right once”, failure is a phenomenon all successful entrepreneurs are closely familiar with.

The founder of Modulus Tech, Nabeel Siddiqui, talks about his game-changing idea and where he sees his business in the years to come.

Mohsin Rafiq of Aprus shares his journey as an entrepreneur and taking his next generation to market. One of the few female technology entrepreneurs, Danielle Sharaf chats with us about what it takes to run a company and her abou latest app, Zoya.

For any entrepreneur, selling an idea is a major part of making the business a success and the area where most of them lack is pitching. We converse with seasoned mentor and industry professional, Shahid Mir, as he shares key takeaways for entrepreneurs for making a successful pitch. The digital economy has taken over – the CEO of Cheetay sheds light on ta the e-commerce industry of Pakistan and what it takes to make it online; the future of digital is

SHEHAB FARRUKH NIAZI

CONTENTS THE ART OF PITCHING

THE JOURNEY

NEWS & EVENTS

34

07 10 12 13 14 18 17 24

24

10-12 EDITOR’S NOTE 021 DISRUPT TTHE NEST I/O

WHAT INVESTORS SECRETLY WANT

BY JUMPACT

UPCOMING EVENTS MARK YOUR CALENDERS

STARTUP DIARIES

AZIMA DHANJEE

JANET KOZAK CONTRIBUTIONS

THE CONVERSATION AHMED KHAN

THE JOURNEY DANIELLE SHARAF

17

28 34 38 42 44 47 50 54

COVER STORY ZOUHAIR KHALIQ

MENTORSHIP SHAHID MIR

DIGITAL MARKETING ALI KHAN SWATI

HOW THEY DID IT RICHARD BRANSON

BUSINESS UNUSUAL

NABEEL SIDDIQUI OF MODULUS TECH

ZIA S. HASAN CONTRIBUTIONS

GEN-NEXT APRUS

MARKETING INTELLIGENCE

FEATURING “An entrepreneur is someone who identifies a space where there is a gap and he or she is willing to fill that gap through a product or service. This means taking a risk, so there needs to be that willingness”

ZOUHAIR KHALIQ Cover Story

“Respect is how to treat everyone, not just those you want to impress”

RICHARD BRANSON How They Did It

“Connect Hear has done some major activities including the first ever deaf concert with Strings”

AZIMA DHANJEE Co-Founder of Connect Hear

I believe that companies and individuals need to start thinking digital now if theywant to catch a slice of that huge digital space in the future as it the future now.

ALI KHAN SWATI The Future is Now

NEWS AND EVENTS

The international conference on entrepreneurship and innovation, 021Disrupt, was held on Nov 10 and 11 in Karachi to connect the world’s leading investors, innovators, and tech pioneers with the startup community of Pakistan to exchange insights and explore investment opportunities. The 2-day conference was organized by The Nest I/O, P@SHA’s Tech Incubator.

The participation at 021Disrupt was overwhelming in terms of quality and mix with over 600 thought leaders, investors, entrepreneurs, professionals, influencers, and students attending the conference on both the days. Almost 300 startups from across Pakistan attended the The conference has become a catalyst in bringing investments into Pakistani companies. This year, GOBI Partners – an investment fund that focuses on early stage, IT and digital media companies, announced investment in ‘Sasta Ticket’, a Pakistani startup, at the event. Lamsa, a children’s edutainment app company compa with over 12 million downloads, announced that it will be launching an Urdu version of the app for the Pakistani audience. Another major announcement was made by Coca-Cola, the world’s leading beverage company, about ‘The Dasani Discovery Challenge’, which invites disruptive entrepreneurs to counter the issues of plastic waste management using innovative solutions.

Jehan Ara, President P@SHA and Founder of The Nest I/O commented, “021Disrupt has become the go-to event for the startup community of Pakistan while investors from around the world use it as the hunting ground for investment opportunities. We are so proud of the brand and global network that we have h created around 021Disrupt and hope to continue to raise the bar in the coming years”.

conference with over 200 of them securing office hours slots with investors and mentors from around the world including Germany, USA, UK, Japan, Malaysia, UAE, and others.

Some of o the leading venture capitals that participated in the event included Lumia Capital, Middle East Venture Partners, Alter Global, Fatima Ventures, Valhalla Capital, Wamda Capital, GOBI VC, Sarmayacar, Lakson Investments Venture Capital, and many more.

The investors had a cumulative target fund size of more than a USD 1 Billion. Another major announcement at the conference came from Google, i.e. announcement of opening Google Accelerator in Pakistan.

There tends to be a disconnect between investors and entrepreneurs. Startups come with brilliant ideas and products but don’t have the money to get going. They tend to email investors, stalk them everywhere, but they just don’t seem to listen. Raising money is extremely challenging and this session aimed to teach startups to offer investors aime something they actually want.

Saif Akhtar from 10xC, one of Pakistan’s biggest accelerators, joined Jumpact to share the secret to getting investors to say yes. He is a Pakistani American investor who manages technology startup investments through PlanetNGroup.com, 10xC.pk and StartupSpace.pk.

In this investor i session, Saif shared the

best pitching tips for anyone just getting started with fundraising. The event provided exclusive insights for both newbie entrepreneurs as well as experienced ones, which helped them to think about investors like their customers. Furthermore, at the event, Jumpact announced a formal partnership with 10xC - Technology Startup pa Seed Fund’s Startupspace.pk for content and collaboration. The key workshop takeaways included learn tips on pitching better and unlocking investment capital, getting insider information on 10xC’s investment strategy and understanding what actually goes on in the mind of an investor when they hear your th pitch or read your bio.

17th November will be a day filled with enlightening discussions and workshops around Google technologies such as Android, Firebase, Google Cloud Platform, Google Assistant, Flutter, machine learning with TensorFlow, and Mobile Web. The theme of this year is "Digital WellBeing" which will highlight and discuss the tools and features that help people better understand their tech usage, focus on what matters most, disconnect when needed, and create healthy habits so that LIFE, not the technology in it, stays front and center.

TechJuice Circle is a close-knit exclusive event for entrepreneurs and startup founders to network with the leaders in the business, technology and telecom industry of Pakistan.

Through gamification of this networking experience, every participant gets time to interact with fellow founders and the mentors.

Code for Pakistan brings the biggest and most exciting Hackathon of the year 'Civic Hackathon 2018' happening in Islamabad on the second weekend of December 2018. This is going to be a 2.5 days long Hackathon starting on 7th December and concluding on 9th December, 2018.

During this weekend, wee you will learn design thinking, open-source hacking for social good, receive mentoring and input from domain experts in government and local organizations, have opportunities to network, and work in teams to create solutions — all for free.

Connect Hear aims to provide sign language accessibility to deaf community in Pakistan.

According to WHO statistics, 5% of world population has hearing impairment and using that figure, in Pakistan there are about 10 million individuals ar with hearing impairment.

Connect Hear aims to work for them through technology to provide them sign language interpretation services. We also want to make spaces inclusive for the deaf.

I’m one of the co-founders of Connect Hear and I have served the deaf community since I was 12. I am a sign language translator and bring in that expertise to our startup. We are a team of three people. Areej, Arham and I, the co-founders coare high school friends and we were in our second year of university when we started working on Connect Hear. We have a team of seven people – three are language interpreters, one marketing mar lead, a

managing director and a videographer.

The best part of the team is that we all are youngsters and we’re all are below 21 years of age. 60% of people in our team have families who have one or two hearing impaired persons.

Areej has attended Stanford and Harvard Ha Summer schools and she has studied product design and business development and that’s what she brings in to the table.

Arham has self-studied machine learning and other technologies and he looks after te the technical aspects.

The idea was initiated last year.

My parents are hearing impaired, I grew up seeing my parents struggle to communicate every day in their life. If my parents have to call someone or if they need to go to a bank or if i they need to go to a hospital, it is difficult to communicate on their own.

Even during our parent teacher

meetings, it was always a struggle because they couldn’t communicate because of the language barrier. This used to frustrate me a lot and I used to think that maybe someday I would come up with a solution for it. This kept me motivated and last year, I discussed this issue with my high school friends and we built up an idea.

We had no resources and we just had an idea; we didn’t know how to go about it.

We went to Nest I/O, which is a Google incubator. We met with them and discussed our idea – we had our summer vacations during that time and we wanted to spend them productively.

Nest I/O immediately asked us to join. We got a lot of resources and a lot of mentorship along the way. We started teaching sign language on Facebook and started to interact with the deaf community. Now, we have established interpreter est systems.

We see incredible potential for our idea. There exists a market among corporates, a lot of retail stores, public sector banks because they want to be inclusive. Considering that the community with people having disabilities is asking for it, institutions want to have a solution in case a deaf customer walks in. It’s amazing and the demand is increasing, inc the recent government is advocating for disabled people’s rights. Imran khan has included in his mandate the need for interpreters, he mentioned the need for having service at all sectors and that’s what we are hoping for. We started to make personal connections and now we have a personal connection with the deaf community. We want to get on the B2B level and use the businesses to provide the deaf community with services. We have been in the market for about a year and two months and we mar have recently started our video interpretation services in Jan 2018.

In terms of resistance to our idea, I think the first major thing was to make people believe that our idea will not run on a donor system; we have revenue streams and we have a self-sustainable model, which is not as good as corporate sectors and other e-commerce industries where they make a lot of money. We want to make enough money so that we could reinvest that in our mon ventures and keep it growing. We have been really motivated to make real impact since the beginning and we want to keep the impact growing. This has been the first hard part. The second hard part is that we’re all students and youngsters so people think that it’s a one time, temporary project. The truth couldn’t be farther tempo from that; we want to make sign language interpretation system inclusive, accessible and available everywhere in Pakistan and then we are

planning on taking our service to India and Bangladesh. This is our goal and we are focused on it at the moment.

Another hurdle hu is that the deaf community is very isolated and they are in groups. When we work, we’re trying to bring all these deaf organizations and schools together. Our mandate is not to work with only one specific group. We want to provide a single platform that the community can trust.

We are in this forever and we are going to create a self-sustainable self-sustain impact in the community.

We’ve had to face some interesting situations along the way. Connect Hear has done some major activities including the first ever deaf concert with Strings band – we invited 300 individuals who came and became a part of the concert for the very first time. We had sign language interpreters and the lights adjusted according to the beat of the sound so that the acco deaf could enjoy music as well.

Then, we did election interpretation and none of the news channels were ready to have interpreters so we brought the platform to our Facebook page, we had live interpretation going on for the news – we collaborated with Geo News.

And now Geo News keeps on bringing news interpreters for different news sections.

For the future, we want our video interpretation service to be out there. We want to have multiple interpreters who are based in our call centers, but are also based in local government sectors in every part of Pakistan.

CONTRIBUTIONS Keeping a Pulse on Customer Needs With Social Listening

In my online business networking group, one big problem small business owners cite most frequently is marketing. Yet the challenge of effectively marketing your business and products can be easily solved with a number of simple activities.

I regularly help other small business owners put together marketing plans for their businesses on a shoestring budget. This means I get to see their needs and abilities up close and personal. I budget for what they have on hand at the moment and also build growth into their long-term plans.

As an entrepreneur myself offering boutique content marketing consultancy services, I've found that the skills most lacking in many entrepreneurs are also the digital marketing skills crucial to ensuring steady business. Two powerful public relations (PR) and marketing activities I recommend to all startups are social listening and social influencing.

In the Entrepreneur's Toolbox: Social Listening and Social Networking

By Janet Kozak

Social listening is recommended for all small business owners. Startups may have a handful of social profiles, pages, and businesses, they follow, but many rarely do so strategically. Business owners can cut through the chatter with social listening tools that zero in on trends and their competitors. Depending on their budget, I recommend paid tools like Mention or free Google Alerts for specific keywords.

Social listening helps entrepreneurs manage their online reputations. It can also increase customer retention by allowing small businesses to quickly respond to issues that come up - often reducing refunds in the process.

Additionally, social listening enables small businesses to identify product and content gaps. This helps businesses create and introduce new products and content their audience urgently needs.

Building Networks with Influencer Marketing Social influencing and influencer marketing are two other tactics that help businesses grow their networks and boost their brands. Of course, this needs to be done carefully without stalking or spamming the influencer you’re targeting.

Social influencing can include blogger marketing campaigns, earned media mentions, and development of other strategic partnerships. When my clients reach out down the line to influencers they’ve been actively following, the influencers are often happy to help...if the tone has been appropriately set. Social influencing is useful for networking purposes and keeping a pulse on one's niche. A few tools that I recommend for social influencing include Social Bluebook, BuzzSumo, and Klout.

Small businesses have it hard. They have to keep up with their larger competitors on a fraction of their competition's budgets. Thankfully, with inexpensive tools and a solid strategy, it can be done.

AhmedKhan CEO of Cheetay on Making it Online

“Small businesses are by their very nature more mobile; they’re better suited to cater to certain niches”

THE CONVERSATION When we started like 6 years ago it was very native, there was nothing going on and we tried to build something from the ground up. The tech landscape has changed considerably. For example there are fashion brands with a monthly sale online of 1.5 crores, which means that even their flagship stores don’t match that.

This proves that e-commerce has become huge and it’s going to continue to grow bigger with time. I feel this is just the tip of the iceberg because there is such a big market out there and as more people become educated, become smartphone and internet savvy, they will see the true value of ecommerce. Online retail is always going to be cheaper than conventional retail because you don’t have a retail overhead. Another positive effect is that the government prefers this because you know transactions are accountable and traceable.

The shortcomings are that there is a lack of regulation and a lack of government support. The environment still doesn’t understand what is needed for technology companies to flourish and not just in terms of regulation, but also in terms of manpower or the training required. I really feel that our focus as policy makers needs to be on improving and generating new technologies.

Moreover, the infrastructure is very limited because there is a general lack of trust from consumers, which we need to build on.

Ahmed Khan, the Founder & CEO of Cheetay Logistics Pvt. Ltd is a seasoned entrepreneur with a knack for problem solving, operations and analytics.

With the profound realization that the future belongs to technology, he has been working on building an e-commerce ecosystem, where you add technology to conventional retail and figure out the optimization. His primary objective behind Cheetay is to create an e-commerce store with a fulfilment service along with payment solutions to make transactions easier, frictionless and cheaper.

THE CONVERSATION How can small businesses have an edge in the ecommerce market?

Tell us about Cheetay?

How did the idea come to be?

Small businesses are by their very nature more mobile; they’re better suited to cater to certain niches. So if small businesses want an edge, they have to pick a niche and they have to corner that domain and build their expertise so that no matter how many government regulations are in place, you cannot be challenged.

After Rocket, the challenge that we faced at Daraz and Kaymu was fulfilment and payments. We were able to generate customers, we were able to acquire products, but getting the orders fulfilled was challenging. We were hovering challenging. around 70% and there were times with 40-50% fulfilment rates where one of the key challenges was payment. The idea behind Cheetay was to create an e-commerce store with a fulfilment service along with payment solutions so that transactions becomes easier, frictionless and cheaper.

What is the distinguishing factor that sets Cheetay apart from other players in the industry?

Firstly, it’s the values; there are certain things we believe in.

We try to abide by those values.

Furthermore, our mantra is to look at every stakeholder as a key customer.

That is why we don’t just look at a customer as the one who places an order. We classify vendors, riders, restaurants and all parties involved as customers since adding value from the start makes it trickle down to the bottom.

Tell us more about your background and how you became interested in the Pakistani ecommerce sector?

I have a family business, which I was initially helping to manage. I’ve also done management consulting in the past and have also worked with an FMCG so my background has always been around problem solving, analytics and operations.

These are the sort of things that I understand and get excited about. Technology for me was the driving factor, so I realized that the future belongs dr to technology and the more we can incorporate it into our solutions, the cheaper and faster our solutions will become. So that was the idea behind building an ecommerce ecosystem – you take conventional retail, add technology and figure out how to optimize it.

What point does an ecommerce company need to reach in order to benefit most from increased margins?

We keep talking about scale and how important it is; it’s hard to say because it depends on your cost base and right now our scale is miniscule in Pakistan. Flipcart was just sold for 18 billion dollars in India and our biggest company gets sold for 150 million dollars, which is a hundred times less, so we have a long way to go to answer the question ha of how big it needs to be. I think a good ecommerce company should be doing 100 thousand transactions a day before it can really start thinking about calling itself a serious business.

“Technology for me was the driving factor so I realized that the future belongs to technology”

What are the consumer attributes you find lacking in the consumer market that presents a hurdle for an ecommerce company’s growth?

Our experience with consumers has been that they treat ecommerce as a discount store so the only time they’re willing to experiment or use ecommerce is when they think it’s going to be cheaper. So, as a business when we look at it we need to monetize that customer over a lifetime because unless they are consuming and transacting, they’re not profitable for us.

Another thing is that we have very impatient consumers who seem to be highly critical yet highly sensitive so they get upset even if something small goes wrong, but you don’t get appreciation for all the times when you’ve done something right.

What’s next for Cheetay?

Growth and scale; we want to continue raising more money, to expand to other cities, to add more business verticals and to expand our team. We want to work towards betterment and build our technology to something that te is world class and revolutionary. So, that’s the plan.

In Conversation with Technology Entrepreneur Danielle Sharaf

Tell us about your background and your company.

I am an Electrical Engineer.

Enginee I started my career at ROZEE.PK in 2007 in products and business development. Afterwards, I started Switch in 2012 as a mobile VAS company. Our first product was Ufone Job Alerts – an SMS service connecting jobseekers to employers through their mobiles. Switch is now one of the mobile leading mobile VAS content providers in the country reaching out to over 15M users. We’ve recently branched into digital content creation and acquisition.

You have worked for multiple organizations before founding your company. What do you believe were the key lessons you were able to apply to your business?

You’re as good as your weakest link – startup success is very much a team effort. Choose talent as if your life depends on it. I have a slightly different approach when it comes to building teams. Rather than referring to my work team as a family, I prefer comparing them to a sports team. Everybody needs the to step up and do their bit. Unconditional support no matter what the performance is just won’t cut it.

Learn financial management – not saying that you should be an ace accountant or bury yourself in numbers every day, but as a business owner, it’s crucial you understand the financial health of your venture. One of the most critical hires for any startup should be that of a good finance manager. It should be someone who not only understands the business, but also the environment and regulations surrounding it.

No decision is the worst decision – sometimes businesses plateau and fail not because of bad decision making but because of no decision-making.

because of no decision-making.

Understand the importance of timely decisions. That one follow up email, or a strategic hire or a product pitch can mean the difference between a hit and a miss. Nothing is worse than ‘what if’, even for your business.

You are one of the few female technology entrepreneurs in Pakistan.

What do you believe is the greatest hurdle that keeps females from starting tech businesses?

Buying into conventional stereotypes that there are certain kosher professions for women that we should not stray st from.

“You’re as good as your weakest link – startup success is very much a team effort” Medicine and teaching is fine, but engineering and entrepreneurship, especially tech entrepreneurship is better left to the boys of the house. So somewhere between choosing dolls over mechano sets and making career decisions we internalize this narrative.

It unfortunate because I can tell you It’s how supportive and inclusive the tech community in this country is. To date, I have not felt discriminated against because of my gender and that’s saying something in an orthodox society like ours.

You have recently launched your latest app, ‘Zoya’. Tell us more about that.

How do you define success?

“Ultimately, sky is the limit for Zoya; just like it should be for every girl in Pakistan” Zoya started off as part of a bigger SMS healthcare service, but pretty soon took a life of its own. At that time, we were running a women’s service including an SMS advisory in partnership with a local telecom and most of the queries were about health and wellness. Zoya, the app was a direct outcome of that.

It a free multilingual health and wellness app It’s for girls in Pakistan focusing on 2 problem areas. These are lack of information regarding female healthcare and lack of connectivity with healthcare practitioners.

Zoya is tackling it with a suite of features including a newsfeed that showcases audio video content in regional languages, an interactive vide symptoms checker where you can touch a body part to find out all possible ca diagnosis, a period tracker that helps you track your cycles, a verified database of over 15,000 doctors, 300 geolocations, diagnostic centres and gyms, home remedies and above all a chat feature where you can chat with a live expert through the privacy of your home.

Wh was the gap in the market that motivated What you to work on this idea?

Restricted access to information about female healthcare Stigmas associated with female healthcare No comprehensive health app available with local content Female smartphone usage is on the rise

I like to think of success as a relative phenomenon. For me it’s when I know that I’ve put in my 100 percent and that there was nothing else I could do, regardless of the outcome. I also see it as a continuous journey. One where your goals are ever evolving and so are your efforts.

In your opinion, what are the three greatest traits of a good entrepreneur?

Self discipline – you know what they say about discipline. It’s the bridge between goals and accomplishments. It’s even truer when you’re the captain of your own ship.

Perseverance – entrepreneurship is not about winning, but about learning from failure and rising from the ashes again and again and again. You will fall hard and fast more often than you’ll soar. Many a times it’ll be a lonely and excruciating journey, but giving up should never be an option.

An eye for the right time – knowing when to launch, when to grow and when to scale. All of us make mistakes at these stages, but a good entrepreneur is one who minimizes these mistakes, learns from them and is swift to pivot accordingly. A good entrepreneur is a creature of opportunity rather than habit, i.e. he/she understands the importance of the ‘right’ time understand and adapts accordingly rather than repeating the same processes over and over again.

What are the future plans for ‘Zoya’ and any other ventures?

Zoya is a very small effort in normalizing an age-old conversation on female healthcare and our prime focus is on that. In the near future, we want Zoya to become a trusted, household companion for every girl in the country. It’s going to be an interesting learning curve for us and our users, who are just hopping onto the smartphone bandwagon. We’re very excited to sma see how Zoya evolves. Ultimately, sky is the limit for Zoya; just like it should be for every girl in Pakistan.

ZOUHAIRKHALIQ “An entrepreneur is someone who identifies a space where there is a gap and he or she is willing to fill that gap through a product or service. This means taking a risk, so there needs to be that willingness�

Zouhair Khaliq, a seasoned businessman and serial entrepreneur, is on the boards of directors and advisors of numerous diverse entities from media and food to technology and telecom. Business development, strategy, fintech, operations, turnarounds, mergers and acquisitions and startups are only some of the areas he specializes in. He talks to Startup Guide about how it all began; how his career progressed through the years; how his mindset has evolved; his definition of success; traits in successful entrepreneurs and a lot more!

If I look back, I find that I’ve been a nomad all my life – my father was a civil servant, so we travelled all over. You learn as you grow – a lot of different cultures and influences keep growing inside you and you don’t realize it. When I went to the UK to study at the age of 15 for ten years, it had a significant impact on me – the UK was a very parochial society, this was in 1975. They ve would ask questions about whether we had cars in Pakistan and if we lived in houses. It was a revelation for me in terms of how people in another part of the world behaved and how they perceived the rest of the world. It was very instructive at the time – it also made me restless – when I stay in one place for too long, I crave change. I’ve been working for 40 years, counting the 4 years I worked as a Chartered Accountant.

I’ve come a long way in this span of time. It wires you to look ahead – in perspective, I’ve led a nomadic life, where I’ve constantly looked at the next goal and the next big thing.

“

Failure is absolutely essential in life. I know a lot of people who have come to a certain point in their lives without seeing failure. Therefore, they’re not able to be empathetic towards t others. Failure teaches you to learn better and to be humble. It puts that empathy for other people in you

“

How did it all begin?

Your career progression has been very quick throughout the years of your incredible career. What was your mindset during the process?

You wear many hats, with the wide scope of work that you do. What’s the secret?

It comes from this early impulse of o restlessness. When I was younger, I used to read a lot. Typically, there used to be not one, but three or four books that I was reading at one time because my mind would not be able to handle the monotony of doing just one thing. thin This was the only way my mind felt at rest. I learned to adapt early on. I am on various boards, which are very diverse.

The secret to wearing different hats is to have the discipline to compartmentalise. I use a lot of technology – I have different parts dedicated to different businesses in my iPad. I make sure that I’m able to walk away from one aspect to another with a clear mind. It might seem a little confusing to say that the mind is restless and at the same time being disciplined to be able to compartmentalise, but it comes naturally to me – I’ve never had to practice this. You need to be able to shut down d if you can’t do something about a particular thing instantly instead of festering. Come back and tackle it later!

I was born into a family of engineers – my grandfather was an engineer. My father and five uncles are also engineers. Since the beginning, while I was pre-ordained to become an engineer, at the same time, mathematics and physics seemed like Greek to me. I realized that I had to adapt my mindset to something else. els Ultimately, once I had adapted my mindset, it set me free. What it meant was that I was free to do what I wished to do. I went into accounting – I call myself a ‘reluctant accountant’. I always wanted to be more. I would say the mindset should be to always look ahead, see where the world is going and adapt yourself. That mindset actually reflects a lot of yoursel career moves that I made over the years – from being a reluctant accountant to going into management.

Suddenly, there was this new, very appealing, growing industry called mobile cellular and I jumped into it, not knowing what it was really about, but it was very exciting to me. Frankly, I’ve never regretted a single day of making that decision. Mobile has evolved immensely – from being about a single phone call to data and so much more. So, in my opinion, the key about mu the mindset is how you anticipate the next move and align yourself in a way that you can benefit from it. Basically what you need from such a mindset is that you need to take a lot of risks. For me, being risk-averse in a way that you stay in the same kind of job for decades is like death. li

When you take that first leap of faith, you have no idea where you’re going and then you do it for the second and third and fourth time. Even last year, my move back to Pakistan was a leap of faith and so was creating the National Incubation Center. When you’re taking a leap of faith, it should be like a calculated risk where you weigh the pros and cons. con My life has been about taking so many leaps of faith and it has

“To me, success today is being where I am without compromising my core values of integrity, honesty and doing the right thing at the right time, patience and treating the other person in a certain way”

In your opinion, what are the traits that are essential for entrepreneurs? During your numerous interactions with them, have you found any essential traits lacking?

Essentially, an entrepreneur is someone who Essentiall identifies a space where there is a gap and he or she is willing to fill that gap through a product or service. This means taking a risk, so there needs to be that willingness. I have been in start up situations several times from my involvement as the founding employee of Mobilink, a company called wCities, wCitie and launching networks in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Bangladesh and so on. I’ve had the opportunity to work directly with entrepreneurs for the last seven years. In London, I was working with a company, heading a division called Mobile for Development to invest in entrepreneurs who were working on ideas in Asia, Africa and other areas. a Since we built the NIC, I’ve had the opportunity to work with entrepreneurs from Pakistan as well. The common universal trait is being able to take the leap. Often what you also find is that they’re focused and dedicated and believe in the work they’re doing. Essentially, all these are good qualities in an entrepreneur. ent What might be lacking might also be universal – failing to anticipate how much hard work it will take, how hard it would be to convince the market that it needs a product and how long it will take to do so. Sometimes, it can even take up to five to seven years to hit the market in the right way.

From personal experience, I can give you the example of a company I ran in 2002, which might seem very familiar. It was a small startup – this was before Google came around. This product made it possible for you to find a restaurant, places to visit, cities to explore.

During my time as COO, we added a new service – a SIM at the back of o the PDA. With that, you could not only find a place to visit, but also plot a map to get you there. This is Google Maps today. It was fantastic technology, but it failed spectacularly. Investors had put millions of pounds in it. When the company was closing down, I was the last person to leave the office – there was no one to sign my release. I hadn’t the been paid in 10 months. Later on, when the whole IP for the technology was sold for just 50,000 pounds, I got a cheque for 310 pounds and 50 pence, which I’ve never cashed – I’ve put it on a wall in a frame to remind me of what failure can be like. That’s a story of entrepreneurship way before it was even a word! ent This story carries a big lesson for entrepreneurs to learn – you can have a brilliant technology and idea, but if the time for it hasn’t come, it will fail.

This doesn’t at all mean that you shouldn’t think ahead. Thinking ahead of your time is how revolutions come, so you have to do that.

However, at the same time, you need to be cognisant of the fact that you may have a co brilliant idea, but you may have to work for it a little bit. One of the things I teach entrepreneurs is that above all other qualities you need as an entrepreneur, is that if you believe in your idea, be patient and stick it out, it will work.

How do you define success? How has your idea of success evolved through the years since you were younger?

You think a lot about success, as you get older.

Typically for a young person, success is mostly about having that dream job or making a certain amount of money. At 20, I was convinced I would make my first million dollars and be successful at 25 and then I revised it to 30. I am still trying to achieve that goal !To me, success today is being where I am without compromising tod my core values of integrity, honesty and doing the right thing at the right time, patience and treating the other person in a certain way. If you can hang on to your core values in spite of all the things that life throws at you, then that is success and it’s priceless.

Your take on the country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem?

In Pakistan, I believe the ecosystem is at a nascent stage. It needs a lot of work around the ecosystem. When Parvez Abbasi and I launched the NIC two and a half years ago, it was a rare dream come true. We had started with the concept of an online mentorship-coaching platform. At that time, everything was very basic. All the NICs that ev have emerged since then are great and are going to contribute a lot. However, if you look at the bigger picture around the ecosystem, we still need to have the correct legislation to encourage entrepreneurs like giving them tax breaks. To enhance access to funding, we need incentives incent and schemes for investors – we don’t have the right ecosystem to encourage seed funding and early stage VC funding. We need to work very closely with the government on legislation around all these processes.

Are you a perfectionist or do you believe in getting things right along the way?

I’m a total perfectionist per – my family accuses me of having OCD. I think that’s also essential to success because if you do not demand the best of yourself and that of everyone else, you would never really achieve the goals you have set out to achieve. Second ha best doesn’t count! Do everything in life to the very best of your abilities.

When it comes to academia, we do not teach entrepreneurship – there are some attempts, but they’re not very successful.

Entrepreneurship, by definition is to take on a new venture, take the risk, and put in the work to make it a success. Typically, the people who teach the subject are academics.

While they’re th highly qualified in their own right, the reality is that they haven’t been entrepreneurs themselves. The practical experience of having done it yourself is gold, in my opinion. I think we need more successful entrepreneurs, even failed entrepreneurs to come in and do the teaching. At least a majority of what is taught tea needs to come from these people.

The whole concept of growing entrepreneurship has to be based on entrepreneurs getting together, kind of a Silicon Valley. They should be able to hang out together, share experiences, and learn from the practical side of it from each other.

When you talk about teaching entrepreneurship, it has to start early, even ent the practical knowledge behind it.

What advice would you give to your 20-year-old self?

This is a secret that I don’t often share. When I was 20 years old, I was totally convinced that I would one day lead a company and make it very successful. It took me another 25 years to get there.

If I were to give advice to my 20-year-old self, I would say ‘chill, you’ll get there’.

What game-changing opportunities/industries are you keenly looking at for the future in Pakistan?

I think everything in Pakistan is going to have great potential in the coming future. When we look at international giants like Facebook, Amazon etc., Pakistan is not on their roadmap – I look at this as a huge opportunity for Pakistani entrepreneurs to take the lead. I would say every area from e-commerce and fintech to agriculture and education educ offers tremendous opportunity – I would not limit any sectors, we have the opportunity to go all across the board and make it happen. The future of “Naya” Pakistan will change with technology implementation across all sectors of society so that we are able to leap frog in to the future!

You have been a part of numerous ventures throughout your lifetime.

Which has been your favourite so far? Why?

It’s been a long haul, but I would say, It my favourite has been a company called Mobilink. I was employee one at the time when it was launched as Mobilink – it was a rare privilege to be able to set it up, hire the first team, go out there and see the first cell sites being built, introduce the branding that I was very intimately involved in and look at the way, having that mobile handset in your hands, change people’s lives.

During the last 25 years of the company’s existence, I have been somehow associated with it, as CFO, a member of the Board of Directors, as CEO of the company and now as partners with the company for NIC. I’ve done many different things, been a part of the launches of numerous companies in multiple countries, but this one is very special because it has been a part of my life for a very long time.

In your view, what are the qualities of a good mentor?

A mentor is someone who has done it and who has seen it; someone who has fallen many times, who knows the theory and who knows the turf.

Someone who can tell others what to do and what not to do. For that, you need to be very honest. Most of us talk about all our highs or all the achievements, a the successes and wealth creation, but only a few of us will have the gut to say, “here is what I didn’t do and if I had, I would have done things differently”. So, after 99 falls, if you get one big high, it is necessary to state the 99 failures to show the mentee that it’s not all about sh the highs. So, a good mentor has to be not only experienced, not only knowledgeable, not only skillful and have a great attitude, but also has to be able to infuse his entire learning into the lesson. How effectively you do that is what really matters.

If you lose concentration, if you lose the attention of the person you are trying to mentor during the process, it means you are not connecting with the person.

Another important thing is engaging your subject; you en have to keep them engaged.

They need to start believing in you in terms of what your learnings have been. So, as a mentor your communication skills have to be more mo than good. A good mentor is a very effective tutor and a friend, somebody who speaks from the heart and knows his thing.

As a seasoned mentor, in your experience, what are the common mistakes startups make in pitching themselves and their businesses?

They are not trained in pitching – it is a science and an art. There is a method to pitching. Some people are born pitchers and some are not while some are trained pitchers. It’s just like you are a born bo singer or a trained singer or you are a bit of both. In terms of what startups don’t know is that pitching is more important than their innovation. This is

because they might have a billion-dollar idea, but if they can’t pitch it to the right people and get across to them, it is good for anything.

Pitching well is something that has changed people’s lives. When I started training li people in pitching, I didn’t even know how effective it was for people in their every day lives.

One crucial thing is that most startups are all about engineering or about sales and finance. They don’t focus on trying to get across to people who matter. Whether they are judges in a

The 5 attributes of a perfect pitch are: precise, complete, correct, fast and effectively communicated. I can enumerate these 5 on my fingertips because I have done this workshop many times. You can master these by practice, practice and practice. You can be a natural pitcher or you can be a trained t pitcher. It has a lot to do with effective communication skills, which is verbal as well as non-verbal. While you can watch these pitching techniques in TV shows and pick up points from there, when you do it with a trainer, the trainer will put you through those exercises and will chisel and cut your proposed pitch into a clear one. And that’s what people are looking for, as they don’t have more time than that.

competition or investors. The sales guy has to be a great pitcher. So that’s one of the arts lacking. They can crunch numbers very well, but they cannot pitch well. I would say that pitching is the most important thing.

What would be your tips to startups on the art of pitching?

The first tip is that you have to put your whole business plan in the first five seconds. If you don’t sting you can’t capture the audience’s attention. So the main thing you need to do is to grab their attention and their engagement and I call that a stinging operation.

The other thing you need to do is to raise an alarm. What is it that is so painful and that prompted you to do this? Third thing is how is this problem being solved currently? How are you going to solve it? And what is in it for the listener and investor? Why should he/she refer you to someone? Why should he open his roll-o-dex? Why should he signup or cut a roll-o-d check? Why should he be interested?

You have mentored many startups and individuals. What have you learned from the experience?

What I have learned is that I have a 56 model Chevy that had been lying in a garage. I built it from scratch literally from a garage. Now that I coach, I mentor and judge some of the pitches and I look at the startups and the young blood, I have decided that I am going to get that Chevy out and get it dented and painted and launch it again.

My experience is that entrepreneurship or self-employment is the only answer to unemployment. I personally think that passion rules everything. For those startups where I see passion more than some sensible, I consider that to be a successful startup. sta Another thing I worry about is that 90% will not make it may be not in the first attempt, not the second or third or fourth. I worry about them when they hit their thirties and the ones who are th still students in their final semesters, how are they going to earn their living. When they go back to a bank or to get a job of a manager or less what will that do to them.

Another worry is that, as these startups make it, money starts to flow in. Most of the time, tim they become like a teenager with a loaded gun, so they don’t know what to do.

All startup founders and co-founders and their initial stakeholders needs a mentor.

Whether they give them equity or whatever, but they need mentoring because that’s how they can keep their feet on the ground.

My learning is that whatever fear, I see hope and I see this thing becoming like a fashion, a wave – I see everyone having an idea and it’s fantastic.

What aspects of mentorship in the ecosystem do you think need improvement?

I think we need more mentors and, in some way, mentors also need to take something home and I am not saying money. Mentors need not be like those teachers who teach to the rest of the tea world and they can’t make their ends meet. So, we need to incentivize mentors too. A careful selection of mentors so they conform to minimum standard, lest they teach their own philosophy and are creating monsters out of o what they do. One of the things lacking is true venture capital, so all of the incubation centers, the software technology parts in Pakistan have not yet seen the true venture capital companies coming into Pakistan.

Venture capital is mostly considered just money, mon whereas venture capital is a combination of a few things that are mandatory – one money, two management experience, three big roll-o-dex from the same sector to enable the business to accelerate quickly and four is an exit strategy. We need to remember that venture capitalists are not operators, but they are people who come in, make multiple P/E ratios and nobody is willing to leave in Pakistan, especially those who write a check, but the reality is that you get out.

DIGITAL MARKETING

The Future is Now Ali Khan Swati of Awaami on the Evolution of Digital Media in Pakistan

Tell us about your background and how ‘Awaami’ came to be?

I have h around 10 years of experience in the digital marketing world, having worked with various clients from the US and the UK. I have built branding and digital marketing strategies for local and international companies and because of my background in this field, I partnered back with Ehtisham Khan and co-founded Awaami with the concept of a socially conscious content platform for social media. We have focused on developing animations, graphics and short films on social issues such as child abuse, women’s rights and other important topics to develop social awareness through engaging content on a massive scale in Pakistan.

What are your views on the evolution of digital media in Pakistan?

Pakistan is evolving to a digital landscape at a very fast rate, as of right now there is 13% increase in social media usage annually in Pakistan and 68% of social media users are on the mobile platform. I believe that companies and individuals need to start thinking ind digital now if they want to catch a slice of that huge digital space in the future, as it is the future now.

What are some of the hurdles you face as a company while interacting with potential clients about adopting digital media?

I believe that companies and individuals need to start thinking digital now if they want to catch a slice of that huge digital space in the future as it the future now.

I think right now companies are more adaptable because they are witnessing how their competition is aggressively using social media to promote themselves. When I meet clients, it is easy to make them understand what kind of services my company can provide se them because they already have an idea of how it will benefit them.

The biggest hurdle I face about digital media adoption is that a lot of companies want to either advance too fast on it because they think progress on that platform is quick, but that’s not the case. Due to that, the main hurdle is to bring their attention to hu the fact that digital marketing has no exact formula to it and that as such they need to keep revamping and adapting their strategies in order to hit the right mark because the digital trends and market move fast. mar

“Give your brand time, digital marketing is an art as well as science”

What would be your top 5 tips for startups and entrepreneurs for using digital media effectively to promote their businesses with a limited budget?

1

Always know your target market and make content for that niche

2

Use good graphic design in your posts and videos because that reflects the quality of your brand

3

Do not overspend if you are not getting the right response, go back and change your whole strategy

4

Give your brand time, digital marketing is an art as well as science

5

Be innovative and engaging and keep a good frequency of how much content you put out Wh are the top 3 trends you see What emerging in digital marketing in the future in Pakistan?

There is no exact way of knowing what new thing will emerge, but I do think that new and innovative forms of video based content will come in the future in Pakistan.

What’s next for ‘Awaami’?

Wh Awaami will develop video and animation content on more topics and keep developing the social media platform in Pakistan with new ideas.

HOW THEY DID IT

RICHARD BRANSON “Respect is how to treat everyone, not just those you want to impress”

TRIVIA 1. He went into business at the age of 16.

2. He loves Star Trek.

3. He bought an Island for $180,000, well under the asking price of $5 million. It’s worth upwards of $200 million today.

Launched the record label Virgin Records with Nik Powell

He was born

1973

Formed Virgin Atlantic Airways and Virgin Cargo

1950 1984

Launched Virgin Mobile in 1999

1992 1950

1994 1997 Sold the Virgin label to EMI for £500 million

2004

Launched Virgin Vodka and Virgin Cola

2010

Launches Virgin Trains

ACHIEVEMENTS United Nations Correspondents Association Citizen of the World Award for his contributions to humanitarian causes ISTA Prize by the International Space Transport Association for his contributions pertaining to space transport systems

Launches Virgin Galactic Launches Virgin Racing, a formula one team previously known as Manor Grand Prix

How did the idea of Modulus Tech come about?

The idea of ModulusTech came about in 2016 when the Syrian refugee crisis was at its peak. We noticed how there was a large influx of people in a short span of time in these crises, resulting in massive housing shortages. These people were exposed to harsh living conditions, exposed to all sorts of social condition problems and epidemics. The solutions that did exist in the world at that point in time were either too costly or took too much time to implement. Being Pakistanis, we could relate to their problems equally as well, with our own IDPs and people affected by floods and IDP earthquakes. Hence, the idea was to find an environmentally sustainable housing solution that could be set up in minimal time and be cost effective. That is how Modulus Tech came to be.

As co-founders, what do you each of you do? What are your backgrounds?

All three co-founders studied Civil Engineering together at NED University,

where the idea of the startup came about. Nabeel is managing the business and management side of things.

Yaseen Khalid is mainly responsible for operations and M. Saquib works on the technology side.

Wh What do you believe is the biggest market for your products?

The biggest market is the millions of people living without adequate housing today. According to a McKinsey report, the affordable housing sector is an 11 trillion dollar industry in construction costs alone.

The solution you’re offering is very unique. How has the response been so far?

Ou solution is in fact very innovative Our and has characteristics superior than products available globally. We have filed patents on multiple aspects of the technology. We were recently recognized by the United Nations and various other organizations globally for our invention, we also won awards at the Global

What would you say is the secret to finding one’s passion?

I believe passion finds you sometimes, as long as you’re honest to yourself. One needs to be foolish enough to pursue where your interests take you, no matter how impractical they may seem. We genuinely cared about the problems we wish to solve, and the impact we wish to create keeps us going.

Wh do you believe has been the highlight of your What entrepreneurial journey so far?

Cleantech Innovation Competition held in Silicon Valley. We were also recently selected by Techjuice in the 25 under 25 list.

Tell us about your prospective customers.

Our set of prospective customers includes governments and NGOs working on social projects; B2B sector for labor housing and projects site offices and B2C market for consumer products and stand-alone units What do you dream of achieving through Modulus Tech?

Creating large-scale social and environmental impact globally.

Whe When did you (founders) realize this was the idea you wanted to work on?

The moment we tested the prototype and achieved significant results, we knew that this was something we needed to work on, mostly because of the potential for the technology to create social impact.

The major highlight is being able to develop a technology better than other large business groups and organizations, who have been working in the sector for decades.

Where do you see Modulus Tech in 5 years?

We see ourselves being a large business capturing major markets around the world, while creating huge social impact. We aim to be a multibillion-dollar social enterprise.

CONTRIBUTION

Business Viability for Success “Good design successfully manages the tensions between user needs, technology feasibility, and business viability.” — Tim Brown Launching a company is a risky endeavour. It takes your money, blood, sweat, tears and an immeasurable amount of hard work to successfully turn your business idea into a running profitable business. The reason I advise the future and my fellow entrepreneurs to always start a business based on a viable via business model is that they must know whether their idea is profitable and whether or not the company is capable of surviving and sustaining the tremors of the market or not.

According to a research, 42% of startups fail because they don’t solve a market need. If there is a market need, the company will make profit. Turning a brilliant idea into a booming business isn’t as easy as it may seem.

Sustainability and viability is essential in creating businesses that will give you cr profit in the long term. Having said that, the first and foremost is to understand why we are starting a business. Is it going to fulfil our financial needs, pay all bills, and other day-to-day expenditure (the primary source of income) or is it a hobby through which we want to earn hob some money (the secondary source of income). Your business viability model is then developed based on the primary or secondary business strategies.

The viability of a business is measured by its long-term survival and its ability to sustain profits over a period of time. A business is able to survive when it's viable because it continues to make a profit year after year.

Any successful business revolves around viability. A business idea that cannot continue to serve the customers is not a viable business. A business idea that cannot compete is not viable. A business idea that is not scalable is not viable. Hence, viability means that your business is living, breathing and growing and has the potential of seeing the stages of infancy to adolescence and maturity.

When I had started my company, NShield Solutions 2 years ago, I knew that the demand for cars is inevitable. People will continue to buy cars and would need a reliable company to maintain its looks and functionality.

My extensive market research gave me my viability outline. The automotive industry in Pakistan is one of the fastest growing industries of the country, accounting for 4% of Pakistan's GDP. Over 180,000 cars were sold in the fiscal year 2014-15. In Pakistan, automobile sales are on a continuous positive trajectory. posit

According to a Gallup report based on Pakistan Economic Survey 2015-2016, in the past 15 years, there has been a 268% increase in the total number of registered motor vehicles in the country. These figures clearly showed that my target market will continue to grow and so my profit.

“The viability of a business is measured by its long-term survival and its ability to sustain profits over a period of time”

Validation of a great idea for business is the first step in establishing its viability. Here are few basic questions that can help you evaluate it

Are your ideas implementable in real life?

Do you have the skills, resources, and manpower to implement the idea?

Will you be able to make enough profit from the implementation of your business idea for a considerably conside long term period?

Is there a demand for what you are selling? If you were a customer, would you want to buy your products or services?

Lastly, is your idea innovative?

Can it be moulded to give birth to new products and services?

“Viability means that your business is living, breathing and growing and has the potential of seeing the stages of infancy to adolescence and maturity”

Another high-end definition of business sustainability, which is the next level of creating a valuable and viable business, is to create social or environmental impact through your business. According to the Cone Communications 2017 CSR study, 87% of customers will make a purchase from a company that advocates for an issue they consider important. To be truly successful, companies need to have a corporate mission that is bigger than making a profit, meaning it creates a social impact as well. So, once you are into your profit-earning mode, your next sustainability strategy is to create meaningful impact on the society.

Ideas are always great, but an idea that is viable with a potential to bring a positive social change, is always a winning business strategy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: ZIA S. HASAN Zia is the co-founder and director of NShield Solutions (Pakistan & UAE). She is the first and only woman in Pakistan who is successfully leading a surface protection company, breaking barriers and setting an example for other professional women to lead non-traditional businesses. NShield is a Nanotechnology based surface protection company, which offers nano-ceramic glass coating services for automobiles, and liquid steel & antimicrobial coatings for various industries. NShield has a nation wide presence in Pakistan with corporate branches in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar.

“According to a research, 42% of startups fail because they don’t solve a market need”

GEN NEXT

Peshawar-based Aprus On Changing the Future of Medicine, One Product at a Time

“We are working on different medical equipment, but initially, we are focusing on one product only� unwanted thermal damage of tissues. We are working on new technology, which uses artificial intelligence-based control system or instant response technology. This minimizes the charring and unwanted thermal damage of tissues. We will be the first in the world to achieve this result and we are also 10 times cheaper. ar

What was the vision behind creating your product?

Our vision revolves around using electrosurgical units during surgeries to make them safe, to reduce the recovery time after surgeries so that patients can live healthy lives and to reduce the side effects of surgeries.

Are there any other devices like yours in the market internationally or locally? What makes yours different?

There are other local as well as international devices available in the market. With the other local devices, patients face alternate site burns and shocks. Other international devices don’t have such issues, but the problem with them is the charring and

How do you see this technology making a significant change in the medical section locally and worldwide?

According to a research, 66 million surgeries are performed per year in Pakistan. If we only consider the benefit of this device in the country, this device can eliminate the charring and unwanted thermal damage to those 66 million patients. In addition, the same number of patients, with the use of this device, d would experience faster recovery time and safer surgeries.

Are you working on other similar products for the medical sector?

Yes, we are working on different medical equipment, but initially, we are focusing on one product only. We would like the company to grow with this product first and then introduce our next product, which is a sterilizer.

How has NIC Peshawar contributed towards your growth?

Our background back is of engineering we had no knowledge of running a company – we pitched our idea at NIC and we got selected. Here at NIC, we got the right coaches, mentors and the right knowledge through Founders Institute’s course. We also got the right linkages with industry – all these are factors that we have been lucky to get access to as a luc startup.

Where do you see your company in five years?

After five years, we would have captured all of the Pakistani market and would also be exporting to the international market.

We see ourselves as a million dollar company by then Inshallah.

“In five years, we would have captured all of the Pakistani market and would also be exporting to the international market”

MARKETING INTELLIGENCE

According to him, leading Starcom Mediavest Pakistan as the CEO has been the biggest challenge he took on. He has recently resigned from his position and is moving on to other avenues.

Given his experience from leading the agency of the future, we ask him about the trends that are going to shape the marketing landscape in Pakistan, with the rise of digital and social media marketing.

I

II III

IV

V VI

Marketers will develop a better understanding of the digital space.

They will try to keep pace with the ever-changing landscape, as much as possible. They will not succeed entirely.

Marketers will realize that the agency is not their slave / servant / pet to be mistreated at will. They will realize that the agency is the professional, they know stuff about their work that the marketer cannot know, simply because it is their job to know. Hopefully, this will result in a more equal relationship, one based on mutual trust and understanding, that will result in better work.

Marketers will start taking calculated risks, in their communication, their social spaces, their activations, their media choices.

Brands will realize the importance of building brand equity and will refocus on this much neglected and misunderstood area. They will reduce the number of shortcuts they take in their work, focus on building real consumer insights, and building strategies based on those insights.

Owners (saiths) will start investing more purposefully in marketing, not because they want to, but because they have to. Competition in almost every industry / category will increase exponentially, and brands that are not differentiated will find it impossible to fight solely on price (specially against the Chinese!).

Digital experimentation will rise and ROI-driven marketing will become the rage as owners / CEOs demand a return on the marketing investment. This brings us back to point #1 above.

How do you believe digital media has changed the way marketing is done in Pakistan? How do you see the future of digital marketing in Pakistan?

The explosion in the digital media space has caught most marketers off guard. While a small percentage have taken an active role in understanding and capitalizing on the opportunities that this new frontier offers, the majority either believe that digital is the same as social, or give it a polite nod and allocate 1- 2% of their marketing spend to it.

Savvy marketers are investing behind these new media opportunities, they are testing and trying new ideas and new ways of doing things, and above all, they are pushing their organizations to become more digitally savvy, not only in their marketing, but in the way they do business.

Digital marketing will represent 30% of the marketing budget of most companies within the next 3 – 5 years. Globally, digital spend has already overtaken traditional spend, and it will do so in Pakistan as well.

There is a new awareness about creating and marketing quality content in Pakistan. Do you think this will change the game and the way agencies operate?

Hopefully, yes. It will take time however, since the approval process remains the same. The current content creation process in Pakistan – whether it is for 30 sec TV ads or simple FB posts – remains the same – play it safe. What will the boss think? Can we plagiarize an idea that has worked in other markets? We are talking about content as though it’s a new thing, but it’s not.

Any shortcomings you see in the local industry for embracing new media and the future of marketing?

1

The average owner / saith is well above 50. This puts the majority of them at a disadvantage because they are digital immigrants, and as such, do not really understand “digital”. They try, but it’s hard for them.

2

There is a saying in Urdu that roughly translates, as “their stomachs are full”. They are not hungry for more growth than they are currently getting. What they do not understand is that what got them “here” will not get them “there”.

3

The lack of professionalism in management is quite serious.

People are not valued, their contributions are taken for granted; they are replaced at a moment’s notice.

You recently stepped down from your role at Starcom. What’s next?

Wait and see

Recently, marketing has become all about context and humanizing. Your top tips on how to go about it?

1. Be authentic 2. Be consistent 3. Be unique 4. Don’t try to target “everyone” – it’s impossible 5. Speak with a human voice – and engage like a person 6 Know Kn your consumer well – so that you know when they are likely to be receptive to your brand’s message

4

The myopia infecting the majority of owners is pandemic. Most look to this month’s or this quarter’s sales. No one is really interested in investing for the future (with a few notable exceptions). This, I think is the single biggest reason that a nation of +200 million people is yet to produce a single global brand. I don’t pr mean a brand sold in multiple countries – there are a few of those. No, a brand recognized globally with its roots in Pakistan. There are a few companies working now on this vision, but they truly aren’t unicorns.

The power to shape your destiny

Built to last This book is not about leaders or rules but about how visionary companies work and how they keep their vision alive by constantly struggling and competing with their rivals partners. This book gives insight into a six year research project at the Stanford University Graduate school of Business, Collins and Porras selected a total of 18 companies that have a portfolio of 100 years and have outperformed the general stock market by a factor of fifteen since 1926. This book gives a look into the inner mechanisms that led great companies to success.

The power to shape your destiny is a must have book for high achievers. In his book Anthony Robbins shows us the seven strategies that can make us achieve our best. Are you stuck in a constant struggle for success and can’t seem to have any results that are worth your struggle?

Do you want a more fulfilling career, economic freedom, or more passionate relationships? Do you want to have the time for vacations? Would you like to travel the world? Would you just like to be closer to a friends, relatives, or loved ones? What’s been holding you back from living your dreams? This book shows you how you can use these seven strategies to overcome the perpetual helplessness and to break the walls that are holding us

ClearBit Connect Extension Clearbit Connect is a small widget that lives in Gmail’s sidebar. It displays useful information about the people who email you, and allows you to find anyone’s email address without leaving your inbox. It is available for all browsers like Safari, Chrome, Mozilla and Opera.

LinkedIn Extension

Sales

Navigator

Engage with Sales Navigator insights where you’re already communicating with prospects and customers.

Lin LinkedIn Sales Navigator for Gmail - A free and convenient way to build better relationships by surfacing LinkedIn insights about your prospects and customers without having to leave your inbox.

If you have a Sales Navigator subscription, the extension will unlock these additional Premium features: - Save contacts as leads in your Sales Navigator account - Use TeamLink to see if prospects are connected to your colleagues and get a warm introduction

October Sky John Hickam (Chris Cooper) is a West Virginia coal miner who loves his job and expects his sons, Jim (Scott Miles) and Homer (Jake Gyllenhaal), to follow in his footsteps. But Jim gets a football scholarship, and Homer becomes interested in rocket science after inte seeing Sputnik 1 crossing the sky. John disapproves of his sons’ new mania, but Homer begins building rockets with the help of friends and a sympathetic teacher (Laura Dern). Rocketry, he hopes, will prove his ticket to a better life. wil