Iffi Wala

entrepreneur and founder of Edge

Compiled from 1 recorded interview. Every statement below is drawn from the passage cited beside it.

Iffi Wala is a Pakistani-American entrepreneur and the founder of Edge, a company connecting non-tech businesses in developed countries with non-tech talent in emerging markets. He sold an insurance business in 2021 and started Edge in 2022.

Early life and background

Wala was born in a small village near Sargodha. His family later moved to Sargodha, where he went to school, and he was raised there until about seven or eight years old. [1]

The family moved to California when he was about seven or eight, and Wala moved to the United States in 1991. They moved to the US after his father's brother, who was starting a company, asked them to come because he needed employees. Three or four weeks after the family arrived, his uncle died in a car accident. The family built a community of friends in Northern California and stayed there. [1]

Education

Wala attended Sacramento State University. He did some pre-med and thought it was the direction he wanted to go. He ended up in business marketing. [1]

Career

Wala was unsure what he wanted to do, and worked for the government for a little while and for a couple of banks. At one bank he worked in a non-manager position, supporting operations. He was laid off in a company layoff, and he says the decision to leave was made for him. [1]

A couple of his friends did very well and became an inspiration for him. He says he wanted his first business to be a safer bet. He entered the risk management and insurance industry, starting a business there around 2013 or 2014. [1]

Wala ran the insurance business for a few years, expanded it, and acquired a few companies that he rebranded as a single package. He sold the insurance business in 2021 to an insurtech company. He describes the sale as his first exit and his first time running a business. [1]

Edge

Wala started Edge in 2022. Edge matches non-tech talent with non-tech businesses, and its stated mission is to make hiring and working globally easier than locally. [1]

Wala says his next business had to be tech-enabled for scalability. He wanted it to have a global footprint, or at least a potential one, and to be a business of impact. He says his previous company had no real impact beyond his own life. [1]

He cites a statistic that 95% of businesses globally are not tech-enabled. He says they saw a missing link, in that non-tech people were really being left behind, and that tech companies had been hiring engineers globally for decades. He says that by 2030 there will be 300 million university graduates globally, most of them in emerging markets. [1]

Edge business model

Wala says Edge cannot be just a global payroll company and must own every part of the ecosystem. He says Edge owns infrastructure, logistics, salary data, equipment procurement and the talent marketplace. He says Edge is not a free market like Upwork, which he sees as one of Upwork's problems. He also says Edge does not use the word outsource. [1]

Wala says Edge is building a platform of trust for global hiring, and he views Uber and Airbnb as platforms that create trust. He hopes Edge's trust system will raise the standard that competitors have to meet. He says Edge's big bet is that customers do not care where their talent is based. [1]

Talent must complete Edge's certification process before going live on the platform. Edge wants its salaries to be in the top 70 to 90 percent in each of its markets. Wala says 97% of companies and talent on Edge have never worked or hired globally before. [1]

Wala says Edge's chief technology officer holds a PhD in AI and machine learning, and that its CFO was formerly CFO at SadaPay. He also says Edge has a few data scientists on its team. [1]

Edge scale and customers

Wala says Edge has a little less than 100 employees internally, and about 30 percent of Edge's internal employees are based in the US. He says its sales and customer success teams are based in the US, and that it has employees in the UK and a couple in Dubai. He says Edge has employees in seven or eight countries and talent in four markets. [1]

Wala says a couple of thousand people have worked through Edge's platform. He says Edge has customers in about three dozen US states, and that one big customer has hired close to 80 or 90 people through Edge. He says a group flew to Nashville, Tennessee, a couple of weeks earlier to meet one of Edge's big customers. He says he thinks Edge's contribution to the local economy is somewhere between 20 and 25 million dollars. [1]

Edge in Pakistan

Pakistan was the first place Edge experimented with. Wala describes himself as the naive American who was culture shocked visiting Pakistan when Edge first started there. He says Edge had to earn trust with local talent in Pakistan, and that people in Pakistan doubted Edge's offer and asked whether it was a scam. He recalls that Edge's starting salary was around 250k PKR. [1]

Wala says a little less than a thousand platform workers are in Pakistan, and that most Edge talent in Pakistan is in Islamabad, with a big group in Lahore. He says much of Edge's engineering team is based in Pakistan. He said Edge planned to launch officially in Lahore within a few weeks. [1]

Edge expansion plans

Wala expects Edge to be in 24 or 25 countries within a couple of years, and says Edge plans its next launches quarterly, starting in November. He expects Latin America to become Edge's biggest hub over time. Edge is already exploring accounting roles in a couple of Middle Eastern countries. [1]

Edge chose healthcare, insurance and dentistry because they were the hardest industries to crack, not the easiest. Edge has four to five roles in each category, such as underwriters. Wala says healthcare roles need HIPAA, GDPR and ISO compliance, and that design is the role Edge gets asked for most often. Edge plans to ask its customers which other roles in their businesses they are interested in. [1]

Views

Wala says people are really defined by who their friends are. He says that when the economy gets difficult, one has to operate in grey areas. He says Pakistan faces economic challenges and youth unemployment, and that it is very dangerous to have a brain drain of very smart people. [1]

Wala says he is generally optimistic. He describes himself as cautiously optimistic, saying there are a lot of problems to solve. His big dream is for Pakistan to become the next Taiwan or South Korea. [1]

Advice and outreach

Wala says he gets calls all the time from founders. He says he is partnering with the Consul General in the US on a couple of webinars. [1]

Personal life

Wala is based in Northern California, about an hour and a half from Silicon Valley and San Francisco. He says he is more comfortable speaking English than Urdu. He says he has been to dozens of countries, around 40 of them, and that he has friends all over the world. [1]

Timeline

1991
Moved to the United States.[1]
2013
Started a risk management and insurance business, around 2013 or 2014.[1]
2021
Sold the insurance business to an insurtech company.[1]
2022
Started Edge.[1]

Appearances

DateTitleWhere
2025-01-25 Why Iffi Wala is killing the BPO model for Pakistani talent Thought Behind Things

Frequently asked questions

Who is Iffi Wala?

Iffi Wala is a Pakistani-American entrepreneur. He is the founder of Edge, a company connecting non-tech businesses in developed countries with non-tech talent in emerging markets. He sold an insurance business in 2021.[1]

What does Iffi Wala do?

Iffi Wala founded Edge, a company connecting non-tech businesses in developed countries with non-tech talent in emerging markets. Edge matches non-tech talent with non-tech businesses. Its stated mission is to make hiring and working globally easier than locally.[1]

Where did Iffi Wala study?

Iffi Wala attended Sacramento State University. He did some pre-med and thought it was the direction he wanted to go. He ended up in business marketing.[1]

Where is Iffi Wala from?

Iffi Wala was born in a small village near Sargodha. He was raised in Sargodha until about seven or eight years old, when the family moved to California. He is now based in Northern California.[1]

When did Iffi Wala move to the United States?

Iffi Wala moved to the United States in 1991. The family moved after his father's brother, who was starting a company, asked them to come because he needed employees. The family built a community of friends in Northern California and stayed there.[1]

What did Iffi Wala do before founding Edge?

Iffi Wala worked for the government for a little while and for a couple of banks. He entered the risk management and insurance industry, starting a business there around 2013 or 2014. He sold the insurance business in 2021 to an insurtech company.[1]

What company did Iffi Wala found?

Iffi Wala started Edge in 2022. Edge matches non-tech talent with non-tech businesses. Pakistan was the first place Edge experimented with.[1]

References

  1. Why Iffi Wala is killing the BPO model for Pakistani talent . Thought Behind Things , 2025-01-25.
Show the source passages (91 statements)
  1. Iffi Wala was born in a small village near Sargodha. I was uh born actually in um in a small village near near Sargodha
  2. The family moved to Sargodha, where he went to school. we moved to uh Sargodha and uh, you know, that's where I went to school
  3. He was raised in Sargodha until about seven or eight years old. That's where I was raised up until about seven or eight uh years old
  4. The family moved to California when he was about seven or eight. when I was seven or eight, we moved here to California
  5. Iffi Wala moved to the United States in 1991. his journey from immigrating to the US in 1991 to founding Edge
  6. The family moved to the US after his father's brother, who was starting a company, asked them to come because he needed employees. we came here, um, um because my dad's uh brother who was here, um was um, you know, starting some sort of company and uh he was like, hey, you know, I need some employees, why don't you come?
  7. Three or four weeks after the family arrived, his uncle died in a car accident. three or four weeks after we we come here, we're all excited. Um, my uh my uncle gets into a car accident and uh and passes away
  8. The family built a community of friends in Northern California and stayed there. we really built a community of friends and uh and so we basically stuck around here
  9. Iffi Wala is based in Northern California, about an hour and a half from Silicon Valley and San Francisco. I'm in Northern California, about an hour and a half outside of uh, you know, Silicon Valley and San Francisco
  10. He attended Sacramento State University. I went to a local university, um, uh Sacramento State University
  11. He did some pre-med and thought it was the direction he wanted to go. I did a little bit of uh pre-med. I thought that's the direction I wanted to go
  12. He ended up in business marketing. I ended up uh landing in um in um business, you know, business marketing
  13. He was unsure what he wanted to do, and worked for the government for a little while and for a couple of banks. really kind of not sure what I want to do, work for the government for a little bit, you know, work for a couple of banks
  14. He worked at a bank in a non-manager position, supporting operations. I worked at uh a bank, um as just, you know, a bank, um it wasn't like a manager position. It was just like, you know, you're working in a bank to support um uh operations
  15. He was laid off in a company layoff, and he says the decision to leave was made for him. The decision was made for me. I think uh, you know, so I got uh laid off um at at the company that I worked with just because of like the, you know, just part of a layoff
  16. A couple of his friends did very well and became an inspiration for him. a couple of my friends did very well and so really became an inspiration um uh for me
  17. He says people are really defined by who their friends are. you're really defined by who your friends are
  18. He says he wanted his first business to be a safer bet. This was my first business ever, so I wanted it to be kind of a safer bet
  19. He entered the risk management and insurance industry, starting a business there around 2013 or 2014. I got into, you know, the risk management and insurance industry. And so, you know, I started uh that around 2013 or 14
  20. He ran the insurance business for a few years, expanded it, and acquired a few companies that he rebranded as a single package. And so I ran that for a few years. You know, we expanded, I did some M&A stuff. I acquired a few industry uh a few companies, rebranded them to an into a single package
  21. He sold the insurance business in 2021 to an insurtech company. ended up selling that uh in 2021 to this pretty big insurtech company
  22. He describes the sale as his first exit and his first time running a business. And so that was really my first exit, uh first time running a business
  23. Iffi Wala started Edge in 2022. we started in 2022, about three years in
  24. His next business had to be tech-enabled for scalability. whatever I did next had to be a tech enabled business just from a scalability perspective
  25. He wanted the next business to have a global footprint, or at least a potential one. it was important to me that whatever we do next has a global footprint or at least a potential global uh footprint
  26. He wanted the next business to be a business of impact. it was important that whatever we do next, it be a business of impact
  27. He says his previous company had no real impact beyond his own life. it didn't change it didn't have any real impact in the world outside of my life
  28. He cites a statistic that 95% of businesses globally are not tech-enabled. one of the stats that I read around that time is, you know, 95% of businesses globally are not tech enabled businesses
  29. He says they saw a missing link, in that non-tech people were really being left behind. We kind of saw this missing link where, you know, non-tech people were really being left behind
  30. He says tech companies had been hiring engineers globally for decades. tech companies have been hiring globally for decades
  31. He says that by 2030 there will be 300 million university graduates globally, most of them in emerging markets. by 2030, there's going to be 300 million university grads globally, vast majority of them in emerging markets like Pakistan
  32. Edge's chief technology officer holds a PhD in AI and machine learning. our CTO, Chief Technology Officer, you know, he's literally a PhD in AI and machine learning
  33. Edge matches non-tech talent with non-tech businesses. match the right uh, you know, non-tech roles with the with the raw right non-tech uh uh businesses
  34. Edge's stated mission is to make hiring and working globally easier than locally. our company mission statement is making hiring and working um globally easier than locally
  35. He says Edge cannot be just a global payroll company and must own every part of the ecosystem. we can't be just another, you know, payroll company or or something like that, you know, global payroll company. We really have to own every part of the ecosystem
  36. He says Edge owns infrastructure, logistics, salary data, equipment procurement and the talent marketplace. that includes infrastructure, logistics, you know, salary data, equipment procurement, the talent marketplace
  37. Edge wants its salaries to be in the top 70 to 90 percent in each of its markets. we want to be somewhere in the top 70 to 90% um of of salaries at uh, you know, in each of the markets that we're in
  38. He says 97% of companies and talent on Edge have never worked or hired globally before. most of the companies that use us and most of the talent that work through our platform, actually the stats 97% on both sides, like they've never worked or hired globally
  39. Talent must complete Edge's certification process before going live on the platform. we have a whole certification process, which you have to go through to basically become live
  40. He says Edge has a few data scientists on its team. we have a few data scientists on the team
  41. He says Edge's big bet is that customers do not care where their talent is based. our big bet is that customers don't care, really, honestly, where where the where their talent is based out of
  42. He says Edge is not a free market like Upwork, which he sees as one of Upwork's problems. we're not a free market like Upwork, and I think that's one of the problems with Upwork
  43. He says Edge does not use the word outsource. we never use the word outsource, right?
  44. He views Uber and Airbnb as platforms that create trust. to me, these are businesses, these are platforms that create trust
  45. He says Edge is building a platform of trust for global hiring. ultimately, you know, we're building a platform of trust
  46. He hopes Edge's trust system will raise the standard that competitors have to meet. we raise the bar, the standard's higher, and uh then ultimately, you know, other companies who have to compete with us, you know, also raise that bar
  47. He says Edge's CFO was formerly CFO at SadaPay. our CFO was the former CFO at uh SadaPay
  48. He says Edge has customers in about three dozen US states. we have, you know, customers, I'm thinking about uh three dozen states in the US
  49. He says a group flew to Nashville, Tennessee, a couple of weeks earlier to meet one of Edge's big customers. I was talking to a customer in um Nashville, Tennessee, right? So we flew there a couple weeks ago, it's one of our big customers
  50. He says one big customer has hired close to 80 or 90 people through Edge. I think they've hired like dozens of people. I think close to like 80 or 90 people through our platform at this point
  51. He describes himself as the naive American who was culture shocked visiting Pakistan when Edge first started there. initially when we first started in Pakistan, you know, I'm the naive American, uh, who really, you know, was a little bit culture shocked visiting to Pakistan
  52. He says Edge had to earn trust with local talent in Pakistan. There was like some stuff that we had to do to earn trust at at a local level as well from from the talent in Pakistan
  53. He says people in Pakistan doubted Edge's offer and asked whether it was a scam. like people wouldn't believe it. They'd be like, man, is this a scam?
  54. He recalls that Edge's starting salary was around 250k PKR. our starting salary was like, I don't know, 250k or something like that, you know, Pakistan PKR
  55. Pakistan was the first place Edge experimented with. so Pakistan was the first place that we uh experimented with
  56. He says Edge has employees in seven or eight countries and talent in four markets. we have employees I think in like seven or eight countries, um, talent, our talent's in, you know, four markets right now
  57. He expects Edge to be in 24 or 25 countries within a couple of years. I think we'll be in 24, 25 countries in the next couple of years
  58. Edge plans its next launches quarterly, starting in November. we're on a quarterly basis, we'll have a systematic uh growth in countries and, um, you know, categories. It's starting November
  59. Edge chose healthcare, insurance and dentistry because they were the hardest industries to crack, not the easiest. We we decided to choose healthcare, insurance, and dentistry, not because they were easy, because we thought they were the hardest industries to crack
  60. Edge has four to five roles in each category, such as underwriters. So like we have underwriters, etc. So I think in each category, we have between four to five roles
  61. He says healthcare roles need HIPAA, GDPR and ISO compliance. You have to have, you know, HIPAA, GDPR, um, you know, all types of like, you know, ISO, whatever
  62. He says design is the role Edge gets asked for most often. design is another one. This is one that we get uh most often
  63. Edge is already exploring accounting roles in a couple of Middle Eastern countries. we're already exploring that, uh, you know, in a couple of uh Middle Eastern uh countries, uh from an accounting perspective
  64. Edge plans to ask its customers which other roles in their businesses they are interested in. why don't we go to our customers and we ask our customers, hey, what other roles in your business are you specifically, you know, interested in?
  65. He says Edge's sales and customer success teams are based in the US. sales, like, you know, customer success is based out of here
  66. He says Edge has employees in the UK and a couple in Dubai. we have employees in the UK. We have a couple of employees in uh Dubai
  67. He says about 30 percent of Edge's internal employees are based in the US. About 30% of our uh employees are based in the in the in uh, you know, uh US
  68. He says Edge has a little less than 100 employees internally. we're about uh, you know, a little less than 100 employees
  69. He says a couple of thousand people have worked through Edge's platform. we've had a couple of hundred, a couple of thousand people working through our platform
  70. He says a little less than a thousand platform workers are in Pakistan. we have close to about uh maybe maybe a little less than a thousand people working uh through uh through Pakistan
  71. He says most Edge talent in Pakistan is in Islamabad, with a big group in Lahore. probably about I'd say probably vast majority in Islamabad, a big chunk in Lahore
  72. He said Edge planned to launch officially in Lahore within a few weeks. we're we're launching officially in Lahore, I think in a few weeks
  73. Edge runs community spaces it calls Edge centers, and the first one opened in Islamabad. we call them Edge centers. And uh so we just launched our first one in uh Islamabad
  74. He says Edge centers give talent a place to work during power outages or political disruption. if there's power outage issues or, you know, political discourse or something like that, then, you know, these are accessible for uh for our talent to go um uh work whenever they want
  75. He says about 20 percent of talent works from an Edge center on a typical day. on average, on a daily basis, about 20% of people um work in one of our Edge centers
  76. He says much of Edge's engineering team is based in Pakistan. a lot of our engineering team and and some of our other companies are uh in uh in uh uh, you know, in Pakistan
  77. He says that when the economy gets difficult, one has to operate in grey areas. when the economy gets difficult, when the economy gets tough, um, you know, you have to kind of operate um in these grey areas
  78. He says Pakistan faces economic challenges and youth unemployment. there's economic challenges, there's, uh, youth unemployment
  79. He says it is very dangerous to have a brain drain of very smart people. it is very dangerous for for a lot of, um, if you have this brain drain of these, you know, people who are, you know, super smart
  80. He says he is generally optimistic. generally, in a lot of things, I'm pretty optimistic
  81. He describes himself as cautiously optimistic, saying there are a lot of problems to solve. very optimistic, obviously, cautiously optimistic, a lot of problems to solve, but I think you have to be optimistic
  82. His big dream is for Pakistan to become the next Taiwan or South Korea. my big dream for Pakistan specifically is, you know, why not, um, why can't we be like the next, you know, Taiwan? You know, why can't we be the next South Korea?
  83. He says he is more comfortable speaking English than Urdu. koshish karenge thodi si Urdu but uh English mein zyada comfortable
  84. He says he gets calls all the time from founders. I get calls all the time from founders
  85. He says he is partnering with the Consul General in the US on a couple of webinars. am partnering with, um, uh, the Consul General here in the in the in the US, and we're doing a couple of webinars
  86. He expects Latin America to become Edge's biggest hub over time. I think Latin America will likely be our biggest hub just because of, you know, the number of countries and markets
  87. He says he has been to dozens of countries, around 40 of them. I've been to something, you know, again, you know, dozens of countries around the world, I think 40 something countries around the world
  88. He says he has friends all over the world. I love people, I love being around people. I have friends all over the world
  89. Iffi Wala founded Edge, a company connecting non-tech businesses in developed countries with non-tech talent in emerging markets. to founding Edge, a company connecting non-tech businesses in developed countries with non-tech talent in emerging markets like Pakistan
  90. Iffi Wala is described as a Pakistani-American entrepreneur. Iffi Wala, a Pakistani-American entrepreneur who discusses his journey from immigrating to the US in 1991
  91. He says he thinks Edge's contribution to the local economy is somewhere between 20 and 25 million dollars. we think our actual contribution to the local economy is somewhere between 20 to 25 million bucks