Thought Behind Things · Sep 29, 2025 · 1:37:45
If you're mega ambitious, stay home and build
Colabs CEO Omar Shah on why coworking quietly works in Pakistan even as WeWork collapsed globally, what Abraaj actually taught him about scaling, why Saudi is now the bigger prize, and where the local consumer wall really sits.
with Omar Shah
14 min read
A standardised industry inside an Endeavor series about non-standard ones
The episode opens with Muzamil framing the conversation as part of the ongoing Endeavor Pakistan series, where Thought Behind Things has been profiling the fifty most exciting businesses in the country. He notes that coworking is not the kind of category that usually fits this kind of list. “We generally look at startups and we want something cutting-edge, something that will change the world,” he says — and what coworking actually does is take a very ordinary input, office space, and make it more efficient.
The size of the prize, by his read, is not ordinary at all. He puts the total addressable market for coworking in Pakistan at roughly 250 million dollars today, growing past a billion by 2030. The reason he believes it: Pakistan’s economy is being pulled, slowly but visibly, toward services exports. If the country gets to 30 billion dollars in services exports, it will need somewhere between one and three million people working remotely at a reasonable standard. Homes with load-shedding and unreliable internet cannot host that. Coworking infrastructure has to.
This is the wedge into the guest. Muzamil introduces Omar Shah, the founder and CEO of Colabs, which Omar claims is Pakistan’s largest coworking operator. Muzamil flags the claim openly and says he intends to test it during the conversation. Before the formal interview begins, Omar drops a line that becomes the spine of the episode: “If you’re ambitious, go to Europe, get a job, or to the US. But here you’re mega ambitious. Stay home and build.”
Lahore, SOAS, and the route into Abraaj
Omar grew up in old Lahore in a family he describes as “very old” and very patriotic about Pakistan. He watched Lahore transform from Kalma Chowk outward — through Mall Road, Gulberg, Model Town — and he is direct about what he thinks that means for the city’s place in Pakistan. Muzamil agrees, observing that people consistently underestimate Lahore relative to Karachi: “Lahore is going to absolutely dominate over the next couple of decades as well.”
Omar then went to SOAS in London — the School of Oriental and African Studies — to study development economics, drawn to the discipline because, as he puts it, he wanted to “change the world.” What he actually found in the syllabus was that Pakistan’s growth had outpaced South Korea’s into the 1970s and that other countries were openly copying Pakistan’s model. Reading that, then watching what came next, sat with him.
After graduation he did the opposite of what development economics usually leads to: investment banking. M&A, then a year of equity trading, then private equity. Seven or eight years in, he had ended up at Abraaj Group.
Inside Abraaj — and inside the liquidation
The Abraaj passage is the most personally weighted part of the conversation. Omar describes the firm at its peak: 16 billion dollars under management, 180 portfolio companies spread across eighteen countries, only 120 to 130 investment professionals — fifty to sixty percent of whom were Pakistani. “It really gave us Pakistanis a page or a seat on the global level,” he says. The Abraaj edge was hyper-local teams that could place a Saudi QSR chain or a Nigerian dairy business better than General Atlantic or Warburg Pincus ever could from New York.
He stayed through the end. He was, by his own count, one of the last few employees, working 16- to 18-hour days through the liquidation in London, flying in to sit directly across from the board and from names like Tom Barrack. “Every day a story would come out — Wall Street Journal, FT — someone saying you stole money, this and that. We had no clue,” he says. The emotional load of that period is what Muzamil presses on, and Omar’s answer is more honest than the rest of the conversation: the prestige of being a senior Abraaj banker at 27 inverts very quickly when you are the one sitting in a creditor meeting trying to work out the liquidation waterfall.
He flew to a village called Weibermeier in the Austrian Alps for a digital detox. The counsellor there ran an HRV stress test on him and told him he was at 4.7 out of 5 on critical burnout. He left his phone behind for ten days. He went back to London, declined a job offer at a major fund that would have doubled his roughly 250,000 to 300,000 dollar salary, and got on a flight to Pakistan with what he describes as “no plan whatsoever.”
Muzamil draws the broader lesson out of him: the foundational reason Pakistani institutions break at global scale. Omar’s answer is not about capital or governance — it is about behaviour. “All Pakistanis fundamentally want to find an easy way out. They want to find ways around it. They do not want to follow the system.” He contrasts this with the Gulf, where a minister or a billionaire stands in line at Dubai’s Sheikh Khalifa Medical City the same way anyone else does. He extends the same logic to BCCI and Abraaj: institutions that competed with global giants but were undone, in part, by an internal refusal to accept the regimentation those giants demanded.
Building Colabs out of an old tower factory
The Colabs origin is small and physical. Omar’s twin brother had been working in the family’s real estate business and pointed him toward the Vartex tower factory in Lahore — a 1958 building, Pakistan’s oldest tower factory, with sixties-era looms still inside. The first Colabs flagship was a 27,000 square foot space in that building with 350 seats, an auditorium, meeting rooms, and a conference room. The pitch from the start, Omar says, was that the customer base would span the full spectrum — freelancers, startups, SMEs, and enterprise — not just one slice.
He describes the platform today as three layered businesses. The first is the flexible workspace itself. The second is what he calls “initiatives” — programmes like Colabs Live, work with Spotify and Coke, hackathons, pitch competitions, helping Google Cloud launch in Pakistan, plus an art initiative that has hosted 150 to 200 artists and run a residency now working with the BNRA Foundation. The third pillar is back-office support: recruitment, payroll, accounting, legal, laptops, phones, health insurance through Jubilee, bank cards through AfiLeaks.
The scale claim Muzamil pushed on: ten locations across Pakistan, mostly in Lahore and Karachi, 5,000 seats, 300 client companies. Spaces range from 10,000 square feet to a 150,000 square foot main campus. The basis for the “largest” claim, Omar argues, is revenue per seat — Colabs’ international clients pay north of 200 to 300 dollars a seat, two to three times what competitors collect.
Who actually buys coworking — and why the freelancer was never the story
The split surprises. Enterprise accounts for 40 to 45 percent of Colabs’ clients. Startups and SMEs account for another 30 to 40 percent. Freelancers are under 10 percent.
Omar walks Muzamil through how Colabs handles a large enterprise client like Glow Insurance — a US company that raised 30 million dollars and scaled from 50 people to 250 inside a Colabs facility. The deliverable is end-to-end: design, IT, security, attendance, even down to the 49-inch gaming monitors the team wanted at their desks. He cites Digital Ocean, which acquired Cloudways, as another example of the same end-to-end build.
Muzamil’s challenge is sharp: a Pakistani company with 250 people can hire one facilities manager and run its own office cheaper than paying a service provider per seat. Omar’s answer leans on capital efficiency. The upfront capex is zero. Scaling from 20 to 40 to 60 seats does not require breaking a lease. And on a twelve-month horizon, the per-seat cost of internet, coffee, electricity, AC, furniture, reception, and security shared across hundreds of users is meaningfully lower than what a 2,000 square foot floor would cost a single tenant fitting it out themselves. “Wastage space,” he calls it.
He uses a family example to make the underlying real estate point clean. A 10,000 square foot building rented to a single tenant might generate 500,000 rupees a month. The same building running a KFC or a Chughtai Lab diagnostic centre can do five million. A flexible workspace can do similar multiples — four to five times the raw rental — by actually operating the asset.
WeWork, the story that broke, and the story that didn’t
Muzamil is direct about the cultural problem that surrounds this category in Pakistan: the local market chases foreign templates without examining them. Karim copied Uber. Airlift copied something else. When WeWork blew up, every Pakistani coworking operator inherited the WeWork question. He asks Omar to disentangle the model from the company.
Omar’s reply is the cleanest accounting passage in the conversation. He notes that Colabs broke even after the first six months in 2019 and that aggregate operational burn since then has been under a million dollars against five million raised. WeWork, by contrast, raised against a 60 billion dollar valuation and a 14 billion dollar SoftBank cheque from Masayoshi Son, with founder behaviour and governance failures stacked on top of straightforward overspending.
The number he wants on the record is the WeWork India comparison. WeWork India, which acquired 95 percent of the international franchise, does close to 800 to 900 million dollars in revenue and roughly 250 million in EBITDA. The same brand. Different operator. Different unit economics. “Conceptually,” Omar says, “WeWork did change the game.” Dubai and Abu Dhabi WeWork locations carry eighteen-month waitlists today. The model works. The operator was the problem.
He also concedes the obvious: these businesses should not have been valued at twenty or thirty times revenue. A good coworking centre runs at a 25 to 30 percent margin. An excellent one — well-located, with a low rent base — can run at 45 to 50 percent.
The pivot to revenue-share and what really blocks Pakistani growth
Until last year, Colabs invested its own capex into every site. The first partnership it signed was with the Pakistan Air Force, taking the old Lahore Airport — what Colabs is now developing as a 65,000 square foot, thousand-seat technology park space. The capex came from the landlord. Colabs operates on a revenue share.
This is the model Omar wants for the next phase of Pakistani expansion: Karachi, Islamabad, Sialkot, Faisalabad — none of it on Colabs’ balance sheet. The reason is blunt. “For every dollar invested and every rupee invested, that return profile, on which a seat is sold today, it is not there.” A seat that sold for 25,000 to 30,000 rupees in 2019 still sells at the same price. Electricity has moved sharply since then. Minimum wage went from 14,000 to 44,000 rupees. The math no longer supports owning the fitout.
Roughly 30 percent of Colabs’ revenue is now dollar-denominated. Sixty percent of its clients are international — US, Norway, Europe, Middle East. Dollar contracts come with a 5 percent annual increment instead of a 10 percent rupee increment, and clients prefer them because they pay an employee a thousand dollars and then a flat 150 to 200 dollars for the seat and the headache disappears.
When Muzamil pushes on the consumer wall, Omar names it directly. “It is a spending problem from the consumer,” he says. The user base can keep growing. The price ceiling will not move. He concedes Muzamil’s broader point — that coworking in Pakistan has been over-indexed to startups and under-indexed to exporters in Sialkot and Faisalabad — and acknowledges Colabs has not pushed into those tier-two industrial belts.
Saudi at 10x the seat price
The single highest-stakes claim in the episode is about Saudi Arabia. Omar says that an international operator in Riyadh charges 1,500 dollars or more per seat per month. A local Saudi player charges 800 to 1,000. Colabs charges roughly 100 in Pakistan. The arbitrage is 8x to 15x on revenue per seat against capex that is perhaps 4x to 5x higher. A site that runs at 30 percent margin in Saudi clears more in absolute dollars than four Pakistani sites combined.
There is a structural reason this is open. India is enormous and its operators have no incentive to leave their domestic market — the same way Chinese platforms stayed Chinese. Saudi, in contrast, has only one or two local operators above five locations. International players are present but expensive. The local hyper-local brand position, the one Omar argues Colabs has built in Pakistan through art, music and startup community work, is empty in Riyadh.
Colabs is going in with a large Saudi family as a partner and additional investors on top of the existing cap table of Indus Valley Capital, Fatima Gobi, Zayn, and Shorooq — the only Pakistani company, Omar says, to have raised all four into a single round, three million dollars in 2022, followed by an additional two million from Shorooq alongside a large Saudi investor. The Saudi entity is not separate. The holding company sits in Singapore. The same Colabs, the same CEO, the same investors. The first Riyadh location is targeted for end of year.
The deeper reason Omar believes the brand transplants is Vision 2030. Saudi’s stated programme is built around investing, entrepreneurship, art, music, community, and growth. Those are the same words Colabs uses about what it has done in Pakistan. “Colabs’ success in the last four-five years has not been space,” Omar says. “It’s been the fact that we’ve been able to create communities.”
Why Pakistan does not produce a Systems
The last extended exchange in the episode is about why Pakistan has not produced more billion-dollar companies. Omar opens with the standard Pakistan pitch — 250 million people, low median age, consumer spending ahead — but Muzamil refuses the script. He says he has had this conversation with more than 450 guests over four years and the pitch has not changed.
Omar concedes the productivity point. He frames it through wealth creation. In most countries that produced large fortunes over the last fifty or sixty years, those fortunes were built by the children of the lower middle class. In Pakistan, the wealth is inherited from land. Most family wealth runs back to a grandfather’s or great-grandfather’s plot. Very few first-generation, self-made operators have scaled. As long as that is the founder pool, the export economy the country needs will not arrive on its own.
Muzamil adds a sharp coda on the IT sector. The CEO of Systems Limited had told him directly that the Pakistan-India difference is that a Pakistani IT founder is an engineer who built a business by accident and has no business instinct, while Indian IT was built by people who actually wanted to build companies. Muzamil’s harder version of the same point lands on Pakistani family offices: “They are all degenerate gamblers who went from sugar mills to gambling on startups so they can 40x their value while not going through the hard thing of actually running a services business of managing 10,000 heads.”
Omar adds the policy layer. In India, a factory or a startup can borrow at three to seven percent. In Pakistan, there is no real subsidy outside the State Bank’s solar programme — Colabs has 250 kilowatts of solar because of it — and a small or medium business that wants growth capital is offered loans at 14 or 15 percent against pledged land. There is no actual government scheme for SMEs, despite the rhetoric.
Pakistan in 2050
Muzamil closes with his standard final question: what does Pakistan look like in twenty-five years, holding all the ifs and buts aside?
Omar’s picture is qualified. More billion-dollar companies. More developed Lahores, Sialkots, Faisalabads, Gujranwalas. But, he says, “unless you are able to get rid of all these political challenges, just be stuck in its bubble.” Seventy years of the same circus. He attaches that to a personal observation about ambition: most people he knows in Pakistan are content. They have a house, a driver, friends to eat with. His own mother tells him she wants to live and die in Pakistan and nowhere else.
He moved to Saudi, he says, because he could see the ceiling. “Pakistan is good, there is growth, but there is a limit. 10x. Very limited.” Without ambition at scale among the people who sit comfortably inside the bubble, the country’s quality of life is real and the country’s quality of growth is capped. Two truths, sitting next to each other, with no resolution offered.
The conversation ends at the one hour forty minute mark. Omar thanks Muzamil. Muzamil wishes Colabs well in Riyadh.
Full transcript
नमस्कार देना हुज़रात. Welcome back to another episode of thought behind things. जैसा कि आपको पता हमारी series चल रही है आजकल with Endeavor Pakistan where we're looking around and trying to find the 50 most exciting startups slash businesses. Particularly different industries को हम देख रहे हैं. उसके अंदर एक major industry often overlooked क्योंकि वह एक बड़ी standardized सी logical सी चीज़ है. हम generally startups को देखते हैं तो हमें कोई बहुत ही cutting edge, कोई दुनिया बदलने वाली चीज़ चाहिए होती है. कोई हम, you know, मरी़ पर चले जाएं, कोई हम बीमारी का इलाज इजात कर लें. But this was a very standard something that was very close to Pakistan हमारे यहां real estate भी चलता है, property भी चलती है. But उसके अंदर how do you integrate problem solving into into it and how do you integrate efficiency into it? And that's what began to happen somewhere around a decade ago जब coworking spaces आना शुरू हुईं और वहां पर जो है वह essentially office spaces in a more efficient and optimized way, you know, popularize होना शुरू हुआ. Not just in Pakistan, all over the world. But Pakistan में हमने इसकी rapid development देखी पांच सात साल पहले. I remember when I would speak to someone तो लोग बहुत cynical थे कि यार यह में नहीं चलता, पाकिस्तानी लोग जो हैं वह तो, you know, trust issues हैं, ऐसा मसला है, वैसा मसला है. But we've seen not only have, you know, these companies survived, they have thrived as well amidst obviously जो ups and downs आए हैं. मेरे हिसाब से the reason why I have a lot of hope from this particular industry is because even though popularize यह हुई थी startup boom के अंदर दो हज़ार बीस से दो हज़ार बाइस के अंदर जब बहुत सारी different startups आ रही थीं, उसमें भी obviously a lot of these guys came in as startups and, you know, raised their fundings and so on and so forth. But the way that I see it is, पाकिस्तानी economy inherently export driven हो रही है. आपको पता है मैं बड़े अर्थेसे से बात कर रहा हूं कि services export is the future. उसके अंदर बहुत बड़ा potential भी है. हम तीस अरब dollar पर जा सकते हैं. अगर हम तीस अरब dollar के ऊपर जाते हैं तो उसके अंदर आपको 1,000,000 to 3,000,000 headcount को remotely काम करवाना है. And that's a staggering number. अगर मैं total addressable market की आज बात करूं तो somewhere around $250,000,000 बनती है जो कि coworking spaces की exist करती है which is expected to grow to over $1,000,000,000 by 2030. अब question उसमें यह आता है कि, you know, you got a million freelancers. There, are they working from home in a in a country जहां पर light भी जाती है, internet को भी मसले होते हैं. Then you've got these small and medium enterprises, these agencies, these software houses. And like I said, technologies है हटकर भी. अब तो in the age of AI even बहुत सारी और industries जो हैं वह, you know, remote work की तरफ़ जा रहे हैं और वह services provide कर रहे हैं. How can we ensure कि उनके पास वह infrastructure हो to be able to consistently and in a high quality environment provide the service and actually grow overall the industry. Right? उसकी जो backbone है in my opinion, वहां पर coworking spaces play an incredible role. उसके लिए आज हमने दावत देह, the founder and cofounder and CEO of Pakistan's largest largest का claim इनका है. वह मैं उनसे पूछूंगा कैसे? But the largest coworking
space कोला Despite the best efforts of governments The reason I love it ever so much is you realize that you could create something anywhere.
Companies can also come, like, you know, from anywhere. It can come from Brazil. It can come from Mexico. It can come from Istanbul.
If you're ambitious, go to Europe, get a job or to The US. But here you're mega ambitious. Stay home and build.
This episode of Thought Behind Things is presented in partnership with Endeavor Pakistan. उमर भाई, first of all, thank you so much for taking the time out and joining us on the show. Thank you for having me, मज़हब्बत. And I mean, great to speak you today. मैं conversation को start करूंगा just trying to sort of understand before we get into the coworking, before we get into collabs. Just trying to understand you personally. Where were you born? Early life आपने कहां पर गुज़ारी? What led to sort of how did you evolve and eventually end up creating collabs?
So, I was born in लाहौर. Spent the first eighteen years of my life in लाहौर, grew up in लाहौर as well and I mean पूरी ज़िंदगी लाहौर में गुज़ारी. लाहौर school भी लाहौर में हुई. I was born into a very old family जिनको बहुत Pakistan का शौक. Pakistan से क्या क्यों, I mean, closeness थी and a lot of patriotism as well. So, mean, growing up in लाहौर, I think saw कि Pakistan, I mean very much obsessed with Pakistan क्या क्या करना है and I think at age 18 I went to university in London and but growing up saw लाहौर, saw लाहौर transform from कलमाचौक to everything else that was around and how it I mean I think if you look at लाहौर today and you look at other cities of Pakistan you can really see how लाहौर acted as a hub and you see सिरागुर, फैसाबाद I mean all these है tier two cities grow up and when you look at other parts of Pakistan they did not as much. So I think you see कि लोहौर में कहाँ कहाँ से growth आई and लोहौर पहले क्या था और वह क्या हुआ? आप जब लोहौर को देखते भी यहाँ पर आपके अंदरून शहर था. फिर अंदरून शायद से होते हुए Mar Road and Mar Road से they came up to Goodberg and then what is model Town today, right? I mean in the seventies that is what was लाहौर, right? So, mean, old लाहौर में आपके जो नुराने लाहौर के लोग हैं वह कम ही है. I mean वही आपके पास थे and I think वही I mean that was core part of my upbringing as well.
Makes sense. Model town जो है वह मुझे याद है मेरे वाले साहब बताया करते थे वह hardcore तो transform हुए definitely and I think most people don't take लोहौर अगर मैं उसकी बात करूं as seriously. वह कराची historically has been the hub of middle class and the consumer market as well but people don't really realize कि लोहौर ने क्या create कर लिया हुआ है. And because जो foundationally वह उतना strong है कि I think लोहौर is going to absolutely dominate over the next couple of decades as well. You graduated from SOAS if if I am not wrong? Yes. और आपने किस degree में graduate किया था? I actually studied development economics.
Right. I mean obviously went to SOAS. SOAS is obviously School of Oriental African Studies very much focus on South Asian culture and I mean I think one of the courses we did was development of South Asia and I think in development of South Asia what we saw was कि up to the 70s or 80s Pakistan की growth was faster than South Korea and a lot of countries copy Pakistan growth. So, I think a core part of studying there was कि जी growth बाकी देखें economies हो पाए. Seventies के बाद Pakistan में eighties में आपकी आई पीछे. वह but otherwise growth across was much fast and it was I mean in that sense so I think the reason development economics wanted to change the world. See कि development economies में होता क्या है? But post graduation I mean ended up going into investment banking. Totally opposite, totally capitalist approach and I think, I mean, started my career doing M and A and then did equity trading after that for a year और फिर वहां से अपनी job शुरू की मैंने private equity में and वहां से we started working in obviously investment banking. So, after university spend the next seven, eight years doing that. Interesting. You were in a branch for five years? Branch for six years almost.
Interesting. How was that experience?
Very exciting, extremely exciting in the sense that I think when I joined a branch, we were managing about 6,000,000,000 daughters under management and about 100 investment professionals. 2018, right before the बज crash and all of that, we were managing almost close to 16,000,000,000. The great thing about बज was spread across 18 cities as they call 18 countries. And in every single region they were in from Latin America to Asia to Africa, sort of, I mean Turkey, I mean Middle East, Abraj had some sort of presence and had influence as well. For example, अब्राज owned the largest dairy company in नायरुबी, largest mattress company in Turkey, largest e commerce player in Turkey, hepcid burrata, Latin America में own schools, Middle East में companies like Network International, investors in companies like Karim. So I mean across these 18 countries, there were about a 180 companies which we own through a branch and what is very interesting was we were only about 120, 130 investment professionals out of which I would say fifty-sixty percent were पाकिस्तानीs. So it really gave us पाकिस्तानीs I mean, a page or a seat on the global level, right? In the sense that we were sitting across large investors like और भी पिंकुस or General Atlantic, large US based investors. US based investor doesn't know Saudi में Kudu which is a QSR chain, how to get into Saudi Arabia. They would not know how to go into company in Nigeria. So I think the one thing Abraj did was they were, it was like hyper local in the sense that they had very strong local teams with very strong local connections and I mean some people do compare it to sort of a BCCI model from back in the day but the idea was मेरा कि exactly अगला सवाल यही आने वाला था कि you know,
you have these success stories, super exciting success stories that begin to emerge. And हमेशा वह आकर यही कहते हैं कि, you know, look, पाकिस्तानीs were there and they were supporting पाकिस्तानीs as well. And BCCI was incredible if you I mean, a it's an absolute disaster that Pakistan में nobody knows about BCCI and nobody even knows कि उसकी क्या impact था. In fact, I graduated from FAST, right? And that is a BCCI endowment पर चलने वाली institution जो कि अब छह campuses में है and create some of the best talent in Pakistan for computer science. लेकिन जो question है वह यह है कि what इस तरह के you know लोग emerge करते हैं. आप जिसाब थे इस case में, आप लोगों के जो वो थे, वो emerge करते हैं, वो scale भी कर जाते हैं, वो excitement भी generate कर जाते हैं. Foundational problem है, कहीं ना कहीं Pakistan. ऐसा इसके ऊपर मेरी ना उनसे बात हुई, Avension के जो जो founder हैं और उनसे और अपराध के बारे में या BCCI के बारे में बात नहीं हो रही थी but I was actually talking to him about you know कि आपने IPO कर लिया, आपके लिए बड़ा complicated होगा, In a lot of ways he said his IPO helped him scale because एक certain scale के बाद अगर आपकी foundational problems होंगी ना तो वह कहीं ना कहीं crumble कर जाएंगे. And so with BCCI आप देखते हैं कि वहां पर वह जैसे ही वह दादा बड़े हुए तो उनका उन्होंने जो है ना जाकर बिल्कुल ही छोड़ दिया कि यार ठीक है cartel का पैसा भी move हो रहा है, यह भी हो रहा है, वह भी हो रहा है. And that sort of led to उसके बाद conspiracy is notwithstanding that led to their demise. And in अपराध के case में you know what happened what happened? My problem is क्या institutionalization नहीं होती properly? कि अगर आपके individuals का मसला है आप उनको कटाओ और आकर वह कर लो. What what do you think is the issue which does not allow for पाकिस्तानी businesses to be able to scale on a global level?
I think देखिए आप BCCI की बात करते हैं ना I mean I grew up in a house where my नाना I think बचपन में put money abroad BCCI man मेरे भी तक मेरी अम्मी और खाला बताते हैं कि वह London जाते थे and B CCI के मंदिर उनको आकर airport पर collect करते थे. Everything from their sort of, I mean, apartments to कहीं उन्होंने movie देखने जाना है, कोई उन्होंने show देखने जाना है. It was the first form of what is called private banking today है ना और इतना बड़ा network था कि वह USA, Europe, citizens, हर जगह it was spread across, right? Back to your question around, I mean, foundational problems and all. I think fundamentally the challenge becomes that as you become larger, as we explain... As we talk about scale, maybe we can talk about this later as part of what we are doing today as well, as we scale from our current point to the second where we are sort of expanding internationally, is primarily that you have to be very strict in terms of adherence, in terms of sort of your core principles and मैं एक simple बात करता हूँ. This is a पाकिस्तानी issue. मैं आपको example दूंगा. If you go to Dubai or if you go to Saudi Arabia, I mean if you are the minister or you are worth $8,000,000,000, you have to stand in line. There is no cutting the line. Dubai में भी वही है. I saw this only in शौक्लकानम in Pakistan. In the sense my younger मामू recently got cancer a few years ago and I mean even though like we are close if I mean like उस line में चाहे आप businessman हो, चाहे आप entrepreneur चाहे और चाहे और court से एक आम आदमी हो, Everyone has to stand. There is no cutting the line because ऊपर से चौका खाने की management से कोई सफ़ारिश नहीं चलती. Now back to the point around पाकिस्तानी, right? All पाकिस्तानीs fundamentally want to find an easy way out. They want to find ways around it. They do not want to follow the system. Why is The Middle East so successful today? Very strict in terms of visa, who is coming in, who is going out and very-very strict in terms of laws as well, right? I think that back to the point of us as a nation being very laid back, trying to find loopholes and trying to find easy ways out कि नहीं हम यहाँ से चेपी दिखा के ऐसे आगे चले जाएंगे. यहाँ से एक एक कैसे चले जाएंगे. That is the point, right? And I see that today also when you are hiring, right? When you hire and you work attention, I mean I give you example. I spent almost eight years or nine years of my life in investment banking. अगर आज के एक बजे presentation खत्म की है ना हमने और उसके page 27 में I mean छोटी सी mistake है. सुबह के दो बजे तक बैठ के mistake second. सुबह के पांच बजे वह जमा करानी है and does not make a difference. You have to reach perfection. I would say 90% पाकिस्तानी पाकिस्तानी is today and I see this today when I am hiring working people. They don't have that concept of sort of that एक वह जो regimented perfection है ना कि जी हमने यहाँ से भी तरीका ना खाना वहाँ से भी करना है. फौज में है ठीक है फौज डंडे से है इस वजह से फौज आपकी institution में आगे ठीक है I am not gonna comment on that but ideas I mean फौज में है क्योंकि उसमें ऐसा आपकी regimentation आती है but that is in my opinion as you to ask about ना कि वो क्यों नहीं हुआ है. आप कल अपराज के case में भी देखें, आप कल BCCI के case में देखें वही point है ना कि आप कल इतने बड़े हो गए हैं that you are competing with global giants. A US or European company will not compromise. I mean some of them do. I mean there are big examples. FTX, I mean they are there but I mean most companies are not going to write and I think that is why most companies today have that I mean failure or that sense. I mean I hope that sums it up but in my I mean that's my sort of thing.
That makes a lot of sense कि वह I think वह आपका ना कहीं ना कहीं DNA के अंदर है और उसमें system को इतना ज़्यादा internalize कर चुके होते हैं कि आप जब बाहर जा रहे हैं तो अब आप उस system को unlearn नहीं कर पा रहे and and in a lot of ways you need to realize कि global and just just by the way इसके अंदर I would like to add this comment कि I do agree, again conspiracy is notwithstanding. I do agree that a lot of what these potentially पाकिस्तानी companies have done दुनिया में बहुत कर रहे हैं. मैं Dubai दो साल रहकर आया यार जिस level का चुना चल रहा है ना वह नए left, right and center. मैं उसको disagree नहीं करता. But फ़र्क़ यह है कि वह कहता ना नकल के लिए भी अकल चाहिए होती है. तो आप Pakistan में तो सलाम दुआ करके निकाल लेते हैं. अगर आपने बाहर जाना है तो आपको realize होना चाहिए कि you are still an inherently पाकिस्तानी. You know, अगर if the music stops, you're the first one who's out. Exactly. And वह वह unfortunately मसला हो जाता है. So 2018, अवराज gets defunct. What how did you sort of transition? I'm curious कि you said a thirty, hundred fifty people were working there. Obviously, एक बड़ा dent होता है. Investment bankers का जो बड़ा होता ना वह high high flank lifestyle होता है as as what 25, 26, 27 year old. What you would be earning compared to your peers? Abraj was also in the headlines. So start में तो यह होगा कि यार बड़ा easy है for for it to go to your head and be like, you know, look, I'm so successful. And then suddenly इतना बड़ा iceberg आकर crash करे तो that must have had an emotional toll as well. जो जो professional है वह तो एक अलग बात है. How did you sort of transition and what was that emotionally for people like yourself working at अपराज?
So, I mean, just to give everyone some feedback. If you look at the 150 individuals, they were there today. Abraj, obviously different regions were bought by different companies. I mean, Colony in The US, Axis in The Middle East. Out of the 150 investment professionals today, I would say 95% of them are today one of the best investors globally, all today in top tier one firms and even अपराज's portfolio today which was, let's say, the companies they own in The Middle East, in Africa, in Latin America, most of them have two or three x ed and have returned back their portfolio. So, वह जो एक सोरी stories है कि जब राज की investments बढ़नी हैं, राज actually had very very good investments. I mean, were issues obviously internally but most of them were extremely well, right? I mean, for myself, I was actually one of the last few employees at abroad. I worked through the liquidation. Morning night, I would say the last seven months, I think I did maybe sixteen, seventeen, eighteen hour nights where I would literally go from Dubai overnight, fly to London, was went from being an associate director slash VP to going and working directly with the board, working with likes of, I mean very large global names. अब आजकल Trump का है, John Barrack, I mean उसके साथ सामने literally head to head. So, I mean वह जो exposure है ना that level of exposure, I think that was extremely daunting but emotionally एक इंसान को drain कर देते हैं. I mean हर रोज़ एक खबर निकलती है जो कोई Wall Street Journal पर, Feet पर कोई कह रहा है कि जी आप अपने पैसे चोरी किए वह यह कह रहा है, वह कह रहा है. I mean we had no clue. Mean, the idea is obviously whatever it was is there and I mean, separate story for a separate time but the idea is that it really builds a person. And this is why I tell people, right? When you are at the top and you are making billions, everyone is running after you. But when you selling across the bank with group of bankers saying, you guys are making money, you guys are making money and you are working towards what we call like, I don't know, liquidation waterfall और making sure how to make sure creditors are paid letters. It really builds that person's sort of character in the sense कि आपको पता है कि I mean जो होता है एक wartime CEO, I mean वह उसकी book है Ben Horowitz की, The Hard Thing about hard things. आजकल जो हमारी Gen Z है ना उनको मैं एक वह किताब कभी कभी देता हूं कि ज़िंदगी में कभी मुश्किल चीज़ें जब करनी पड़े ना तो फिर इंसान को एहसास होता है कि ज़िंदगी में करना क्या उसके बाद आपको एहसास होता है कि and this is also I mean we can go to the radar but I mean आजकल I mean separate discussion on all the startups that raise capital in Pakistan and some of them raise capital which was two, three, five, ten times what we raise today. But that the hard thing about hard things means कि आपने जब वह मुश्किल गुज़ारी हुई ना, आपको एहसास होता आपको idea होता है कि कैसे करना है. Emotionally, I think those are 18 में, I mean 2018. I was summer of eighteen I was in London working on the liquidation and I was extremely unhappy working 18 our days. Had a job offer to join a very large fund in London because अपराश की team बहुत known थी. I mean we are top of the top like बंदा from IVD, कोमन साक, साकी पीछे. Felt very empty. I go to, went to this place called the Weavermeyer in the middle of the Austrian Alps. Since 2018, I have gone there every single year for ten days or two weeks where I do a full digital detox. But when I went there, I remember, I mean, the whole idea is to disconnect from the world, to just, I mean connect yourself with nature. सुमित of the पारोग दिम्यान में छोटा सा गाँव है, छे सौ लोग हैं गाँव में and basically जाके when I was sitting there जो counsellor मेरी कहती है कि वो मैं why are you so unhappy? Was like why you so stressed out? They did this HIV stress test and she said you're at a 4.7 out of five for a critical burnout. Cannot for two hours is your brain willing to switch off. आप चौबीस घंटे just always on it. She's like, if you leave your phone, what will happen? I said, won't respond to an email. I mean, email की जवाब नहीं दूंगा. तो pray क्या होएगा? आगे पर A,B,C,D. She is like, दुनिया को ख़त्म नहीं हो जाएंगे ना? I was like, नहीं. I remember I left my phone. I spent two weeks, ten days there. After leaving my phone, I realized that all that stress went out and I remember going back to London, quit my job, plane, got on no plan whatsoever और वह यह कहते हो ना कि एक जो entrepreneur है और यह मैंने पिछले छह साल में सीखा है. जब तक risk ना लेना तो किसी चीज़ का फ़ायदा नहीं है और आज अगर मुझे करेगा ना put everything on the line and many many days, many months हम कर दे ते हैं. Right? क्योंकि entrepreneurship क्या है? Risk किया है ना? You have to, you have to be willing to risk everything because it's not a gambler. It's like वो Elon Musk ने जब I mean Tesla में पैसे डाले. No one believed in him. Right? I mean he, I think everything he had made from PayPal when he bought the company and the company was really going down not making any money he put everything he had. I mean I don't know exact number top of my head but the idea ऐसा कि वह जो risk लेने की होती है ना एक वह jump into the deep वह पर दे दिया, right? And I remember when I, I mean left and took a fly back to Pakistan, the liquid, the team I was working with, they said stay back and we will offer you double what you are currently earning. I was earning in the range of I think $2.50 to 300 ks a year but I was like, नहीं, I mean I don't want this life. There is no purpose, right? Purpose है ना कि इंसान उन्होंने उसे खाली है कि purpose है ही नहीं. That something that you are doing you are not really getting any purpose with. So remember I basically gone a flight. हमने Colab's का basic जो business plan है वह बनाना मैंने शुरू कर दिया था दो हज़ार, स्तराना अठाना में and started running the numbers and the first building which was our Colab's flagship was the Vartex tower factory which was Pakistan's oldest tower factory made in 1958. It was an old building. खंडा होते से whatever. I'll send you pictures afterwards like from like sixties under लूमें पड़ी हुई थी and my twin brother who has been working with the family and worked in real estate, he said कि जी यहाँ पर हम बनाएंगे जी एक state of the art campus and I went inside वहाँ. याद वो होते ना labor उनकी मजदूरों की चीटें क्यों होती है कि जी नौ बजे entry है, चार बजे exit है, अपनी सीवियाँ जमा कराएं, एक से दो आपकी lunch break है उर्दू में सारा and I mean I was a banker. I mean investment banking, numbers, all the fancy jazz. I mean I had when I was in अड़बाज़ I lived in five different countries. Used to take, what, 36 flights a year or sometimes even more. So, going from there, coming back to all that was क्या करना है? But I think the idea was that as we started building, तब I think those are उन्नीस में the largest co working space in Pakistan had a 100 seats which was typically one floor and when I would go and I would visit a large incubator, accelerator like Station F in Paris. We work huge spaces and I said के पाकिसान में क्यों नहीं? Right? And I think that's when we started our first location. Our first location was 27,000 square feet. We had put 350 people in that space. We had an auditorium. We had meeting rooms, conference room and the idea was that you build a hub where you basically are hosting everyone from a freeze answer to a startup to the SME to the enterprise. कि पूरे spectrum को आपने service करना है. यही नहीं कि सिर्फ freelancer को करना है या सिर्फ startup को करना है पर बड़ी companies उनको पचास सौ बंदे का office चाहिए वह भी चाहिए. I think that was the whole idea and I think the other thing to add on to it was we really focused on what today I mean is our bread and butter is sort of our initiatives in the sense that very much focused on partnerships, on the sort of events that took place there, on the sort of connections that took place in the space and really helped with that. I mean, तो आपको explain करूंगा Collapse का. हम Collabs को एक platform कहते हैं, right? We have three basically players in the platform where we have what we call our flexible workspaces which is obviously your co working offices, enterprise solutions. We have what we call our initiatives which is basically programs. जिसमें हम अपना collabs live हमने introduce किया जिसके through हम music को support करते हैं जहा पर हमने Spotify का काम किया हुआ है, Coke के साथ. उसके बाद we have what we call co grow. Co grow is all around impact. So जैसे आपके पास podcast हो रही है, हमारे हमने hackathon कराए हैं, एक workshop है, training है. If it's pitch competition, if it's helping Google Cloud launch in Pakistan, if it's anything to do with entrepreneurship, it's under that umbrella. Third initiative under that also we have an art initiative. I mean, we have what we call the Collabs Creative Collective which is today our art initiative जिसके through आज तक agreement को डेढ़ सौ से दो सौ artist हैं that have displayed workaround collabs. We have run a second residency now. We have built a board around that and today we are working with the BNRA foundation and actually taking this internationally as well. Along another that, I think the third pillar of our sort of platform is what is the back office support. So I think today what we do very differently or no one else does is we will help you recruit, process your payroll, run your back office, anything from accounting to sort of legal. Call us to do that. So let's say that you मुज़मूल want to come and open a 10 person office. We will help you hire your first person. After he is hired उनकी महीने की जो payroll चाहिए वह हम चलाएंगे. दफ्ते भी उनको जाएंगे. उनको laptop चाहिए वह भी हम provide करेंगे. Phone चाहिए वह भी देंगे. Health insurance चाहिए. अपने partner Jubilee को दे देंगे. Bank card चाहिए. Aflacist को वह भी देंगे. I think that is one unique factor today in terms of what we do. But, yeah, sorry.
Makes sense. I want to understand the current scale of where you are right now in terms of some numbers.
So today, we manage 10 locations across Pakistan and across primary लाहौर, कराची. We manage 5,000 seats in these locations and just to give you a sort of concept or an idea, our locations are anywhere minimum from 10,000 square feet up to our main campus today, which is 150,000 square feet, which is the largest campus today in the country. And terms of companies, this is spread across 300 companies and this can be a company that hosts two people or a company that hosts 500 people. So, scale wise, I mean, our very large clients will have fully furnished floors even sometimes buildings.
यह जो आपके partners हैं particularly enterprise side के ऊपर. So, run me through. Are you actually when you go towards enterprise, do you say कि भाई ok, we'll create a facility and we will charge you a subscription for it? Or do you also go for कि भाई, you know, I'm a big company. I have, like, 500 people. अब मैं अपना पूरा एक logistics का department बनाऊं और उनसे मैं बैठकर पूरा का पूरा manage करवाऊं या मैं collapse के पास जाता हूं and they will manage my facility, right? So I have the facility and they will come in. They will manage it for me and then अब जितना वह hotel management का होता ना कि जो real estate मैंने खड़ी की पूरी की पूरी और फिर एक hotel को manage करने के लिए किसी को बुला दिया या do you say कि listen we don't we're not gonna manage your facility. This will be a collapse facility जिसके अंदर आप hosted होंगे. It will be
a collabsed facility which we will host you but the collabsed facility will be built as per your specification and customization. So, just giving an example, I mean Digital Ocean a company that exited cloudways. Anything from designing to managing to even every small detail to how their data center is designed, in terms of how their IT is managed, how they want security, in terms of what they want, we will manage. Same with today. So I mean our larger enterprise clients today, it's an end to end solution. So let's say that you are setting up a company in Pakistan. For example, today we have Glow Insurance. US company raised $30,000,000. First team that came from 50 to when they grew to two fifty, fully managed by us down to the 49 inches gaming monitor monitor they want to sort of the attendance machine to sort of the day to day management done by us. I think that is today as you see scaling if you look at WeWork and you look at India, right? India today has about three or four of the large players along with WeWork India, such as Office and IndieCube. They are worth over, I would say, $108,100,000,000 dollars The growth was from the enterprise because most international companies do not want to deal with the headache of finding a building, then finding a contractor, then managing their IT, then doing all the sort of off take. So I think that three sixty solution is something that we have built a huge team in house for and that I think for us that is our edge and I know हमें इस पूछेंगे कि आप how do you say you are the largest? आपके competitors भी कहते हैं, हम largest, हम भी कहते हैं. I think in terms of revenue percentage or revenue basis, we today are the largest because हमारी जो revenue per seat है, I would say in some cases it is two to three x of our clients because some of our US companies what they pay us today is I would say north of I mean 200 or $300 a seat which is I mean much larger than anyone. So in terms of revenue per seat the number is larger and उसी के basis पर हमारा जो revenue का number है, I can confidently say that we are today, I mean, largest in that sense. Makes sense. In terms of the split, 5,000 seats,
what's the split between, let's say, freelancersmall startups, early stage startups versus enterprise?
So today, I would say, enterprise accounts for almost 40% of our clients, any from 40 to 45%. Freelancers would be below 10%. Start ups and what we call an SME which is like a two, four, 8% that will be another 30 to 40% because होता ही गया ना कि let's say आप आए हैं. मैं आपको एक बड़ी अच्छी example देता हूँ. ठीक है? So, but हमारी Site one में जब पहली Building शुरू हुई there was a boycott अब्दुल्लाह who was an accountant who came to collabs, rent a receipt for 25,000, right? अब्दुल्लाह did not want to do accounting for collabs कि जी मैंने कुछ different कर दिया. अब्दुल्लाह collabs आए. Collabs में ऊपर होती थी हमारी workshops, events होती थी. He attended a digital marketing workshop. He started learning digital marketing. आई था आई था. वहाँ से he networked, met lots of people inside the space, made different connections because I think a core part of what we did was a lot of events focused on community across networking. That one person who do have one seat eventually hired his first person inside Collapse, then grew his team to becoming an eight person team. We built a small digital marketing firm and today he sits here with maybe 30 people. So that whole journey in the last five years was enabled through us. So वही point freelancer के ना कि freelancer आया उसने हमारा वह ecosystem use करके अपने आप को upscale किया और इकट्ठे कराते चार पांच साल में वहां से वहां चला गया.
Make sense and I I think that जो वही वाली बात है ना कि coworking का जो core फ़ायदा है वह I think principally आता ही इसके अंदर at least on the on the freelancing freelancer या SME side के the exposure values is phenomenal. Historically And then obviously conversations जो आपकी हो रही हैं of of work as well तो उसमें there's a lot that you can absorb. But उसी के साथ साथ I think जो मेरे लिए सबसे interesting चीज़ है even though historically the the co working spaces have been sold as a ideal place for freelancers and startups के जिनके पास ज़्यादा पैसे नहीं हैं. वह तो है, I agree. But I think there's a whole lot more value in making office management more efficient, right? Because in my opinion there's not a lot of experience. यह एक ऐसी चीज़ है जो कि Pakistan में historically बहुत ही generic set type के businesses exist करते रहे हैं और उन्होंने बस facilityयां बनाई होती थी और वह मुर्गिहा खानों की तरह जो है ना वह बस बंदे बैठे और cubicles के अंदर और कोई वह नहीं है. And a lot of times अगर आप talent भी hire कर रहे हैं तो अब जो modern talent है वह उस तरह की जगहों पर जाना भी नहीं चाहता. They don't just they're not just looking at your pay scale. They're also looking at environment कैसा है, जगह कैसी है, scale क्या है? चार बंदे की company जो है उसने अगर compete करना है with a big enterprise तो वह तो एक छोटे से डड़बे में नहीं बुला सकती talent को. उसको कोई ना कोई ऐसा ख़ूबसूरत जगह चाहिए, comfortable जगह चाहिए. What I'm curious about is कि enterprise side के ऊपर how is the feedback? Because again यह मसला भी है Pakistan में कि हमें ना अपना control बहुत शौक होता है. हर चीज़ को अपने control में करना चाहिए. हम बिल्कुल fail हो रहे हैं उस control में लेकिन हमने control करना है. The idea that companies would say कि ok we will move 250 people to another place managed by someone else उसके अंदर एक trust का deficit हमेशा रहता है, right? बंदा टूट जाएगा, इधर उधर चला जाएगा, हर कोई वह आ रहा है. How did you manage that? जो यह बड़ी enterprises आपके पास आई हुई हैं, are they ones that have scaled with you? या were you able to break into and and and give that trust to existing companies as well? किरेसन, आप अपनों की facility management शायद expensive हो रही है, inefficient हो रही है, whatever, why don't you come to us and, you know, we'll manage it for you? And साथ ही इसका I would love to know कि enterprise wise, if आपने बार बार आपने कहा हम यह कर देंगे, यह कर देंगे, यह कर देंगे. मैं purely economics में जाता हूं. मैं कहता हूं कि यार मैं एक पचास बंदे की company हूं या मैंने Pakistan में वहां पचास बंदा hire करना है, right? मैं अपनी facility भी बना सकता हूं. मैं एक बंदा hire करूंगा या दो ढाई सौ बंदा मुझे अगर hire करना है ना तो मेरे लिए एक बंदा hire करके यह manage करना है इतना costly नहीं है because scale बड़ा है. Versus मैं आपके पास आता हूं would you cost more with higher value prop Yeah, would you actually be more efficient in the grand scheme of things and I will actually be saving money coming to you? So, the first question
around enterprise and privacy and all those items. I think देखिए as we open spaces in today's world you have LinkedIn, right? So एक किसान को कह रहा है कि जी मैंने बंदे भाई किया है, छुपा कर दिया है. That's very hard to manage, right? I think उसमें जो main learning थी not everyone is a systems or a nutshole that can give altalenol at large facilities. So when you give a facility like daycare, I mean recreational area, PS5, coffee, I mean all these different things. People will want to come to you anyways. आपके enterprise clients है चाहे वह पचास बदलो की team है, चाहे वह ढाई सौ बदलो की team है. अगर ढाई सौ बंदों की team है और उनको एक dedicated floor चाहिए, हम वह पूरा floor dedicate करते हैं उनके लिए. चाहे उनके dedicated meeting room भी होंगे, उनके dedicated reception भी होगा, dedicated entrance भी होगी and we've done that today. So that is there. But eventually I think they would always want to be part of a larger sort of campus or an ecosystem because it gives them the ability to sort of connect, figure out कि बाकी market में भी क्या हो रहा है. A lot of times, lot of tech company, I give you example. जब शुरू में या fintech की सारी आपकी boom आई Pakistan में, Brandon from साधा पे was moving to Pakistan, met him in a meeting, Started his company and his office from collabs, from his first hire to the point when they scaled कि state bank ने काजीब बापूर ना pride off चाहिए. पर जैसे सादा पे आया, फिर अभी finance आ गया, K Trade आ गया, एक और Fintech फिर PayPro आ गया. For the enterprise it was also there plus we give them an option also. Like for example today large enterprise in शारीफेस्तल they have separate entrances, separate lifts as well but they are still open to use the collapse, coffee shops, receptions and the common areas and the coworking. So I think the idea is about how you manage that as well. And a lot of times, I think a lot of the tech companies actually enjoy being in the same place because over table tennis, over the coffee shop they can connect, they can share ideas और आप लोगों को पता है आजकल with traffic and everything else, people really value their time. So, that is why it's very important for them to be around a community and मैं लोगों को एक example देता हूं. मैं कह रही university में आप उनके दोस्त बनते हैं. School में आपके दोस्त बनते हैं. उसके बाद आप अगर एक दफ़्ता जाते हो आप उसी दफ़्ते में बैठे रहते हो. एक co working, एक large service workspace में you get the opportunity to meet new people, to network and to get out of your safe space as well.
Makes sense. What about the second one in terms of the the pure accounting?
So, terms of pure accounting, it will always be cheaper for you to come to a service workspace. Why? Because आपका upfront CapEx cost कोई है नहीं. You are, if you want to scale from 20 to 40 to 60, you can do that without giving up giving up your lease and if you look at it over a twelve month horizon, it will always be cheaper because हमें economy में scale है ना. हम अपनी internet buying कट्ठी करने है, coffee कट्ठी करने है, plus they are sharing meeting rooms, sharing conference rooms. So, वो जो wastage space है ना when you look at, I give you example. I mean, I mean family, I mean my brother, they have buildings, I mean in गुड़बर्ग. Just renting a building out to a client. अगर first किन्हें एक दो हज़ार square foot की floor है, वो इंसान को पहले उस floor पे अपना capital खर्चना पड़ेगा. यह महीने का from $70.80 lakhs to crore. AC खरीदने है, furniture खरीदने उसके बाद महीने का बिजली देना है, internet देना है, coffee, tea, stationary, printing. फिर उन्हें अपना reception अलग रखना है, survival अलग रखना है. From that point, will always be cheaper for you to come to a workspace as opposed to that. Makes sense. A lot of people would argue,
again जो boom आया ना वह आया because pump चल रहा था v work का and Pakistan में एक बड़ा unfortunate अलमिया यह है कि हम चीज़ों को at the heart and core देखते भी नहीं हैं. हम भेड़चाल वाली कौम हैं. कोई एक बंदा अगर कुछ ग़लती से कर लेना कुछ successful तो पचास बंदा आकर उसको copy करके उसका भी काम मारता है, अपना भी काम मारता है. And so obviously वह मुझे याद है दो हज़ार I've been covering start up since been almost a decade now और initially जो आपका NIC वाला phase था plan nine NIC वाला तो उसमें आपको startups जब मिलती थी ना तो वह pitch के अंदर पहली line हमेशा यह होती थी we are the Uber or the airlift or the this of this, right? So एक बड़ी standard वह होता था कि आपको pitch करने के लिए भी आपको एक सहारा लेना है किसी बाहर की बड़ी company में to make sure, to make you look like you're worth it. And that's not just the startup's fault. Investors भी यही सुनते थे. उनको होता था कि यार अगर grocery startup चल रही है बाहर तो Pakistan में grocery में invest कर लो अगर यह scene है. मसला उसका यह होता है कि जब वह flip करती है तो फिर flip भी उतना ही strong होता है. एक जमाने में WeWork था, बहुत बड़ी success story थी, rockstar founder था तो you know WeWork के हिसाब से coworking is the best thing. फिर वह flip हुआ we work और फिर हुआ coworking is the worst thing and now we'll just wait for when all of this collapses. I want you to contextualize and I'm sure you've had this your fair share of questions around this as well. First of all, what went wrong with we work in your opinion? A lot of people have seen the documentary or the series or whatnot. But what's your opinion on what went wrong? And secondly, how would you contextualize, the model and the framework of with which WeWork was operating and what you as an operator now have learned. I'm sure pre WeWork आपकी pitch भी फ़र्क़ होती होगी. आपका excitement भी फ़र्क़ होती होगी. Over time बंदा सीखता है, learn करता है, optimize करते हैं अपने model को. What's the new optimize model for you now?
So, me being investor and looking at rework, obviously the glamour and that excitement initially came. $60,000,000,000 valuation, dollars 14,000,000 raise by Oishi Sun, SoftBank. I think fundamentally and I will tell you something. We today are one of the only companies I would say in this region. Pakistan तो for sure but also over there that has raised venture capital post the Weaver crash and when I go raise ना मुझे मेरे investors के लिए think it is 10 times harder for you to raise because of the WeWork story, right? Just trying to explain to them how, I mean what happened and what's there. But I think conceptually just to give you feedback that WeWork had fundamental issues with regards to obviously amount of cash they had raised with the amount that they were burning. Right? When we launched in 2019, we broke even after the first six months. In the last, I would say, six years, our aggregate burn operationally from the $5,000,000 we raised was less than 1,000,000. So just to put WeWork into, sort of concept, if you look at the WeWork story, fundamentally flexible workspaces when they are actually operating at a profit margin which can be anywhere from sort of 25% to sort of a 305% you will eventually generate free cash flow, right? I think the WeWork story multiple things. I mean founder extremely, what you call it, in terms of growth, focused just on growth, not focused on bottom line. Secondly, lots of other issues with regards to compliance, governance, own buildings owned by them, lots of excess spending as well as you guys see, I mean the weak threshold. But just to take, we work into congestion. If you look at workspaces globally today, Europe में I think पिछले दस साल में आज पंद्रह से बीस percent जो real estate आपकी class से आती है that is coming into flex real estate, right? India में वह number आज पांच से दस percent पर चला गया है. WeWork India alone which is WeWork India. जो WeWork India exited WeWork Global उन्होंने अपने आप को निकाल के लिए took over 95%. WeWork India does close to almost 8 to $900,000,000 of revenue and close to almost $250,000,000 of EBITDA. अब ये क्या कहानी है कि जी we work India is profitable and we work global was not. So the idea is like if you take out the issue of the capital that was burnt and then उस capital burn करने के बाद वो जो सारा debt burden बना और फिर उस debt की वजह से सारी वो जो cycle खराब हुई conceptually WeWork did change the game. आप WeWork Dubai जाकर बैठे हैं. WeWork go meet 100 different entrepreneurs. WeWork Dubai and अबुल्लाहबी today both have an eighteen month waitlist. Eighteen months even though competitors exist. At the same time when you look at flexible workspaces across I mean I would say the region, fundamentally they do make money. Obviously they should not be valued at 20 times or 30 times revenue but fundamentally these companies do do very well and the more add ons that you add to them, I mean the more revenue proceed you can earn, right? I mean today if you look at I mean, let's see I mean coffee shops like Blank Street Coffee or I mean other sort of traditional spaces, It's the same concept ना? एक real estate आप rare नहीं हैं. मैं आपको example देता हूं. अगर एक बंदा एक दस हज़ार square foot की building में एक KFC बना दे या एक चुकताई labs बना दे तो वही जो आपको rent उस building से first कह रहे हैं पांच लाख खाने हैं. वह KFC उस building से पांच नहीं बल्कि पचास लाख कमा सकते हैं. Same thing उसी building में चुक्ताई labs एक diagnostic center बनाते हैं. तो उसी छोटी center से जहां पांच लाख खाने हैं उस center का पच्चीस तीस आ सकते हैं. So, the same concept today that if you put co working slash flexible workspace in that building. अगर उस building से दस लाख निकलना है, उस building से actually पचास या साठ लाख निकल सकते हैं. So, you fundamentally will make four to five times revenue from that space by just fitting it out and actually managing the space. So, fundamentally does make sense, right?
मुझे यह बताएं कि मेरे पास तीन चार सवाल है but आपने चूंकि यह चीज़ mention की है. I am curious कि obviously you guys don't own any of this any of the buildings that you or the spaces that you guys Yes. Carry, right? So is there a franchise slash partnership model where, you know, potential space owners can come in and say, listen, we want to set up eco labs in Islamabad, in फैसलाबाद, in गुजरावाला. And so, you know, let's create a partnership for this particular location, and we invest the space and or any capital that's required to set up the space and then you guys operate it. Have you done any partnerships like that? And are you eventually looking towards going towards that?
I mean, all of our competitors today operate in that model. I mean, do multiple partnerships. We initially wanted to retain the control. And just to give you context, I think competition है हमारी. They started in 2014. We launched five years after 2019. Because of that we were scaling very fast. हमने अपनी पिछले साल पहली partnership की which is very large, which is with the Pakistan Air Force. So till Old Lahore Airport, I would say हमने Nasdaq Lahore इन्होंने जो develop किया. It is 65,000 square feet, over a thousand seats inside the ओढ़लाहौर airport in between the technology park and in that partnership today, all the CapEx has been invested by our partners with regards to ACs, bathrooms, flooring and we operate on a revenue share model. हमारी जो Pakistan की growth अभी भी है that we are looking to do is primarily through that model and eventually I think that is the model where you stop investing the CapEx and you have sort of landlords invest the CapEx because for a landlord as well, they are more comfortable investing in their own building. So that is something that is there and we are obviously actively doing that today and that is our plan today to scale in Karachi, Islamabad, Estuda model because we get a long list of people from इस्लाम बात, क्राची, सियाल कोट, फैसलाबात कि नाई building है जी, आंखे जी, कोलाज़ बना रहे हैं. But initially a lot of people wanted a franchise where they can retain the operations. But as long as you maintain operations, you can maintain the same level of service and you can sort of operate that ahead on a revenue share. So you guys will maintain the operations at any given time? Yes. Of course. Today, we do that. Location partnership. And we will operate with them on sort of a revenue share model. But the landlord is able to make more money than rent. Makes sense.
At this point in time, what's your what's your expansion plan both for Pakistan and I I do understand that you guys are now going towards the region as well?
So I think for Pakistan, obviously, we expanded in the last three years. Obviously, COVID आया तीन साल में expansion की है हमने majority. Pakistan की expansion plan is we want to go into Islamabad. We want to expand into Karachi. Lahore today will already very large. We potentially will look to expand in some of the outer areas of Lahore and then go into today two cities. But if you look at PC today and then you look at Hôter One's, Hôter One primarily expanded through the partnership model. So, the idea to expand across Pakistan is through this partnership model and is actively working through this joint venture model because obviously Pakistan में भी जो challenge है और मैं अब openly बात करता हूँ कि for every dollar invested और every rupee invested वह return profile जिस basis पर आज आपकी एक seat बिकती है, it is not there. अगर मैं दो हज़ार उन्नीस में seat बेच रहा था I would say what? 25, 30,000 की. आज भी मेरी competition उस पर seat बेचती है. So when I am expanding it becomes very difficult to make a return. पांच साल में बिजली का rate कहां से कहां गया है? I mean आपकी minimum wage पांच साल पहले तारा हज़ार थी. अभी 44,000 होने वाली है. So when you look at your sort of return profile, it is not the same. So Pakistan will expand through partnerships and we are actively exploring that as well. We will invest a bit of our money into Pakistan but I think the core of what we want to do right now is go big in the region and I mean we are going into Saudi Arabia, opening our first location in रियाद, InshaAllah by end of the year. So, for us, that's a very exciting market and I think the idea today is that Pakistan is exciting but I would say in the last twelve to eighteen months, there have been many challenges and because of that Pakistan will grow but maybe not the same pace like you were growing previously. In the last I would say five years our revenue has increased 100% almost year on year, inchallah broker and yore but primarily through this model of partnerships, JVs and all of that. What's the percentage
EBITDA on this business in a business like this?
So anywhere from a low case of 25% to a maximum of 50%. Our sites in Karachi operate at almost, I would say, 1.5-2x revenue of Lahore. So obviously the margins are higher even though the rent there is higher as well but higher margin but a business like this I mean a center that is doing medium or average can do about 20 five-thirty percent. A very good center जहां आपको बहुत अच्छी deal में दे रही है rent पर और जहां आपका base I mean rent कम है you can even do 45 to 50%.
Right and in terms of आपने थोड़ी सा पहले बोला आपने कहा कि हमारे कुछ challenges रहे हैं Pakistan में. What were some of those challenges and overall अभी ज़हर एक economic downturn is तो एक तरफ़ है. इस business में what's the biggest challenge? Is it capital, access to capital? Is it location और real estate कि इतनी exist नहीं करती या demand नहीं है? You know, if if let's say demand आती है तो do you think you can scale easily or do do you think there are still bottlenecks that need to be figured out?
I think देखिए, one thing that we are very confident about access to capital. हमने पैसे raise किए. Also, we were the only companies to take debt also. Took a expensive but use it to grow. Main challenge है ना मैं आपको खुल के करवा करूँ. It is a spending problem from the consumer. The पाकिस्तानी consumer if four to five years ago was paying a certain price per seat, which I would say between 25 to 35,000, today is also not able to afford more than that, right? I think it's the same challenge today that if you look at a करीम or look at other companies that exited, it's a spending power issue. It's not a user issue. मैं अगर Pakistan में पाँच साल और डालकर user बढ़ा दूँ but अगर मेरा revenue proceed वही है जो तीन साल पहले था तो फिर मेरा जो capital invest हो रहा उस पर return तो नहीं आ रही है ना? So, it's an mean suspending issue because it's all affordability issue ना? आप एक दस पंद्रह का office अगर बेचते हो तीन लाख रुपए का. Eventually अगर उसकी price तीन ही है पर आपकी बिजली की price ऊपर जा रही है, आपकी minimum wage भर रही है तो यह एक core inherent Pakistan issue है and that is for us why in terms of investing capital today from our own pockets we want to go more towards revenue share because that is a challenge and I think that is a general challenge today in the market that you see. अगर इसकी यह आपने बड़ा interesting point बताया और मेरा पिछले दो साल का ना
overall startups का यह opinion रहा है. जिसकी वजह से मैंने तीन चार दफ़ाई mention भी कर चुका हूं इस podcast के अंदर भी कि coworking को बेचाई ग़लत की है और coworking का ज़रूरत से oversized focus in my opinion रहा है on startups and on, you know, local industry. So startups का मेरा मसला generally यह रहा है कि Pakistan में हम startups को बहुत बेचते हैं बड़ी अच्छी बात है. बेचना भी चाहिए. मेरी पूरी सीरी startups के ऊपर हो रही है. लेकिन it's very important to contextualize that as well for a country that is developing. That is, I would argue, at least twenty, twenty five years behind India in terms of their economic growth story. Definitely many many years behind similarly Indonesia. जब बेचाती है कि Indonesia में यह हुआ और India में यह हुआ तो हम भी करेंगे. तो you know, timeline को contextualize करें and I'm not saying startups won't work. It's just that when you begin to plot graphs, more often than not graphs follow the same pattern. They don't, मतलब बहुत ही कम होता है कि आप कोई magically leapfrog करके निकल जाते हैं. And so वह जो over hype है ना जो bubble create होता वह bubble burst भी होता है because of expectation. It's not that these are bad things. It's just the timeline expectations are are more often than not out. और उसके जो back पर अगर आप जाकर देखते तो मसला आख़िर में यही है कि it's a it's a local consumption driven economy के around आप जो भी build करेंगे उसने boom and bust of the local consumption economy को follow करना है जो कि Pakistan की economy का problem है. Value chain कहां पर आती है in my opinion is export led, right? So, मेरे लिए it would be curious कि how much for example सियालकोट और फ़ैसलाबाद में coworking क्यों नहीं बनी? वहां पर जहां पर आपके पास dollarized businesses exist करते हैं that do not necessarily follow the local मतलब जहां पर भी downturn आता है वहां पर actually उनके पास थोड़ी सी space बढ़ती है. Every time the dollar crashes they get a lot of space. चलिए मैं textile को भी छोड़ दूं. उनके पास offices के workers काम होते हैं, उनके पास factory workers ज़्यादा होते हैं. IT sector जिसका headcount है, हमें पता है कि उसका headcount है, उसको target ही नहीं किया गया. उसको वह किया ही नहीं गया. And so that brings me to the second question as well कि जो आपने यह बोला ना कि हमारा मसला and I understand that कि यार एक बंदा है मैं अगर एक office बना रहा हूं while it is cheaper for me to get into a subscription model with you today but once I invest that capex I am actually secured from the you know the boom and the busts because मुझे पता है कि मेरी एक cost है और वही cost है और उसमें rent agreements है और राधा आगे पीछे नहीं हो रहा. लेकिन अगर मैं आपके पास आता हूं तो eventually आप उसको bump up भी कर सकते हैं चीज़ें up and down हो सकती हैं. On the other hand अगर dollarized customer है जो कि कह रहा है कि यार मैं बजाय इसके कि मैं पंद्रह या तीस हज़ार रुपए just looking at your website तो 35,000 की क़ालीबन आपको एक hard desk मिल जाता है. उसके बजाय अगर मैं दो सौ dollar commit कर दूं तो वह dollar पांच सौ पर जाता है, हज़ार पर जाता है, वह revenue maintain होगा और वह local inflation को cover करेगा effectively, right? And so that's actually a business model in my opinion जो कि चल सकता है Pakistan में startups बाद में आएंगी, पहले आपकी services exports बढ़ेंगी. That's a business model that actually long term works as well. I'm curious how much of the IT sector have you been able to tap into? How much or or and and have you explored models where headcount के अंदर आप लोग dollarized seats बेच सकें rather than क्योंकि that economics wise that makes a lot more sense कि यार मेरे पास मैं हज़ार dollar का मैंने headcount वह outsource को मैंने बहुत you know depth में cover किया है but अब basic सा model होता है. तीन हज़ार dollar का resource बिकता है. हज़ार dollar जो है वह margin है. हज़ार dollar facility and logistics cost है. Operations and maintenance हज़ार dollar जो है वह उसकी तनख्वाह है. अगर यह model चल रहा है आप उसमें scale कर लेंगे. अब उस model के अंदर वह जो हज़ार dollar का number है that to me versus एक सौ पचास dollar जो आप इस वक़्त desk के दे रहे हैं. ज़्यादा उस हज़ार dollar में चले laptop की भी fees है वग़ैरह वग़ैरह but still quite a lot. I think you can actually bring that down for a lot of people and help them pay as you grow वाली model के अंदर. Why was that and that I personally I think there's a lot of scale in that and उसमें भी वही है कि freelancer को tap in करने से ज़्यादा आसान होगा कि यार agencies पचास बंदे, सौ बंदे की जो कि जिसको आप help कर रहे हैं कि यार will help you, support you to grow. You just focus on getting the business. How much of that have you been able to tap into and where do you see that growing in Pakistan?
So, think when we saw a big influx in dollars in terms of dollar credit रुपए जाते हुए, we already move towards that model. आज, I would say, 30% of our revenue is dollarized. A lot of clients prefer a dollar contract with a 5%, I mean, increment, let's say year on year as opposed to a rupee contract which is 10% and I think dollar contract के पीछे one thing that we really saw was that a lot of the clients do not want to deal with this headache. जैसे आपने explain किया जी इसकी cause क्या है, उसकी क्या है. उसके दिमाग में वही है ना कि मैंने employee को pay करना हज़ार dollar. उसके बाद मैं seat का pay करना सिर्फ डेढ़ सौ dollar या दो सौ dollar. उस दो सौ में मुझे पता है कि मेरा employee भी खुश है, seat भी खुश है. So, I think that's something that we have actively done and that's why if you look at sort of our client base today, I would say 30, I would say 60% of our clients today are international companies और US, Norway, Europe, Middle East. उनमें से तीस से पैंतीस percent are on dollar contracts and I mean based on that today because obviously हमारी difference देखिए हमारी होड़ को setup है Singapore में. Singapore wants Pakistan, Singapore wants Saudi. I mean there's lots of arbitrage pricing there as well but they don't want to. I mean वह Pakistan में तो उनको company खोन नहीं पड़ती है. फिर उनको उसकी tax compliance करनी पड़ती है. फिर उनको बाकी सब चीज़ें हैं तो I mean हम पहले आराम से through a tri party contract उनके employees को ही pay कर सकते हैं. अगर PSAP registered है उनके दफ्तर की भी pay payment दे सकते हैं and compliance भी पूरी होती है. उससे हमें tax भी बचते हैं. So I think these are two three things today that we are already doing and I think that has been our success and आपका point मैं एक दूसरा जो point round से आरको फैसा बात आप पहले कर रहे थे. I think challenge उधर यह आता है कि उन markets में margin बहुत छोटी है and जब आप CapEx invest करते हो, अब मैंने जो desk और कुर्सी लगानी है यहां पर और AC लगाना ऐसे ग्री का या TV लगाना है, Samsung का वह जब vine लगाऊंगा, जब मेरा client मुझे end में pay उसे half कर रहे हैं तो मेरी जो return profile है बहुत ही कम हो जाती है. I mean we have thought of this and maybe we will do it next year but maybe we come up with what we call a collab's mean express where we have a more subsidised office where it's not as nice. I mean, today we are called a premium office. हमारे साथ offices हर जगह आरता ही होती है, बहुत nice हैं. I mean, we are very much in terms of quality use best in line in terms of materials and fit out. I think उस sense में we can look at an express model which I think some of our competitors have looked at but traditionally
we have not. हां, मतलब वही है ना कि आप लोग Alto की market में Mercedes बेचने की गोइश कर रहे हैं तो growth तो फिर वहां पर hit करेगी. मुझे यह बताएं कि Pakistan में ना इस time के ऊपर जब हम exports की बात करते हैं services की, there's an interesting, how do I say it? बहुत random है आपकी economics. So either you have the sort of software companies that that are PSEB registered and they have like a 100% headcount और वह जो companies हैं उनके जाहिर है cost overruns बड़ी फ़र्क़ हैं. उन्होंने facilities भी manage करनी है, यह भी सारा सारा करना है. उनकी उनके जो top line है उसके ऊपर in let's say वह piece of registered है तो I think 1% tax पड़ता है उनको income का and they're they're good to go. But then when they pay their local employee in a local वह तो वह उनके ऊपर income tax पड़ता है आकर और वह ठीक ठाक पड़ता है income tax. Now these guys are competing with freelancers, direct hires. जिनको जो कि as freelancers PSAP से register होते हैं और वह अपना सारा का सारा पैसा Payoneer के wallet में अपनी holdco के अंदर hold करते हैं और वह महीने का जो है ना वह बस पैसा लेकर आते हैं जो कि वह भी इस वजह से करते हैं not not as a tax problem. They just they want that dollarized जाहिर है वह Pakistan में एक आपका inflation भी है वह सारा कुछ है तो वह dollarized वहां पर hold करते हैं वहां पर वह अपनी cost लेकर आते हैं और उस पर 1% tax देते हैं and they're legally good to go, right? And so उसके अंदर there is definitely a model one can argue a model to be created where you can affect so बाहर से बंदा आ रहा अब उसने local office खोला है पांच सौ बंदे hire करने या उसने HoldCo खोलकर पांच सौ freelancers hire करने, ठीक है? यह दो दोनों We're doing that today. Ok. How does that sort of work? Is that a Today? Do do you have a HoldCo internationally?
Yes. So, Colab is set up in Singapore. Right. Our holding company is Singapore based. So, today if you are a, let's say, US, European company, up हमारे साथ, I give you example. Deal आजकल सुनो आकर deals और rippling जो दो companies बड़े USA हैं. So, similarly today what we do is we do a tri party contract, I mean with तुलफार होर को and through that we manage their office, their employees, their monthly payroll even down to health insurance and because of that I think that for us is a big sticky point for lot of clients to come to us because they don't have to deal with that local tax compliance because end में हमको पांच महीने चाहिए, दस चाहिए.
We manage everything for them. Right. और जो उनकी महीने की payroll है वह भी हम transfer करते हैं. और जो so आप आपने figure out करना है कि यार इसका इस इनको piece of registrations क्या हैं? इनका जो proper legal जो भी paperwork है वह सारा का सारा जो जी. Manage कर रहे होते Interesting because there is definitely a big margin call there now that's beginning to happen and there is. Mean I think that today is something that we are already doing and
because obviously the contract is it's a that those employees are registered as I mean I think I forget the not freelancer but उनका
Is another category further. Yeah, I'm not freelancer, another category. They're employed by the they're employed by the hold को then. They're not employed by any local entity. Yes, exactly. That makes sense. Saudi के अंदर आप जा रहे हैं there is obviously lot of competition. There is very different. पाक्षतानी market is, you know, it was free to for whoever to take the crown. Saudi, UAE, Middle East generally वहां पर तो weaver's भी बैठे हुए हैं. वहां पर India का muscle भी बैठा हुआ है या अगर उसने नहीं भी बैठा हुआ तो उसने expand करना वह भी आ सकता है. What exactly are you creating there? What sort of partnerships are you looking at? And what is the opportunity, in your opinion, in that market?
So, surprisingly, Saudi is a very nascent market, right? I mean, in terms of सऊदी today, if you look at सऊदी five years ago, ten years and when you see सऊदी today, it's a different ball game. It's a different game. But but there are very few local strong players who operate in terms of what we do. You have your international players like Surfcorp, Brigas who are there but आपका जो एक local hyper local brand है that has that sort of I think today a core part of why startups and people love collabs is that entrepreneurship, art, the music, that sort of startup, sort of obsession we built, right? So, if you look at Saudi today and we started looking at Saudi almost six-seven months ago. There are very few local players. I would say only one or two players that would be more than five locations. Most players internationally are charging. So, just to give you context, if in Pakistan we charge on average, let's say, $100 a seat, a Saudi international player is charging anywhere from $1,500 plus a month. Right. It's 15 x. A local player is charging anywhere from 800 to a thousand dollars a month per seat. Right. That's still three to four x of India. Back to your India point. India, just like China, is extremely big. The Indian players in China worth billion dollars. वह India अगले पांच साल grow करते रहेंगे. उनको कोई शौक नहीं है बाहर जाने का countries में. तो उस वजह से they are still competing in that market. That's why it's so large. That's why when you look at China, those people don't leave those markets because are so big themselves. Right. That's why for us, I think a key part today is that in the next twelve to eighteen months, if we are able to open anywhere from four to five locations in Saudi, That's double digit million dollar revenue.
You say, आपने example दी कि आठ सौ से पंद्रह सौ dollar की per seat, right? So, I do understand कि there is definitely a huge हो सकता है कि वहां पर efficiency हो and I'm, I'd, I'd be curious to know more about that. There is definitely a major real estate difference, right? Cost of real estate is just phenomenally different both in Dubai or रिया. Great. There is a difference in the the cost of human capital. जो कि वहां पर जाहिर आप एक office boy भी रखते हैं तो पाकिस्तानी office boy और उधर के office boy में ज़मीन आसमान का फ़र्क़ है. So I am curious कि let's take that $800 number. Do you think there is still opportunity and margins to undercut that?
So, for me today, I tell you the biggest, I mean, opportunity for us today, right? I mean, a lot of my team has moved to Saudi in the last two-three years and one or two of them work in the large space operators there today that are our competitors. If in Saudi today an average price proceeds, let's say, is $1,000 Okay? You can still comfortably make, I would say, 30% margin. And the biggest advantage that we as co labs would have - our team today is about three fifty but if I look at the core team which is what we call the HQ team, about 150. Our team today has capability to do engineering, design, marketing, programming, entrepreneurship, art, music, finance, HR. That same team is the one that will be bidding out, सार्थी, remotely. Going there, setting it up. Once the space is set up, you don't need more than five or six people to run a space, right? एक बार आपने आपने पाँच सौ seats की वहाँ location खोली है first and tomorrow, Right? उन पांच सौ seatओं को बेचना across enterprise, across startups, SME is not as hard and in terms of capex, my capex might be four to five times of Pakistan but if my revenue is 10 times, my margin is 30%. Right? Plus, the Saudi consumer is extremely rich. Saudi में today glass aerial state has 95% occupancy. I mean, I was looking for a place in the last three-four months to stay. A nice compound, a nice apartment building you look in has six-six month waitlist. A nice office building has seven-eight month waitlist. So, plus, in my opinion, the product that we have today, if we are able to replicate the same product in the market, in रिहात, create that fan following and that buzz which we are, I mean, we are going in with a very exciting local partner, very large Saudi family along with existing investors. But the idea is that creating that buzz and that brand because the सऊदी consumer is very very local. The सऊदी consumer wants local brand, local coffee, local Arabic and I think at the same time Saudi consumer does not always pick the cheapest option. Saudi में अगर आप कहते कि यह चीज़ सस्ती है, सस्ती है चीज़ हरकत reject होएगी. It robust be the medium or the high because the Saudi like The UAE today has the best, I mean, architects, engineers and people working there and because global companies are coming in, I think the whole concept that we are trying to push in Saudi just to sort of put forward is if you look at the Vision 2030, the Vision 2030 is built around a few main concepts which include obviously investing, entrepreneurship, art, music, community building and growth. A core ethos of we, what we do today is not just the space. चाहे space तो hey, Kolavski success in the last four five years has not been space. It's been the fact that we've been able to create communities, we're able to help and be a key driver for the ecosystem, to help support what is going on in Pakistan, to help startups be connected to investors and all of that. So, experience design के ऊपर आपका core focus है essentially? Experience design के ऊपर विना it's also about I mean helping people I mean connect, helping people go one step further. I mean पहले कुछ सालों में हमने इतने startups को इतने investors को connect कराया थे end up raising capital through our network. So the idea is I mean a lot more around sort of community how we can take that ahead. Right. मुझे यह बताएं कि obviously the cost is the cost of CapEx is a lot as well and so how do you intend to fund this?
Saudi We
have I mean I mean as a startup I mean as a venture backed startup you're always raising capital. Mhmm. So I mean we have pretty much raised for our Saudi rounted out today and we are currently in that process as well. I mean we have When do you hope to announce that? Is there a timeline for potential? I think next few months announce कर देंगे. हम हो सकता है location पहले announce कर दें और location के साथ capital भी announce कर दें. Right. But we have I mean secured and our first location. We have already started designing our first building as well. We also hired our first two employees. So in terms of I mean Saudi it is pretty much happening. It's not just a dream.
Interesting. You mentioned building. So I'm assuming there's a building coming, not a floor coming.
Collapse is always a building by the way. That's just one thing to tell you. If you go to any collapse today, we are built across having the whole building. I see. We have never gone into a floor. It has always been the concept कि आप collapse की जैसे McDonald's होते हैं वैसा ही collapse मंसा गया collapse की जा रही है तो वही concept. Nice nice. Funding
के उस पर I don't think we have sort of covered that within the podcast. You अभी तक आप ही दो major rounds हुए हैं.
तो दो हज़ार बाइस में हमने अपना pair round किया. जब हमने round raise भी किया वही WeWork की कहानी कैसे करना है, क्या करना है, कहाँ से आना है and I think the one thing that we read it well was collabs I mean श्रोत Pakistan में उस ज़माने में आपके जो main investors हैं which are Indus Valley Capital, फात्मा गोभी, जैन and शुरूक. They would always invest separately investors. किसी ने इसमें पैसों डाल दी किसी ने इसमें डाल दी है. When I was raising, I think the biggest achievement was that I said, Colab is built for Pakistan. It is built to grow this ecosystem and that is why you all have to come in together. And it's quite hard to convince different investors, different egos to come in at the same time. So we were actually the only company that raised from Indus Valley, फात्मा गोबी, जैन and शुरूक which are the fourth largest south Indian, fourth largest investors in Pakistan. So only four of ones who invested and in terms of that हमने बाइस में raise किया तीन million. बाइस के बाद हमारे existing investors शुरूक were very keen on what we are doing and they would really wanted to bring us into the region. So then शुरूक put capital in with a large salary investor as well. Additional दो million उन्हें डाले and total पांच मिन announce कर चुके हैं. Obviously पैसे तो raise करते हैं इतने but the idea was that we did raise that and I think the good thing about having strong investors are they are there to support you as well. They are consistently there, the portfolios are there and also as a founder आपके साथ पे एक गोली भी होती है ना? I mean, आप company में आपने एक बड़ा restaurant बना रही है, बैठकर ही हो जीत, income आ रही है, dividend खा रही हो, कोई मज़ा नहीं. As an investor, the focus is not on net profit. Focus is not on dividends. It's how do you 10x but 20x is growth and back to the point around Saudi. Fundamentally Pakistan, I can grow my seats. But if I want to 5x my revenue in the next two years and 10x it in the next three to four years, Saudi is my
gateway to 10x that. And so just to confirm, Saudi is not a separate entity. It is the it's the
same Singapore based entity that's now growing. जी जी, Singapore, Pakistan, not Saudi. Same collabs, same CEO, same investors. I mean, we will bring in additional investors as well. We will be announcing but otherwise same company.
Right. थोड़ा सा I want now to go away from collabs and ask your thinking hat with all of your experiences including the investment banker experience and the numbers guy as well. Pakistan को अगर मैं आपसे पूछूं, ज़ाहिर है आप हर businessman करता है, आप भी करते होंगे. एक बंदा अपनी projection बनाता ना risks and opportunities की वह बनाता है. आजकल के जमाने में वैसे भी profiling करना Pakistan का समझ नहीं आती कि कब किसका mood कैसे change हो और क्या उसके बाद हालात हो जाएं. लेकिन अगर if you're following the numbers तो it's comparatively easier to see कि यार अब cycle अब किस तरफ़ जा रहा है not not entirely based on I feel like political upheaval is is a is a lagging indicator in Pakistan. पहले numbers already बता चुके होते हैं कि यार अब यह हालात जो है ना थोड़े up and down जाएंगे. But now we're in a weird world where we're hearing a lot of chatter. एक तरफ़ AI वाले AI supremacists हैं वह आगे कह रहे कि भाई अब तो AI सब कुछ takeover कर लेगा और सब jobless हो जाएंगे और you know there's a lot of value created in a very consolidated small amount of companies and then everybody else will be jobless. That in a lot of ways doesn't make sense because if nobody has money who's spending in those small companies but दूसरी तरफ़ आपके पास you know, you have a lot of people now raising alarms not on Pakistan level but on on a global level कि listen, we're in a bubble and we're in a, you know, debt cycles अजीब हो गए हैं. There's a huge tariff situation happening that nobody sort of had on their bingo card. And so, इस सारे को जब आप contextualize करते हैं, how do you see the next ten years panning out and what major changes do you expect and what are the major risks in your opinion to the overall economy? Again, एक तरफ upside of of AI increasing growth to 20% per annum and एक तरफ downside है जिसमें we're in the worst bubble everything bubble low कह रहे हैं उसको and the worst bubble possible and you know we're gonna crash and burn worse than the great recession and जो ये सारे ख़ाब हम सारे सारे देखते रहे पिछले दस बारह पंद्रह सालों में वो अगले you know we're gonna lift through a couple of lost decades where the economy is just going to crash and burn. Where do you see the future of the world over the medium term, let's say ten years?
I think they came. As a banker back in the day, we would say the Pakistan story to the world. And today, I think the same thing. Two fifty million people, very low median age, the West is very high, median age, growth is staggered. Growth is too early, right? अब as you see these markets these people need to eat, these people need to go to school, they need to go to hospitals, they will be spending, consumer spending will increase, आपके सामने e commerce की spending है, बाकी जगह spending है लोग spend करें. So, I think I would say it will take Pakistan the next few years to get out of where we are today because I think fundamentally, I mean I don't want to go into economy but उनका बड़ा अच्छा show है जुनेत का on macro and if you look at amount of capital Pakistan is putting towards debt and then I mean repayments towards its utility and electricity. जब तक वो issue solve नहीं होते हैं ना हमारी growth slow है and उस वजह से आपकी inflation भी high होएगी बाकी चीज़ें but if as a nation today we are able to solve those issues
I mean वही point है ना लेकिन But problem यह है ना देखिए मैंने मैंने साढ़े चार सौ लोगों से बात की है. यह जो बात है ना आपकी यह मैं पहले episode से आज तक sun रहा हूं चार साल हो गए हैं मुझे, right? Pitch deck के अंदर पहली slide होती है consumer spending की. यह तो अब कल को कमाएंगे ही नहीं. मतलब wealth creation क्या है? Right? So consumer spending comes after wealth creation beyond the the price of bitcoin and the cash value. That's just a representation of value. What value is the country creating, generating? Where do you see that productivity? जब आप उसको देखते हैं तो you don't have growth. You don't have growth. Pakistan ने पिछले डेढ़ साल में stability आई है. हर बंदा political बात हो जाएगी मैं political करना नहीं चाह रहा हूं. Want to just talk talk about numbers. Yeah. I do agree stability आइए perception wise and it's a good thing. But your, your industries are producing less. Your overall actual wealth and productivity has either stagnated or has reduced. So and and extrapolate that, the problem remains the same. K? When when your pitch deck says consumer spending will increase, with what money? And so nobody really tells me कि ok, consumer spending increase होगी. हम productivity gain कहां पर लेकर आ रहे हैं? हम overall इस इस which is why जो मेरा beef है ना with startups versus let's say services If I'm looking at the future of the world जो आपका पहला part था of your answer. Think there's a lot of value there where I'm looking at कि भाई national nationalism बढ़ रहा है, immigration कम हो रही है but aging population है. So the West their productivity gain gain to be outsourced कि उनकी productivity यह wealth create हो रही है by by heads sitting in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and that provides a flow of capital that's the productivity that will eventually allow for consumer spending. I feel like a lot of our people, lot of the smartest minds in Pakistan skip that aspect. I don't know if it's uncomfortable. I don't know if it's hard. They're not really sitting here thinking about the the productivity gain, the wealth creation. They're saying after someone solves this consumption, the the the productivity problem, and then we'll build something for the consumption situation. And I feel like that's the easier thing. The the productivity thing is the more difficult part if if that makes sense. I think you're right and
I was and partially am the biggest proponent of, I mean, Pakistan growing as a nation. But I think back to your point on productivity, I think it will require some time in the sense कि जो ही जाने बात की जब तक लोटे बार के नहीं बनाएंगे तो iPhone कैसे बनेंगे? मुझे याद है भी भी I think मैं obviously partition wife है मैंने तो but I think but and जाते थे गांधी के जी Pakistan तो toothpaste नहीं बना सकते. Eventually toothpaste बनाना शुरू की फिर I mean बाकी चीज़ें बनाना शुरू की but I think it is linked to a lot of things, right? I mean not just from an export to sort of our garment export today but unless fundamentally multiple different industries do not get to that point. It might take five years, ten years. वह जो आपकी wealth creation है. अब India में कब देखते हैं जो Indian middle class है, they are very rich. Indian middle class majority जो Indian आपके billionaires हैं, जो साढ़े वो हैं. तो मैं आपको philosophical बात करता हूँ. जो मैं ऐसे मैंने बड़ो ने कही कि आप अगर बाहर देखते हैं जो majority wealth creation की गई, the last I would say fifty sixty years, they were children of people who were sort of your lower middle class, who had seen the struggle and eventually gone from that ahead. Pakistan में जो wealth creation अभी हो रही है, वही पाप, दादा, पर दादे से थोड़ते आ रही है. Very few people today where you see कि they are self made and first generation and I would say it's a Punjab issue. Most people today have land. I mean ज़मीन है, छोटी है, medium है, large है वही ज़िम्मेदार है उनकी माँ बाप ने घर पर छप पर घर सड़ आ रही हुई है. तो they are not driven in that sense. So, I mean I know some question today that I cannot very easily answer but the idea is कि तेरे do not from a perspective of multiple smaller industries. I understand ये लोग IT की कहानी कहते हैं कि जी we will grow from the IT sector and IT that eventually I mean the exact stats कि कितने आपके total freelancers हैं उन freelancers से आगे नीचे कितने लोग जाते हैं. I think the idea is that eventually your export goal has to be, I mean आप मुझे खुद ही बताएं. Today systems is what? I mean your only billion dollar company in Pakistan. India में जाएं, is that what 50 BPOs? More than billion dollars? Why has Pakistan not been able to create five systems? I mean the idea is that eventual goal needs to be that creation of these companies that create that revenue which has a large amount of export income,
large amount of dollar income as well और वहीं से जाते हुए आकर आकर चलेगी. But I mean That makes sense. इसके बारे में आपका answer दे दूंगी मैंने इसको cover किया but I know कि आपका network देख रहा होगा तो इसमें आपके बहुत सारे network के वह लोग हैं जिनको मैं मुक़ातिब करने लगाऊं. मेरा मसला जो है ना the reason why Pakistan में actually systems के एक साथ थे उन्होंने बड़ा chance रखिया था. You buy people in the IT sector
always my mom who just FYI.
Nice. जो systems का उन्होंने बड़ा अच्छा मुझे बोला मैं बहुत सारी IT companies को मैंने cover किया उन्होंने आकर हमेशा बोलते थे brand Pakistan का मसला है government कुछ नहीं कर रही यह नहीं कर रही वह नहीं कर रही. Systems वालों ने मुझे बहुत insightful बात की थी कि Pakistan और India का difference यह है कि Pakistan में IT engineer करता है जो कि ख़ुद एक computer science का graduate होता है वह IT से business बना लेता उसको business की sense नहीं होती. वह engineer passionately एक engineer होता है. दो ढाई सौ बंदे की company आती है उसकी एक Jeep rally आती है वह And so he was able to scale that versus पाकिस्तानी जो complacent IT का बंदा है, no, you know, nothing against them. लेकिन उसका वह DNA ही नहीं था. जो Pakistan में businessman है ना, जो जो आप जो आपके family offices हैं जो सारे के सारे मेरे हिसाब से they are all degenerate gamblers who went from sugar mills to gambling and startups so that they can 40 x their value like multiply their money while not going through the hard thing of actually running services business of managing 10,000 heads and making sure that business works, right? मेरे मुझे इसका unfortunately बड़ा दुख है कि you have some of the smartest people with family backed capital who are investing in the dumbest startups and they when they would look at a services company they would be like कि यार नहीं पता नहीं miss कराओ क्योंकि उसमें वही है कि उसमें जो है ना वह thirty, forty, 50% return है Whereas startup की valuation game में तो मेरा multiplier, oh my god, मैं कहां मैं निकल जाऊंगा. And I feel like that is the core difference why we weren't scaled. Separately, yes, I I do agree कि government ने बहुत गंदा role play किया historically. उन्होंने export led बनाने नहीं दिया economy को and dollar को control रखने की कोशिश की which has obviously has made it difficult to move your your economy towards exports.
Think But I I'll do add करना चाहूंगा. आप तो कहते ना government name. अब India में if I want access to capital and I'm setting up a factory or I'm a startup, I can borrow at three, four, five, six, seven less than 10%. Pakistan में मैं का loan लेने जाऊं. जब तक मैं अपनी ज़मीन नहीं दूंगा, जब तक ज़मीन नहीं दूंगा there is no subsidy. ठीक है? State Bank ने force किया कि जो solar की subsidy है. We have that subsidy today. We have two fifty megawatts at collabs because of the State Bank bank thing. Government says they want to help the sector grow, introduce cheap loans. Not a करोड़ रुपए का loan. Up to five-ten crores but actually help small medium businesses grow because most small medium businesses today do not have access to capital and because of that lack of access to capital they are unable to grow like a small factory or someone making chips it can be anything. Small service initiatives well they want to raise but the idea is ना आप यहाँ पर bank को ज़मीन दे के loan लो जो आपकी चौदह पंद्रह percent पर otherwise there is no option. I mean there is no government scheme to support this. This whole concept of the government supporting
कि वह फिर से dollar को उन्होंने control करने की कोशिश कर रहे हैं. वह बार मस्लेकर हैं यार ख़ुदा का वास्ता है, grow up, you know, let the dollar be. जब आपका dollar रहेगा ना तो exporter को capital की ज़रूरत नहीं पड़ेगी वह अपने margin से निकाल लेगा. अगर आप dollar को control करेंगे और अपनी imports को subsidize करने की कोशिश करते रहेंगे और अपने real estate को pump करने की कोशिश करते रहेंगे तो obviously फिर वह you know you can't really expect that to grow. We are the one hour forty minute mark. I'm gonna wrap this up. Yeah. I have one last question that I generally ask all of my guests, and I'd love your insight. It's sort of similar to what we've already discussed as well, but, in a longer longer time line. I wanna understand your opinion, and I don't want the ifs and buts of if the government does this or if people do this. I want you to to see what you already see right now in Pakistan and extrapolate that to twenty five years from now. Give me an image of what you see Pakistan or how you see Pakistan in twenty fifty, twenty five years from now knowing what you know now and seeing what you've seen?
I think Pakistan will be an economy which is I mean, which which has grown up. You have more billion dollar companies across Pakistan, more developed like you see the whore, more seal courts, Faeslabads and gujarats of the world. But still a country that unless you are able to get rid of all these political challenges, just be stuck in its bubble. पिछले हमने सत्तर साल से यह देखे हैं, अगले पच्चीस साल. Unless we are not able to get out of this whole, I mean, fight with boot and this and जी क्या क्या हो रहा है? एक वह आपका circus जता रहेगा और जो यहां लोग हैं Pakistan में वह ख़ुश हैं. मैं जो मां कहती हूं मैं यहीं रहना है. मैंने यहीं मरना है और majority जो लोग यहां पर हैं unless they don't have ambition. मैं भाई से आया. मेरी ambition थी कि मैंने billion dollar company बनानी है. आज वही ambition है. मैं Saudi की move हुआ because I knew कि Pakistan में ठीक है growth है but वह जो एक But there is a limit. 10 x. बहुत limited है. So वह ambition जब तक नहीं है आपके Pakistan के जो bubble में जो लोग बैठे हुए हैं they have a very good I mean quality of life. खुशीत रहते हैं, अपने शिदाड़ों को मिलते हैं, खाना खाते हैं, घर हैं. I mean driver आगे पीछे जो काम चलते हैं उनके चलते हैं और वही आपकी बात है कि जो इंसान अपनी गाड़ी और छोटे से घर से खुश है उसको गोर तो नहीं चाहिए ना? अब तो I mean that's twenty twenty fifty three.
Right, makes sense. उम्र thank you so much for taking the time out in चेन्नई. I hope you guys are able to be successful in Saudi. It would be absolutely great. मैं मेरे पास रहेंगे अभी? Middle East में था, UAE में था तो you know nothing against the Indians. हमारे ही भाई हैं सत्तर साल पहले लेकिन generally हम पाकिस्तानी हैं तो बंदे को होता है कि यार where are the पाकिस्तानी at?
So I hope I think Saudi is now opening up and a lot of पाकिस्तानी are now realizing there is that opportunity. Saudi has more पाक्सानी than UAE generally because of I think the culture. So I think you see a lot of that there. Inshallah. I mean, that is the plan.
चाहिए. Sounds good. Thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you. Take care. And for all of you guys, thank you so much for watching. Let me know in the comment section below. Have you been to collabs? What has your experience been? Have you been to multiple different coworking spaces? How do you differentiate between them? What is the USP amongst different? Do you see the growth happening the way that we expect it to happen? मैंने आपको start में भी बताया था कि, you know, आने वाले वक़्त के अंदर मेरे हिसाब से इस particular industry में काफ़ी ज़्यादा growth आ सकती है. What are your thoughts? Let me know know in the comment section below. But nonetheless, there was सैमित ज़मान lesson. ज़ैदी you are watching Thought Band Things. Thank you so much for watching, I'll see you in the next one.
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