Pakistan's first IT stock listing isn't really an IPO

सानवा सावतीर, राजाब. Welcome back to my end episode of ThoughtGind. Thanks. आज मेरे साथ मौजूद है एक बहुत ही ख़ास मेहमान all the way from Germany who runs a fairly successful IT company and is actually going to be launching their first ever initial public offering. यह जो पाकिस्तानों में लोग बैठे होते हैं, articles वगैरह देख रहे होते उनको पता है जी Facebook भी IPO, Twitter भी IPO but Pakistan में यह चीज़ें काफी fairly नहीं हैं and we've been talking about stocks for a very long time on this podcast. You know, I do believe कि stocks is the future for investments and savings in Pakistan and so when I found out कि ये चीज़ हो रही है, I thought कि this would be a great conversation. We have with us today अली नकीश शाहीन who is the co founder of Korea Solutions. What would you call it? An IT company based out of Lahore and Germany. And and and, yeah, so that's that's what's happening. Ali, भाई, thank you so much for being part of the show. Thank you. Thank you. I'll make one correction. Yeah. Compliance related.

So so it is a listing on the JEM board. So, technically, it's a listing on JEM board and not an initial public offering. It's an offering. So help me help me appreciate it. Yeah. So there are two boards on, Pakistan Stock Exchange. One is called growth equity market and one is the main board. ठीक है. The main board is where you do IPOs and growth equity market was launched last year as a as an intermediary step for growth startups. क्योंकि startups जो they're not startups companies which are जो इतनी बड़ी नहीं हैं उनको और जिनको कम capital raise करना है उनके लिए launch हुआ था growth equity market. ठीक है. अभी तक कोई tech company नहीं है उसके ऊपर. एक है Park Agree, एक है Blue X. It's a really good Last milestone. Last last logistics from, so we are जो हमने जब plan बनाया IPO का, we thought के हम लोग एक milestone beach में define करते हैं which would be gem board. Why? ताकि we get a feel of the market कि what do they want और compliance related. It will make our job a little easier. दूसरी चीज़ यह है कि अगर GEM board पर launch करेंगे so we can show our results, our promises and delivery. It would be eventually a net positive. It's a gem listing. We are on the way for public listing as well. But PSX says, call it initial offering,

not public offering because it's not technically if all public is not being part of it. Makes sense and we're gonna dive deeper into that as well. What does that mean? When you say all public नहीं कर सकते तो फिर मैं भी exclude हो जाऊंगा. नहीं नहीं, आप आप या हमारी कोई deal हो सकती है. So, उसके बाद हम detail में जाएंगे कि you know what's what the does that mean? Like, कैसे उस पर है? I started off the conversation generally जिस तरह मैं करता हूं कि tell me a little bit about where you grew up and how did you end up getting into IT and doing all of this?

So, I was born in वाकैंत. My father, वह काम करते हैं, करते थे. He passed away in 2005 in Pakistan Ordnance Factories, so Ministry of Defense. So, he was posted in Havalia, in Pakistan Ordnance Factories. And I got, my parents thought que जो best school है in the region, वह है Abtabad में Bernoul. So that's where I went. And I, Bernoul में I was there from prep till O levels. And that was, that's where I grew up essentially, meaning because it was army Bernoul. So it was very army focused and Right. And very,

very disciplined focused. So that that is where my upbringing is entirely. Bernoul की बड़ी, legacy है because literally जो last podcast मैंने की है with a very very interesting duo, DAO pop tech वाला, prop tech वाला. They're they're trying to, यह क्या कहते हैं? Fractionalize property and बड़ा वह interesting काम कर रहे हैं through blockchain. वह भी Bern Hall के थे. And I've actually spoken to a fairly large amount of people. I mean, वहां से बड़ा interesting talent निकलते हैं. Bern

Hall में जब हम थे तो it was a, the focus was mostly कि जो top, position holders होते थे and I was I was a good student, they would take us to the PMA passing out every every year and whenever it was happening we would go to PMA and it was like pride की चीज़ थी कि हम position हो रहे हैं, हम वहां पर जा रहे हैं and they would they would like kind of encourage Prime you to become the Prime But I never wanted to go into army. I was more in engineering and I was really good at math. Right. So that's what I wanted to do to to actually get in on the engineering side. Right. So, A levels I did in Islamabad. कहां से? It was a school called Alta Vista College. Right. And my mother didn't like it at all because she said, यह एक है school. School. But but it was a good, good college. I also met my wife there. So, as you can imagine, it was fun time. Right. But, and from there on, I went to lumps. Basically, I only applied in MIT and lumps. I mean, it was, like, too much overconfidence. But, but lums, obviously, I might win you. Then I went to दोनों आपने computer science में किया था? दोनों computer science. Yeah. The first time I took computer science was actually A levels. अच्छा. मेरे साथ यह था कि we didn't have a computer in our house. I was always fascinated by it. अच्छा. And I was like,

one of my cousins Wait. So till till what time did you not have a computer in your house? Till A levels. Really? Yes. And this was what year? This was till 1998.

Okay, '98. You're fairly old. Yeah. I was fairly old. Then I my senior Cambridge was called senior Cambridge '98.

Right. Wow. So so that that was

Right. I'm not that yeah. I mean, '98 is fine. Like, if if someone doesn't have a computer, maybe दो हज़ार आठ का कोई बच्चा गया कि मैं यार मेरे पास computer ही अरे now, now and of course not. उस time पर and I was fascinated by it. So, the first thing I did was कि computer science तो करना ही है. Right. उस time वह visual basic type सोता था यार. उस time पर होता था FoxPro. अच्छा. So it was, like, excess version, and we we used to do, yes, simple programming languages and Right. Anyway, very cool. That that was back in the day. But that that started my fascination with, computing in general. And then I was like, okay, आप कुछ भी नहीं करना. My father really wanted me to become a doctor. अच्छा. And I was like, yeah, हो ही नहीं सकता. And then he lobbied with my class fellows, with my mom, with everyone. Somehow he should get into medicine. My sister is a doctor.

So, like, I was pushed a lot but I was like, नहीं, यही करना है और कुछ भी नहीं करना. I'll never ever do anything. Did they understand? I mean, this is 98 You're talking about KG मैंने computer science पढ़ना है. तो उस time पर तो अभी तो बहुत acceptability है ना? तो but in fact a lot of people push people towards computer science कि यार बड़ा good scene है इसका? उस time पर नहीं थी. There there was no understanding. My father used to think this is like BPO.

अच्छा. Because उस time पर BPO companies were coming up. So he used to think it was, it is like BPO. Right right right. But he's like, इसमें क्या है? Either become a doctor or अगर बहुत ही ज़्यादा है तो कोई you can do one of the engineering. But I was like, नहीं, मैंने अपनी चीज़ करनी है. Right. So my mom, she believes, or I think she still does, कि जो independence है in the mind, that is the most important gift you can give to the kids. So, she would always encourage कि independent minded होना चाहिए. Well, you can do whatever you want to do. She would say कि low aim is a crime and so on and so on. So she would say, this is what you have to do whatever you want to do. Take responsibility for it. Yes. My elder brother, he said, finance National College of Arts. Was a big drama. What would you do after after finance? Like, least architecture girls are like, no, no, Fine arts, you can. So we're all, like, kindly Did he end up doing fine arts? He ended up doing fine arts. He went to NCAA. Are you doing successfully? He's fine. He's doing pretty well. So that that was, that was the mindset of all of us, k? Independent minded, and we do whatever we think we we want to do it. ज़बरदस, ज़बरदस. So you went to lums in '98? No, I went to lums in 2000. So I'm the batch of 2004. So I I did senior Cambridge in '98, then A levels, and then Okay. 2000, I went to lums as a batch of 2004. ठीक है, and straight out,

पहले तैयार था how was lums? Because from Ephtahabad to couple of years in Islamabad and then to big big change, right? I was a big nerd. So I didn't know too many people. I was always programming as my computer, and

I was I was like, I, you were not Hotel and class and hostel and Class me नहीं. It was only hostel, and I was doing my own stuff always. Was trying to hack other NLN PCs and and other long buggy, long computers that I would be doing my own programming. So I wasn't very social as such. Right. But, and also the other thing was, as I said, I met my future wife in A Level. So I was like, जल्दी से शादी के news. That is it. That is the goal of life. That is how so, I was, like, always into work. Work meaning... I mean, I love programming, so that is what I was I was doing. So, that that is how I remember lumps. Right. And then lumps may also... Because in the third year we started the business, we can get into that. But, so since then I was practically not really

interested in the classes or anything. अच्छा. But it was fun time. So did you graduate with a course CGPA or was it just like by the end of it के बस जी सी चार साल में graduate करो निकलो काम करो. I I don't remember my GPA but I I didn't attend classes classes at all.

जो last की classes थी वह, I've finished my core courses, the computer science courses with the batch of 2003. अच्छा. So, I took all the courses because as I said, I was like really into it. So, I was taking all courses. उसके बाद सारे social sciences रह गए थे. Right. So, I was taking all those courses जिसमें मुझे कोई interest था ही नहीं. Marxism in the modern world, history of mathematics. History of mathematics I loved. But any course History of mathematics I loved. यार, what is it? अच्छा, चले. No, because I love math. Right. So, some point, at one point in in lumps I thought ok, math में Ph.D. लेता कि computer science करो. That's right. Interesting. But that didn't they obviously, I I started the the business. So but, mostly, it was all, social sciences in the later half. So I think it was I got a degree, so it was it must have been I think it was three point something. It wasn't too bad.

Yeah. Not too bad. So third third year, you're starting your new business, and this is, again, 2003. And so it's not, like, 2022 where someone on Facebook asks you, okay, have my website and now suddenly you have a business. Right? And, so there must be a story कि how did, just this sort of nerdy kid who doesn't socialize, doesn't go out, is just focused on his computer, hacking other computers,

ends up doing a business. How did that happen? The way it happened was, it was, we didn't plan it. I don't come from a business family. Right? So so I never really thought business This was but अगर आप computer science में हो तो everybody wants to be a Bill Gates at the end of the day. Right. So so even if you're not from a computer family, you will end up on the same path that can potentially make you Bill Gates. That's like the beauty of our industry. Maybe you're not even thinking of it as a business. You're just thinking कि यार, मैं कोई product बनाकर के, you know, I can You just love what you're doing and without knowing it, you're on the same path. And then hota yeh que very soon you start getting the initial success and then you are explicitly on the same path. Meresat yeh workke, I wasn't thinking about business. So, we... Because I was the nerdy kid and I was doing programming competition and so on. So there was a competition from IEEE. It was called CSIDC, Computer Science Design Something competition. And so we participated in that. Me and two friends I had. One is Raza Saeed. He also was one of the co founders. Then अहमद अल्लाह वालाह he was also one of the co founders. And there's a third one, Essen. So we said कि अगर हम जीत गए तो we will go to America. Again, हम first 10 में आ गए. तो उसने कहा कि मैंने America जाना है, मुझे America जाना ही जाना है. अब I can't say why but he wanted to go to America. Right. But, so he joined our team. He said, I'll do anything you will ask me to do. So so four of us, we started working on that. उसमें what we did was उस time के ऊपर, Bluetooth was quite new. So I did a part time job in this company called Mentor Graphics. In that time, it was called Accelerated Technologies, which was bought by Mentor Graphics. So they were working on a Bluetooth device driver. So and I was, like, hardcore programmer. I mean, I in my mind, C and C plus plus was programming. Everything else was, like, scripting for kids. Right. So so this this is, like, you can imagine how I'm I'm that profile of of of computer science graduate. So, उसमें we use Bluetooth to make a a kind of a remote metering solution, telemetry essentially. Metering seminarad क्या है? यह जो electric meters नहीं होते so we made कि Bluetooth जो है अगर वह एक mesh network बनाएगा, it will send data over. It was something not very successful but we didn't get into top 10 but we thought कि product तो अच्छी है. तो product को तो हमने sell करना ही करना है. सय्यद brothers को sell करेंगे. सय्यद brothers I think was a and let's

Chairman say of Packaging Limited. ठीक है, Chairman of Packaging. They brought, I think, हां, Packaging Limited. अच्छा जिनको वो लेकर आए हैं. Exactly. You know, bunch of other very big MNCs जिनकी वह, you know, did the partners in that as well. And he's very well respected business

family and businessman in his own, right, in Pakistan. So, उनके पास भी उन्होंने सुबह छह बजे पुलाया. Right. और उन्होंने कहा अच्छा आपके father क्या करते हैं? अच्छा आपके father क्या करते हैं? आपके father क्या करते हैं? आपको पैसे कितने चाहिए? हमने कहा कोई हमने कहा चलो कोई बात नहीं, that that is it. उसके बाद जो मेरा one of my co founders रज़ा, one of his friends was British, Charlie उसका नाम. तुम्हें याद है because Charlie is like, I used to like make fun of it. So उस time के ऊपर एक platform था Elance, which later became Upwork. अब Elance, you imagine in those days it used to charge like $1,500 for a membership. And we didn't have any credit card, we didn't have anything. So Charlie was a friend of रज़ा from सातिक public school. So रज़ा from सातिक public school. Wait. Salary of The UK. Yeah, he came all the way to सातिक public school. He was an instructor in बालपुर. Ok, instructor ok. अब तक यह पढ़ने Pakistan आ रहे यह क्या दुनिया है? नहीं नहीं. मैं क्यों नहीं इस Pakistan में पढ़ा हुआ? He was an instructor in there and he said कि I will help you guys. Right. So he used his credit card to get us the first Elance membership and also registered our domain. And so we started getting the first project there, it was instant. Right. Like, we were getting this one guy, I still remember his name, Brian Pollock. He hired all three of us for $2,400 per month. And now we are in third, fourth year. Right? So we're like 2,003. Sounds like that's worth a lot. So we're like, wow. I mean, this is like I mean, this is this is as fun as it gets. Yeah. So that's that's basically what kicked it off. And and on Elance, we became one of, I think, top 10 providers and all that. And so that started off the business. We hired some of our part time, some of our class fellows. Then when we moved out of lumps, labs, of us had graduated by then. So we moved out just across lumps, and we had an apartment. And you guys were using the lumps computers to We were using lumps computer. Now lumps is, like, we need royalties on that.

But, essentially, like, obviously, used timekeeper. Didn't have laptops or anything. No, were using the labs initially. And then I remember,

जब हम lump से buyer move हुए and we said कि अब हमने अपने computer लेना है. तो मेरी मुमानी ने मुझे 18,000 rupees दिए. So, I got two computers. Emachines, it was used to be called. Two computers. रज़ा brought his computer. Got his computer. So two of my computers was basically the, it was the whole five founders. And we were sleeping there. We were coding, having fun. Ahmed was a is a from a business family and so he was really good at managing money.

रज़ा and I were, like Couple of questions. So, जो यह आपका initial दहैर आपने moved out of and and essentially in front of lumps. And so rent 436 Q.

I still remember.

So rentals, you're just students and you're figuring all of this out. Yes. What did you do? आपने सबसे पहला जो अपना जो initial जो

कमाया था, वह आपने save करके उसको लगाया उसके ऊपर? जो basically you started making money right away, right away essentially. So that's why, that's the money that you invested in all of this. The office and वह office क्या था? Basically वह एक frat house था जो कि office भी वह It was, it was a pure frat house. It was a pure frat house. We we we एक beach में एक very interesting thing blood, bird flu virus आया उस time पर. Right. So chicken and egg की prices, they just dropped. So हमने we bought like like अरे देख. I think like like फ़लू आता रहता right. Not just a देख. It was like a लंगर that we made in our, so हमारे super एक cook रहता था. He still works with us. His name is दुल्फेकार since then. अच्छा. So we said कि भाई नीचे आ जाओ, we have to make like this big omelet in a देग and we want to make बिरयानी every day. So, and then we got everyone over and we had a party obviously. Like, multiple days we did the same. So, that's how it was. And, जो पैसा flow हो रहा था because यह again आजकल के जमाने तक में यह problem है कि freelancers are not able to get their money and, you know, the flow of money is very very complicated when it comes to really working on these platforms. No, we we had we would withdraw it in standard chartered. Time पर, was working. It was working. Bank to bank ही हो रहा था सारा सारा. Bank to bank हो रहा था. Beach में कुछ customers थे जो

direct भेज देते थे western union पर but not too many. हाँ क्योंकि उस time पर उधर भी इतना ज़्यादा PayPal वगैरह नहीं था ना. अब थोड़ा सा मसला जाता है यह है कि a lot of customers are like यार I don't want to get through the whole wire transfer situation just tell me your PayPal and if you don't have a PayPal, I'd rather go Payoneer हो गया बहुत ज़्यादा ले. But we we we were always on banking. So I never got that issue of transfers. Like, I never faced that at all. Right. Right. Right. So so what started? And, obviously, what were one of the first ones on these sort of freelancer platforms and so Yes. We were called Uran. That was the original name. So this was Uzman. Uzman was from batch of 2002.

So actually interestingly, Uzman was obviously two years senior to us. So he was like the boss, right? So, he was... And he said, इस्लामाबाद में हम करेंगे, सारा. So, in 2000 was from इस्लामाबा? He was from इस्लामा. He was working here. So, we moved, in the summer of two thousand three to इस्लामाबाद. अच्छा. And we were living not too far from here, in F-ten-two's... No, it was aft... F-eight. Right. And वहां पर वह एक एक कोई थे वह fiber optics का कोई business कह रहे थे. Right. So, उन्होंने कहा कि इस कमरे में आप लोग बैठ जाओ. Right. And उधर ही हम सो रहे थे, उधर ही we were doing everything. But when the summer holidays ended, we were like, उस्मान को तो हम ज़्यादा देखते नहीं है, we are going back. So we picked up all the tables, truck and the रखा and that was my own first and only truck ride from, Islamabad to Lahore, which was which took, like, eight hours, basically. So And go back. So this was Uran, Osman, Reza. Reza separated in 2005, and he runs a very successful company, Confiz. And and that's also Park Wheels. So that's that's,

you Oh, it's that, Reza. Yes. So,

सुनील was here. सुनील, सुनील and they were right after our सुनील mentioned रज़ा quite a bit and I was like, अच्छा, oh wow. So now you can add up all of these numbers. So रज़ा was there, then अहमद, he also went away. उनका family business है, so he had to join his family business. Then there was Essen. In in the middle, his dad passed away, so he had to take care of his family business, but then he joined back. And then en was Nike, which is me. So this was Iran. There was a another partner, Murtusa, and he left and joined Prog ten Gamble, but we never made it Mouran. He was was pitchara. I still say, sorry. Now ni over. But I always say que he was that obviously he's part of the co founding team and and that later on became quiz as we went to Germany. Right.

YQuiz, very interesting name. So so, Uran पाकिस्तानी पाकिस्तानी ज़वान बात है ना कुलोको quiz. Going to go. हां. You know, why should I look for a job in the market? You you started working there full time and tell me about the early years. Was it a standard? काम आ रहा है, काम हो रहा है या how was what was the growth like? You know? So so,

so all of us, we were really good developers, basically. Mhmm. So you can... Once, just to give you an idea, Raza, me, and Allahaballa, we went to this, speed programming competition fast. And, and we were like, do you if you if you know there, these programming challenges that they give. So we we were, like, there, and there were lots of teams. And so whenever you solve a challenge, they put up a balloon. Right. So we did one, one balloon. Nobody else did anything. Anything. We did another one, two balloons, and there were only three problems there. And we're like, okay, we're done. And Raza and I were like, okay, let's have our burgers because we are done. Nobody's, like, even close to us. Like, a few minutes left, so we are done. Ahmed was like, no, guys. We are just this close. Let's finish the third problem and just end it. And Raza and I were like, no, no, no. We are having our burgers. You can continue. Up now, while we were having burgers, there was another team that was, like, one balloon up and then two balloons up. I'm like, okay, let's go back. He said, bet that's too big. And then there were, three balloons up and we were second. So so but we were we were really good developers. Raza was super smart in in terms of development. Ahmed was really good as well. So all three of us, we were, like, hardcore developers. So we were making, when the the the money and all, we were we were able to get a lot of clients. We were doing hardcore development. So we were building I remember we built a conferencing system, a video codec and was it the manne mainne shuru huerta. So we were doing a lot of hardcore work and so that's why it was a lot easier for us to get initial projects. Right. And we could charge slightly higher amounts as well. I mean, everything was good, but it was it was good business overall. Right.

Were you the the only ones working there at the time? Yeah. Maybe hiring करने शुरू? We we started hiring. So we had

there were five of us. And then we had initially, we hired, I think, three or four developers, then, and then more, and then it just scaled. When Raza separated, we had I think we had a team of about thirty, thirty five. So half of it went to Confizz, and half of it stayed with This was o five? This was o five, yes. Right. And Germany happens in 2007. '7. So 2007 में यह work, we thought que, I mean, we thought we are super clever. We always like to do things कि let's look, let's think about it a little bit more deeply than the casual thinking. So so we thought कि अगर we're doing outsourcing and we're doing software services, we should go into markets where English is not the first language, into large markets. Why? Because, I mean, how would we get there? So it would be really hard. But if it's hard for us, it's hard for everyone. If it's hard for everyone, then we would have less competition. Less competition means que यहां पर तो we can have a killing. So, we said, okay, let's go to Germany because one of my friends was there. Right. अब Germany में obviously it was harder, but one of my friends in Germany, I don't know how his name is Nico Zifang and he's he's a big domainer in in Germany. Made lots of money there. So he Domainer essentially, I I assume. Hiring lots of domains and then selling them and I running didn't even know that AdSense, I didn't even know this business model existed until he showed it to me. I bought side note, I bought lots of domains in Pakistan on that. So, anyway, so so he said que there's a LinkedIn competitor of Germany. It's called OpenBC, Open Business Club. Right. And and Germany, if you if you remember in those days, there was, there was a clone of everything. So Facebook had a clone called Studio So actually, internet model just happened. Rocket internet model was already there. So rocket internet was also started in those days, and they were just cloning things. So, का clone था OpenBC, kind of a clone. Right. उसके ऊपर एक functionality थी haves and wants. What do I have and what do I want? Which was brilliant because essentially on a business net social networking side, you're connecting on business And if you say, have developers and I want projects, it's a very straightforward thing. And nobody was using it outside of Germany. So I spammed everyone there. So in the first time when we went, I think it was April 2007, I scheduled 200 meetings in two weeks. So,

you'd you'd you'd basically went to expand the business. You didn't go for a masters? No. No. This was exclusively

for business. Yes. Purely for business. Like I said, got, like, 200 meetings. It was half €1,000,000 of projects in the first time I ever was in Germany.

So I was like, okay, mind blown. This is where we need to be. And when you're looking at, I mean, when you went to Germany, what's the, size of the, company? I think we were thirty,

forty. For forty, forty five people. 50 around about five turnover off? We didn't have to उस समय में इतना turnover नहीं होता. We didn't have turnover even until last year. It started now. Turnover is a big issue. I mean, at least for us, maybe we were lucky. But turnover became an issue recently. अच्छा, turnover आप by the way कह रहे churn हैं, की बात कर अच्छा, अच्छा, employee journey. I think in those days we had a turnover of about a million or 2,000,000 or so. ठीक है. Not too high. Right. So so उस point के ऊपर, as a German market is very interesting. You probably don't know of a lot of tech companies out of Germany other than SAP. Right. उसकी वजह यह है कि German laws don't like, a lot of risk. So if you go bankrupt, you can't open a company for seven years. And our industry is, by definition, you do a lot of new business models and new things. So it discourages, essentially, discourages digital business models. And this is still It is still the case. It's still the case. I mean, even though, I mean I've changed, हो रहा है. Germany is like the startup capital and, oh, you know, it's the Silicon Valley of I'll tell you now how how we get that. So, in Germany there are no, as I said, there's no, they're not big tech scene. अब होता यह है कि जो German online business है, online marketer, it's dominated by publishing houses. Axel Springer, Bertelsmann Group, Hubert Burda Media. What does that mean? Axel Springer is like a big publishing company. They own newspapers and and so on. Bertelsmann, you probably know they are one of the largest publishing houses. They own Penguin and Right, right. So they're, that's and Hubert Burda media is also similar. Television channels own करते हैं and so on. अब जो they consider tech primarily online media. So Google and Yahoo and Facebook, they make their money from ads. Right. It's essentially media. Right? Right. Right. So and in Germany, it is actually media, and then it's owned by the media houses. What what that means is if you are a start up or if you're a service provider in this space, you end up working with these guys. They are the investors. They are the buyers. They are the acquirers. They they that's the that's the business that you interact with. But that's it because you're working with large so we ended up working with Hubert Burda Media. And and so and eventually we ended up working with Volkswagen Group and Audi and so on. So it's a very, it's a big economy but it's a very small ecosystem because you end up working with all of this. उसका implication यह है कि now kicks in the local regulation कि आप पाकिस्तानी companyयों होते हुए आप directly contract नहीं कर सकते इनके साथ. So, you have to be a local company. That's when in 2008 and imagine we had a really good initial start in 2007. In 2008, we were forced to register our company in Germany, and we chose Munich to register it. Right. Why Munich? Because when I went there initially, I thought on the map कि Frankfurt is the center. So, जहां पर भी जाना होगा, Frankfurt से चला जाऊंगा. अब the entire industry is now this is 02/1978. It was Munich, Hamburg and Cologne, Dusseldorf area. This is West Germany. This so, Munich is South, Hamburg is North, and, Cologne, Dusseldorf is West. Right. So and this is where the entire industry is, right? Tech industry and media. So if you're living in Frankfurt, you're always taking the train to Munich, always to Hamburg or to this. And is, is the cream. If you're in Munich, you have really good reputation in Germany. अच्छा, उसकी एक एक एक side भी है. Side story यह है कि the first time I went to Germany in 2007, जब मैं वापस आ रहा था तो I took a cab from Munich Center to the airport. And you can take a train as well. Didn't know I took a cab. उस cab में the the guy did a small talk. And he's like, okay. How was it? I said it was my first time in Germany. It is amazing. You guys are great. I had great business. I'm obviously all pumped. And he said, yeah, but we're not in Germany. I was like, what do you mean we're not in Germany? I'm like, what is this guy? Like, he said, no, we're in Bavaria. And we speak Bavarian. We're not German. That's a lot. And it's like, I got, like, a crash course into German politics. And he's like, we, Bavarian, pay for rest of the Germans. And I was like, okay. So forty five minutes he gave me a lecture on how Bavaria is the creme de la creme of Germans. So, is...

I don't know about this. So, this is like a sub

branch of Germans? This is Germany's states, like, they're they're... So, it's called Freistaat Bayern. It's like free State Of Bavaria. So they are they are different. It's it's it's there basically

sin बलूचिस्तान

type Jewish. Germany, actually, Germany got united quite recently. Germany wasn't a unified country like France or Spain. It was a lot of, princely

states. That's Russian model essentially. Impectation. Yeah.

And then, And it was it was in eight in nineteenth century, it was when the first empire was made. So so Germany still is like that, because they're different states and... That's why they have, a chancellor. Like, she's like, why don't they Yes. Have presidential And that's why you probably seek jo pandemic restrictions hain, woke es tan chelinie. Because every state has to agree and they're all independent. So, it's not a federation system. It's a chancellor.

And are these separate states ethnically भी separate as well? या ये through उपस्थिति हम एक state थे तब से for example, बहावलपुर एक state थी. इतना ज़्यादा difference नहीं है. इतना ज़्यादा difference नहीं है but because they are quite similar but they consider themselves

a lot more different. So, when they tell me, like, look different. This is if you look at Indian Subcontinent, that's that's called diversity. You guys are all the same. But

but this is basically like Munich and and and

what's it called? Bavaria. Bavaria. Yeah. Bavaria's Bavaria's Munich. Right. BMW is Bayern Motorwerk. It's Bayern. So b is Bayern, Bavarian Motor.

Interesting. And and, Bavaria Bavaria is essentially the California of Germany.

It is, the highways? California is is very, let's say, open and all. Bavaria is... Rest of the Germany considers Bavaria a village, Like, they're like, यह तो पिंड किलो होंगे. यह तो they're depressed up like that. They're They're very religious. They have the the right wing always. But they're the richest and they have the best and the quality of stuff is really good and it's clean water. Like, my my partner with eCommerce will later talk about it. He thinks que Bavaria में clean air... We're talking in Germany. And and Bavaria is clean air. Berlin is, like, it's it's, the third world of Germany. So Interesting. So that's the thinking. That's the thought process. Interesting. Interesting.

So you set up in Munich. Yeah. And,

you're you're essentially moved to Germany. Yeah. I moved to Germany in 2009. So you're in and out? In and out. I was doing in and out, and then we thought we have to be here because we can't just do flip flop. So उस time पर I also... My first daughter was born. She was one year one year. She was born in 2008. So 01/01/2008. So, and when we moved, it was really hard for us. So, now you can imagine que we didn't go there as, as student or as work, so we didn't know anybody there. कोई जो है family नहीं थी, कोई friends नहीं थे. And you're in a country where nobody speaks, and Bavaria में they don't speak English that well. At least उस time पर. But now it's much more open. But उस time पर it wasn't, we couldn't find English speakers that. So it was really frustrating to live in a new country with, And you didn't have an office there essentially? We we we made an office. We had to hire local team, local project managers because जिन customers को I would close, they would speak English, but उनकी team English नहीं बोलती थी. Right. So we had to have local team members. So we started hiring locally as well. बात शुरू हुई थी कि कोई स्कृत्रा वन गया. हां हां. So, when I would give cards, they would say, उरान, उरान, उरान, they would say it. And this is like a short form of uranium. And they would say, अच्छा, this is uranium and you're coming from Pakistan. So Oh my god. So I was like, now I think, look back and I was like, maybe that was a good starting point. But but then I said, okay, when we registered the local company, we changed the name. Right. I was into Greek mythology and I was like, Zeus, Zeus का वह एक titan था. Chorus, Chorus was titan of intelligence and I was like, ok, यह करते हैं, let's go with it. नाम में क्या रखा? ना, I mean, at the end of the day, if it's a brand, it's a brand. If it doesn't become a brand, then who cares? Yeah. So, so Chorus became the name. Very cool.

Quickly अगर मैं आपसे पूछूं, couple of things. First of all, बल्कि हां, जो at this point in time you're focused on Germany and you're getting German projects.

E lines आप छोड़ चुके हैं? हां. आपने कब उसको अगर लाफिज़ किया था? साथ साथ ही ना वह because हमारे rates Germany में बहुत ज़्यादा थे. So it's like it was a question of कि profitability कहां पर ज़्यादा है? Right. So so eventually we just then we didn't renew the membership and then eventually we were just out of it. Right. And And it was also getting more competitive. There was a project because marketplace बनगेना proper. बहुत सारे लोग आ गए and and then people, हमारे employees, they could see कि कहां से आ रहे and they started their own companies. And so it was the it was just an economic discussion कि यह this is not any longer दो

हज़ार नौ, दो हज़ार दस.

उस point पर company किस उस पर खड़ी हुई थी in terms of scale? So, in terms of scale, I think we were, by this time, we were now about 70 employees. अच्छा. All based out of Lahore? हां, all all based of Lahore and they were, I think, three or four in Germany. Right. And and and we were, like, scaling up. But at this time, Cooper, we started hitting the first reality check of working in Germany. Core reality check which nobody actually realizes in Germany is that software services it follows construction law, strangely enough. अच्छा. And what that means is कि the buyer has twelve months of default warranty. What that means is कि अगर आपने मुझे hire किया है कि मैं आपकी website बना दूं और आपको नहीं पसंद आ रही so you can ask me free of cost changes. Unlimited. Twelve months. Yeah. So that means कि अगर आप project sign up कर रहे हो, so you even though you are getting the money, it's not your money because you are under warranty. And that realization came when the first time the first pata came and the guy said PA change कर दो, we're like, scope change. It's like, this is not a scope change. You should do it. Like, no, I don't accept it. I was like, what do you mean you don't accept it? You have already paid for it. That's acceptance. Like, no, no. I've paid for it, but there's a twelve month warranty. And I was like, they think out. Let's go to the court. And we lost the case. And so and there was another similar story. There was a a fintech startup, and they said कि हमने link connect bank के साथ. उस bank की कोई public API नहीं थी but there was a closed API. He said कि यह उनकी WSDL files हैं और यह उनकी definition है. You can figure it out. I was like, we can't figure it out. So and then he pushed a lot and then one of our guys said, okay, let us try but we will charge you for it. We will do an R and D with charge for it. And they couldn't do it obviously. So we were like, okay, नहीं हो सकता. उसने कहा, अभी पैसे सारे वापस कर दो. Like, पैसे क्यों वापस करते हैं? And then he took us to court and I was in the court and the judge asked me k, if you knew it could not be done, why did you say we will figure it out and maybe it can be done? So now you have to return everything. So that made our mind, k, actually, not all customers are the same. Right. And and based on this, we we also got, like, really careful in how we sign up customers. And these were, like, when we had to refund payments, you normally, you don't you don't plan like that. So it became, like, we become really conservative. We became in two thousand nine, ten, eleven. We were quite conservative in how we were getting the clients. At a point, in 2008, we found a bunch of tech entrepreneurs who said that we will set up a business for online reviews and ratings. So उनका view यह था कि Germany में जो e-commerce है that's scaling up and the growth of e-commerce is directly proportional to the lack of trust online. So if you have more trust, meaning that the conversion rates would be higher, discoverability would be higher, and all of that. So this guy who I spammed, if you remember from OpenBC, he said, how about you guys help us out in developing the platform? And so that's how we started working together. Interesting these guys were hardcore sales, and I was hardcore They development and had one developer and 80 sales guys before this was even a thing. Right? So I looked at it and I was like, wow. What is this? And but this they were selling and they were scaling, and I and I said, okay. I need to learn this. Right? And meanwhile, I was involved with them and I helped them in setting up the technology and all of that. So this guy, Michael, he showed me sales How do you do a mass market sales? 2,012 में यह हुआ कि 2,012 में Google started with this thing called Google Celer Ratings. Right. Which is the stars and so on. So e-Comy by that time was one of the only players that had reviews. So it became the first partner of Google's seller ratings. And they are 14 or 15 I think 14 providers, and they're no no more. So in an instant, it became from a niche, third party verified reviews company to a must have tool if you had Google AdWords and whatnot. And the business exploded. Our business also became really successful with it. And and they basically went from, I think, single digit million review revenue to, like, double digit in a year. It just exploded like crazy. Everybody had to have it. And obviously, the brand became quite strong as well. 2015, Goldman Sachs. As Goldman Sachs came in the business, then there was a whole thing, we should have a deeper relationship and so on. And then we took over the entire product of eCommerce. We became the primary product team of eCommerce. Plus, I took over this the enterprise side of eCommerce, where we said que my view was que SMB space, this is SMB space. But in enterprises as well, you need to collect customer feedback and customer ratings. On enterprises, the insurances and banks are the, the opportunities which we can dominate. Why? Because if you close one, it's all regulated, so all the others would exactly be the same. And that's what happened. So we won AXA Global, Allianz Global, Spot of E Coming. So we became, one of the de facto market leaders when it comes to banking and insurance. Right, interesting. So, थोड़ा सा मुझे यह बताएं.

E-Coming का जो brand आपने वह acquire किया या आपने e-Coming किया We are the provider. We became a partner and a provider.

जो product किए हैं पूरी engineering पूरी पूरी आपके सारी it's all us exactly. At this point. And and one difference is कि we are not Is this a partnership in terms of कि आज आप vendor हैं, कल चले जाएंगी? नहीं नहीं, it's a very deep partnership. They're also on our board now. So it's a very it's a very strong and then we became really good friends. So, what one thing we did different was कि, as I said, we took over enterprise side. So that meant कि we went from purely tech play to a commercial play, right? So now my idea was कि अगर आप सिर्फ़ technology handle करें तो you're a cost center. कल को, आज हमें कल को कोई और हो सकता है. Everybody can be replaced. So we need to be on the profit side. We need to be on the revenue side. And that's why I negotiated that we should run the entire enterprise team, which made us, I think, really strong as a partner. Because then we had a seat on the revenue table, not on the cost table, but on the revenue table. And that changed the business. That changed the way, our growth even, went further. Because as we were on the revenue table, we also became part of the M and A discussions. So the M and As were one of the part of their expansion strategy. And I got I think M and As were mergers and acquisitions. And so I got the front row seat to do the deal flow, to do the due diligence, to do post acquisition, value creation which defined us, we basically redefined the way we looked at our business as well. And so at this point in time, what exactly are you doing, जब यह आपकी हो गई यह partnership? So we stop taking any clients because we are so if you look at tech scene as an overall, if you're running a software services business today, so you say I want to run a software services business. In an easy way, आपके पास चार options हैं. You can start with system integrations, which is कि आप Microsoft, Oracle, SAP के, Salesforce के integration partners वन जाओ. Which is a very Consulting कर लो. Consulting कर लो. And and then you are just, you're you're basically doing modifications, deployments on top of the platforms. Really good business. This is what systems and a lot of companies do and it it it is it is also a profitable business. But the gross margins are are lesser than what I'm explaining. The second option is कि आप यह route ना लो, आप product development company में जाओ, which means कि आप अपने client के लिए उनकी product बना रहे हो side, purely product. ठीक है. Third option is कि आप high value consulting करना शुकू दो, like Accentures and so on. So, you say we are not only developers but we are your digitization

experts. So, problem भी हम solve कर, हम पहले बताएंगे problem है क्या? हां. फिर हम कहेंगे उसको solution दे और फिर हम solution दे दिया जाएगा. Exactly, like like Deloitte,

Deloitte and McKinsey and Accenture. Right. So your gross margins are actually going up and up as you go up the value chain. Just to sort of give context. पहले case में, सबसे पहले case में यह हुआ कि product किसी और ने design की है. हाँ. Problem statement identify करके उसका एक solution identify करना वह company ने ने की है. हाँ. आपके पास वह skill है आपने वह skill जाके भेज दिया. I think I can go even a step back. Right. So I it's very interesting I was telling you कि हमने PSX mix session किया था. So I explained to them कि tech industry जो है वह चलती किस तरह है. So I I I said कि basically the starting point is कि आपके पास एक HR problem है. मैं आपके लिए HR software develop करता हूं. आप मुझे पैसे देते हो और कहते इसको manage कर लो. Right. Licensing के बाद मैं कहता हूं कि यार this is very expensive to do all of these multiple servers. मैं एक server manage कर लेता हूं. आप लोग सारे यहां से use कर लो which is software as a service. Right. So now imagine you are going up the the gross margin value chain. Right. जब आप software services में आ गए हो, उसके बाद आप कहते हो यार इसी के ऊपर मैं marketplace बना देता हूं. जिसमें मैं third party apps भी करूंगा which is on Microsoft, Slack and everyone does. So, आपके gross margins go from 15 to 20% when you are a bespoke developer all the way to over 90% when you have a marketplace. Right. So that's the ecosystem. Is ecosystem के अंदर जो first two models हैं, bespoke development and licensing, उसके अंदर से निकली है outsourcing, essentially. Because that's what system integration is and that's what the product development. This is where all of us in India and Pakistan, that's where we start our business. Right? We're generally doing these things. अगर design website development करते हो, that's mostly the design agency stuff. In in Germany, actually, if you want to go and look for clients and you say, मैंने उन clients साथ काम करना है जो websites बना रहे हैं. You would look for agencies. You wouldn't look for software companies, you would look for Agentur agencies in Germany. Right. So so that's that's generally the the the value chain. इस value chain में जो software के अंदर, the third step is high value consulting The final step, I call it final step because the margins are highest, which is resource augmentation, which basically means America, you need, let's say, C plus plus developers, 50 of them. You hire all of them from us. अब जब आप You hire all of them from from From a company, from a provider, right? Yeah. Or यह इसका मतलब है कि this is the maximum profit you can make because your billability is 100%. This is why generally the जो सारी services के अंदर the game is about your rate and your availability. That's it. Only two things. Right. आप किस rate पर charge कर रहे हो और आपके कितने percent employees, कितने percent team काम कर रहे हैं productive है. Productive meaning कि आप bill कर सकते हो. Bill कर सकते हां, गलत है. सुबह दो ही चीज़ें हैं. अगर आपकी billability 100% हो गई है, तब you can even charge lesser amount and you can still make a lot of money. Right. अच्छा अब अगर हमारे case में वह apply करें because we work with e-commerce and just a few other customers, our billability is really high. Because our billability is high, our net profits are more than 50% in an industry where net profits are 20 to 30%. Right? And that is is a big, I would say, competitive edge because अगर आपके net profits high हैं, that means you have the capacity to actually invest in the future growth and other things. अगर आपके net profits लो हैं, that means you're always running for either projects or the team and then you are just trying to want manage to a आप खेलेंगे जाहिर तो automatically आपका वह risk factor about काम Which is why if you talk to any services company, any minus a few, they will say कि हमने product करनी है. Because that's that's the holy grail कि अगर हमने product कर ली तो उसके बाद हम billion dollar वन जाएंगे. So and and there's there's a reason for it. The reason is because आप because you can make more money

on lesser headcount. Right. And headcount is a very tough business. Okay. So, दो हज़ार पंद्रह कहते हैं. दो हज़ार पंद्रह चल रहा है. You know, you've now partnered with e-commerce. -Huh. Istransi चल रहा है system. What's the headcount in Pakistan?

I think at this time we're not that much. We're, like, sixty, sixty five. अच्छा, एक चीज़ I will say. We, in 02/1112, I, realized कि headcount is a very wrong metric to look at. उसकी एक वजह, उसकी वजह यह थी कि we and we had this learning कि we hired a lot of QA team members, right? So, we thought कि हम scale कर रहे हैं तो. अब after, I didn't realize it at the moment but हुआ यह कि when you have a lot of testing team members, the developers, they kind of kind of got relaxed because they would just commit their code, meaning they would deploy it and they would say, वह test कर लेंगे, knowing कि यह चीज़ सही नहीं चल रही. And that generally if you think about it, जैसे आपकी organization scale करती है तो it brings in some inefficiencies because people have to find work for them as you hire more people. And and so that created a lot of inefficiencies in the organization. And so post 2012 I thought कि headcount को हमने कभी नहीं देखना है. And we made this policy कि we will outsource a lot and we would hire only when we are absolutely sure that we want to hire. So, whether it is for sales or for support or for anything, we would first do contract work or, through freelancers, and we would hire when we are absolutely sure that this needs to be on our payroll. Right. Even if we're doing R and D. So if we were if I had a new idea and I wanted to develop it, I would always hire someone as a freelancer than getting them on our on our payroll. Right. So so that's why we don't look too much at and then now if you if I just say, if you look at it right now, it has created us as a very strong bottom line. So anybody who looks at our books and as we started the listing process, the first thing is how can you have such this long this strong of a bottom line? And that comes from this idea, headcount, stop looking at headcount, stop using it as an ego of, ego boost thing कि हमारे सौ लोग हो गए, आप दो सौ लोग हो गए, आप चार हज़ार लोग हो गए. That's that's not a really good metric. I think, but but do you think model में भी फ़र्क होगा? So, for example,

let's let's say let's call an x y z company. और वह क्या कर रही है कि वह consulting बेच रही है, right? And so what they're saying is कि भाई हमारा तो let's say कि पच्चीस हज़ार dollar हमारा जो है वह average revenue पर headcount है और average cost है दस हज़ार या बारह हज़ार या पंद्रह हज़ार या बीस हज़ार है. ठीक है? तो पांच हज़ार का हमारा margin है. उस case में तो headcount would definitely

matter. But you're assuming कि 100% billability है. Right. And अगर आप project के ऊपर काम, then it makes sense. Yes, if you have someone who is just hiring resources, it's a very straightforward business model. पच्चीस हज़ार उन्हें pay करना है, दस हज़ार आपकी cost है. It's a it's a it's a net profit. As long as obviously आपकी payability, let's say, But होता नहीं है. But this is like a holy grail of a lot of companies के बस आप हमसे resources ले लो and and but and just pay us. उसका मसला यह है कि when you're doing resource augmentation, you're transferring the risk to the client. Right. When you're doing a project, then you're assuming the risk on behalf of the client. And that's the the the key negotiation

element. Right. And and 2021, बल्कि उस पर आते हैं. दो major, turning points Pakistan में. दो या तीन मैं कहूंगा probably. पहला war on terror. War on terror आप उस time पर आपने start किया उसके बाद उसी time पर आप Germany गए दो हज़ार नौ दस में यह peak कर रहा था. Islamabad लोहार कराची bomb हो रहा था. Global जो आपकी तो उसको एक hit पड़ती है particularly जब आप कहते हैं कि you know people have to travel. IT business के अंदर generally a lot of times आपको जाना पड़ता है for meetings and this and that and you know unless obviously आपका modeling फ़र्क़ और आप purely digital पर कर रहे हो but then दो हज़ार दस की बात कर रहे हैं तो उसके और मसले आते हैं internet का backbone कितना strong है. Yes. बिजली के outages बहुत strong है. And then दो हज़ार so so एक तरफ़ आपके पास terrorism का problem रहा है. दूसरी तरफ़ आपका infrastructure का problem आ रहा है जहां पर आपको 3G, 4G ही नहीं दिया जा रहा हालांकि पूरी दुनिया में आ गया. I I would say one thing कि जो terrorism का problem है ना, the the image का problem,

I think we got somehow a little bit lucky because the German, we generally say इसके west की यह thinking है but West is not a a monolithic, you know, right? America is different than Europe. And Europe में actually people didn't care that much about, this war and terror thing. It was a discussion point in the when we were go... We would go on lunch, but nobody really cared कि यह Pakistan में है यह कहीं. So what's the impact नहीं हुआ in Trump? नहीं, because they they didn't really care. It is it is bigger of a problem in The US. Right. So it's... It wasn't... So I think we got a little bit lucky in that. I didn't know this, but I could always sense कि even if there's a bomb blast here they're like they would ask is everybody okay and stuff but beyond that it was not at least for us it was never a problem.

दूसरी चीज़ जो overhead आपका जो O and M cost essentially है because of the lack of infrastructure फिर वह generators चाहिए होते थे, वह backup चाहिए होते थे. That's true. उसकी hit कितनी ज़्यादा पड़ी थी आपको उस time पर? दो हज़ार probably दस से लेकर पंद्रह सोलह तक. I think when we

we set up in 2007 we already had a generator and stuff. So we we just always consider it part of the business. So we never really thought of it as an overhead. Right. We thought कि यह तो है ही करना ही है. हां, आप पैदा ही उस time पर हुए ही होता है. Exactly. तो यह तो है. So, even right right now we don't even think of it as an additional thing. We think of it as यह तो करना है. Part of the cost. हां. And then third thing is जो दो हज़ार

twenty fourteen के बाद एक sort of economic policy आई जिसके अंदर sort of dollar का control किया गया and so through that obviously cost over end बहुत ज़्यादा हो गया exported businesses का and services businesses particularly उसमें deeply impact हुए and हमने वह देखा कि दो हज़ार अठारह में जब वह finally you know breathing space दी गई और dollar जो है वह free float पर गया तो IT businesses generally got finally that sort of space कि वह margins उनको मिले जिसके अंदर they were able to begin to think about growth. Yes.

We we were quite lucky. यह यह जो e comi वाली the whole thought process कि हमने, clients we we we don't want to get clients at any cost and we have to do a proper due diligence because of the law and everything. That made, made it a lot easier and a lot more stable for us, basically. I I would say so. And we were I think we were lucky because this is not something that you'd you'd learn anywhere. It is not something that somebody tells you. It's just that you stumble upon it and you say, okay, this is going to be our principle. And so in those years, we didn't actually feel anything. And as e comi was growing and our other clients were growing, we were also growing. I don't remember feeling that there was any issue. Actually, we we were, were अलहम्ला doing really well and we were very comfortable and we were focused on our clients and only making

them grow. I think आपका वह वाला problem नहीं था ना कि यार दिन्यान में क्योंकि you are focused now on exclusive clients तो आपको वह वाला problem नहीं था कि यार अच्छा

as we were so focused तो जो team थी वह बहुत stable हो गई because the team started learning on कि SaaS revenues को grow, किस तरह करना है. Because normally if you go from one project to the other, so आपकी कोई connectivity नहीं होती. Right. And it's it's when you actually launch it in the market and when you have a churn and low low cancel करें and they're asking for things and it's scaling, that's when you start learning on what it it takes to actually make a product successful और उसकी वजह से जो team थी, it started learning. It became really stable because projects नहीं थे तो we didn't have to have crazy timings. So, stabilized the whole company, so to speak. And there was no stress on around कि अब हमारा cash flow का क्या होगा और इसका क्या होगा. It was basically a very, I would say for us, it just got us focused on the business internally without having to worry about external factors there. So I think we we got really lucky in those days. Right. चलिए, मैं थोड़ा सा jump करता हूं और मैं लेकर आता because दोनों the one hour mark and वह

एक पूरी conversation रहती है. Now this is 2022. You're looking to start up language, I'm sukheng. You're looking to get a seed capital before you really get into your series a. And so why? Why now?

And what's the thought process behind it? अच्छा, इसके पीछे जो thought process है ना, so as I said, we've been involved in e coming and I've been involved on the M and A sides and all of that. So, what I what I thought was कि जो software services वाला business है. First of all, that is not long term sustainable for us. I mean, it is a good business. It is a reasonable business, but I can see que margins are getting lesser and lesser because, the cost is going higher, and and it's getting it is getting more and more difficult to hire high quality talent. Not the entry level entry level as well, but high quality talent. And I've seen in the last years employee churn me burger. Right. So what that means is we cannot bet on headcount based business models. I cannot say que आज we are a 110 employees, so we will become 500 employees and it would be an easy it is not so easy to go from hundred and hundred employees to 500 employees without poaching employees from someone else, which means effectively Premium, continuously at a Yeah. And and when you poach, others poach as well. So that's that's what is my thinking. But total market is a price warp que es bhi, Que It is a price warp and it's not ending anytime soon. Yeah. So so then I thought que, then I look at how e-commerce and other businesses are doing and I'm like, okay, their gross margins are amazing, right? So so, yeah, they're having recurring revenues and all of this and they actually don't really care about the headcount. The headcount is the same since they whether they are on 10,000,000 annual recurring revenues or 15 or 20, headcount is exactly the same. The dev team is the same. There's no need in fact, if anything, they can say we can reduce it rather than increase it. So so so that gave me the the the insight that we have to grow our revenues on the recurring revenue model. But then it's a it's a it's a question of on what. Right? You you don't just stumble upon a product and to to do it. So one of the things we started was, in back in 2018, we realized que video as a content, and you probably know it better, it was taking off and we could see it. अच्छा, जब आप reviews देखते हैं, reviews में there there are two reasons why, from a marketing perspective, you would want user generated content, aka reviews. One, you want to have higher SEO and you want to be discoverable online. Two, you want to increase conversion rates. There are only two reasons. Now if video is becoming more and more prevalent, that means video as a content type is also is going to be a bigger part of this entire ecosystem than text because it's it's it's a better So we thought of video reviews back in 2018. A boost time pay, if you remember, on the mobile browsers, you couldn't capture videos directly from the browser. So traffic is all on mobile phones, but you can't capture videos, so there is no business model. So we didn't do anything. But in 2020, we thought, okay. Now let's try it again, and we do it. The moment we we developed this product, and it was a very quick prototype, our best, I would say, unfair advantage in the marketplace was, k, we had 30,000 plus e comic customers. Right there, we could tell them from day one, k, this is what we are working on, and this is all of our IP and our everything we invested in. So we started rolling it out to those clients and that became quite successful. So that is one product line that we started doing. What's this product line? Just try to This is video reviews basically. So what what do you mean? अगर आप if you are a business and you have I mean you know on YouTube unboxed मैं कहता हूं कि मेरे

पास मग्गेह का business है. हां. ठीक है? और मैं कहता हूं कि यार मैं आता हूं e comic के पास. हां. और और कोई इसके पास. Yes. और मैं कहता हूं कि listen like I need to increase the sales of my मग्गा. Yes. ठीक है? And you tell me कि listen I have this product which essentially is part of the customer funnel, right? And उसमें जो यह vertical है वह basically है video monials. Video reviews. Testimonials.

Video

testimonials. So, so ठीक है वह कहता है ok. आपने बोला मुझे समझ नहीं आया but you're the expert. What is I will say this, I will say look,

मुज़मिल is a big, is your is your big brand ambassador. He loves your magas. ठीक है. So how about you just send a link to मुज़मिल and says record a short video on drinking tea in the मगा And Muzambil records it, you put it on, you distribute it on YouTube on your own website and so on and so forth. We put proper content around it and tags and con and and and all the the keywords around it, and this would help you in your SEO and your increasing your conversion rate. Right. So it's essentially an influencer marketing Yeah.

Which is a bit more focused. So, अगर मैं compare करूं Pakistan में recently, Wali has gotten a substantial amount of funding. And I believe there is a platform that has launched only yesterday. Group M brought it, Inc, Inc, Inc, Inc,

do you know about these? I don't know them, but I know influencer marketing. Right. So so in this case, we don't we are in the reviews and rating space for a long time, so we don't consider reviews influencer marketing per se. Influencer marketing is, like, engaging all influencers and and then sending them out campaigns so that they can participate. So we don't consider influencer marketing as such. We consider our play purely as a reviews and ratings play. Okay. And Vidmonials is reviews and ratings but videos only. अब जब हमने यह launch किया, so it is not only our e commerce clients and all the others who want to use it, but it's also usable on the employer branding side where you can get your employees to give feedback and testimonials and and as as as it grows Right. You're not necessarily saying you already already need to have the audience. You're saying, listen, we're going to bombard,

this sort of information about your product through all sorts of ordinary individuals and people who have influence. Yes.

And we start with your existing clientele, employees, yourself, right? So let's say if I'm an entrepreneur and I want to say something about my business, a new product, I could record my video overview and I post it and then it goes everywhere. And and and that basically happens through the SEO knowledge that you have, that you're leveraging from. And and more importantly, we leverage on the existing clientele that is there. So you're not growing clientele from scratch. You're saying, okay, yay clientele. They're paying us for reviews and ratings. So we are just upselling them an additional piece for 29 to €59 per month. Right. Which is just an increment. So they yé ek चीज़ थी. दूसरी चीज़ जो आई, वह थी twenty twenty में after pandemic, which was, as our team started to work remotely, we kind of one of the biggest issues was कि not everybody can work remotely because हर एक के घर में environment नहीं होती है. Not everyone's house is organized like that. So the productivity dropped. So we thought कि हम ऐसा always on video conference Everybody would always be there. There's no problem of who's working, who's not working and so on. But always on video conference is tough on bandwidth and resources and everything. So then we thought we need to have a connectivity tool that can connect the all of the remote team into one place. So that was one side. The other side was Wait. So what does that mean? That means, k, you have a team wall. Imagine you're all your team members are on a team wall, and with one click, you just connect to them. It's like an always on video call, except we just take a picture, and we don't have the call constantly happening. When you click on it, then it's a call. It's like walking over to a person. Right.

So, I mean, it can open up your camera.

The game here is it's not always on, but it cannot turn on at any time? Any time. You don't have to accept it because it's like your office. Right? So I come on to your cubicle. You're there. You don't say, no, no, no, It's like you're there, you're there. So we said que we want it to be always on, optimized in a way that it's not capturing video by just taking snapshots every thirty minutes or something. But and I click on it and instantly you're connected. And the video's on. And video's on. Audio video's on. And you can do screen sharing. And so this is essentially a tool like Microsoft Teams. Yes. And and we built it on top of Microsoft Teams and Slack as an add on and so on. So so this was basically, one thing was to connect Teams which are remote. The other part of this was employee rewards recognition and engagement. So we said remotely they need to be rewarded and they need to be engaged. Mhmm. So we then we, we created a functionality which we call Bravo. That, for example, if you are working with me and you love working, when you say 20 Bravos to Ali and and then I can use those Bravos to get coupon codes, cash, whatever. And we partnered with different marketplaces in Europe, in US, and different places around the world. So if there's a company that is international, multi geographic, they can do employee rewards across the multiple countries from a single platform. Right. It's make interesting As I said, we are come from a reviews background, so we know the the the value of reviews. So the moment we started doing it with the first set of customers, the pilot customers, we asked for reviews from day one. We said, us how it is, and we published it on Capterra. And Capterra, which is part of Gartner, we went, like, we started in August or something, and we went up in three months, and they recognized us as the rising star of employee recognition space. And we just got, like, customers like crazy. We're getting inbound leads, and we're, I can tell you, because this is public information, listing road show start we said, at that point we had just started it, we said it was, 100,000 annual recurring revenues. And a few weeks later, it was 230,000 annual recurring revenues. So we started, like, multiplying it, And so that is really well. अच्छा, इस सारे process के अंदर, I got a lot of VC interest in this. Right? And I was like, if we have to go this route, we have to do something with our core high profit business. अब एक चीज़ जो not many people realize के entrepreneurs specially, if you go to a VC and you say मैं यह भी करता हूं, यह भी करता हूं, यह भी करता हूं, then you don't know anything. You have to do one thing and you have to be really good at it. So I can't go to a tier one VC, let's say, Sequoia or something, and I say कि मेरा एक बहुत successful... For them, this success means nothing, services business भी है और मैं यह भी करता हूं. I I better be doing just one thing. Right. So what do we do with our services business? And then we were thinking कि अच्छा, e services business में we work with a lot of enterprise customers. Like I mentioned के insurances and so on. And they ask us a lot के आपके पास Microsoft के was provide... Can you help us with the Microsoft solutions or in some cases Oracle or SAP. So how do we do that? And I thought कि one way is कि हम जो पाक्सानी suppliers हैं, उनको connect करने हैं German market के साथ. And now as I started thinking about this, I thought कि, one of the biggest, without taking the names, they they want to enter the German market as well. And I looked at it, how their trajectory is. They're moving their Pakistani team members. And I was like, it's not any channel like that. They have to have local team, contracts are in German. Everything is in German, so they will have to do it. But what if I could resell their things to my clients? And then I started thinking resell me, they will pay me 20%, 30% and whatnot. But effectively, I'm reducing their time to market. That means what I learned and I spent a lot of years to learn, they will be very quick and and I will just get them the client. So the the the best value I can do it if I take a stake in the supplier I want to connect. How do I take a stake now? That means you do you do an investment or you do a merger. So and how do I do a merger? So I started reaching out to companies. And as I said, I have had experience of M and A, so I don't have a jigic. And a lot of people have the jigic कि merger and acquisition किस तरह होगी and they don't think about it. So for me, it it had, by this time, it has become like a standard part of business. I don't only pitch to sell our product or to pitch to do a partnership. I also say, okay, we want to do a merger or acquisition. Are you interested or not? As I started approaching companies, I figured nobody wants to sell. Right. And because nobody wants to sell, then how do I engage them? Then I thought that they have to be part of an upside. Upside create can only be created if you are on a public market that rewards you for results at a multiple. Right? So it can be 15 x, 20 x, 30 x. Systems in Pakistan gets 25 to 30 x. On average, it's, 20 to 25 x. That means every euro or dollar that you earn, the market says we give you 20 to €25 for it as value. That is what the multiple means. Right? If system is trading at 30 x of their net profits, which means they are valued at half $1,000,000,000, that means the market thinks every dollar that they're bringing in, it's worth 30 x for them. Right. Right. And that means if I come to you and I say, मुज़मिल, I want to do a merger with you together as a group. This is how market will value us. Let's let's do a merger. I what I'll do is I'll enable you to the German market. Right. And the value for you is आप काम कर रहे हो पाक्षानी market में, Middle Eastern market में, आपके margins बहुत कम हैं. This will be high margin business for you. Right. Together, we are stronger and together we are rewarded at a higher rate. And together, I don't need to create a separate team for Microsoft or anything. You are doing it. It's your business. You have, you have built it over last ten years or so. And and this is the business that I bring to Germany and I just enable you to them. You can pitch them. You can work it out. You can do whatever you want to do. I just provide you the legal basis, the market know how, the local team to just expand in the German market, which is a higher margin market than the market you're currently operating in. Right. This is where the listing part comes in. Okay. Because we didn't need to raise capital. We didn't need capital. We were making, and we're still making good profits, and we can invest it in our products and so on, and we don't need the money. What we needed was market cap. And as we needed the market cap, it doesn't really matter whether we are on the gem board or we are on the main board. I mean, in general, could say, okay, main board पर जाना है कि मैंने पैसा बहुत raise करना है. But we're not interested in the money as such. We're interested in the market cap. And because market cap is what Muzamel is interested in. Muzamel wants a piece of the $40,000,000 market cap pie. He's not interested in $8,000,000 right now. He wants that upside. So so from that that side, we said, okay, listing is the only thing, only way to go. Listing is the only way to go. What is the shortest Nasdaq is the holy grail. And that's where we get our ego boost and we can thump our chest. But the but the thing I realize is que when you get listed and when, it gets published in Bloomberg or wherever, it opens up doors that you didn't even exist or you didn't even think they were there. Like, was talking to PE funds and all, which I never thought that they would come on the table with me and talk to me after they found out that we are on the listing path. We were not even listed. We were on the listed path. Customers started looking at us differently. They said, okay, because listing in a way, I mean, I didn't think of it like that, but people think of listing as an achievement, as a kind of I think the the way that they see it is is is a is a path to majority. Right? Yes, exactly.

I mean all of the things that we we sit down on coffee and we say कि भाई मैं तो बहुत अच्छा काम कर रहा but now I'm ready to really show it to you as well. Yeah. Yeah. So I do understand कि once you're listed suddenly now people are they're like ठीक है, नज़र आ जाएगा ना? कितने पानी में? क्या actual बोल रहे आप बातें कर रहे या वो सारा सारा because it's all out

there. थोड़ा सा मुझे यह बताइएगा. Right now how do you operate as an entity? Are you a German entity and a पाकिस्तानी entity and you both have like sort of a partnership that that works? अच्छा अभी जब जब हम यह सारा process start करे थे ना अभी recently prime minister announced कि the new वह है क्या you can repatriate the foreign funds and so on. So so when we were doing all this we had two challenges. एक challenge यह था कि अगर हम पाक्सानी entity को, German entity, अभी it was parallel, right? So, same shareholding but parallel. अगर if it becomes a subsidiary of the German holding, then German company के जो जो tax regulation है, वह Germany की लगनी शुरू हो जाती है, which is really high taxes. And it is not really fair because our team is all in Pakistan. So if we are paying taxes in Germany on source that effectively becomes on source taxation which is, which doesn't make sense and it's not fair. The other side was कि Pakistan को parent entity बना देते and then German entity would be a subsidiary. इसमें सबसे बड़ा issue यह है कि then you come under state bank regulations and then you're like हम अगर हमने कोई partnership करनी है Germany में, कोई investment करनी है we can't do it because वैसा यहां आ गया तो वापस किस तरह And आएगा that is like a big issue and now they have opened it up so this wasn't there and I don't know when it gets implemented but इस structure के अंदर then we thought के we would make Kuez Germany a distributor of Kuez Pakistan. ठीक है. Which basically means के Kuez Germany जो है it acts on behalf of Kuez Pakistan for all contracts and payments and everything. So, Kuez Pakistan basically owns everything. ये चीज़ जो है it's not very straightforward. आपको वहां की tax regulations और वहां की tax authorities के साथ negotiate करना है. उन्हें बताना है कि this is what we are doing and they need to approve it. They need to accept it and then you can do it and this is what happened. इसका एक और हमें benefit हुआ. दूसरा benefit यह है कि now that when we do the listing, we actually provided our German books to the regulator and to everyone as well. अब आप compare कर लो कि if there are other listed companies and there are not too many, how many of them actually show their offshore entities' books to the Pakistani shareholders or anyone in Pakistan? Nobody does that. And so we thought we will always be transparent. We can essentially make this as our USP as well, that we will always keep it transparent. We have nothing to hide. And it's a clean software services and software as a general is is is not a business where you can, especially अगर आपके पास बहुत ज़्यादा incentives, in any case, tax benefits and so on, why would you need to hide anything? Yeah. So so we said que we would try make everything transparent. So, we showed all our books. In fact, the regulator actually asked us a lot of questions on the German books. They are not even getting listed in Pakistan.

Yeah. क्योंकि सवाल में ऐसी वजह से आता है. And उससे पहले मैं एक छोटा सा हूं करूंगा. Have you talked to, have you spoken to the STZ?

Not yet. But we've been asked to to consider that as an opportunity and and That sort of protects you in a lot of areas, वहां अच्छा, एक चीज़ है ना, एक हमारे principle है. When we were starting this path, so we said कि we have essentially three key principles because I have friends in Germany who have listed companies and I've seen listing is addictive. Your stock price becomes your net value. So now when we are getting listed, I'm the major shareholder in the company And suddenly now on an official level, now I have a net worth, right? And so that net worth is addictive because that, like, boosts your ego to, like, now you're... Before you were, like, middle class का बच्चा and now you are multi millionaire and and but it is all kind of stocks. It's not in the air. Like, it's not really It is in a in a way because it's a public company, so it is in a way it's it's real, but it can get to your head. So what we said was कि there are three things we will always do. The first thing is we will never ever look at stock price and use it as our, guiding north star. We will never use stock price. We will not play to the stock market either. We will not do things just because we want to please the stock market. We will do things if whatever makes sense to us on a business level. Right now, we're the management, so we will decide in the best interest of the business and the shareholders, which we are the majority of, but we will not appease the market. We will not time the market, not appease the market, not time the news or anything. We will just do it as we do it, which also means we don't really look at a lot of regulation that comes up. जिस तरह अभी जो idea, we say it's it's hugely beneficial this regulation, but we don't do the business on the basis of what the government is saying. We're doing the business for the value we are creating to the customers and and and what we're doing. Regulations तो business government government the world can change. जब हमने listing announce की थी तब तब Putin wasn't attacking Ukraine. Now they are. So does that mean कि now somehow we should peg our strategy with what mister Putin is doing or what should we do? So we don't look at that. We say, okay. We and and that leads me to See, mean, you'll take it as अगर कुछ benefit है, तो है, ठीक है, but नहीं है. Not something. दूसरी चीज़ यह ठीक है we will always do what we are saying and we will only say what we are doing which means कि if we say we list, we list. Unless there is a major issue that is coming up in our business, no matter what is happening we will go and we will list. And I think it's very important because, to the shareholders, to the new shareholders, you have to they have to trust you as management. Did you don't and Pakistan में this is a really big thing. I don't know if you've heard of it or not, but जो traditional businesses हैं, everybody talks about कि सेठ जाएं, वह पैसा rotate कर रहे हैं और यह कर रहे हैं और वह कर रहे So we're like, we're not, technically we're not सेठs. We're not doing, we don't want to do any of those things. We are, we know only our business. We will only do our business and we will do always what we are saying. And we'll only do what and we'll only say what we do. Like, if we say we're doing M and As, that is what we focus on. We're not doing any any we're not going to become a VC. If we have a lot of capital, it's not that I'm going to go and start becoming a VC and start investing because that's not what I'm planning. So you're not very, you're not instinctive

in your business. Essentially, you're saying is que, you know, we're very we're very focused and we're very Exactly.

Maturity ek business as a as a I I don't know. I think it's it's a question of principles on having. Mhmm. And the third thing was transparency, k jo thought process hai, we will always keep it transparent. Because I I I one of the things I've been doing since my brother works in Facebook, right? So once he said k Zuckerberg joe, वह एक AMA करता है every Friday. तो मैंने उससे कहा this was long time ago. ऐसे मेरे पास time नहीं होता है. It's it's very time consuming. He said कि अगर Zuckerberg कर सकते हो तो तुम भी कर सकते हो. And then I started doing this AMA. We we I haven't been like, a video or choke and there we I I didn't do it every Friday, but I've been doing it for multiple years. And I think being transparent was, was immensely useful because it keeps people on the same page. It it's a lot easier to explain to them when they know how you think and what you're thinking. So that is our third principle. Transparency,

Joanna, we will never leave I mean, obviously, the context of compliance and all that, but we'll keep everything transparent. No matter what we are thinking, we will just say, this is what we are thinking. Right. The reason why I asked you about the separate entities, German and पाकिस्तानी is because when I look at what you what you just mentioned in terms of, you you're raising capital and so what's the capital for? And उसमें आपने multiple चीज़ें बताईएं. एक आपने यह बताया कि listen, like, we're we're going into these very interesting, very exciting product verticals. And so obviously, we wanna scale that as well. And so that includes the development of the of it and the sales of it. 45% is products, 55% is M and As. Right. अब question उसमें ही आएगा कि मुझे बड़ा exciting लगा है. You know, I understand the products. Products in a particularly, I understand all of them and so I can definitely bet on it कि यार ठीक है, there is definitely growth there. मेरी industry की भी हैं और भी areas हैं जहां पर मैं एक IT corporate consulting में काम करता रहा हूं. मुझे पता है वह Microsoft teams के अंदर हम mouse mover लगाकर किस तरह घूमते थे अब. You know, उस case में क्या यह हो रहा है कि या ठीक है वहां पर हमारी growth बढ़ रही है but actual में जो है ना revenue सारा German के पास जा रहा है और development cost Pakistan में आ रही है. नहीं नहीं नहीं. So पता लगे कि जो shareholder है उसने तो अपना सारा hedge कर दिया. नहीं नहीं नहीं. The the the parent company is पाकिस्तानी

company. German company acts as a distributor. That's what I meant. It's a distributor of पाकिस्तानी company, meaning it acts on behalf of पाकिस्तानी company. So, the bottom line will always be with the पाकिस्तानी Bottom line is always पाकिस्तानी company. Always. If I give you the roadmap, right? So our roadmap is que, gem board listing, that's the first milestone in in the journey. The second milestone is the main board. So we we already started the process and no no company has gone to main board. So, even PSX has to find out कि यह process होगा किस तरह conversion का. When you say कि no, so, so, gem से अभी तक कोई main board नहीं So, gem board से कोई, so we will be the first ones इंशालाह, who are going into the इससे पहले सारे सारे direct main board भी आते थे. नहीं, या या तो direct main board पर हैं और दो ही तो companies हैं हमसे पहले जो gem board पर हैं and they haven't really decide, yet they haven't decided to go on main board. So system and TRG are still on the They all went on mainboard because mainboard, the JEM board तो बनाई अभी है ना? Right. This is the last year. It's a it's a last year thing. ठीक है. It's a very good thing by the way I think because it is not that complicated to list. There is a lot of due diligence you have to do and there is a lot of compliance

but it is not that difficult. I mean It's one step towards. वही वाली बात है कि Pakistan में वह एक sort of rent seeking big business ही जा सकता था. अब यह है कि now you have like this little guy can really sort of cash out. I think tech and tech is a lot easier to go on listing than the

Conventional business. Conventional because in tech the revenues are clean actually. Yeah. वह बारह बारह रुपए की किरयानी की दुकान के अंदर दिखाना जाना बहुत difficult. It is very clean revenues. You have software exports. Government ने आसान किया हुआ है taxation नहीं है. अगर taxation नहीं है, तो why don't you just keep everything clean? Yeah yeah. No matter what you withdraw from the company, that is that is, your your stake in your your, the dividends or what whatever. But it's a very clean business. So in my mind, tech businesses are what should what should actually dominate the Pakistan stock exchange. Right. Because that's the highest growth that is coming in and scalability wise be it's the best Yes, businesses to yes. Go So,

इसका मैं what I'm trying to understand आप उस पर आ जाते हैं जो हमने start में बात की थी gem and main. मैं हूं एक आम आदमी, right? And and so I want to be a I want a piece of this pie. I believe in your vision. But you said कि it's not an initial public offering, it's an initial offering. And so who is this being offered right now? They basically have a definition that if you have net assets

of worth 5,000,000, then you can participate. But the the requirement is lowered now. So you can declare essentially que मेरे पास 5,000,000 के net... Which is nothing. Right? So, if मेरे पास 5,000,000 के net assets, then you can participate. So, effectively, it is kind of public, but it's not really public. And then there are a lot of other things. So, for example, you have to publish your prospectus first. उस prospectus के ऊपर, they ask for comments. This is not a, RFC, request for comments in in in the networking space. I don't know if the audience understand that, but in in the tech space, there's RFC and also they they publish the prospectus as request for comments and then people comment on it and it's part of the process. In this case, it's nothing like that. It's like basically आपका investment overview where people look at that and they invest and basically the accredited investors are investing, the corporate investors and accredited investors, which definition is 5,000,000

as self declared value. In your FBR tax documents?

No, just just declaration.

अच्छा, तो आप एक एक एक essentially एक declaration करते हैं कि जी मेरी

obviously जो stock price है that stays the same. So जो investors हैं they want the movement so they can get some return. So, इसको उन्होंने address किया. I I don't know if it's because of us or not कि they they relax the way people can participate. So there's a lot more participation as a result. Okay. And so what's what's gonna happen here? You're

listing how many shares?

Only 5,000,000. That's the minimum amount that we could float. And we wanted it to be minimum because we weren't we weren't sure what what we are getting into and what we the value we would be getting. So we thought कि अच्छा एक Pakistan stock market की एक, I would say, kind of negative thing is कि it only values your net profits. Right. What that means is कि I say कि मैंने आपसे पैसा raise करना है और मैंने M and As करना है और मैं अपनी product को scale कर रहा हूं. You understand the value of the product. Let's say if I was asking you for investment, you would assign it a value. But the stock market would not assign it a value. Stock market would say जो net profits sign getting a value. So you're valued at 40,000,000 because your net profits are 2,000,000 plus, but the product we don't count.

You don't know what I'm getting at. So what that means is, in my mind, and I think rightly so, I think we are undervalued on the market. So Uber की तो कोई value नहीं होगी Pakistan stock market? No. Exactly. That's that's a big back that's one of the big issues. Really so what that's doing is that's telling you what the situation is today, but that's not really telling you what's gonna happen five years from now. Yes. Right? And so Yes. Interesting.

So so अब अब इसकी वजह से ना because traditional businesses, they understand traditional businesses. Yeah. And and so what from from our perspective, what that means is कि we have to balance our risk. Right? So we see a value in listing. We that is that there's no two words about it. But we think que evaluation or job framework, I cannot challenge that. That's your default logic. Maybe it will change later on and this is the this is the market. Market will see the returns and then market makes up its own mind. So I don't try to second guess the market. But I think it's the it's a very undervalued

you're undervaluing us. So I would float the minimum possible amount I can float, which is 5,000,000 shares, which is 15% of the company. Which is 15% of the company? Yes. 5,000,000 shares. Wait. 15 per which 15 percent of the company? You're floating 15% on the Jamboard? Yes. Wow. How do you feel about that?

Initially, I was we we had a lot of me and my partner, Essen, we had a lot of arguments about it, que it is undervalued. We shouldn't do it. And I was like, undervalued, we can always buy our shares ourselves. Like, nobody is stopping us. We cannot participate in the IPO, but we can buy back our shares. Like, nobody stops that. And and it's completely legal. We'll disclose it, and we'll do it. So what's the problem? Right? Do it, and it's fine. But the the the value we're getting out of it is Is a lot more. And and the thing is that I think if you see our our journey from Germany and going into Germany, we have been and making a a kind of a counterintuitive decision, que हमने कुछ customers के ऊपर focus करना है और वह चीज़ें करनी है. So we we think a little bit counterintuitively. So in this case, the way we thought about it is that, yes, it undervalues us, but the value of being listed is far more than now, for example, I said, institutional investors in workup. Right? Now when I go and and and I said our first milestone is this, second milestone is mainboard. Third milestone is we will then start actually entertaining the VC interest that is coming in. So now when I go to, let's say, secure or someone, then I say, okay, I've had a public listed company and this is the product I'm running now. It changes the optics and it changes everything about the entrepreneur they're talking to. Right. And I say, this is my official net value and net worth and all of this. It it it sets you up as a as a different. And then when you're able to raise that funds, that they become your book, they become a line item on your balance sheet. Validation है ना? I'm sorry, validation. Vetted validation है. Yeah. I'm a bunch of third parties validating

you. But, okay. So now you're listed on the Jamboard, and and so, I buy 10 shares at 210 rupees and so I I own two 2,100 rupees worth of shares.

Is that being shown? So what happens next? Is it being shown on the stock market? Is it being created? Yeah, we'll be on you can buy the shares just like you buy any other share on stock So, and down हो रहा है, उसकी value हो रही है, सारा कुछ हो रहा है. सिर्फ़ और सिर्फ़ यह है कि छोटी size है, ticket size छोटा है, compliance का One of the biggest things the corporate investors asked us was कि we have no doubt it would be oversubscribed. I don't know if it happens or not or all that, but your float size is too small. We need it to be a bigger float size because we won't get anything. So what happens is if it's oversubscribed, then essentially you're getting pro rata of what. So if you say, que मैंने 100 rupees के shares लेने हैं, you probably will not get anything for 100,000 rupees because the price would hit the cap and you would not get anything. So, so What does that mean? That mean, मैं कहता हूं कि जी आपने 1,000,000,000 rupees raise करने थे. हां. आपने Two ten के ऊपर float हुआ. हां. Now, a lot of people wanted a $2.10. Now, they bid and it became $2.30. ठीक है. They bid again and they became $2.50. ठीक है. They bid again and it became $2.90. $2.90 is when PSX caps it. Okay. And now if there are far more bids, Octopus Digital had 27 times oversubscription. Right. That means everybody gets on pro rata base whatever they have, bid on and whatever their size of investment is. Let's say there's an investor that has bid the maximum amount 200,000,000 rupees, and you have done only 100,000 rupees. So you would get probably a fraction of a fraction of a fraction, maybe one share or maybe nothing, and they would have correspondingly a higher number when it gets allocated in the end. So it's like it's what they call Dutch auction model. It took me a while to understand. But that suddenly overvalues

then that overvalues the company suddenly because of that sort of cap at that point.

So it's a multiple game. Right? So you float if, let's say, the market average tech multiples are 25 x, and we say we are floating at 15 x, which is why the base price is to 10. It means the max price of $2.90 takes the valuation up to 20 x. ठीक है. Right? So it's still kind of discount from the average but it is not overvaluing in the sense. But उन्होंने cap लगाया, नहीं बराबर. Cap इसलिए लगाया ताकि unlimited ताकि investor को protect कर सके. Because if if it's it's goes, हुआ था यह पहले. Somebody was telling me कि एक stock started at 10 rupees and ended up at 110. And so after that they put this cap कि इतना ज़्यादा भी ऊपर नहीं. And that's a problem because नहीं so sorry,

27 times over subscription का मतलब यह है कि यार दस हज़ार shares थे. ठीक है? लोगों ने कहा कि यार इतने लोगों ने आख़िर में कहा कि हम ख़रीद सकते हैं कि दो लाख सत्तर हज़ार shares ख़रीदने के लिए investor ID था. So so मैं कह रहा हूं कि हां so so अब cap आ गया. हां. Cap आ गया लेकिन उन्होंने सबको बेचने हैं. हां, तो अब वह अब वह आपको

आपको मिलेंगे divided by सबको मिलने हैं ना shares. So, you will get a fraction of 5,000,000 shares. You will not get all 5,000,000 that you're bidding for, you'll probably get हां, but that's what I'm saying. So certainly now the cost of the share becomes very very high. No no, the cost of the share is capped at $2.90.

Do the shares increase then? No. Like जो share price है वह तो bid करें ना. You are bidding on the share price, right? So you अच्छा so ऐसा होगा कि मुझे 5,000,000 फिर मिलेंगे नहीं. नहीं. मुझे 5,000,000 वैसे divide होगा. हां. ठीक है, समझ गया. समझ गया. That's fine.

So, 5,000,000 is what is going to what is up for sale. It's just that because there's too many buyers and 5,000,000, so everyone will get correspondingly as. So, corporate वाला वही कह रहे थे छोटी game मैंने खेली हां, वह कह रहे कि हमारे हमारे जो profile है उसका छोटा percentage होगी. So, us a big chunk basically and we say it's first step we're going on the main board. When we're on the main board you will have a chance to basically increase it. So, it's a question of आप अभी X पर ले लो य कल को वायपे ले लेना. So it's up to you. So then

Interesting, interesting. And what, what's the estimated time line for this listing?

Eighth and ninth March is the book building dates. And so anybody can apply before that? On those sources, you apply to a broker like KTrade, and KTrade will basically enter all your applications. Okay. And then August and ninth. Eighth on eighth and ninth. So on ninth then, it closes, and then they consolidate, and then they say, okay. Now this is the final strike price, and you will get X amount of amount of shares, and the company, in the end, has raised this. And then you go to a Gong Sanemni, you go, Gong, And then and then it gets traded, starts trading on the market. Interesting. And what about the the the second step? The mainboard listing. Yeah. So we've already started it. You need approval of SECP. You have to publish prospectus, which needs comments. In our case, it wouldn't take that long because we are continuing the process, which means most of the books will stay the same. There are this quarter could result or next quarter could result and which is what we want to be there. We can say, look, this is what we said and this is what we are doing, and it's all fresh in everybody's minds. Right. So we we want it to continue like this. Plus, there are some compliance topics. Like, for example, you have to have an audit committee and an HR committee and all of that, which initially I was, like, kind of frowning upon, que यह हमारा overhead add कर रहा है. But I think as I talk to a lot of people, it is not that much of an overhead. For example, audit committee. I never thought of it like this. And a lot of people, I think, probably also think audit committee is basically there to look into your books and make sure that the management and the board does not have to go into details of the books. Right? So so it does all of the work with the accountants and the finance people, and it it makes sure that everything is compliant, all things are there. And then the board just has to see the key numbers so that it can make any changes and so on. So so so it's it's actually a net positive for the management and the board. Then there's a there's a compliance thing, for example, that the board has to approve things like M and As and all that. So initially I was like, I'm not asking board. I'm like, Who's going to ask board? But obviously, you're like that. You have to change your mind. But then I thought, actually, it's not a bad thing. They are your sounding board, and they can give you feedback. It's a good thing for somebody to have a last say on it, even though you are the main shareholder. And yes, you have everything, but it is good to In a simple way, it's basically saying, you need that third party voice in Yes. Your And it's a good thing. It's a good thing.

Anybody, we're at the I don't even know what mark. And and so this is this is one of the longest that that we've done. Do you do travel to Pakistan often?

Last December, we came after four years. Oh, wow. So so now I'm, like, then now I'm here, and now I'll come on to mid of March as well. So now I'll probably be more often, but not that often, actually. Not that often. Because I'd love to continue this conversation.

बहुत सारे areas थे. Beyond this, obviously, this IO that's happening and then the IPO, इंशालाह that will happen. IO, that's a good one. But but obviously beyond that as well, obviously you've been in the IT space for such a long time. There's so much to deconstruct there within the पाकिस्तानी IT sector in terms of कि क्या हो रहा है, किस तरह से हो रहा है, growth आप कैसी दे रहे हैं, क्या चीज़ें हैं, a lot of fundamentals that you understand that a lot of new players don't and and I know that I have a a fairly large amount of freelancer audience or or rather जो freelancer agencies की तरफ़ जा रहे हैं, you know, it's graduating there and and sort of beginning to hire a lot of their their own resources. They can definitely use that value of that experience that you have. So whenever you're you're in town again, we would would love to reconnect. One of the questions that I asked all of the guests that that do come here, you you grew up in Abtabath, then in Islamabad, then in Lahore. You eventually went to Germany. You've been in and out of Pakistan. Now you're you you decided to to, you know, sort of, make your public company go public in Pakistan. Big step. Takes a lot of courage and a lot of, जैसे कहते हैं ना कि एक blindsided optimism. That's true actually. And and and so, वह उस context को मद्देनज़र रखते हुए, I want you to answer this. How do you see Pakistan thirty years from now in 2050 would be at a 103 years old. You know, Pakistan may we talk a lot about the youth bulge and a lot of these things happening. There's the good side, there's the bad side. Before the conversation, we were talking about that as well. थोड़ा सा मज़हबता है. What is your image of Pakistan thirty years from now? I think

one of the biggest advantages we have is the young age, right? I'm not just saying it as a rhetorical thing. I've seen it in Germany. You go into towns, they're only retirees. One of the things that also gave I gotta they they push you to participate in the retirement scheme of the government because that is funding the the current retirees. So it's a huge issue. Now you flip that and you apply it in Pakistan. There's a huge young population. That young population is now getting kind of activated, right? Meaning that they because of the overall ecosystem, like, information boards are there, people are people have access to information. They're they're opening up. There are people who are opening up on ecommerce, on tech, on different business models. So that's that's changing. If you ask me how I see it thirty years from now, I see that there's a whole workforce, essentially, which is I mean, I can't predict on which side we would be very successful or not, but it's a status statistics game. Right? So if you have if it's just you and me who start a tech business and I'm doing SaaS revenue, then maybe no one is successful. If there are thousand of us, it's the same as in Silicon Valley. It's not that there's an ecosystem, yeah, but it's not everybody's successful, but it's a there's so much statistically, there's so much capital there. There's so many people trying to do things that there are enough numbers that makes number 101 end up successful. Exactly. And that is what I think. It's only a game of statistics. It's not it doesn't even take, like, your foresight or anything that I know that

there's a change in the market. You can see it. Like, you can see that the young people are getting trained. The the very fact that you would list in in the PSX Yeah. Would be unthinkable ten years ago. Yeah. You know, I mean, वही वाली बात है कि it's it's innovative, it's disruptive, it's the fact that वह एक legacy दो IT companies थी but एक इस तरह से IT company नहीं आई and that's the that's the change that we're doing. And the thing is our listing also

for I I don't know how we will perform and all that but it doesn't matter but it opens up a door for the companies. Now there are a lot of companies I know who look at it, and I'm sure they're doing far better than us. And they will say, okay. We if This these is how we can raise capital also. You know? That's that's And it's not just capital. Think about it. If you are I'm 40 right now. Right? So so now I think of it as my last ten years in the career and to make, unicorn out of it. Now, I have, like, a whole, like, a whole network of people who are all at this point, who are all thinking, अच्छा, next step क्या करना है? And when you when you do a listing, one thing you're doing is you're making company detached from you. You're making it part of And the an institution of course. It becoming an institution and as it becomes an institution, it can outlast you. As a freelancer, like, you can make a lot of money, but you're a freelancer. Right. And now you're a public listed company, meaning you I mean, if... Look at Systems. Systems was made before my parents even met in 1977, right? Right. And it's an institution right now. It's not a single person company. And this listing and and all of this direction, that is what will happen. And if you ask me thirty years from now, I mean, imagine I think tech our tech index would be bigger than everything else combined on Pakistan stock exchange because the growth is here. Right? So it's inevitable that this will happen, and companies will inevitably list on the market. And when they list on the market, they will have inevitable highest success like Nasdaq is predominately tech. Right. India, it has started to happen as well. Like, Bharatpay and all of these when they go in, they it's like high valuations and and so on. So the same thing would happen in Pakistan as well. It's not a it's not a question of when if or not, it's a when question. And I think it's not even that far because the speed of disruption is getting faster and faster. Yeah. So, so that's what I think. 100% अली भाई. You know, exciting times.

For sure. Thank you so much for taking the time out. Know बड़ा आपका एक एक एक crazy busy schedule था. I I I believe you're flying out back to Germany on Monday.

Now actually on Wednesday because on Monday and Tuesday it's a continued part of the road show in Lahore

And then they're back. So, I mean, best of luck with the upcoming IO. And, also

You just give your kick every time. Hashtag IO.

But, yeah, I mean, thank you so much for coming in. This was super insightful. Would love to participate in this, you know, यह जो है I'm sold personally.

This is not financial advice. Then you then you'd be my shareholder and then you can question me and kick my ass anytime.

Yeah, I hope I I don't get, you know, sort of squeezed out through all of No, any shareholder is shareholder. That is the best. Alright. Alright. Thank you so much for coming on a lot. The inside. So for watching. अगर आपको यह episode पसंद आए हो तो दोस्तों से ज़रूर share करिएगा. A lot of you guys, you've been talking about investments, stocks, and all of those things. What do you guys think? This is the first time we're talking to a tech company who is listing on the Pakistan Stock Exchange on the JEM board. Disclaimer disclaimer. There's some compliance thing going on there. So what do you think about that? Do you think this is a great thing happening? Do you think do you have a counter opinion? Let us know in the comment section below. इसी के साथ साथ YouTube वाले like को दबाएंगे ज़्यादा लोगों तक हमारी conversation पहुंचेगी. Audio practice वाली subscribe दबाएंगे. Think tankers just to try to understand कि जो major decisions हैं government के जो आने वाले वक्तों में हमें impact करेंगे उसके पीछे thought क्या है so you can check that out as well और हमने एक छोटा TBD shorts का channel start किया है जहा पर हम छोटे वो डालते हैं considering कि ये दो घंटे की episode है. So if you are too much of an ADHD person who can't sit through इतनी लंबी conversations, you can look at those smaller chunks where we put in the most important parts out in that channel. So you can subscribe to that. But anyways, this was Ayurveda MLS and Zeddy. You are watching Cloud Behind Things. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.