The man building Pakistan's electric mobility revolution

श्लामा ख़विदीराज़ रात welcome back to another episode of thought behind things. आज हमारे साथ मौजूद है एक बहुत ही ख़ास मेहमान जिनकी एक आदत startup है essentially. जो लोग इस्लामाबाद में हैं या recently इस्लामाबाद में आए हैं उन्होंने शायद यह देखी भी होंगी. They're called EZ Bikes. They're all over इस्लामाबाद. You can book them with an app. You know, you can drive them around. They're essentially electronic scooters. जी, electric scooters हैं. Electric scooters. मोहम्मद हादी who is the co founder and CEO of EZ Bikes. Sir, thank you so much for being part of the show. Thank you for having me. हादी, I'm going start the conversation. We're just trying to understand a little bit about your early life. You know, where were you born and what was life life like for you? So, I was born in Kuwait and shortly after I was born, my family moved to Peshawar.

We spent a few years there. वहां पर से फिर हम वापस Kuwait चले गए. मेरे वाले सब doctor थे तो he was kind of working there and On and off. On and off. And then we moved to Islamabad when I was six. अच्छा. और फिर उसके बाद media bringing Islamabad में हुई है. और, you know, what sort of schools did you go to? I went mostly to Beacon House. Mhmm. और BMI? BMI. अच्छा. और उसके बाद I spent a little bit of time for Bells और A levels में पर IASAS चला गया था जो कि ICAS वन गया. ICAS वन गया. Right. How was schooling in Islamabad? It was great. Islamabad उस वक़्त जुटहर was a much quieter place. Yeah, And what years are these? Nineties. Nineties. I graduated at the end of the nineties. तो Beacon House was an amazing experience. Mhmm. वही मतलब boys school or really into sports. I was very into sports. तो inter regional games work करती थी हमारी cricket team वगैरह. उसपे बड़े active रहते थे और शैदानियां, it was a lot of fun. Yeah. Lot of fun. और Beacon के अपने एक legacy भी है. वह एक as a certain culture

जो कि बड़े मजे का है. उसपथ Beacon House पूरा बना हुआ था? Like, entire building and तो when I started

in primary तो उस वक्त नहीं बना हुआ था. They were still building it and I was in a जो branches थी उनकी F seven or six में. उसके बाद फिर I think I was in class six or something like that जब उन्होंने वह branch खोल लिया. तो then six से लेकर eleventh तक हम वहां पर थे. Right. And how was Islamabad in the nineties? Islamabad was quiet, very quiet. मतलब इस तरह था कि Hot spot था and Hot spot था. And hot dragons. हां, there were a couple others जो कि अब बंद हो गए हैं but there weren't really many places to go. रात के ग्यारह बजे वह traffic lights बंद हो जाती थी. हाँ हाँ. Pigs घूम रहे होते देते थे. Pigs बहुत सारे होते थे. वो ज़्यादा F 11 में मैं cycling किया करता था दस बारह साल की उम्र पर. अच्छा. Like there were just roads but no houses. तो it's a very different place now but think जो लोग जो पुराने इस्लामवादी हैं, जो कहते हैं कि यार काश के हम वाफा से चले जाते हैं. I don't think that's a practicable thing, right? I mean, इतना बड़ा मुल्क है, इतनी बड़ी आवाम है. तो it is gonna be if you have a model of excellence which is effectively what इस्लामवाद is, तो लोग तो वह भागे भाग आऐंगे, right? हां. So I think when when you think about Islamabad and sustaining it, it's not about let's go back to having a single road or चार गाड़ियां but it should be as building a sustainable model where we can have a place जहां पर दरख्त भी हों, साथ साथ भी हों, buildings भी हों, apartment buildings. First thing I think we should build up a lot more. Yeah, 100%. Because Islamobats now getting huge up, you know, motorway से लेकर जो है सिमरी Dam तक चले जाए, it's about a 100 kilometers. I mean, why build a city for a 100 kilometers जो logistical burden है, जो transportation infrastructure वगैरह पर जो आपको burden burden burden, that's extremely hard.

वही होता है कि ईद is the only time जब आपको होता है कि यार वह पचपन वाला स्नाह बाकी Exactly. Feels आ रही हैं. COVID के दौरान से तो फिर ही है. COVID को तो यार, that was a beautiful time. You were even in Pakistan. I here. I had just come back. I came back right before the pandemic actually. अच्छा. जी. Because that was a beautiful Islamabad

like अच्छा, there was a day during that main, the first lockdown, those those abyss में when I saw from Jinnah Avenue, I saw the Kashmir Mountains. And I never had seen Yes, yes, Even बचपन में वह नहीं डालाता है.

Yeah.

High school in Islamabad and then college, what what what? Yeah. Went to The States, went to Minnesota for college. That was very cold. Very, very cold. How cold is that? Like, minus 10, minus? It's awful. Like, it's... I said, summers में it's beautiful. Or lakes, sports, हैं तो lot of outdoor activities. But, yeah, it's like, yeah, minus 10, minus 20 तो. I mean, literally, I think my first winter मुझे याद है. हम उधर पहुंचे हुए थे, international students थे. After the semester it ended, सारे मीर्कण खर्चे लगे थे Christmas-Justmus के लिए. हम dorms में बैठे हुए थे और bore हो रहे थे. और depressed हो रहे थे कि यार घर जाना है. You know, first time away from home and all that. And then a bunch of us were like, let's go to the gym. अच्छा. तो हम, you know, we got ready. We went downstairs. We walked across the campus. Gym, like, was like a two three minute walk. We failed in our mission anyway. By the time we got there, the moisture in my eyes froze. I mean, this was a real wake up call for me. Me mojé pata ni ta que es tara hotta. The people live in places that they're that cold. वहां पर because of central heating and because of like skyways and underground tunnels and all that आप बर्दाश्त कर लेते हैं. Don't know कि सौ, दो सौ साल पहले क्या करते थे लोग but इस वक्त जो है it's doable. I don't know. Like you were able to survive through it. Like, it wasn't like, hey, यार, I'm dying. हम तो t shirtओं में घूमते करते थे ना? Within the campus. Everything is indoors. तो anyway, was my first experience going away from home. I hadn't been to The States before. Mhmm. Hadn't been didn't know anybody in The States. Had you traveled before to other countries? I traveled a lot to England. My mother is English. अच्छा. Gee. So, growing up in Pakistan, always had this sort of different experience. I was part of myself as just a sambad kid. Like, South South, had this other sort of diverse influence. My mother is English. Yeah. That's very interesting. Like, that's two separate set of cultures. Yeah. You know, growing up. How what was that like? It was great. I mean, I feel like, I think when you're getting raised, there's kind of a trade off between, stability and diversity, if you see what I mean. Like, know, a good background. If it's very linear and very black and white, then that'll give you a tremendous amount of comfort. But it doesn't give you much opportunity for exposure to different ways of thinking, different ways of life, different places. I think one thing that was an advantage for me always was I was sort of torn between many different worlds, right? इस्लामाबाद था, फिर मेरे father का का background KP से है, so we had this sort of whole thing there. And then there was England, I'd go every couple of years there, मेरे cousins हैं वहां पर. So there was this, there were these very distinct worlds that didn't know each These are like purely British cousins. Yes, purely British cousins. उनको Pakistan के बारे में कुछ भी नहीं पता. मुझे उनके बारे में कुछ नहीं पता. So there's like a lot of these sort of Cultural shocks. Cultural shocks. But I think they help you, think they help you grow as an individual, as a kid and as an adult. And in that sense, it's probably,

it's a privilege to have it. Yeah. And did you have, like, पश्तों speaking,

मतलब आप fully Islamabadhi थे या पश्तों speaking types थे या गांव जाते थे या? Beach में कई थे, जाते थे. Cousins अभी थे मेरे, you know, we'd go back to the we have a house in the village उधर जाते थे and Can you speak?

Can speak pretty good पश्चितों, yeah. अच्छा, so it's पश्चितों English and उर्दू. जी. जी. ज़बरदस्त. And England में when you used to go तो what was it like being a being a पाकिस्तानी but क्योंकि generally देखें पाकिस्तानी जब जाता है वह बड़ा clear है. मैं पाकिस्तानी हूं. वह English है. वह English है. ठीक है? तो मैं वह नहीं हूं. But यह बड़ी एक interesting thought है कि कि मेरे अपने cousins जो है वह English है. मैं पाकिस्तानी हूं. मैं like I can and should connect with them also.

And I can and should connect with Pakistan also. As child, and and even for for many of us as an adult, identifying yourself within the context of the world is difficult. Right? You need to understand where do I fit? Yeah. Certainly, you're dealing with different cultures on top of just the general influences all of us have, that can be challenging. I spent like six or eight weeks there. I think I was upset about it. And I realized that I was missing Islamabad. And it was sort of a very deep feeling of missing it. I realized that I belong to Islam. I think Islamabad belongs to me. And I hadn't really realized that before. I was too young. Getting that... Coming on coming to that realization, realizing que, England, there's cousins, it's a lot of fun. You know, the usual... The way you feel when you're on holiday anywhere. लेकिन yeh mera nieh. And it was weird, I mean, to have that realization at such an age, and that's never gone away. और उसके बाद, like I said, I've lived in many different places in the world, but वह feeling कभी नहीं गई. Like, that sense of identity. So I think when you have those जब यह star की मुख्तलिफ influences especially as a kid, you kinda have to deliberately choose a path. Mhmm. Because it's not just laid out for you, which is cool in a way, right? Because you get to pick from a menu of of ways of life, right? Yeah. And pick the best parts. Absolutely. Bachelor's,

किस चीज़ में आपने? Like, what? Business or economics में. अच्छा, why did you choose that?

I thought I could get a job with it, I think. First firstly I went And thought process, like family, whatever the नहीं, family got background. My family was professionals, you know, doctors, etcetera. तो लेकिन I I guess I always had an interest in business. अच्छा. तो eight levels I did in business and economics and law. It was always between law and business frankly. अच्छा. फिर मैं US की तरफ चला गया तो I thought law में उनका pre law system होता है, doesn't really make sense so I'll do business. Beach में IR के बारे में सोच रहा था. I I did actually, I think I started with international relations. लेकिन then I saw that nobody gets a job in it. तो मैंने सोचा चलो business ही knowledge ही कर लेते. So that's how I I ended up doing it. And I enjoyed it. हां.

Four years while you were pursuing your degree,

were were you very academic? Like, were you a good student? Not really. I was a scholarship student, I got a scholarship to go there. For...

Because of your grades?

Sport scholarship. It was grades, and they did, like, a bunch of interviews and essays and stuff like that Gotcha. Which is very exciting to get. And that was sort of the reason I got to go there. Or so I had to maintain a certain GPA for that. Mhmm. Well, I think I to be honest with you, I I I enjoyed college at first, and I studied a lot. बहुत high GPA था. और school अभी थोड़ा bore हो गया था. अच्छा. So towards the end... Beach में I went to University of Warwick in England for a year study abroad. अच्छा अच्छा अच्छा, interesting. Junior year I spent there, I think. How would you see, how would you differentiate between the experience there and Very different. अच्छा. Very, very different culture. अच्छा, England में यह था कि, elibertel, the academics were very difficult. They were more difficult than America. How? Economics, for example, it was much more mathematical than sort of theoretical, which I struggled with. Like, they hadn't given me the baseline in maths. And I was never very mathematically inclined, so it definitely a challenge. उसके बाद फिर, it was also more of, like, a culture where कि आप खुद से पढ़ेंगे. Like, you go in for a lecture, उसके बाद वह आप से कहा think, yeah, read these 36 pages. बाकि अब मैंने कहा got enough figured out. US miss much for a handheld, at least liberal arts system में. The thing I liked about The US was I did liberal arts. Liberal arts means you do a major. In order to graduate, have to complete certain other fields of study. So I had to learn about architecture, and I had to learn about, I don't know, random things that had nothing to It's very diverse and very gives you a very sort of macro view of a lot of things. The view is that they wanna give you, like, they wanna create well rounded individuals, not just specialists. And I think that's very helpful because it educates you as a as a human being. Right? Mhmm. And

graduating in 2000 and when you graduate? Two. आपने Pakistan में Pakistan आ गए थे वापस या वहीं पर काम किया था? नहीं, मैंने इस तरह किया था कि

मैं वहां से England चला गया था because I had the passport. Right. US में हालात ख़राब थे. There was the Post nine eleven? Post nine eleven, post.com and all that. It's pretty bad situation. तो I knew that I was gonna get a visa very easily. तो I went to The UK. It was colleagues के दौरान. I'd done two internships at banks. ठीक है. And so I figured yaad banking met naugrir dun lenge. So moved there with a hope and a prayer. And hadn't lived in London before I mean, I'd visited. Found a job. It took a few months, I found one. What what company? I worked at Credit Suisse First Boston at the time Right. Which is one of the leading banks, and I had a really terrible job. I mean, it was, a back office job. Within back office, it was also, like, nothing very intellectually stimulating, basically, but it was a foot in the door. In fact, I remember I got an offer from from Goldman at the same time, but it was not a permanent role. It was a temporary role. I chose the CSFB one because I hadn't thought permanent you know, role चाहिए ताकि वहां से I can build a career. Yeah.

And था क्या? Like, what sort of work was was that? Okay. So we had the we had documentation for transactions,

basically contracts which were going out the door for thousands of transactions every day, which were derivatives transactions. Right. Basically, people were trading these contracts. And sometimes, not sometimes, all the time, because there are so many contracts, some of them didn't get signed. Your counterparty, they wouldn't sign it. Right. So there was risk in that. Right? The economics might be misaligned or we might end up taking a loss. Which I joined, whose job was just to chase. बस एक number दिया जाता था और call करें. हां. So, it was a way to learn but also as a way to understand it. So, I started trying to understand why we prioritize certain trades and we were doing it based upon age of the contract, यानी कि how long has it been since they've given it back to us. But I realized we should actually add risk weighting to understand how much the trade was actually worth. I presented that to my bosses. Remember putting the whole project together on it. I went into a management training program from there. Mohansepierre I started moving into other areas of the bank and ended up working

on the training floor. Right. How long were you there at Credit Suisse?

At Credit Suisse, I was at for fifteen years. Fifteen? So it's the same place? Okay. Same place. Yeah. But what were you moving around? Like, Duranville, Florida. Yeah. I moved around geographically. So I moved for after two years, I moved from London to New York. I spent most of my time in New York beach में exalt Chicago, because I'm in a But but why, like Why The US? Would did they send you, did they No. Wanted to leave. London ni पसंद आया. I I don't know. It's just too inconvenient. I just can't take I can't take the rain. Extremities bother them off there. I can take cold. But but the rain I just can't take. It's too depressing for you. Too depressing. New York, knew it. I'd been in New York, you know, when I was in college. I like The US culture. I like the convenience. I like the opportunity. I like the positivity of their mindset, which I don't think you get in England as much. Right. And the idea that you can create anything you want. Right? And create anything out of yourself that you want. And, I mean, banking and investment banking in in New York. Like, that's just like, that's the that's a mecca of Mhmm. Investment banking. That's right. So, what was that like? It was amazing. It was so much fun. I mean, it was the most intense challenging thing that I've experienced. Is it like the movies? Yes. दिखाते ना वह Wall Street के और वह it's like the Worlds of Wall Street and Worlds of Wall Street I think is a little bit extreme but दूसरी कौन सी है Big Short type? Jig Short, exactly. I mean, watched Big Short recently and it actually, it reminds me of my work. That's how our careers work. People are like that, know, eccentric aggressive The trading floor culture, which probably exists still less than it did back then, but that was kind of the heyday when I was there.

But aggressive culture. It's a cowboy culture. So when you say aggressive, what do mean by that? You

you have to make money. You have to figure out how to make money with whatever you're trading, whatever your job is. And there's no room for error and you have to be quick.

तो if you mess up, you're toast. And if you do well, you're king. मतलब आपने पहले जितने भी आपने अच्छा काम किया हो, अगर आपकी एक mistake हो गई तो you're out.

But साथ साथ, it's a lot of fun. People joke around a lot. Well, during work, people are throwing footballs and, you know, it's not like a scene था. It was really a great place to learn. I was in my early twenties.

You could have spent that energy and time as well. Yeah. I feel like you need a lot of discipline for that तो कि आपको I mean, it's long hours. It's it's you have to be there on time. जैसा आबादी culture है ना, work का. वह तो यह है ना कैसे Two extremes हो है? बस चलो easy है and and, I mean it's it's it's your time defined कि यार काम कब होगा? New York is is like काम है और काम के ऊपर आपने वहां पर होना है वरना you're डाल, you're डाल. Because I mean

I had like a beach में मैंने you need discipline, but you need more than anything. You need drive. You have been looking बहुत ज़्यादा driven होते हैं, whatever field they're in, as a generalization. And they're very, very competitive. And you know it's competitive. I know if I succeed in my job, it's gonna be tremendously rewarding. And if I don't succeed, if I don't go above and beyond every day that I'm there, somebody else is gonna take my job. Because there's so much competition. It's a jungle, no? Yeah. And it makes you very, very tough. It makes you much quicker. Right? You start to learn your own inefficiencies because you have to adapt and you have to perform, which I think is a great thing to go through as an individual Yeah. For a while. Fifteen years at Credit Suisse. That's what? 02/2017. Jee. Why'd you leave? I mean, that's I'm I'm assuming you made a fairly good ton of money in was '20 it was good, and and, you know, there was definitely a path ahead of me where I knew that a couple years I'd be a a managing director, which is kind of a senior, person there, and then, you know, get a house in Connecticut. We plan something about that. Get two car garage, 2.5 kids, and all that. Just subcut it in there. Right. I didn't really want it. Why? I think I I I think there were a couple reasons. Number one was, professionally I wanted something that was higher risk, higher returns. I wanted to do something entrepreneurial. And I'd learned banking, and the the best thing about banking for me was being in the room with incredibly smart people every day. Right? Much, much smarter than I was, who I could learn from. So I want my clients to or like our bosses, just mentors. Like, it was an incredible culture to sort of But grow the world after a certain amount of time, you sort of get to the point where you're like, yeah, I've now done this, I've seen this, I know this culture, right? And you kind of have to pick what you want to can begin to predict what's going to happen types. And it's weird. You know, like, I think at some point you have to you have to, like, choose what you wanna be when you grow up. Right? And to me, being a banker was not what I wanted to retire. It was just that was my choice. How old were you when you left? 36.

Yeah, 36. Do you think कोई midlife crisis वाली जो situation होती है, forties के आस पास. Then I कहता है यार, why am I doing all of this?

I guess emotionally करूंगी. What was the emotional reason? I think that मेरा हमेशा यह plan था कि मैं Pakistan आऊंगा वापस. अच्छा. And I think I went to The States thinking I'd spent four years there. Mhmm. And I ended up spending a lot longer than that because it was worth it. But reconciling myself to, like, settling there was not, I think, on the table. And I decided that that was what's important to me. And I think it's not okay that's right or wrong, could New York say it, Islamabad say it. It's that success lies in living our life according to our values and actually being able to identify what our values are. That's not that easy, right? So the congruence between your choices and your actual values is really important. And it's already personal. Like, it all depends on that particular individual. But for me, this was an important journey, and I had to do it. Right.

And and and when you left, you you were married in had kids? I did. Yeah. When did you get married? I got married in 2010. And is your wife Pakistani?

No. She's a dizzy background, but she's American, born and raised. Never lived outside The States before. Met her when she was at NYU. Or, yeah, we were very happy in New York, but I First first generation Pakistani there? First generation, yeah. And, the kids obviously born, raised in Yeah. New York. Yeah. New York and then Dubai. We actually moved to Dubai first. Right. So in 2017, the family, entire family moved to Dubai? Yeah. Did you have a position there, ya आपने कहा किया? I I I quit Credit Suisse, and then I found a job at Citibank, and I started working there. It was really because I wanted to come closer to home. I wanted

to be at least within, you know, a flight's distance. How was that, like, the with the discussion with the family and the kids particularly? Not

great. I mean, look, they they I think one thing that, you know, who you're married to makes a big difference in your life. Right? Right. And I've been lucky because my wife is tremendously supportive of my entrepreneurial ambitions. And she wants us to sort of go and do amazing things. You know, be a banker and I'm gonna have coffee mornings, which is oftentimes the way people feel. Yeah. So I've been very lucky in that, and she supported me all the way and has helped me to get to this stage. But certainly, you know, living in Pakistan was never sort of part of the plan for her nor was necessarily living in Dubai. Yeah. Though it was something that I had to explain what the reasons were, the rationale was, but,

yeah, we've we've made it work so far. It's been five years. So are they in Dubai?

They're currently in in Chicago, but they'll be in Dubai in the suburban. Oh, they're based in Dubai right now. Right? Yeah. So are they now... समझ आ गई है culture वालचकी और सारा कुछ किया? Yeah. हमें ना, all of us, I think, हम Dubai में बहुत खुश हैं. We like it.

निद्याती है. लेकिन यह है कि how old were the kids when they moved?

यार my eldest was to Dubai. My eldest was five and there was a three year old and nobody else. Now, when we moved from Dubai to Isambad, we had a third kid as well. So

that was I mean, I think that's a good enough age. Young enough. Teenagers que move करना हो तो बहुत बहुत

बहुत मुश्किल है. Yeah. तो we actually realize that there's this, we have to sort of pick a place or this is our hub or इनको दुबारा moving ही कराना because it's not good, like a certain amount of moving is good for kids, going back to what we were talking about earlier, because you get exposure to different cultures, etcetera. Or इसलिए हासिद्वाहिबोहल अच्छा because you get so many different cultures in your classroom, right? Right. But I think at a certain point you have to give them some stability, right? कि यह आपका घर है, यह आपका शहर है, you know, That's important to build up. कोई identity भी तो नहीं चाहिए ना? हो नहीं चाहिए. At the end of the day, अपने आप चले American born, American passport कह दें लेकिन यह कि Dubai maybe there is राहाबाद. Exactly. Right?

So 17 में you moved to Citibank. How long were you there?

I was there three years. And the same sort of job? No. I moved from investment banking to private banking. What's the difference? Investment banking is where you're servicing corporations. So you're working on them on their debt needs or their capital needs, essentially. And then private banking is where you're working with individuals, typically individuals who are high net worth, and helping them to invest their capital and manage their money. So, very different, feel to it. And, but those those worlds kinda merge a little bit where you have very, very ultra high net worth individuals because they effectively become like companies. Mhmm. So that's kinda the area I was focusing on. So it wasn't that different, but it was different I think it was more that it was different field in New York. Right. What feeling they थी, what

Second door da da competitive. It's a thing, right? Like, Elon Musk ने Twitter खरीद लिया. ओहो, you know, billionaire. यह क्या कर रहा है? Too much power, यह वह. What what was your experience? What was really, what what happens when you're moving a lot of this money? एक तो है एक एक third party perception है कि oh, you know, these evil people who just want to multiply money and want to kill kids in Africa. But realistically, zahir, pura industry, hay que comer. What's the what's the calm? Is it evil? Is it, I mean...

Look, there's evil in it. There's greed in it. A lot of them the motive is greed. And some parts of it, I would argue, don't necessarily add a lot of value to society. But most parts of Wall Street, you can make a very strong argument that they actually do add a lot of value to society. So for example, let's say I'm a banker and I raise capital for your company, which builds medical devices. Right? Stuff that people use for managing heart patients. Right. Pacemakers, right, for example. I'm sure pacemakers, if you look back at their, how they were brought up, at some point Wall Street had a hand in raising capital for them. So there's actually good things in society that Wall Street can play a crucial role creating capital and advisory opportunities and collaboration opportunities for. That's what it does. And Wall Street does it on steroids, right? The pace and the size of capital formation is unprecedented in the world, and that moves the economy. That moves businesses. That makes growth happen much faster, and that's a great thing for country, and for a company, and for an individual. But then there are aspects of it which is purely about betting. And there's a huge amount of it where people are over... There's definitely... Because greed plays a factor, even in those things where I painted a very nice picture of medical devices or whatever, but people might over inflate the value of it because they want to make more fees. When you talk about trading, there are very good reasons to trade. Derivatives is what I was referring to, mostly with all kinds of trading. For example, if I'm corporate treasurer and I need to make sure that my company doesn't lose money when the dollar goes up, I can enter into a derivative contract whereby I can fix the dollar effectively for myself. Right. So there's a real need for a company to do that to prevent losses. But that creates other trades that are just betting. Right. So there's a lot of greed. It's not all good, but it's not all bad.

Capitalism को और generally capital based change को समझने की कोशिश ही नहीं की. And so we were constantly, driven by this need for the government to make things great for us. And one of the things that I'm missing in Pakistan is that वही वाली बात है कि जब किसी को भी जब आप एक gold rush create करते हैं ना किसी भी society में, China को देख लें. China purely communist था. उसमें जब gold rush आया है तो then the society literally ख़ुद से उसने अपने आप को एक बड़ा giant factory of the world बना लिया. And I think वही वाली बात है कि Pakistan के अंदर in terms of the capital available and in terms of the people driving that change from that capital वह वाली चीज़ अभी नहीं आई and if I were to ask you, ज़ाहिर आपका एक बड़ा experience रहा है Wall Street में. I had a couple of people इससे पहले भी जो कि who who were in the investment banking side and they were like कि यार हमने left पर देखा पैसा आ रहा था, right पर देखा पैसा आ रहा था. There's a spot in the world और in the region तब governments भी set हो जाती हैं. वह भी कहती हैं, ठीक है, let's make the policy required to to to be conducive to this. Do you think based on your experience in in in in Wall Street, do you think कि Pakistan में हमें यह चीज़ नज़र आएगी over over the next few years और?

We've already started seeing it, right? Startups there's been a lot of attention about the amount of capital being raised, which is driven a lot by external factors outside of Pakistan, meaning VCs can't find the valuations they need to in other markets, they're forced to come here. Right. But it's a phenomenal opportunity for the country. I mean, it had to happen because it is this massive economy. It really is potentially a massive economy. But I think there's a lot of need for structural change to to manifest some of that opportunity to actually have things,

work. Can you talk about some of those? Like, what what could potentially,

support that change? As a business owner, like, without looking at a macro view, I can just speak to my own experience. Right. As a business owner, I think one thing which was a surprise for me coming back to Pakistan and working for the first time, because I'd never worked here. Right. Mir die expectation यह थी que, it'll be little bit wild wild west. Regulation will be low या वो. It's the polar opposite. It's over regulated. Highly over regulated. Like, the red tape is ridiculous. आपने चार departments से sign off कराना होता है और जी like stamp paper पर sign कराना था for example. मुझे यह पता है stamp paper क्या चीज़ होती है? Like, I don't I don't understand that concept. Right? I I haven't seen stamp paper anywhere else. A tissue paper contract sign then

that is That's a contract. Right. Yeah.

So there's all these bureaucracies bureaucracies that I feel have been created, these bureaucratic steps that have been created to service an industry of people just having jobs for no particular reason. Yeah. And that leads to inefficiency or, in some ways, that's more dangerous than Wall Street. Right? Because, it stops economic growth. Because, again, if I, as a business owner again or as an individual, we all have a finite amount of energy. Right. Right? हम सब करते हैं, there's always certain number of things we can focus on. Yeah. और इसे यहां fatigue होना शुरू हो जाता है कि यार इतने सारी चीज़ें क्यों मुझे करनी पड़ी? और reality यह है कि you have certain amount of mindshare. It's not even necessarily about time. If you are focusing on XYZ, you are not focusing on ABC by definition. एक trade off होता है. बिल्कुल ऐसा है. तो as a business owner if I am focused on bureaucratic steps कि जी यह filing करानी है, फलानी बंदे से बात करनी है और I have to go meet that guy again. This is slowing me down and I can't focus on the other things that could be opportunities. This is like an individual as well. क्या घर आपके घर रोज़ busy चली जाती है, gas नहीं है. You are focused on, oh यार, वह blood ठीक कराना, electrician को बुलाओ, पानी नहीं आ रहा. But when you're focused on those things, you're not focused on value add things, which can actually progress you further in your life. So I'd say, like, as a system, I think we need to become more business friendly. You need to make it more and there's a lot of reform going on to do that. For example, specifically for startups, the State Bank has done tremendous work to make it more easy for startups to raise capital, for them to operate. And SEC may be calm I think we might get there slowly. I think we need to pick up the pace because हकीकत यह है कि दुनिया बहुत तेज़ी सा आगे बढ़ रही है. It's sort of at high perspeed at this point and if we move slowly then

the distance is too becomes too great too fast. Do you think जब से for example बड़ी बड़ी valuations आई हैं और you know we've we've पहले वही था कि startups को कोई CNS लेता था. अब तो prime minister भी tweet करता है कि यार यह, you know, congratulations इतनी evaluation आ Do you think now the seriousness? क्योंकि पहले जब जाता था एक startup और जाकर बात करता था let's say SCP या State Bank से, कि listen like we need this sort of new regulation या इस regulation को change किया जाए. तो वह कहते थे भाई काम चल रहा है. You know state companies इतना काम कर रही है तुम भी कर लो. अब हमने पिछले चार पांच साल में देखा particularly कि startup related बहुत चीज़ें आना शुरू हो गईं. चाहे वह state banking हो जाएंगे, ICCP क्यों, ICCP का sandbox आया जिसमें वह चीज़ों को explore करके then they're making a revision accordingly as well. Do you think again, so a lot of the capital now will begin to drive that policy change around it. And and and do you think the pace of growth of that

change will accelerate? Yeah. I think it will. I think you're exactly right. From the standpoint of regulation, yes. The fact that we're getting more and more FDI coming into the country as a result of what startups are doing makes them serious players. They're we're more and more organizing ourselves informally and formally so that we can present what our needs are to our partners within government, and they've been very increasingly receptive. And, again, I think they've done a really good job in some areas. I'll be, बहुत कम बाकी है, but that's working, and it will happen at a faster pace. And I think that will lead to faster growth. Yes. Right. What what led you to the the decision of leaving Citibank and and coming to Pakistan? And For me, was a very long process. I started thinking about the move back to Pakistan and also the move, towards on some sort of business of some kind. Mhmm. By, I think, around 02/1415 is tramet sourcing la getha. By 2015 I had met Ali Moin who became my co founder in EZ Bike in The US and spoken about some opportunities. What's the grand nombre y volacan tuiti? Nee, nee, hum burschton gay arte. We've been beacon house together. So we just met up again one summer or started talking about He was running a software development company here and we were thinking about different models. So we thought about the farm to table model, we thought about, I can't remember, two, three others, like literally financial models, but both of us had our careers and we didn't make the plunge. He he was the one who did it first. I was at Citibank in Dubai at the time. And he started doing something, around, fleet tracking. Does that mean? Basically, a fleet management tool. OBD devices

guardio में Keep trucking of sorts, but for

fleets. Yeah, for fleets. No, not necessarily. Just for b b to c as well, for cars. So you can track anything going on with your driver or whatever. I didn't think that that was a viable business model, and it happened when I was in Dubai to come across some really interesting things going on in India and in other parts of Asia around mobility. Specifically, a second wave of disruption beyond ride hailing. Apart from ride hailing, what can be done using technology, using shared economy, to solve this massive problem of mobility in emerging markets? There's this massive population, and people need to get around, and they can't afford the cars or the motorcycles, and there's no mass transit or weak mass transit. How do you empower people? That problem is still not solved, especially by ride hailing. I saw some really interesting things going on in Asia. I talked to Ali about it. We were like, Pakistan, and we started a company. We started working on a P2P car rental service called Roamer, which is our first product. And it wasn't until a year or so later when I was raising some capital from a few friends that I decided कि मैं full time banking छोरकर याकित करूंगा. Because I thought there was potential and I thought it was my responsibility if I was going to raise capital from people to be entirely dedicated to it. Right. And fixed price. No freight within city. That ended up being the majority of our rides, although we still did a lot of the out of city. It went really well. We started expanding it. We raised a load of money, as I mentioned. Started We spending on user acquisition for the first time. But overall, we I think we had about 1,500 cars, about 75,000

users. So growing And these are cars, जो कि दूसरों की investment थी, आपने बहुत investment थी. दूसरों

की. की. थी, किरी किरी move हो रहा थे, basically. Was this,

as in, like, profitable?

No, was not profitable, but it was profitable from a unit economic standpoint. Those were real. That was something we really prided ourselves on because within the nobility, most companies, their unit economics are upside down. So they make a loss on every ride. Uber makes a loss on every ride. Right? Greece makes a loss on every ride. So we actually had positive unit economics, we wanted to keep it that way, and we were very happy about that. And we started to expand saying, But then COVID hit. We had already planned to launch scooter sharing as a second product. But when COVID hit, our volumes, Karim's volumes, bike year's volumes, they all dropped to like 20% of peak. Mhmm. At that point, think one thing that Ali and I did right was we reacted very quickly. Like, by the middle of March, second week of March, I remember we sat down. We were like, yeah, if this is three months, we can ride the wave and and and come ride out the storm. If this is three years, to Toy sinia. Toy sinia. Toy Toy. We thought about it. Were like, listen, if this is this sort of, you know, pandemic scenario, to per scooter sharing que hay faida que you're not exposed. Yeah. Right? You're on your own. Maybe this would be a really good service to introduce you this time because people might need it. Buspini, but not saying that maybe they can do this. It's cheap. We decided to repurpose all of our capital and all of our energy on Easypike. And we let Roemer run on kind of auto drive for a while, because eventually हमने band कर दिया, but for all intents and purposes, we started working on on launching a scooter sharing service, becoming an electric mobility, transportation provider. Right. And and launching a scooter sharing service in October 20. And

at the time, again, so this is going from a, a platform that allows, folks with cars and drivers to folks who are looking to go around Yeah. To becoming a platform that has their own scooters Mhmm. And people can use them. So it's a it's a product company Mhmm. Directly. Right? And that means a lot of capital investment. Yeah. How did that, like, what were the thoughts on that? Because way vali baat is que, side comparatively is easier at the end of the day because it's still, you know, you're just creating an app and you're marketing that app. And it's just a matter of, k, if enough people have trust in you, जो scooter का design है वह कुछ चोरी करके ले जाएगा. Mhmm mhmm. वह वाले मसले. So so was that all built in या was that? Yeah, so we

we we did a lot of analysis of this scooter sharing industry before It we was something I'd been studying for approximately a year. Okay? What we had learned was that, yes, it's capital intensive, but it's actually makes a lot more sense from a unit economic standpoint. Okay. Ride hailing, and Romer, in a way, was ride hailing, is quasi ride hailing. Right? Ride hailing सबसे बड़ा challenge supply side bear. And to put it very... And this takes nothing away from what Karim has achieved and what Uber has achieved. I mean, Karim in this part of the world is an amazing company that has brought about unprecedented change, and I take my hat off to them. Having said that, the the core model is not viable. Sustainable? Yeah. It does make sense. Mhmm. You can't price a ride for the common consumer in Pakistan whereby you could actually pay someone for their time and their car. It's not possible. Mhmm. So you will either make a loss or make it too expensive for the common consumer.

And And US की तो समझ आती ना? US तो कह रहा कि यार हम, we're gonna wait it out till,

automation and then cut the cost of the driver. But वह चीज़ Pakistan में Yes. Even that is debatable कि उस तरह होगा नहीं होगा. It's a long way out, right? And they need they're public companies now. They need to show profitability or path to profitability. Before that, Uber is starting to do that, right? Right.

How are they? Like,

rides expensive करके कर रहे हैं क्या? Rides expensive करके कर रहे हैं and reducing globally, like in Pakistan, bonuses and guarantees for the riders. For the, sorry, supply, which was their main cost. Scaling isn't difficult on the demand side. Demand तो है Pakistan जैसे मुल्कुमे और वाल्वी वासारे मुल्कुमे. But it's about actually securing supply. That's very difficult. And so what we realized was, yeah, if we just own our own fleet, yes, it's capital intensive, but our cost of providing the service is a fraction of what, you know, a two wheel ride hailing service can provide at it, it's to pay the guy. Ah. We beat them on price and make a profit doing it. So that was a big motivation for us. And, you know, I think for Ali and I, both of us, like, we want to grow fast, we want to acquire a lot of users, we also want to have a real business. Right. And that's really important to me, and I think that having one that has a path to profitability, that has sound fundamentals, and can actually get to the point where it makes money and makes big change is really important to us. So we wanted to do something new that was gonna be the first self drive service in Pakistan. It was gonna be more convenient, more affordable, and more fun, and more safe than really any other service in Pakistan. So we were like, yeah, this is what tech should be doing beyond ride hailing. It's bringing new ways for people to travel that empowers people in urban centers. Right. And that was the idea behind EZ Bike. And, yeah, it's gone incredibly well, masha'Allah. [Caहाँ कहाँ Peb Islamod में तक available है? अभी तो we're in f six, f seven, f eight, f nine, f 10, f 11. अच्छा. So we're in the f segment. We'll be launching Inshallah in Bahiria Town soon. Right. We are gonna also launch some of the g sectors. We're actually going through an expansion phase now. So what happened was we tested out our product for a long time with very small volumes. Proprietary software बना चुके थे but it was really the challenge was the hardware. Understanding कि कौन सी जैसा आप कह रहे थे, कौन सी bike चलेगी, क्यों चलेगी, what do have to modify?

Do you get data on, active data on कि bike में कितनी battery रह गई है? मतलब अगर मैं for example मैं कहता मैं F six से उठाता हूं एक scooter, can I come to F 11 on a single ride? जी. And what's the maximum speed for it? Thirty, thirty five kilometers per hour. अच्छा. So and मतलब आपको पता लग रहा होता कि यार यह वाली bike जो है अब इसकी

मतलब कि आपको scooter उठाकर लिए जाना पड़ता है, कुछ charge करना पड़ता है या? नहीं, तो we again, we'd be studying scooter sharing. तो what you do globally is what 90% of companies do, they do battery swapping. सिखाता भी होता है कि instead of moving, which is expensive and difficult, an entire scooter to a charging station, you buy backup batteries, keep charging them in various locations, and you just run a twenty four hour schedule, which is what we do of swapping them out. We make sure our fleet is up and running. And it took some learning, to be honest. In the beginning, we didn't have enough batteries, enough scooters, or enough expertise. But now we keep our fleet up line, online, which is an amazing accomplishment because operationally, this is very complex. We've been very, very lucky to have phenomenal proprietary software of our own and hardware increasingly. And now we've learned so much about electric vehicles, we're able to run this. We've learned the ops. We're able to actually scale it at this point. That's why we basically, we went and we raised it around, and then we started scaling the service. The other thing we're doing is we have realized that, okay, so what happened was we thought initially, the initial thesis was que हम यह bikes खरीदेंगे, what's lineage? What we learned, as you're quite right, is you need to learn a lot about the actual bike itself, the scooter itself, the technology. So you end up putting together a team, experts who can understand how to modify them, maintain them, assemble them. What we learned is we couldn't buy them from the market here. Maybe we tried a few different companies, they didn't work out. The quality wasn't there. There's no point in that spanish. We had to, okay, we vertically integrated into assembly. Ah, sir. Why don't you get, like, bani banai from China? Yeah, that's very expensive. So, you have to duty बहुत ज़्यादा होती है. तो you have to bring it in CKD in parts and then you have to assemble it. And this is based on the electric vehicle policy जो है that's correct. July 2020. अच्छा, तो उसके ऊपर you get like क्या होता है उसमें? Tax break है या rebate है? Tax break है on certain parts which are electrical and not available in Pakistan. You get a 1% customers duty. और उसके बाद जो बाकी bike है जो कि यहां पर जिसके local parts हैं, more duty is payable on that. But overall, it's much more we've decided to start assembling. We started assembling our own scooters, put them out on the road, modified them. We're the only company in Pakistan that's done that at scale, right? We've assembled, modified, we've maintained, we've operated a fleet of electric vehicles. And so we realized, yeah, we've got this understanding, let's just look at the broader opportunity here. So we set up our own assembly unit. Well, we are setting up our own assembly unit, a large assembly unit. And we're now building our own scooters for our ride sharing business, for our scooter sharing business. So, एक तो यह क्या आप अपने अपने लिए तो बना ही रहे हैं? बना ही रहे हैं और उसके अलावा we're going to launch our own consumer product. We're going to sell easy bike scooters this summer, इंशाला. B to C या B to B? B to B or B to B to C.

Ok. So basically B2B तो मेरी समझ आ गई. Food band आ गया, योग गया, वह गया, उनके लिए बड़ी utility है. या तो आप उस company को बेस सकते या आप direct rider को बेस सकते हैं through the company by partnering with the company, right? ठीक है. But not necessarily looking for individuals. They'll come eventually.

Like, we're selling it. We're creating a product that we think service is very good for the logistics and delivery space because it's a growing segment, which is really suffering from the effects of the rising petrol prices, right? Right. So we can massively Yeah, reduce petrol तो यह होने वाली है यार आने वाले दिनों में. Yeah.

अभी तो पच्चीस तीस रुपया बटोर पड़ जाएगा. आपका तो, आपका तो ओए ओए ओए ओए. मैंने सोचा ही नहीं था. तो what we can do is जो जो हमारी हमारा जो goal है. एक sorry sorry, मुझे एक बात बताएं cost of scooter. क्योंकि generally क्या हो रहा है कि यार हर जो scooter है वह आपका petrol वाला वह एक average let's say Honda का scooter है निन्यानवे, सत्तानवे हज़ार रुपए का CD 70 यार. जी. And so जब आप यह launch कर रहे हैं, what's the difference in terms of the economics there? यार देखिए by two to address what you were saying, by 2030

expectation यह है कि EVs will become price par, price parity with petrol engines. है? So there are advances in technology that will eventually mean कि just जो आपकी मसाली हो spinna, lock की आपको वह bike मिल जाएगी electric. Right? ठीक है. फ़िलहाल there is no way to do it. ठीक है. Except if you are a little more imaginative about how to charge them. So what we're doing is a solution not to just sell. If we're talking about delivery, it doesn't make sense. So what we're doing is we're setting it up in a way where the cost of the scooter which you will purchase will be 80% roughly of leading motorcycle brands. 70 to 80%. Plus the operating cost will be about 50% of leading motorcycle brands. So you would actually not only buy a cheaper scooter, but you'll actually also recoup your investment within less than a year. But through your fuel savings. But so how? How are you? Through swapping. We already do battery swapping for our own fleet, so we've learned it. And this is something which is a revolution taking place around the world. So is it a subscription service essentially? For the batteries you rent on a daily basis, not subscription. Just like you go to a petrol station you fill fuel. You come to my petrol station you feel you feel a battery. I will swap your battery in two minutes. Convenient. Oh, so you're building the ecosystem essentially? You're subsidizing the ecosystem. The thing with the evo... Evo ecosystem is you can't build one part of the tripod without the other. Up batteries, there's no point. Nobody's going to take them. Up charging infrastructure, there's nobody coming to them. You go to build a scooter, it's not going work unless you build the other pieces of it that actually work. What we're doing is a three pronged solution. We are sourcing batteries Mhmm. Which are 60% the cost of regular batteries. Pizzas. 60% the cost. So we're buying cheap batteries. Ah. We are then deploying them in battery swapping stations where you can come as a consumer whenever you need. You prebook on our app just like we're doing right now for our scooters. Battery prebook कर ली, आप चले गए, जिने सुपूर्ण रुके दो minute में आ रहा बंदा आपके लिए swap कर लेगा. There is no range anxiety. The two issues आपने पहला issue identify किया कि why do people not buy EVs? Because of the price. दूसरा range anxiety है. Range anxiety है. Even when somebody buys Neetron, right? They still have range anxiety किसी को कुछ पता नहीं होता. There is no range anxiety. We will have an ubiquitous battery swapping network. आप जिधर भी जाएंगे, आपको battery मिल जाएगी हमारी. And it will be costing you half of what petrol costs. So as a delivery company, delivery rider,

your savings are massive. जिसको सुबह शाम करना है और उसने करना भी पास पास की वह हैं and and and wow interesting. Scooters जो आ रहे हैं for the consumer market or other B2B2B, B2C, are they the same design

as the current ones available? नहीं, they're different. They're a little bit bigger. They look like a regular suity. They're very cool looking. Yeah. They're very cool looking. We're very proud of them. And, would they would they support, like, keeping a bag for living in? They'll re rack on the back, and they can seat two people. And जो यह आपके और उसकी max speed, sorry, 60 kilometers होगी. अच्छा. Very fast. That's pretty cool. Like, यह 60 kilometers वह वाली है कि यार मेरी गाड़ी में दो सौ नीचे लिखा हुआ है यार. नहीं, नहीं. Walking में 60 kilometers करती है and the acceleration. I don't know if you've driven an e tron or one of these other electric vehicles. Heard they're crazy fast. Yeah. So the acceleration on one of these scooties as a delivery rider. Acceleration? It's very, On and off, on and off. It's a road in Pakistani cities because there's too much traffic. What I need is, I need to go from zero to 50 really fast. These will beat any motorcycle

any day. And the noise is off as well? No no noise. Wow. Interesting. Which

is neat. We don't talk about it. The the noise pollution, forget about that, the air pollution in our in our cities. This is reducing longevity in our cities. It's an emergency, second worst air quality in the world. And if you're going to make the EV transition in Pakistan and you're going to have a change on air pollution, you're going to do it with two wheelers, not four wheelers. There's 22,000,000 motorcycles. बहुत बड़ी opportunity, like business and plus having an impact on the society. There's a big two wheeler opportunity, not such a big four wheeler opportunity. There's like 4,000,000 cars. And it's a big investment, very difficult to move cars to EV. But electric नहीं हो सकता है. And if we can do that, which we are that's our mission. What's keeping us up at night. If we can do that, there's a massive impact you can have in the economy. You can build an EV production industry in Pakistan. Right? So no longer is this import. और इसके ऊपर पहले भी हमारी,

बात थोड़ी सी हो रही थी. जो आपका easy bike itself है, उसमें अभी तो आपने F sector में launch किया. साफ़ सुथरा है, easy है. अभी आप जाहिर है case को expand out करेंगे. आप बाकी जगहों पर लेकर जाएंगे. I think there's a huge market in रावलपिंडी. I think there is a huge, I mean, it's an incredible market in लोहौर and कराची. Absolutely. But इसको मैं थोड़ा सा side करूंगा क्योंकि मैंने I I I've been speaking to startups around this since at least the past seven years. So I heard about जब यह metro प्रशावर हो रही थी तो I believe LMKT was working on a last mile. Zoo? Yeah, absolutely. Bicycle, yeah. And वह अभी I think electric थी something of that sort. या शायद पहले electric थी eventually bike cycles पर आ थे. Cycle पर आ गए थे, I think, yeah. But they weren't able to break into the market and वह यही आता था कि यार अच्छा ठीक है. Principly idea is good like San Francisco में वह चल जाएगा but Pakistan में culture ही फ़र्क़ है. अब वह what happens when आपने तो GCapex डालकर bike संगवा दी. अब वह एक बंदा आया एक दिन आकर pickup में एक एक करके सारी bikeऐं उठाकर ले गया और parts बेचना शुरू कर दी उसमें जाकर. And specially when you you are creating that ecosystem तो suddenly the demand for अभी तो देखें अगर the bike is locked in तो उसको चोरी करने का भी कोई इतना ख़ासा फ़ायदा नहीं है. Demand for a for a black market will suddenly start. And so the bigger question is कि जब यह चोरी होना शुरू हो जाएगी तो you know how do you deal with that? Like is that something जो कि अभी तो चले model सही चल रहा है आपकी एक certain वह है like financial model भी है. But अगर वह चोरी होना शुरू रहती है, तो how do you deal with that?

So we we looked at it from a financial standpoint कि what is the ratio of of theft that we can deal with and damage. Right. So I I think the model makes a lot of sense until you get to sort of, very high levels of theft, first of all. You bet you altogether. Secondly, because you want to discourage theft, you just build lots of layers Of security. Of security. Right. So we have proprietary hardware, proprietary software, and operational resources to prevent that from happening, which works. And so theft really hasn't been a factor for us. And once you develop the expertise and you get the understanding of it, I think you can make it work. Mhmm. So I think I think that my expectation is, yes, theft will increase when it becomes a common product of this type of vehicle, no doubt. It'll be more prevalent in certain geographies. Right? Islamabad जैसा आप कह रहे थे, काफी secure जगह है. लेकिन overall you can keep keep it going so that you are changing your technology so that you can prevent that. That's my expectation. I don't think it'll ever be like यार सारी गायबोगेंगें कुछ अब बंद करना पड़ेगा. I don't, I don't think that'll happen. और जो batteries इसकी आ रही हैं वह सारी की सारी import हो रही हैं या sir local production है on time? इस वक़्त जो हम ले रहे वह हम बाहर से ले रहे हैं but we will be digitizing battery production. That's possible? Yeah. Lithium ion batteries होती है. Lithium ion, yeah. जो generally गाड़ियों लगाने में लगती है वह lithium ion होती है या वह different होती है? Mostly lithium ion होती है. अच्छा.

उसमें अभी lithium ion नहीं आई. Lithium ion is essentially the technology जो cell phones पर लगी होती Is that That's correct. ठीक हो गया. So is that like वह I think थोड़ी सी comparatively sleek भी होती है और वह Sleek भी होती है and it's more about weight versus energy production. So they are extremely,

more efficient than lead acid. Lead acid is a redundant technology. है. And over time will be moved out for not just electric vehicles but for every use case. Cell phone towers, UPSs, whatever. Lithium ion is the way forward. Right. And जो current range जो अब आप for example कह रहे हैं जो आपने let's say potentially food panda rider या bike या rider कर सकता है. जी. उसकी कितनी range है kilometers? उसकी per charge तो कितनी 75 kilometers होगी which is about amount they do in a day. But

again, जब भी उसको चाहिए तो he can just come swap the battery. और अगर swap ना भी करे तो मैं मैं इस तरह सोच रहा हूँ कि let's assume जी I have a I have an editor and he comes from Barrier Town. Right. 45 kilometers. Right. वो रात को लगाता है और वह सुबह उसकी charge होती है. वह आते हैं 75 में से 45 book कर लेता है. वह इधर आता है इधर हमारा station तो लगा हुआ वह यहां पर आकर लगाता है. तो is it possible for him to charge it and then go back on the same? या उसको swap e commerce? You'll swap it. If

you want to buy a battery, we'll offer you to sell you a battery. But that'll be prohibitively expensive for most consumers. So if somebody wants to buy a battery, they'll obviously give a charge. You gotta charge it with it. If you're in the battery swapping network, then you need to swap.

ठीक है. And and and हां, ठीक है. So you essentially make the money financial,

उस case के अंदर वहां पर वह, you're making the money जो कि आप वहां lose कर रहे हैं subsidize करने के लिए. ऐसा ही है, right right. Subsidize करने के लिए we're keeping on balance sheet to perfectly finance the consumer और वहां से हम revenue generate कर रहे हैं. Right. Is this again, is this a cash burn business like Uber, करीम? Or is this It it can gain profitability very fast. अच्छा.

इस वक़्त आपकी जो situation है, like, आपने थोड़ी देर पहले mention किया था कि you raised around. What does that look like? What's the size? And what are you looking to do with that? So we raised a million dollars from, a network of angels and VCs.

A lot of our investment came from The States. Any major name that I can't disclose. We actually have one of a very large tech billionaire who's part of our network. We we are under NDA. Can't disclose. Someone मतलब, no, I'm not बताएं. But someone exciting that people know about? Yeah. Very exciting. Yeah. अच्छा. It was a name. And then apart from that, a of guys from like private equity and banking in The US. And यह continuously NDA में रह गया? At some point we'll know कि यार this potential. यार मेरी कोशिश है कि मैं उनको बताता ही करूं कि तो let me let me keep working on it. But, yeah, we got that. And then we we also brought in some some really great local investors who've been phenomenal partners. Right. First, we brought in I2I Mhmm. As well as Walt City, and then a couple other local business groups. And all of them have just been great partners for us. What's the vision here? Electric mobility? Electric mobility revolution. This is this is the future of mobility. And in a country like in Pakistan, in any any emerging market really, where you have a large, densely populated, you know, country which has low vehicle ownership ratios and gives out a massive amount of their income on transportation and energy. Mhmm. That is a a recipe for disruption. If you can figure out electric vehicles, you're doing it in a sharing, pure sharing, anytime you just come and rent the bike or you're actually purchasing it, what we're looking to do is disrupt transportation in the country such that we make it more convenient, affordable, and environmentally friendly for people to travel. However we skin that cat is open for discussion. We found our way into this delivery bike idea, and the sharing idea has proven to be viable. Again, studio economics are very compelling, if you get it right. It's actually a binary thing. If you look at it globally, there are many scooter sharing companies that are not profitable. Beam in Singapore, Tier Mobility, Voigt Technology in Europe, Marty in Turkey, a couple in The States, Lyme. And then there are other companies which just went out of business. Mhmm. और उसकी वजह यह थी कि उनसे operations और maintenance संभाले नहीं गए. Mhmm. The main thing is your scooter is gonna take a beating, right? Because it's being shared. So, उसको आप ने maintain करना So, you have to find durable scooters which you can maintain. You keep your fleet up and running. Number two is you need to run very efficient operations. Battery swapping is part of that. Also, fleet redeployment, making sure you're putting your scooter in the place जहां से demand आ रही है. Right. तो इसी ग़लत जगह खरीदना होता है. हम अपनी flight code dynamically move कर रहे होते हैं, and we use a lot of analytics to do that, which is why it helps have a proprietary software. And so, if you can get that right, you can make profit. It's a real business. It's not like a cash flow negative business. If you don't get that right, you will go out of business. We've, Marcelo, I feel like we've gone through that test of learning it and developing our systems and our operations and our processes and our technology such that we know we can scale this to profitability. And more than that, because we're in it, the vision is that let's go beyond just the sharing. Right? Let's also offer people to buy it. Day one, literally day one, say the first thing people asked us was, कितने की है? हां. Right? कि मैं ख़रीद सकता हूं, कहां से मिलेगी? We're like, नहीं नहीं, हम बेचते नहीं है यह आपके लिए, use के लिए. Which is great and there's a user for that. But there's a user and it may be a delivery rider and it may ultimately be just any consumer as well who wants that for their home use. And if you can give them savings, and if you can give them utility, and and you can give them an enjoyable ride, a fun ride, a cool ride, I think you can massively disrupt the market. Mhmm. And that's the vision. Do you think,

over the next few years, we're going to see you in four wheelers as well? Is that a possibility or is that something that you think you wouldn't want to get into? No, I think it's possible. Ultimately,

I think it's possible. Small two wheelers, small four wheelers could be interesting. Three wheelers could be interesting. जिस तरह वह गाड़ियन ही होती थी. Smart car. Smart car.

I don't know it's just it's it's it's may not be my thing you know but अगर मुझे कोई कोई two wheeler हो तो शायद मैं उसको खरीद भी लूं. चाहे मुझे sharing भी मिल जाए तो मैं उसको बड़े आराम से use करता हूं. I don't mind at all and उसमें जाहिर है कि एक वह element है particularly मैं एक चीज़ इसमें वह करना चाहूं कि when I got married, we had this 2,004 Toyota Corolla वाले साहब की जो retirement भी मिली थी उनको और it was a manual car and, you know, my wife, could not drive manual as is with a lot of other people. And she had a lot of mobility issues where I had to like drive her everywhere. Scooter वह कर नहीं सकते थे. तो वह भी वह हो जाता है like that's not a show wouldn't have been an issue.

Potentially उस तरह के solutions आ सकते हैं. This is just a wild. No, I think you're that that's definitely the spectrum of possibilities, right? Yeah. हमें लगा कि operationally,

two wheels are easier. हमें लगा कि capital intensity के लाज़ा से भी two wheels हैं. अब वह again वह ecosystem अभी नहीं है, वह सारा कुछ नहीं है. Exactly. इसलिए मैंने कहा in its eventuality. जब हम electric को grow करता है देखेंगे. Eventually it can penetrate, absolutely. Absolutely. And in terms of the regulation around, you know, जितना गाड़ियों में तो CC पर काम करता ना? यह इतना CC कब होगा तो इस पर क्या scene है? So it's a it's a work in progress right now with ETO. There's a directive to

actually allow for registration. In various places, Islamabad, for example, it's supposed to be free to register an electric vehicle. Or Punjab, and there's, like, various incentives to reduce the cost of it. Practically speaking, you know, but there's a lot of there's a lack of clarity. And I think that's one thing, one area around around, you know, sort of regulation and bureaucracy that needs to be worked on and make sure people have a very clear path to getting it registered and everything's fine. तो we are And in terms of custom duty, like battery पर पड़ती है custom duty या motor पर पड़ती है? दोनों पर पड़ती है. हर मुख्तले part पर फ़र्क़ duty पड़ती है. So, for example, batteries and motors are 1% only. चाहे जिस size क्यों? चाहे जिस size क्यों. अच्छा.

एक पिछले दिनों, know, I was talking to सुनील मंजन and he pointed out something very very, logical. He was like कि जी आपने electric policy निकाल दिया, आपने उसको flat out कर दिया. जिस size की भी वह आप करते हैं. और फिर com गई और com ने जाकर e से ऐसे book कराई और आपका current account deficit चला गया आस पास. Huge. Yeah. Probably इसका version two जब आएगा तो वह यही होगा कि वह कहीं ना कहीं cutoff लगा देंगे. वह कहेंगे कि यार इस size की like obvious सी बात है जहां पर e tron का आप dollar spend है वहां पर आपकी जैसी एक बंदे की servicing versus शायद एक लाख बंदे की servicing हो जाए dollar पर. Exactly.

Do you, would you support something like that? Yeah, absolutely. I think we need to think about कि what are the goals? Right? हम करना क्या चाहते हैं? What is the policy for? Is it just because we're supposed to have an EV policy because every other country has it or we're trying to achieve certain things? Yeah. So if we're trying to achieve certain things, we need to find what those are. So if we're trying to move people to EVs

Mass market अगर हम वह लाना चाह रहे हैं तो. Two wheelers में for small vehicles,

four wheeler even, but for small vehicles bring incentives. Yeah. Three wheelers में लाएं. Right? Additional incentives. Make it possible because, देखें, if you're trying to address pollution rates, पहली बात तो यह है कि 65% of the air pollution in Pakistan is caused by transport. अच्छा. It's not been industry, it's transport. Right? दूसरी बात यह है कि within transport, 22,000,000 motorcycles versus 4,000,000

cars. Where

do you think the pollution's coming from? It's coming from motorcycles. Plus, wheelers and three wheelers have lower emission standards than cars. So for an average kilometer in a urban center, some studies have found that two wheelers emit up to four times as much carbon. Not necessarily carbon, but the other emissions that are part of it. They're toxic chemicals. We're basically poisoning our air. If our government policy is let's get our air cleaner, then do it on the two wheeler, incentivize people to transition. Right? There's so many government programs. Give interest refinancing for the purchase of electric scooters or electric cars. Right? That will move people over, make it easy for them to make the transition. You can't just say So not only will you buy for 80% of the cost of the motorcycle, but you'll also buy it in installments. और आपकी जो monthly installment है, it'll be more than, at least for a high usage guy like a delivery rider. They will more than cover their installment through their fuel savings. Basically, आपको zero की पड़ रही है. आप 20% down दे रहे हो whatever, जितना भी है and then you're covering it. Interesting. So that's a really strong value proposition, right? हां हां, 100%.

पहला तो मुझे यह बताइएगा कि what's the what's the next one year plan आपको जा रही है. Funding अभी हुई है और you you know, what are the areas जहां पर आप expand करें? एक तो आपने कहा कि assembly unit को properly आप functional करेंगे, bikes launch कर देंगे. But what's the plan generally for the next one? So the main plan is to launch a pilot in the summer with our first version of our delivery scooter and to run that with our battery swapping stations.

And then to expand that, later in the year, we'll look to raise more capital to expand it. And then in addition to that, we'll keep on pushing out our sharing service within Islamabad initially, then we'll look at other opportunities. ठीक हो गया. And then also sorry, एक उसका था आपने lithium ion का बोला था. At what point do you think कि वह indigenize हो सकता है? I think lithium ion के there's if we look at the value chain, there's firstly there's mining, right? So we're not talking about indigenizing that. So you have to source it from from somewhere else. Secondly, उसके cells बनते हैं. जो cells हैं वह Pakistan में नहीं बनते, इस वक्त available भी नहीं है and ना मैं यह कह रहा हूं कि वह बने चाहिए, right, in the short term, right? ठीक है. What I'm saying is you take those cells and you create battery packs out of them, right, which is relatively simpler. You need to put in a battery management system, you need to put in a circuitry and a safe casing for it. I guess अगर आप cellphones को assemble कर सकते हैं तो आप battery को assemble Exactly कर सकते right. It's exactly the same thing. तो उसको indigenize किया जा सकते उसको हम indigenize कर रहे हैं. But actually, you know, sourcing the cells will always be external.

Makes sense, makes sense because अगर उसको आप indigenize कर रहे हैं तो उसके अंदर फिर वह वाली चीज़ आपकी ख़ताम हो जाती है. You know, गाड़ियों की बड़ी गाड़ी करें, छोटी गाड़ी करें. We eventually we can begin to see a lot of other players doing a lot of other things in the in the space as well. Yeah. It doesn't have to be exclusive to scooters. More than mobility. Auto mobility, absolutely. एक चीज़ मुझे यह बताइएगा कि अभी जो आप launch कर रहे हैं वह तो आप delivery के लिए कर रहे हैं. Consumer के लिए do you have a plan something more exciting like, जिसने again मोर से बात हो रही थी तो they are really focused on couple of things. They were like हम एक you know we are designing one जो कि women oriented है because women globally women on scooters is a big thing and and and Pakistan में there is a I believe there is a big opportunity there. क्या करा आप उसको सही तरीके से market करें और वह करें तो? I mean, the proof of that is in front of you with easy bike. I mean, how many girls ride our scooters? It's a big part of our business. Absolutely. Absolutely. You're right. We need to think of different modes. I think we need to start with

what we think is the largest opportunity, we think the value proposition of our technology will be most effective. We will discover the market. It's not usable for consumers. Right. So if I'm a consumer and I like the look of it and I want to save fuel, then I can come in and buy it. Right. But designing different ones that are, say, for javateen y, you know, for certain segments of the market, that'll come in time. That'll come in time. But I think But that will be part of the plan? It's part of the plan for sure. We'll end up with several different models.

I just think the biggest opportunity by far 100 obviously. Huge opportunity, right, is is और और वह चीज़ हो जाए तो आपका कमा कम एक cash cow and एक एक एक basic चीज़ infrastructure set होना शोर जाएगा and then you can take it from there. Like, वालों के लिए अगर आपके पास charging stations आ गए हैं तो फिर आपको consumer को service करना बहुत आसान है compared to the other way last question that I generally ask everyone. How do you see Pakistan? I mean, you've been, you're you're half English, you're half Pakistani. You've lived in Kuwait, you've lived in Dubai, The US, England as well. And then you recently made the move. How do you see Pakistan thirty years from now in 2050, you know, in in obviously, in mobility and and innovation and all of those things, but overall generally?

Yeah. Look. We Pakistan is like this, complex, wonderful country, right, where there's amazing things happening and terrible things happening all at same time. And, in at any given day, I think, you know, it's a different you never know which one is gonna be taking the the lead. It could be the bad things or the good. But overall, I'm a believer in Pakistan, and that's why I'm here. Right? I'm a believer in the demographic story and what this country can do in its potential. It's geographically, like, very well located. It has some interesting alliances. We have a very, very entrepreneurial, very vibrant nation with a rich culture. I think बहुत ज़्यादा potential है. Political headwinds भी हैं. वह manage करने पड़ेंगे. Mhmm. And I think that that, yeah, I I certainly think that it's gonna be it'll still be a crazy place in thirty years, I think. Again, I think there's amazing things this country can do. I think, generally,

you know, I hear a lot is the demographic story and the and the, you know, big, potentially large consumer market. I'm also such slightly tired of that as well because विश्वाली बात है इसको convert करना भी एक बड़ा important है. आपके case में यह सुनना चाहूंगा, कि ज़ाहिर है कि आप आए थे और आप आकर एक बड़ा different कर रहे थे. You had a cofounder who had experience with tech and you created that tech stack and then hardware and, Zahir, you now have an assembly unit, you have an r and d team. Run me through a little bit of the talent, in Pakistan. And I'm not saying definitely it's probably not going to be globally competitive talent at this point in time. It's new, and it's fresh, and it's being built. But you were able to vertically integrate, and I think that was a huge success. How do you see that? You have young people, you have potential talent to work. Do you think कि वह train हो रहा है? Is it ready to be trained? Is ready to be part of the success story? You you look at China and China के अंदर वह culture develop हो चुका हुआ है. Like, मैं when I speak to people who have been in and out of China, they're like कि यार China is a definitive global superbabber. Mhmm. It's forget the politics. Forget the this or that. It's just the folks there. They're primed for success. मेरे experience में the biggest challenge that we have right now is nothing, is not political, it's not economic, it's not regulation, it's not any of those. It's literally the talent and the culture around the talent. You don't have आप IT में tech में चले जाएं. जो वन गया वह वन गया. नया talent आप कह रहे हैं जी 1,000,000,000 सिर्फ़ 10,000,000,000 पर जाएंगे. Talent है ना? You're you're selling headcount. You're not selling anything else. You're selling headcount in IT, in core IT services business. हमेशा भूल जाता हूं यार. Metric. Metric. तो मीना मुझे यह कह रही थी कि product manager product managers available नहीं हैं. आप startup space में जाएं, आपका IT tech stack का बंदा इस वक़्त नहीं है. It's crazy pricing के ऊपर आपको मिल रहा है और develop ही नहीं हो रहा. आप जो है वह so so I think I feel like कि चाहे वह talent हो, pure white collar, technical management, leadership और even blue collar really sort of folks who can just like supply chain में जाना बैठकर पेच लगा रहे हैं. I get, इस वक़्त तो it's it's a very, I'm sure it's a very disappointing situation कि यार मुझे वह talent नहीं मिल रहा. Do you think that can change?

Look, at at an individual company level, you can create a culture to change people. You can motivate people, you can get into their minds, and you can make them want something more. Ultimately, we all want that, right? Right. Overall, as at a macro level, there needs to be structural change. And I think it needs to happen at the university level. Personally, mehto shock ho gaya thai yahan pe talent ko dekkar, because not that their technical skills are lacking, it's that they have no idea about professionalism. They have no idea how to conduct themselves in a company. Meeting पर time पर पहुंचना, interviews के लिए आते हैं, they don't know how to talk or present themselves. Public communication skills, these soft skills, how to prioritize your time. Professional ethic. Professional ethic. That drive, जैना कि आप बात कर रहे थे, that just unrelenting drive कि मुझे आगे भरना है, that's something we don't have yet. And we need to develop that individually. All of us have to continually refine it. And as a nation, need to develop like a shared vision. Right? And if you develop a shared vision, you can be a democratic society, you can be an autocratic, a theocratic, you could be communism. But if you have a vision as a nation, you have one way in which you're all going, you can go there very fast. Right? Amareke, we're all moving kind of different directions. It's kind of a jungle. I think there needs to be a shared vision as a country and as workforce. We want to build IT exports in Pakistan. Let's go at it. Let's let the universities go at it. Let's let the government help. Let's let companies sponsor stuff, train people so that we just build this massive export -Exactly. Industry that rivals India. That's what we can do if that's our vision. If we decide que, नहीं, we want to be an agrarian economy, we want to keep it like old we to तो यह बात है ना कि we have to decide who we really want to be. Yeah. और मैं दूसरी बात यह आप, you thirty year vision की बात कर रहे थे. देखिए, individually I really believe in manifestation. Right. In life, I really do. I believe that we, in many things, in this video game that we call life, without think without having that trouble we create it. Really, and that's been my experience. Okay? You create it because of the way you think and the way you talk and the way you act. And you invite things. People look at things and the universe gives it to you. That's a very magical way to saying it. Other way I'd say this, again, going back to what I was saying earlier, you have 100 things you can focus on every day. If those things are negative, then the 30 things you focus on are negative. You'll let 30 good things go past you. 30 opportunities. That applies to an individual, that applies to a nation. One thing with us is that, yes, there are many problems. There are many good things here too. We have a habit of just This is a really, really powerful nation, and I don't think Pakistanis realize that. Mhmm. We've got huge opportunity in front of us, and I think if we understood that, perhaps we would be more united and more positive in our vision. But I really think you're gonna get what you're asking for. Right? So I'm not sure if I'm addressing the talent point, but it's my general view on it. Yeah. Maybe that makes sense.

Adi, thank you so much for coming in. Is a very insightful one hour thirty minutes. I wish you all the very best for the upcoming launch as well, for summer. I'm excited to see k evo que es तरह से होते हैं. Is that gonna be an exclusive to Islamabad as well? Let's start in Islamabad, yeah, yeah. Islamabad. चलिए, I I look forward to that, and I look forward to riding one of the scooters, particularly the new ones. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Was a lot of fun. And for all of you guys, thank you so much for watching. अगर आपका यह episode पसंद आई हो तो दोस्तों यानी साथ ज़रूर share करिएगा. Let us know in the comment section below what do you think about electric vehicles and potentially this this idea कि, you know, यह एक तो दोनों cases में जो यह ride sharing model है electric scooters का, would you buy an electric scooter if you were offered one? Let us know in the comment section below. Facebook वाले नीचे दी गई हुई link के ऊपर click करके TV community join कर सकते हैं. जहां पर हम different feedback भी लेते हैं, guest recommendations भी लेते हैं, articles भी share करते हैं you can join that as well.