The COO who took a 85% pay cut to join Careem

सालात, how about you know अहमद? Who helped us back to another episode of Thought Behind Things? आज हमारे साथ मौजूद है एक बहुत ही ख़ास हैमान who is here all the way from लोहौर. She is the chief operating off officer of Collapse, which is a co working space. And इससे पहले she was in करीम. She was head of expansion, has a very detailed experience. जब करीम grow कर रहा था, रहने शहर में आ रहा था. बड़े मज़े का experience है. We're going to talk about that as well. फाता मज़र हमारे साथ हैं. फाता thank you so much for being part of the show.

So, that would take a long time to answer. मेरे dad army में थे, जिसका मतलब है कि हर दो साल मैं एक नई city में थी. वैसे तो हम लोहौर से हैं, originally कश्मीर से. लेकिन मुझे नहीं याद कि हमने मेरे बचपन में, दो साल से ज़्यादा कहीं गुज़ारा हो. So I've lived all over Pakistan Right.

And school वगैरह APS?

No. Actually, APS was for the first few years, but then Beacon House आ गया हुआ था. Right. So wherever I went, we were posted in Kueta, Gujawala, Lahore, भावलपुर. All of these places had, के पास Beacon House था. Right. तो मैंने अपना बचपन किसाई schooling Beacon House में की हुई है. Right. Proud Beacon House. Right.

And then, what about university?

So, मैंने university Pakistan में start की थी. It's a very interesting story. मुझे नहीं पता था मैंने ज़िंदगी में क्या करना है. मैंने A levels किए. I tanked my A levels. मेरे आए थे three Ds अच्छा. And a And यह कौन सा year था? 1999. अच्छा. Three मेरे Ds आए थे. एक मेरा C आया था and my parents thought कि बस I'm done for. So, मैंने, admission लिया केनेड में. Mhmm. केनेड में मैंने एक semester गुज़ारा तो मुझे समझ नहीं आई है और उस वक़्त न्याया NUST खुल रहा था. तो I studied hard, क्योंकि बहुत embarrassed थी after my A levels result and I got into NUST. So I did a year at NUST, and then I transferred to The US, or I went to Washington College in The US, and I did my undergrad from there.

Why Washington College? Because for a lot of people, I mean, when they're looking at colleges in The US, they're looking at IV leagues. And, I mean, Washington College is not the name that generally pops up.

That's a really good question one. I told you about three Ds. Although I did really well at NUST, my GPA when I left NUST was 3.96, which is a really good GPA. So जब मैं बहुत बुरी तरह embarrass हुई थी a littles में. तो Nast में आपका program क्या था? Their business school. उसको कहते उसको Nims कहां करते थे? अब वह NBS हो गया But मैं वहां पर तब थी. I was the second batch of Nast business school. अच्छा. तो हुआ यह था कि my dad got posted to The US, as a defense attache through the army and somehow उसी वक़्त, you know, कुछ हुआ था nine eleven हुआ था. उन दिनों में तो बाबा की posting रुक गई और मैं वहां पर चली गई. College कैसे decide हुआ था? मेरे dad के dentist हैं, this lovely dentist आरकाराची, उनके brother in law, was at Washington College. तो उन्होंने मुझे मज़ाक में कहा कि तुम apply करो, क्या होगा? I applied as a joke and I got a scholarship and that's how Washington College was chosen. अच्छा, तो was a was it a full scholarship or? It was a partial scholarship. उस वक़्त international students को full नहीं मिलती थी. अब मेरे ख़याल से होता जा रहा है. But they were really impressed somehow and Washington College for those that don't know is in Chestertown, Maryland and is the first private college of The United States. But trust me, मुझे कुछ पता नहीं था कि यह So what does that mean? I mean, what's the difference between a private and a public college? So public college, that's a good question. मुझे ख़ुद नहीं पता but public college में आपकी fees कम होती है, the public gets to go over there and policies are decided by the public. The private institution is owned by, private individuals

and अच्छा, so जैसे आप private so it it's it's old. It was the first ever private university that was a college ever that was ever Yes. अच्छा अच्छा, I thought it's ok. I get it. And वहां से आपने क्या किया था program?

So, यहां से जब मैं थी I was doing business. And जितना मैंने three semesters में, business NAST से कर लिया था, courses कर लिए थे. जब मैंने US में देखा था उन्होंने कहा कि आपने तो सारे credits कर लिए मैं. Luckily my credits got transferred. NAST की इतना नाम था कि credits transfer हो गए थे. तो then I picked up international relations का, another major and then I did a minor in finance.

अच्छा, तो a major in inter IR and then a minor in finance. But I had a double majors which was,

business administration and IR and उसी के साथ I had a minor in finance.

Right.

Four year program थे यह? Yes and I did it in two because one and a half मैंने इधर कर लिया था और उतने में credits इतने transfer हो गए थे. एक चीज़ बहुत अच्छी थी Washington College की. They had amazing study abroads. Ok. So, while I was there, एक I was supposed to be there for two years. एक semester मैंने Turkey में किया था at Bozice University, which is actually the number one university in Turkey and I think I've studied the hardest there. वहां पर मेरे चारों a's आए थे semester में और I got to do an amazing program at London School of Economics as well. अच्छा अच्छा. Through Washington College. Obviously, you had to have a certain GPA to qualify. Right. But undergrad फिर मैंने नास से भी किया हुआ है, Washington College से भी किया हुआ है, Bozzer University से भी किया है और London School of Economics से भी किया है. Very good and all of this within four years? Within four years. Actually, three and a half. So, जो two years essentially Washington

college के थे, उसमें एक साल आपने essentially Abroad. Turkey and London में किया. So once you graduated, were you I mean, immediately did you come back? Did you stay in The US? What did you do? So my dad said कि बेटा,

आप masters कर लो क्योंकि आपकी तो बाद में शादी होनी है तो अभी masters कर लो. Now मुझे MBA करना था लेकिन United States में उस वक़्त भी और अभी भी if you don't have work experience, you have to be exceptional to get into an MBA program. So again I didn't get into any MBA program but I got into University of Pittsburgh. उधर मैं इसलिए गई थी because my dad was in the ISI. Right. And I was fascinated with the intelligence services. So University of Pittsburgh had a, a program called Security and Intelligence Studies. अच्छा. That taught you all about intelligence, services. So I applied to, you know, OSU Pittsburgh. वहां पर मैंने minor security and intel studies में किया था and major मैंने again finance में किया था international. Like,

just randomly, that's such an interesting major,

minor, sorry. It was because मुझे I was just fascinated. उसी वक़्त my dad was in the ISI. I'd I'd watch all these detective shows and because they had it and मेरे दिमाग़ में यह था कि शायद मुझे, कोई CIA या FBI job दे. मैं pretty fascinated थी स्विकित. So, what what sort of courses are there in that? So, they talk about all the wars that have happened. They talk about there's courses on, you know, what espionage services mean. There is courses on how to be a spy, what does it mean to be a spy. But basically, what they talk about is the history of the KGB, the MI five, FBI, CIA, and then a lot of work on national, policy. Right. So it's very, very interesting and, you know, there's wars that happen but जो अंदर की wars हैं जिसका हमें कभी अपनी पतौता, you get a lot of people to talk about that as well. Very cool. The other thing that I did was I, when I was growing up army में जब मेरे parents थे तो you have a lot of access to a lot of things. I had access to horse riding and I liked it from day one. So when I went to The US, I was such a good equestrian कि मैंने वहां पर, undergrad में भी और grad school में भी equestrian team join की थी मैं national level पर show jumping और dressage में ribbons जीते हुए और national वह जीते में. So there's a lot to be said for how these things being available to you make a really big difference and this will be very prominent in my story, this horse riding. That's why I mentioned it. Interesting. Did you get scholarship for because of that also? I did not because उस वक़्त मुझे पता ही नहीं था यह question team है. मैं जब वहां गई तो उन्होंने कहा कि अच्छा, what sports do you wanna do? I was I was a gold medalist here in Pakistan. Beacon House के जो inter जो country के होते थे ना उसमें मेरा long jump, high jump, 400 meters, 100 meters and वीले में gold medals थे, in when I was in grade eight. And there was a coach who said to my parents कि इसको जुएना, आप please put her in, athletics. She'll go a long way. So my parents pulled me out and put me in convent Jesus Mary for three years. So I have Beacon House, convent of Jesus and Mary for three years because I was very interested in sports. I was also part of the cricket team, जिसमें सारे boys थे except for me. -अच्छा. -So I've done a lot of sports. And where was this? Con convent of Jesus and Mary's us in garage? It's in Murray. Boarding school में थी. Oh, wow. Nightmare.

अच्छा, was that not an interesting experience?

See, convent में यह होता है कि people get into the convent and then they're पूरा ना सालों साल साथ होते हैं.

And when did you graduate? So I graduated in 2000,

04/06. Hold on. Let me do the math. 2006 for my master's. And you went to master's straight up after Right after I graduated. Graduated. I went, to University of Pittsburgh and बहुत अच्छा experience था. मतलब, I couldn't get a job afterwards in what I wanted because जब मैंने apply करना शुरू किया, the interesting part was कि मेरी शक्ल जो है वह pinpoint नहीं कर सकते थे. तो there's a really cool drill where they call you in to the CIA offices. We got to see all the CIA, all these offices और उन्होंने खड़ा कर दिया और उन्होंने कहा क्या बोले? So I would speak but nobody could pinpoint that I was from where I sat South Asian or whatever. तो maybe SPNR जो हो सकता था but I wasn't interested in SPNR services. But also my dad was ISI so the first background check they did and they found out that my dad was ISI. They said there's no way you can. Goodbye. But I was that naive. I was very naive growing up. Yeah. So उसके बाद फिर what year was then? So then I worked, then I started looking for work in, after I graduated. Finance में था. I, मेरे दादा जो है ना, the story is a bit relevant. My दादा used to sit us all down. I loved, I loved my दादा, sorry. And वह पूछते थे आप बड़े होकर क्या बनोगे? तो I wanted to say something cool and मुझे पता नहीं था. I was very young. As I graduated from University of I I thought कि अच्छा ठीक है, अब जो है ना मैं finance में job ढूंढती हूं. And I was able to find a job at E Trade, which is, you know, a big bank over there, but I never got the H-1B visa. Ah. Nor did my brother, by the way. Both of us. So, मैं तो फिर भी university of Pittsburgh. My brother graduate from Georgia Tech, which is one of the best. Really? Yes. And he couldn't get an And what did he graduate in? Electrical engineering.

But I mean, electrical वाले जो हैं बड़े आराम से computer science type की jobs ढूंढ ढांग के तो कुछ ना कुछ तमिल झांड़. Maybe he was lazy या उसका था उसका भी H1B नहीं हुआ मेरा भी था. Do you think it it had something to do with again your father being in the ISI or do you think it was I think it had something to do with his name, which was Ahmed.

And, you know It's early mid-two thousands. Mid-two thousands. Right. Yeah. He graduated in 2006 as well from undergrad. Right. I graduated from grad school. So I ended up in Dubai. अच्छा. My parents had moved to Dubai. My dad had retired by the, from the army by now and moved to Dubai. So I worked at E-Trade. The day I found out that I was not getting an H-1B, time, you know, you get a permit. I I-twenty था मेरे पास. I had time, so I said कि नहीं I left The US in fifteen days from the day I found out that I was no longer gonna be and I came to Dubai. Right. And I got a job in investment banking and that's where my career signed Time interesting. कौन सा bank था? It was called Millennium Finance Corporation. It was a bunch of BNP Paribas bankers that had gotten together and started a boutique investment bank. Right. What's a BNP? BNP Paribas is a French bank. उसके कुछ top management के सारे bankers थे, they got together, came to Dubai and actually started a boutique bank. So I joined them in 2007 after I'd graduated. And in 2008, the financial crisis hit. But the financial crisis did not hit Dubai till 2009. हमारा थोड़ा delayed था. So in 2009, after working at an investment bank for two years, I was made redundant. So what was your role there? I was a financial analyst. Right. So my job was to make models, make presentations, make decks. And what sort of markets were you looking at? I was looking at merger and and acquisition. I was part of the merger and diversified industrials team which meant that all sorts of airline mergers, cargo mergers, cement factory mergers, all of these came under the preview of my team. Right. I think Saudi Cargo का उस्वकत हो रहा था. Saudi Cargo was being bought over at that point in time. It's up for sale, and, our bank was doing one of the bidding. We lost the bid, but it took me six months of intense work to do that. Interesting. And so, o nine, you're redundant? I was made redundant, yes. You're beginning to see कि चाहे मैंने क्या करना है. So what do do next? बिल्कुल. So I think मुझे हमेशा से पता था मैंने finance करना है, but मेरी पहली job थी in Millennium Finance Corporation, which not many people knew. And so even people that were in Goldman, sacks were being sacked and not finding jobs. That began उदय से मेरा struggle period शुरू होता है. I started doing odd jobs here and there to figure out what I wanted to do next. And how old were you at the time? I was 24, 25.

Gotcha. And when you say odd jobs, what does that mean? That means that I I I joined,

like, this company that was supposed to be a private equity company, but it had three people. And it was kinda shady because there were some shady things, but I was so desperate that I worked there for a while, didn't get paid. The interesting part is when I was made redundant, there were 16 people that were made redundant in the first wave और बाकी waves आएं थीं, दो तीन waves आएं थीं and finally the bank shut down. In the first wave, there were 16 women that were let go and one man. And मैं थिया was one of the top performers in my, company. I I love working. So उन्होंने मुझे यह कहा था कि आपके तो dad और आपके brother आपको support कर देंगे. A lot of the men have to support their family. So that was the first, मेरे दिमाग में जो first because my parents raised us very equal. मेरे parents ने कभी यह नहीं कहा कि अगर my brother can come at ten, you have to come at eight. हम दोनों का वही deadlines थी कि इस वक्त तक आपने घर वापस आने हैं, इस वक्त तक आपने उठना है, वही opportunities थीं. कभी यह नहीं हुआ कि अहमद riding करेगा तो फात्मा riding नहीं करेगी. Incidentally, my brother never liked riding. So he dropped it as soon as he could. My mother actually put him into Acheson because she liked horse riding and she wanted her son to ride. He never did. I did. तो वह पहला incident था where I was like, just because my father is has the ability, marshallah, to support me does not mean that I should be made redundant. But I was made redundant. It took me a year to figure out what I wanted to do next. अभी तक मुझे figure out नहीं किया था. मैंने, this is the one time I asked my dad to help me out. It was three months of not finding anything. So he talked to a friend of his who'd started a startup. Wasn't a tech startup. It was, kind of company he had started up, which was gonna do logistics. And उन्होंने इनसे कहा कि आप फात्मा को as a trainee ले लें. अभी मैंने graduate किया है, मैंने analyst की position ली है. I'm starting from zero again and you'll see this curve in my, Entire professional life? Entire professional life, quite a lot. Right. So, मैं यहां पर आई. उधर से जब मैंने वहां गई तो उन्होंने कहा तुम क्या कर सकते हैं? मैंने कहा मुझे finance अच्छा लगता है. He said, इन्होंने मेरे साथ दो हफ्ते काम किया उन्होंने कहा तुम्हारा तुम finance नहीं हो तुम operations हो. मैंने कहा ewe no, I have a degree in finance from The States. Like, what do mean operations? वह तो like admin के लोग करते हैं. That's exactly how I said it and that's exactly what I thought and it serves me right because this many years later I can't imagine doing anything but operations anywhere, right? Right. तो उन्होंने मुझे operations में डाला. He tried a few things and suddenly I started doing really really well and I started enjoying my life. It was gruesome work. मैं पता क्या कर रही थी? Dubai में बहुत बड़े बड़े events होते हैं. Events में transportation बहुत pain point होता है. आप देखें जो भी startups आ रहे हैं ना वह customer की pain point देखते हैं और customer की pain point को कैसे automate करना है या उनसे दूर ले लेना है यह करते हैं. This is very forward thinking this was you know February मैं यह कर रही थी. हमने जाकर बड़े बड़े events से कहा कि आप लोग focus करें उस पर हम transportation provide करेंगे. Right. There was no digital anything. I had to do this manually. मैं खड़ी होती थी parking lots में जिधर कार्यां खड़ी होती थी उनको manually dispatch करती थी guests के लिए. It made me a lot of money but it turned me, you know, I used to be a lot lighter. काफ़ी dark होगी मेरे से. But मैं चौदह चौदह घंटे खड़ी रहती थी. हमारा जो सबसे बड़ा contract था, I don't know if you know Dubai में होती है, यह race होती है. It's the Dubai World Cup इसको कहते हैं. Right. It's the most expensive horse race in the world by far. उसमें शेख मुहम्मद बुलाते हैं from 300 to 400 guests every year. These are potential investors into the country. उनका हमें transportation का contract मिल गया. उस पर हम इतने पैसे कमा लेते थे. The company was called iMan by the way, integrated management but a play on iPhone. उसमें हम इतने पैसे बना लेते थे कि for the year we had enough money to do anything else and start couple of other projects. Interesting, yeah. तो 100 BMWs. First, we had to find them. Then we had to make sure that the drivers were trained, and then I had to make sure that everyone had a system where these cars got to them. 500 guests, 100 cars, And the rest had to be managed. Interesting. So, यह सारा का सारा आपने ground up किया है पूरा? I had a very good person with me. His name was Charlie Benson. Very smart guy, British. वह थे और मैं थी. पहले साल उन्होंने बहुत help की. अगले साल से उन्होंने कहा proposal भी तुम बनाओगी, तुम करोगी, I'll move on to other projects. I did this for a while और इसमें फिर ऐसा था कि Formula One की transportation भी मेरे पास आ गई थी. Chunk of Formula One transportation was with me. कोई event आता था ना? So Formula One के transportation से मतलब कि drivers जो जो

जो participating

drivers हैं वह नहीं नहीं नहीं, जो guests आते थे. But participating drivers होता यह था कि because मैंने इतनी help की होती थी. मुझे कहीं ना कहीं participating drivers के साथ मिला देते थे. मैंने concerts बहुत किए हैं. I will never forget New Year's पर Coldplay का concert हुआ था. I got to go backstage because I was working the concert. अच्छा, interesting. And so, but अगर आप देखें कि, you know, my parents raised me up very protected. तो उनके लिए बड़ी problem थी कि मैं roadओं पर खड़ी हूं या मैं ऐसे कर रही हूं. So, मैं transportation में अब इतनी well known थी कि अगर कोई भी event होता था ना तो अगर किसी ने बात करना होता था वह कहते थे फात्मा और मेरा नाम उन्होंने save किया था था bus lady. So मुझे बहुत calls आती थी. फिर IMN को बहुत contract मिलता था. Problem यह हुई कि फिर events थोड़े कम हुए, economy took another downturn. So I had, मैं यहां पर भी COO की position पर पहुंच गई थी. I had worked my way up from somebody who was earning nothing as a trainee to making considerable money. तीन साल मैंने यह किया, उसके बाद, थोड़ी issues शुरू हो गए मेरे और CEO में. We didn't see और यह बार बार देखेंगे कि अगर हमारे employees से इतना treat नहीं होते या उनकी pay में से कोई cut जाता है तो मुझे बहुत दर्द होता है. मुझे यह बहुत ज़रूरी है and I've been told that this is my biggest weakness by a lot of the people that are in senior positions or are my mentors. वह कहते हैं कि you think like a girl when you should think like a business person. And that might be right, but I'm willing to take a step back, not be a cofounder, not be something if I can protect that I can sleep at night safely, right? So तीन साल मैंने वह किया, उसके बाद, Uber was coming into the, country. Right. तो मेरे भाई, by this time my brother had gone to Wharton and Wharton पर he'd made really good friends and they'd come stay at our house. तो उनमें से एक है, he founded नामशी in Dubai and नामशी is a big brand and now he works for Noon. उसने मुझे कहा कि Uber आ रहा है, they're looking for people. You've done a lot of transport work. आजो उनसे बात करो. मैं Uber के interview के लिए तैयारी थी तो मैं जैसे ही Uber डालती थी ना तो करीम आ जाता था. अच्छा. And I thought might as well just write to them as well. मैंने इनको बहुत सी informal सी email कर दी. मतलब आपको अभी podcast में भी लग रहा होगा क्योंकि मैं बहुत informal हूं. मतलब मैं वह बड़े बड़े words नहीं use करती. वैसे उर्दू में आते भी नहीं हैं. लेकिन मैंने उनको email कर दी. उन्होंने कहा आ जाओ. अच्छा अभी Uber का मेरा interview था दो हफ़्ते बाद. उसमें एक हफ़्ते में ही ना करीम ने मुझसे मिला और करीम ने मुझे कहा आ जाओ. अच्छा.

Magnus करीम इस पर किस scale पर था at this point in time? This is 2013.

I interviewed with them on 10/01/2013. अभी उनकी app भी नहीं बनी हुई थी properly. अच्छा. Testing mode में थी. हम सिर्फ़ Dubai में थे और हमने अपना first round भी raise नहीं किया हुआ था. We hadn't raised the first round. हमारा जो STC का first round आया था, seed investment वह आई थी मेरे join करने के दो महीने बाद. Interesting. I met Magnus, दो घंटे के लिए. Magnus ने मुझे पुछा अच्छा कैसे करती हूं transportation? अच्छा यह कैसे करती हूं? और मैं ना जो मेरा interview हुआ था वह server room में हुआ था. सारे boxes थे. Servers बढ़े हुए थे internet का और हम उसमें यूं करके बैठे हुए थे जगह नहीं थी. तो वह लेकर आया और उनके ना his eyes were shining and I वहां पर बैठकर मैंने सोचा कि मुझे कभी भी काम के बारे में ऐसा feel नहीं हुआ है. कभी भी ज़िंदगी में ऐसा feel नहीं हुआ कि मैं इतनी ख़ुश हूं कि मैंने कुछ build किया है. I wanna do this. फिर मेरी मुदास्य से meeting हुई. मुदास्य now obviously is my mentor. There's nobody better to work with than मुदस्त्र शेखा in the world, nor there ever will be. उनसे बात हुई, वह भी कोई दो घंटे की बात थी. मैं lift से नीचे जा रही थी interview देकर. मैं पहुंची हूं नीचे तो Magnus की call आ गई. उन्होंने कहा अच्छा at this point in time, I was making about 40,000 dirhams a month. Right. ठीक है? और मैं एक काम करी थी. मैंने skip कर दी अपनी six months के लिए जो मैंने काम किया था because it's not relevant in there. But I was making 40,000 dirhams a month. मुझे गाड़ी issue हुई थी company की तरफ़ से and I had my office and a secretary and I was 28.

40,000 being what उस सामने में अगर मैं पाक्षतानी context में for petrol से लेकर ना? 40,023 rupees का दिरम था. So दस एक लाख रुपए give or take और यह दो हज़ार तेरह की economy है, very different. Very different. Right. So

Magnus ने मुझे कहा कि यार we really like you. We can't believe that you've interviewed for us. Here's what we're offering you. We have a position in the call center. आपको callएं लेनी होंगी. Callएं भी drivers की because you're not trained to do take calls from our customers and उस हमारे customers थे McKinsey. हमारा जो test pilot था ना करीम का वह McKinsey था. Right. और हम आपको छह हज़ार दिन हम महीने के दे सकते हैं. लेकिन हम आपको equity देंगे और हम आपको यह promise करें कि जैसे ही, funding आएगी ना तो हम आपको position भी change कर देंगे और salary भी change कर देंगे. लेकिन 40,000 दिन तक जाने पर मतलब दो तीन साल लगेंगे. I was like अच्छा. I started driving back to the job that I was doing because मैं छुट्टी लेकर आई हुई थी. And I was like, no, I don't wanna go back. So I took a job for 6,000 dirhams. Two month, two weeks later I moved out of my apartment because मैं अपने apartment में move हुई हुई थी. मेरे बहुत late nights होते थे तो मेरे dad बहुत upset होते थे. तो I said I wanna live on my own. I couldn't afford that on 600. I left my apartment, I left my job,

I left everything and three days later joined करीम. Interesting because you were now earning in one month, sorry, you were earning in twelve months at करीम but you were earning in one month in your previous job essentially. More in? मतलब वह previous job में आप चालीस हज़ार करीम, इसमें हमें ख़ैले बयालीस हज़ार आपका सालाना बनेगा. Yeah.

But they gave you equity in it. They gave me equity. They said कि we can give you a lot more equity. Right. And we know that you'll do well. And we promise you that as the company gets funded, we will take care of you. Right. And I didn't know if they were gonna be funded. Yeah. No, but बस एक belief था. I don't know what it was because people ask me all the time. And I said maybe because I was so miserable at my previous job or maybe because I wanted to feel what Magnus and Madasu were feeling. That kind of excitement. 2,013 startups इतने नहीं थे. So can you imagine the conversation? I lied to my parents about how much I was gonna be making. They, you know, they they heard me in an interview somewhere, and that's when they realized how much I was making because I told them that I was making a lot more than I was at Karim. I was working twenty two hours a day. I'm not even kidding. And call center drivers Captains, I mean they all love me now. But यहां से मैंने शुरू किया था and आप देख रहे हैं कि मैंने investment banking शुरू की. उसके बाद dip आया. मैंने zero से शुरू किया, in this company after like struggles. एक level तक पहुंच गई फिर again करीम में zero से शुरू किया as the head of expansion, as the call center operative and then I did multiple roles. जो करीम की अच्छी बात थी they let me do multiple roles. वह जो कुछ मुझसे कहते थे ना यह कर लोगी मुझे नहीं आता था ना मैं कहती थी मैं कर लूंगी and I'll research all night and I'll do it. और अगर नहीं कर सकती थी ना बाद में बता देती थी नहीं कर सकती. But वह एक chance of working with Magnus and मुदस्सर and का जो discipline है, मुदास्त्र की जो simplicity है, humbleness है, उससे आप जितना सीख सकते हो उतना कम है. So, I mean, four and a half, नहीं four years, ten months मैंने उधर काम किया है. And I think मैंने एक दफ़ा छुट्टी ली होगी. I didn't want to. मेरा छुट्टी लेने का दिल नहीं था, मुझे कुछ और नहीं था and it

changed my life. Interesting. So करीम आपने 2014 में essentially join किया? 2013.

'13.

2013 के बाद what all did you do at करीम?

So, started off in the call center, and I was taking, captain calls. Then I became a fleet manager. Fleet manager होता है कि आपने उस city के जो drivers हैं, उनका payroll, उनका hiring, training सब कुछ देखना है. And I think I was one of the few female fleet managers even after much longer. उसके बाद as I was doing that, I also did product management. Mhmm. हमारा होता था app होती थी ना, driver app थी, customer app थी but हमारा एक internal system था. तो उसके लिए हमारे पास product manager नहीं था तो मैं वहां पर भी घुस गई. उसके बाद मुदस्य ने कहा कि we don't have a GM, assistant GM for GCC.

तुम्हें GCC चली गई. इसकी growth हुई क्या स्रांति करीम की? Like, you guys started off with Dubai in 2013. Yes. And then how quickly were you expanding to other cities? So, 2013

में so, they started July 12. नहीं, July 2012 is when they start finalize this idea and January 2013 is when they say they actually started and they got McKinsey and so 2013 में Saudi था और Dubai था. नहीं, तो मैं ITs Saudi had just started. Like, Saudi तो पूरा दो साल बाद जाकर हुआ था. Right. It was just रियाद at that time. And then I think हमने उसी साल में at the end of the year we also soft open दोहा. It didn't take a lot to open, and we were testing. 2014 तक हमारी app सही हो गई थी और हमारी dispatching. पहले क्या होता था कि कोई book कराता था ना तो फिर हम call करके driver को बताते थे यहां से booking है. So when I joined, that was the system. So it took like और अभी भी improve होता जा रहा है. We used to have something called manual dispatching of rides. तो फिर automated dispatching, that the whole process happened in front of me or happened in front of them. So मैंने किया fleet manager slash product manager and then मुदास्य start sending me to, दोहा में problem आ रही थी. तो दोहा में हमारी rights ज़्यादा नहीं हो रही थी. तो I went, और उस महीने के बाद दोहा की सबसे ज़्यादा growth हुई थी. तुम दस से noticed and he said, what did you do? Then he sent me to Kuwait and then he said कि तुम ना इस area की GM वन जाओ. But हुआ यह था कि unfortunately Kuwait stopped learning पाकिस्तानीs in. अच्छा. There was some problem with, them so you had to apply for a visa and they weren't giving visas. उसी case में मुद्दास्ता मुझे कहा go to Pakistan. By this time I had been out of Pakistan for seventeen years. Right. मैं beach में शायद गई हूं कभी, किसी की शादी हो. शादी इस पर तो वैसे मैं जाती नहीं हूं because I hate getting dressed up. So I've completely said no to शादी. The last शादी I went to was my brother's wedding nine years ago. After that I haven't been to a शादी. Obviously, I haven't gotten married so I get a lot of comments as well कि अब इतनी उम्र हो गई है, why haven't you gotten married? And I can explain to them that not every girl's dream is to get married. So मैं, मुद्दा से ने कहा Pakistan चली जाओ. मैंने कहा मैं Pakistan नहीं जाऊंगी. इन्होंने किसी को hire किया Pakistan के लिए, didn't quite work. तो इन्होंने कहा अच्छा जाओ देखो problem क्या है? मैं आई तो काफ़ी problems थीं. मैंने कहा अच्छा हमें relaunch करना पड़ेगा. He sent me there, he said अच्छा दो महीने, दो हफ़्ते लगाओ, ठीक कर दो, team बिठा दो, वापस आ जाओ. I went back after two months and he said कि नहीं, you have to launch Pakistan. That was the start of my head of expansion. Then I came back. I stayed here for nine months. I launched लाहौर You were बेशकाराजी? अरुकाराजी at the time? I was everywhere here. So, I when I say I don't remember the last time मैं घर पर कोई मेरा घर हो? किसी चीज़ को मैं घर कह सकूं because Dubai आकर भी I was the head of expansion. I used to move around. University में भी आपको बताया ना कि I was supposed to be in the university for two years. वह भी नहीं रह सकी. वहां गई थी. Even in my masters जो मैंने किया था, वहां पर भी मैंने दो semesters और universities में भी किए थे. तो एक जगह पर टिककर the longest I have stayed anywhere is the last two years. In लाहौर? In लाहौर because of the pandemic. इससे ज़्यादा मैं कहीं और रही नहीं. मुझे पता ही नहीं कि घर क्या है. और अब मैं कहीं जाना नहीं चाहती because मुझे पता चल गया कि घर क्या होता है. And it's a beautiful place. But मैं, nomadic like a gypsy life. So, जब यहां पर थी तो I used to go between लाहौर, कराची, इस्लामवाद depending on where the need was because I was the head of expansion. फिर मैं यहां से गई Turkey. मैं Turkey से गई Egypt. Egypt से मैं गई Morocco और वहां पर जाकर cities launch की. फिर मैं वापस आई Pakistan because यहां पर हमने और cities launch करनी थी. तो थोड़ा थक गई थी and then I decided to take a break from करीम. Actually, I thought that I'd resign because expansion was pretty much, documented और उसके सारे processes देखते तो कोई भी कर सकता था. By the time we'd done so many, it was very simple to open a city. Didn't take as much time as possible. And I didn't see any other position that was very exciting for me. So you left, before it went public? Yeah. But before, Uber acquisition? I didn't leave. Modasa said instead of leaving, I'll grant you a sabbatical. Take a year off. Come back, and let's see what we'll do. तो again, culture, how employees are, how bosses are is very important to me. I'll leave a job in a second if it does not serve me regardless of money. And again, I'm a little privileged because I have my brother and my father who'll support me if I am in a situation like that, so I can do that. So it's not brave of me. There is a backing, especially with my dad. So I was blessed in that way. But, मैं गई थी, I went to MIT. It was my lifelong dream to do an MBA. पहले जब करना चाहती थी तब dad ने कहा masters अभी कर लो और work experience नहीं था. अभी मैं afford भी कर सकती थी. So I wanted to pay for it myself. I worked really hard to be able to be in a situation where I could pay for it for myself और, I thought the time was right. So I went to do my MBA. While I was doing my MBA, my plan was always to come back to करीम. मेरा करीम का email काम कर रहा था. Was still on their Slack. I was on all the channels and Uber acquired करीम. And मेरा दिल बड़ा दुखा था because it made all of us very, affluent, rich. सबने बड़े पैसे बनाए इस बात में but मुझे लगा कि यह सही move नहीं थी और जो भी sun रहा होगा बाहर वह कहेगा कि कितनी stupid हो क्योंकि यह कैसे सही move नहीं थी. But anyway, मैंने वहां पर resign किया. जिस दिन, मुझे ख़बर मिली उसके दो दिन बाद resign किया and I didn't know what I was gonna do but I resigned and I don't know if you've heard of Keep Truckin. Keep Truckin Absolutely, as a yeah. So somebody that I'd worked with at Karim and had left Karim and joined Keep Truckin messaged me and said कि यार Keep Truckin is looking for a head of Pakistan. Are you interested? पहले मैंने no किया था, but then when I resigned from Karim, I restart to him and I said I'm interested. So I started talking to them. And I think, as I left San Francisco, I got an email from them that you haven't met the CEO, अगले हफ़्ते फिर आ जाओ. And Boston to San Francisco, because I was at MIT at this time, is like a six and a half hour flight. It's no joke. Mhmm. But I went the next time and I got to be the head of Keep Trucking

Pakistan. Pakistan. That included the technology team, the customer All teams. Service

Keep Trucking so one of the main reasons I left was यहां पर dotted lines आ जाती थी. So how it worked was all of these were functional teams. They were functional heads, but then there there was a head of Pakistan. So there was two bosses per team. And that structure is very hard to, it's very hard to work. और मेरा यह था कि शुरू में तो मेरी बहुत सुनी जाती थी but distance बहुत ज़्यादा था and with the pandemic I was in traffic. And you were working for, out of strength San Francisco या you were working? No, was working hard. So, मैं because Pakistan में all positions were taken. They would have to get rid of somebody to give me a position. मैंने उनसे कहा मुझे छोटी position दे दो मुझे Pakistan आना है. None of my friends, none of my parents, family thought that I'd ever come back because I'd been against, Pakistan a lot, unfortunately. Because, you know, what you hear in the media, you've been away for so long, so you think that it's not safe and it's, women don't have any rights. Women have more rights in Pakistan than anywhere else and let me explain that to you. Not rights. I I don't mean rights. Sorry. I I don't That is the that's that's the first. No no no. Not rights. I think यहां पर women की to to a certain point respect है. Right. I know that you walk around and and and there's catcalling, but also I've walked into rooms where people have just stood up and said, please take a seat. Not that I need it, but also I felt really safe with the kind of friends that I have and the family and how they look out for me. Again, not that I needed, but it's still different. I don't know how to explain it, but I felt safer in Pakistan than I have in the streets of New York or streets of San Francisco. And San Francisco में तो मेरे साथ एक दफ़ा हो भी गया था where some a mugger just attacked me. Really scary. That hasn't happened yet. But again, when I say this, it sounds very entitled and people will say you move around in areas where this doesn't happen. It's a personal experience at the end of the day. That's the comment on Yes. But it I mean, it's it's not as bad as the media makes it out to be. Mhmm. But there are certain things that I am very strongly against. Like, if, you know, the death sentence hadn't been announced for Zahir, I would be really, really upset. Right. And I am still very shaken about the motorway case. So I'm trying to figure this thing out, but also I feel that I do feel a bit safer being here because I'm not a Muslim in a country where Muslims are disliked so much. Right. I don't know how to explain it. Makes sense.

So, take a

you're you took that keep drug and job, and you relocated to Islamabad? I did. I relocated to Islamabad. I hadn't lived my with my parents in such a long time. तो मैंने कहा कि अच्छा मैं Pakistan तो आ जाऊंगी लेकिन parents के साथ रहना थोड़ा सा मुश्किल है अगर आप रहे नहीं हुए. नहीं, so so they were not in Dubai anymore? My parents had moved back by this time to, because एक age होती है by the in Dubai where you can work. अच्छा, so they were working in Dubai? My dad was working in Dubai. That's why he relocated. So eventually eventually retirement के लिए he came back to his retirement house and He came back to the retirement house. We made our first house, by the way. Right. When he came for the retirement house because army में थे तो हमें घर भी बनाने की ज़रूरत नहीं थी. तो हमारा घर दो साल पहले बना है. अच्छा. Which is where I'm living now in लोहौर. अच्छा. So, I came to सामवाद and I worked at Keep Trucking, and it was an experience because, this was the first time I was working at night. Right. You working? 02/1718? In 2019. So I worked from at Karim from 2013 to 2018. Right. 18 में I went for my MBA. Right. '19 I graduated. July 1 I joined Keep Trucking. And then 2019. Right. And then the pandemic hit in 2020. And after the pandemic hit, it was a bit difficult because now we I wasn't traveling as much to The US or not at all. And so that ability to connect with the leadership because I was the only

manager out of Pakistan, rest everyone was there. And what what was the size of the team in Pakistan at the time? So when I joined, we were

five thirty five people and I was given a mandate to expand. So by the time I left, we were about 1,500

people. Keep tracking का मुझे याद है कि उनका एक मशहूर था कि वह दिन का एक बंदा hire कर रहे थे. You were hiring a lot more than दिन का बंदा. I was given a mandate to hire 400 people

within two months, salespeople.

और generally किस तरह के लोग होते थे? यह, cold call salespeople थे या यह customer service वाले थे या?

So there's all sorts of people. There's two teams that get hired a lot, the sales team and it's very interesting. मैं उनसे कहती थी Pakistan को ना keep trucking वाले Pakistan को back office कहा करते थे. And I said call us the front office because 70% of Keep Truckin's revenue is generated out of Pakistan. I think that is of, that should make all पाकिस्तानीs very proud. Actually 72% now. Mhmm. Because यहां पर इतनी बड़ी sales team है. Sales team generate sales in dollars but gets paid in Pakistan rupees. And obviously पहले बहुत ज़्यादा कमाते भी थे वह अब थोड़ा सा कम हो गया है. लेकिन salespeople बहुत hire होते हैं. सारी customer service यहां से होती है which is twenty four seven. And by the way, what most people don't know is they have a humongous engineering team. It's up to about a 100, a 150 engineers now. और जो R and D है ना, which is the most important thing. R and D is looking at how do we incorporate new technologies into our solution. It's done exclusively out of Pakistan. The R and D team sits out of Pakistan. The R and D team has worked on a project where they've introduced AI into cameras so that you can actually tell if an accident's gonna happen before it actually happens based on your driving patterns. Interesting. So cool. Nobody knows this. Right. So keep truckings done incredible work. And they're they're all based in Islamabad? इनके multiple offices No. So when I came, the Lahore office was very small. The Islamabad office was very big. And so I expanded the Lahore office. Now we have I mean, Keep Trekking has three floors in Tricon in Lahore and about three, four floors here in I-nine. There's although they're remote at the moment. Obviously,

understandably. And so what at what point did you finally leave?

So I came in, our थोड़ी सी expand करनी थी team को, and there were no processes, and there was a lot of kitschmich. It took me about six months to fix the processes, get it on autopilot, and then another six months to make sure that everything had expanded well. And then I spent, you know, another six months just relaxing. And there wasn't a lot of work to do. And a person like me cannot, you know, I've chosen to only have my career and my life, not a family. And that's a choice I've made. So if I'm not doing anything, I'll go crazy. I don't know how people not do anything. So I I had multiple conversations with, you know, my CEO, and then I I said that listen, if I'm I wanna live in Pakistan, that's my choice. And if there's not that much to do in Pakistan for me as the head of Pakistan, then it's better for me to leave. And, you know, it took three months to convince him, and then I was finally out.

So that, मतलब, that was your last ride before collapse?

No. I had dukan. P k. अच्छा. Why was that? So what happened was, whilst I was at Keep Truckin, and and during the time I was, saying goodbye to KeepTruckin, lots of people from Karim were starting their own startups. And a lot of them were getting funding and everything. And people that had worked with me and my mentors and people that, you know, even to a point, मुदास्त्र said, you do really well if you do a startup of your own. Now my problem was I didn't have an idea that I believed in. And as an entrepreneur, you need to have an idea that you believe in. So I got approached by some investors that said we'd love to invest in you. You have an idea? So there are these, you know, pre seed, investors. वह यही कहते हैं आपको कि आपके पास कोई idea है, हम आपको ना 250,000 देंगे. So as I was talking to these investors, one of them said, hey, we've... Do you know मोनस रमान? I said, I've heard of him. Bear in mind that I've only been in Pakistan for two years, so I haven't had a lot of chance to meet a lot of people. I was in Islamabad working nights. So I said, I've heard of him, and I think I've met him, but I don't know much. They said he has an idea, and you're the execution person. So in the industry of startups, I'm known as the person who can execute. Right. You have a brilliant idea. I'm the one who's gonna put it into action. I'm expansion and I'm execution. मुझे मुद्दा से कहते थे chief CEO, chief execution officer always, right? So आपके जो भी दिमाग़ में ना वह अपनी जिस तरह उसको run करना है वह मैं करूंगी. With my team of course. They do all the work. तो उन्होंने कहा कि आप ऐसा करो, आप इनसे मिल लो, उनका idea अच्छा है and I think it's something that you can believe in and I think with his sales skills and your execution skills, you'd be a match made in heaven. हम लोग मिल गए. We met, we talked. He was super impressive. He's a great salesperson. And at that time what we did was we talked about the work, the company, the philosophy but we didn't talk about was how are we gonna take it forward? What did the future look like? I was very excited. I was leaving Keep Trucking. थोड़ा सा ego beach में आ गया कि, you know, मैं छोड़कर तो जा रही हूं. आगे तो कुछ है नहीं और कुछ करना भी है. सारे क़रीब वाले पैसे उठा रहे हैं. मैं क्यों नहीं उठा रही? Peer pressure, ego. So I think my biggest mistake was jumping into something not because my gut told me to do it but because I was concerned about what people would say if I didn't. Because there's so many people out there saying, फात मामाज़ा should do a startup. Why don't you do it? अभी भी आप किसी से भी मिले ना कहेंगे पता नहीं ख़ुद का क्यों नहीं करती है? And I think apart from this journey, my mental health journey is defined by लोग क्या कहेंगे? Till about 2020. After that लोग क्या कहेंगे? Does not matter to me. And it took me forty years, thirty nine years of my life to reach that point. So I'm at that point now. But after this public failure, it's very public. I joined, press release करवाई, सबको बताया, सब तो आपने वाह वाह थी. क्या position है आपने जब co founder join किया? Co founder and COO. अच्छा. बड़ी बड़ी position थी. Right. मतलब बहुत public you know आप अब मैंने सीख लिया कि अगर आप किसी जगह को join, जैसे collapse को मैंने join किए थे July में. I didn't make it public till October. And if I'm ever one day cofounder or if I am, you wouldn't know because I won't make it public till I know for sure that this is what I'm gonna do. It's like, you know, people talk about their relationships. Celebrities talk about their relationship openly and then they learn from that and they say कि कुछ चीज़ें चुपाकर रखनी चाहिए. And you shouldn't make your career choices. But this was just me. I cannot believe that at 38 years, I let ego come in the way, not trust myself, jump into something. And, four months of, like, really hard, conversations and not a nice time and not, it was difficult for Monas, it was difficult for me. It was difficult for the team that had to see like these. You know, when you're a startup cofounders, you're like parents of the company. And everything that you do reflects onto your team and they see it and they caught get caught in the middle. Mhmm. तो, I think four months was too much. I should have made the decision sooner. I knew in my mind that it was sooner. But then I had to face the consequences. काफ़ी लोगों ने काफ़ी बातें की, but it's also scarred me. So, इस सबसे settle down करने के लिए ना I thought I'll take six months off. मैं जाऊंगी, collab जाकर बैठूंगी क्योंकि मैंने coworking spaces देखी थी. I fell in love with collabs. The moment I saw it, I was like, I love this space. I'd love for you to come visit the space if you're ever there. तो मैं co labs जाकर बैठी, मैंने office लिया. Office लिया तो उमर शाह जो वहां के, he's the founder and the owner, He'd worked with my dad and my brother at Abraj. So my brother and my dad both worked at Abraj. And Abraj is another story in itself, like the WeWork story. So they both worked there and उमर also worked there. So he knew of me. So जब मैं आई तो उसने मुझे कहा कि अच्छा यार ऐसा करो. मैं जिसे बताऊं ना कोई collabs के लिए क्या करूं? क्या करूं? तो बातों बातों में मैंने उसे बताना शुरू कर दिया. I was like, listen, you have a great space. Why don't you raise money? Which by the way, you know, we've been able to marshal. The announcement will come soon and it's from great investors. But July में मैंने उससे बात करनी शायद left, in June. May में मैंने छोड़ दिया था दुकान तो June में मैं जाकर बैठकर थी. July में मैंने उससे बात करनी शुरू कर दी. और बातों बातों में इसे कहा अच्छा मेरे HR में यह problems आ रही यह कैसे solve करूंगी, यह कैसे करूं? Next thing I knew he offered me like a hefty chunk of equity which I wouldn't have gotten for free for not putting in any money and said come join me. The next thing I knew I joined Colab's and it is such a fun place. It's all startups or freelancers. This is my day. I go in the morning, I have a few meetings with my team कि यह, यह कुछ करना है. And then I sit with startups and I listen to their ideas or I give them guidance or I have somebody come in and say कि यार, मेरा यह idea, what do you think? My day Understood. It's sort of like a I mean, it's a coworking space, but it's sort of like an incubator there as well. It is. Haslam as they're essentially helping you out with the Not really far. So Umer does help a lot as well. The best thing that we've done is we've connected a lot of the startups to investors. Mhmm. And two, three investors have actually found the startups they wanna invest in at Collapse. Right. So, you know, when you talk about all other startups spaces, you say why Collabs? Why would investors invest here? Why would, you know, somebody like Fátima who should be working in tech is what people think. Mhmm. Go here. Mhmm. This is the hub of tech. This is where all startups come. They start, इलाज is a startup. It was called Augment Care. दो लोग होते थे. Now they have, they just they just took a 50 people office in our space. We've seen that growth. It's like बच्चे grow कर रहे हैं. So every day is fun. It's like

every day is different. It's not the same. Tell me about co working spaces now that you're in the space now. Space. कि, you know and and and इसमें मैं elephant in the room ही निकालूंगा कि weaver का debacle हमारे सामने ने कहा, you know, real estate disruption जो है वह जिस तरह वह नहीं आया था आपका, what was that? Elizabeth Holmes वाला जो आया था. You know, the woman who said कि जी हम एक blood drop से हम आपको दोस्तों Yes yes yes yes yes जिसके बाद से लोगों ने कहा कि यार health tech में नहीं घुसना till the time कि COVID happened and now health tech is coming back. But similarly, real estate startups जो है ना वह essentially banish होगी नहीं because we were Yes. इतना royal failure लेकर आया था. तो Yes. You know, sort of taking a page out of that and and really figuring out fifteen sixteen में थोड़ा बहुत अच्छा ठीक है कमरे छोटे था but नहीं भी था odd भी था events हो रहे हैं and then तीन साल खामोशी and then suddenly इस साल 900,000 square foot, 600,000 square foot. I am like what the hell is going on? ये कहां से आ रहे सारे बंदे? I get Italy you know post COVID a bunch of people have left their offices also. Yes. Is the startup boom happening where you know, pay as you grow model works really well. It is. But उसी के साथ साथ, there is obviously that sort of cynicism because of WeWork and its growth. Yes. So how do you see this entire space?

So where WeWork went wrong was they bought assets.

Right.

Here, at, you know, at least at Colabs, which I can speak for, we're leasing, long term leases, ten year leases, with minimal rental payments and ten years के लिए आप वह नहीं कर सकते. That's what we've learned from... Number one, that's what we've learned. The other thing that's happening is people have started realizing how expensive it is to have spaces in Pakistan now post COVID because a lot of them went remote. एक तो people worked very well remote, right? The productivity didn't go down. I'll argue a little bit, with keep trucking on that a lot because productivity ऊपर चली गई. And I said corona के times हैं. There's no place else to go. Now that corona is dying down, now you'll see that productivity will not go up because आप meeting ले रहे होगे और पीछे से ना शोर आ रहा होगा क्योंकि you can be anywhere. However, people did realize, look, if I give you an example, if you were to get your own office, you'd be paying, you know, with everything included, a 150 rupees per square foot, for example. If you're with collabs, you'd be paying 50 rupees per square foot. और दूसरा एक आपको पूरी team hire करनी होती है. जब startup आती ना वह कहती यार मुझे minimum से minimum लोग चाहिए और ज़्यादा से ज़्यादा engineers चाहिए और यह लोग चाहिए. क्या मैं workplace की team उठाऊं, real estate की team उठाऊं, Internet के problem सोचूं, generator लाना है, क्या करना है? It's a lot of hassle. So what people have started realizing now and there's a lot of work that we're doing as well is saying this is a pain point that you don't need to have. लोग सोचते थे सिर्फ़ startups आ रहे हैं. But no, there's, like, regular companies coming as well that are saying अच्छा, हमें office चाहिए. Also, remote work becoming a reality. A lot of people are getting remote work from The US. They're getting it from everywhere. But what they're not realizing is the infrastructure in Pakistan is not that good or people live with multiple people. So they want a space. I have a lot of people in my coworking space at the moment in Lahore that are remote and they come pay out of their own pocket and sit with us because जैसे कि घर पर मैं उठता हूं मीकेती दही ले आओ. बीबीकेती बीबीकेती है. हो हो ही नहीं सकता और internet कभी crash करता है, कभी नहीं करता. कमरा कहां से ढूंढो अकेला? जिसमें बैठकर आप काम कर सको, right? Like, we're talking about middle class people or even us like interruption तो हर वक़्त होती है. So I think that's what's happening. Remote work के साथ lot more people need these spaces and people are realizing that, you know, there's

Do you think, would you call it a co working space for forever? Yeah, do you think आपको managed services या managed spaces की तरफ़ भी जाना शुरू हो गई है where It is. I mean, like you mentioned, company आ रही है यदि पचास बजे चाहिए तो वह तो एक office set of query essentially. वह तो एक पूरा. That's fine. So

Hive's done this. Hive's built out a beautiful space in Islamabad and then they've given it to हवाई. The whole, so manage spaces. But again, the whole point of having a coworking space is so the the thing that people like is the ability to talk to each other. The the the beauty of coworking spaces. So we do. We have, a 100 people office that is coming up, that is already sold, and a 50 people office and 50 people office. But what happens is they get to interact with each other, and they get to talk to each other. Right. And then that's where the collabs वाला, collaboration वाला element There are. And there is collaboration happening. We've got, one day we had... We have about seven fintechs that sit with us and coincidentally that one day we had seven CEOs of fintech be in the same space. Mhmm. और हमने ना अपने ही office में because our space Seven fintechs. कौन कौन सी fintechs हैं यार? सादा Pay, there's PayPro, there's the Gist Pay, there's, so many others. Wait, seven तो कम बोली है मैंने इससे भी ज़्यादा है. अभी finance,

there अच्छा, so essentially अगर for example if they're headquartered in Karachi, उनके लोग आकर आपके तरफ़ बैठ जाएंगे. If they're headquartered in Islamabad, उनके लोगों के बंदे वहां आकर. Interesting. Which is why now we're gonna expand, right? Is why kickstarts come to Islamabad और कुराज. Kickstart के अब तीनों जगह. Kickstart build a beautiful facility. I checked it out today. Yeah. Done a great job. क्योंकि I mean वही वाली बात है कि अगर मैं एक startup हूं Doesn't make sense. This way sort of again,

subscription model है तो it it generally works well. So my vision for collabs is that we're present in each and every remote area. Not every remote area but at least, you know, the top 10 Yeah yeah. Top 12 cities, 15 cities so that people don't have to approve their lives and move all the way to Lahore, pay rent, be away from family. Right. And then have to be paid more as well. As an employer, you have to pay more. So isn't it better that you have all these places that provide high quality, employment and we can make that possible because we'll provide the,

infrastructure. And इसमें obviously, you know, you got, like, startups like Food Panda and करीब and जो के सारे show छोटी शहरों में कर रहे हैं तो obviously उनकी

you know folks can just और these यह तो बड़े हैं. I know startups like बाज़ार, I know startups like you know ताज़ा technologies, GA technologies that are going into कुएटा, going into Multan, Rahimyar Khan में जा रहे हैं, जो वह कहां office रखेंगे? So, you know, phase two of my

expansion plan at CoLabs is just my most favorite. Phase one is just to get to the major cities. We're at a thousand seats right now. We aim to be at 3,000 by the end of, you know, this year. Do you do you see the growth? Do you think growth sustain इसी तरीके से? The way that you're seeing it right now with all these coworking spaces, सारी सारी are growing quite rapidly right now. Yes. Do you think the momentum can continue?

So I think maybe the momentum of, you know, startups funding that is coming in might slow down a bit. But, again, what we're Why targeting do you why do you think that? I think that, you know, what needs to happen right now is there's a lot of money being pumped into Pakistan. And this is only my opinion, nobody else's opinion. And this is how I see it. There's a lot of money that's being pumped in. So series a तक आ जाता है. Now startups need to prove themselves. So I think it'll get a little cold for a bit where you'll have to prove the numbers that you promised and everything. And if we get a few series a, series b funding in, बाज़ार और airlift की तो most likely आ रही है. Mhmm. उसके बाद जब funding और आएगी, prove करेंगे तो फिर और पैसा आएगा because you can't keep pumping in money without any proof of concept and I hope that

they slow down a bit. यह ना हो कि pump करते रहे, कुछ भी ना हो और वह कहे अच्छा we've written Pakistan off. My And अगर वह एक दवा fail हो गया ना तो वह फिर आख़िरे वालों के लिए first generation ने आगे सारे generations को मार देने और अगर first generation sustain करके जैसे क़रीब ने किया तो उसने that essentially करीम open the door for all of these. करीम mafia कहते ना वह सारे के सारे के जी वह उन्होंने आकर वह किया तो उसकी वजह से अब now the second wave generation has to prove themselves as well. They really have to. In Pakistan. Do you think, again एक retail है तीन areas, तीन sectors मैं major देख रहा हूं. एक आपके पास retail site के ऊपर बहुत ज़्यादातर के लिए काम हो रहा है, e commerce के ऊपर. एक आपका fintech के ऊपर काम हो रहा है. And then there's a third, जो कि last mile है. Yeah. Fintech, I get it. Low banked population, huge huge population, digital banking growing rapidly, friendly regulator. They also want कि यार system में जितने लोग आते हैं आज है कोई problem नहीं है. Retail I totally get it. Biggest sector in Pakistan. इससे पहले COVID ने essentially वह opportunity दिखा दी आपको और आपने उसके ऊपर jump कर लिया and I think it's only a matter of time. मतलब मुझे retail और food panda ज़्यादा difference नहीं नज़र आता. अगर shopkeepers food panda की tablet रख सकते हैं तो वह retail को भी digitize Last कर सकते mile के ऊपर मैं थोड़ा सा सर खुजाता हूं कि why is so much money being pumped to subsidize the delivery of a ठंडी coke to my house? It makes no sense to me that a that a developing country like, I I get it in The US for example. You pump money till the point कि autonomous vehicles cut the biggest cost of the driver, And, suddenly, now you have, like, these sort of robots delivering all sorts of crap to your houses. Drones. Drones. But when you look at Pakistan, does it really make sense that we're looking at upwards of a $100,000,000?

$350,000,000.

If rumors to be there to be. Yeah. And and you're looking at that much money going into essentially riders bringing you under in an extremely razor thin margin space. Mhmm. जिसमें फिर the only outcome that I see is an abusive workplace environment where तीस तीस रुपए, पंद्रह पंद्रह रुपए पर जो है वह driver जा रहा और जाकर जी आठ floors चढ़कर जो है, जाकर किसी को under deliver कर रहा है just to make it कि काम है, यही काम है. You know, so, what do you think about that?

That's a loaded question. I think that it's not about last mile, it's not about anything. I think it's them trying to be set up for an acquisition. I think this money is coming in. They're talking about last mile. They want Amazon to acquire them.

If they're able to do this, Amazon acquires them. They have this exit. So, essentially यह कह रहे हैं कि last mile is a means to an end. उसके पीछे जो platform है potentially, वह उसकी utility है. Yeah. And that's the jump. Like, again, वह pivot है, वह pivot from that. Buses, again, buses भी question mark था? Buses भी question mark था. But swivel's doing well in buses but not as well, yes. Again, Pakistan. So Middle East में आप understand कर सकते ना cost of labor high है, आप optimization में आपका पैसा बहुत बच रहा है. बिल्कुल. आप Pakistan में आते हैं आप आकर again मुझे नहीं पता उनका model क्या है, CapEx था या least गाड़ियां थीं. लेकिन किसका? इन दोनों का swivel गया इनका कि अपनी गाड़ियां ख़रीद रहे थे या third party से एक गाड़ियां acquire कर रहे Third party. But it it still was not a very easy problem to solve. It was. Work in Middle East, sure, but just copy paste every rocket rocket internet भाग गया ना घर में. तो वह copy paste doesn't work all the time and so करीम work करीम work. You had you had an excess of, you know, consumer vehicles lying around and so it it solved the problem. Buses not too sure about that. But pivot आया, pivot में आकर वह last mile हो गया, last mile हो गया. You would have thought कि यार नहीं वह एक confusing idea था, COVID ने उसको further confuse कर दिया. But वह double down हुआ और वह बहुत बड़ा swell हो गया. Yeah. Your your take on this is कि this will then pivot again and basically the last mile will just be one component of it. It'll be the platform. Like, it'll be the terraz का जो पीछे का background है और वह उसको वह कर रहे होंगे essentially. I think,

they will get acquired by somebody.

For the last mile, ली बड़ा important है. For the last mile or for the platform?

For the last mile and eventually the platform. I think they're looking... If I'm... If if I can think of anything I can think of, they wanna be acquired by Amazon. There's no Amazon here. They've got a last mile. They've got a platform. Amazon buys them and does, you know, whatever it needs to. That's number one. Number two, would you pay extra for ten minute delivery?

I don't think so. Would you not send somebody from your house? So so for me देखिए दो दो crowd हैं. यहां पर middle करेगा. यहां पर middle घर में भय मेरा खान सामा आता कहता कि यार मुझे दही चाहिए. $20.30 rupees पर start किया था. 70 rupees पर पहुंच चुका है already. Eventually उसका एक normalize होगा rate. So is it a nice to have or is it an essential problem? Fintech is an essential problem and I see that. And आप जिस तरह भी sir मारे हैं पचास company आएंगी दस तो sustain करी जाएंगी. बेशक आख़िर में वह एक you know merger करके बड़ा हो जाए. Retail essential problem है. Third class inefficient आपकी distribution system था उसको जाकर सारे को automate कर रहे हैं. Automatically आपको result generate हो जाएंगे. Truck it in आ गया. उन्होंने मतलब मुझे पता है मैंने एक small e commerce business था मेरा. मुझे पता है जो माल

from the supplier to getting it delivered to me was such a hassle. Yeah yeah, वह truck it in will do well. Plus, सलमज is a great guy, smart guy. Problem last mile आ रहा है. Last mile आ रहा है. Also have I know the founders of Crave Mart, which has come in and said, we will deliver your groceries in ten minutes. And what they're doing is they're putting up all these stores, and, you know, they'll do this. But never have I, in Pakistan, expected something to be delivered in ten minutes. And as somebody who's been in the starter space for a really long time, the one thing that does keep on confusing me is the airlift story.

I mean, I'm really proud of them for it. They're gonna be the first unicorn and But डर बहुत ज़्यादा साथ है. Yes. अगर if this collapses, तो अगला बिचारा सारा ज़री लोग. It's

it's a it's a really big fear. And I don't understand. And I've had this conversation multiple times. And then, you know, I think, okay, maybe I'm not smart enough. I don't see something here, but why? You know, at the end of the day... And international expansion, so they've gone to Africa, but they haven't even gone to everywhere here. Yeah. And so I I'm trying to understand. And from what I understand, when you're making yourself up to be this big and you're saying you're going international and you haven't really done the base work, you're setting yourself up to be acquired and make a quick buck is my thing. There is no Amazon here. We work and No. No. I hope not.

That stops all the funding here because this is the biggest funded card. Like, this the highest funded card. This is the crown jewel of, the startup industry in Pakistan, like, at the end of the day. And, the the only thing I probably the the the thing that confuses me is ecommerce is booming. Overall, ecommerce is booming. I just don't understand this push for grocery, when your standard ecommerce key deliveries and all of those things have incredible amounts of problems right now. They do. I've jumped from company to company to company. Even I've I've last I worked with TCS. You know, obviously बड़े पुराना network है, सारा कुछ है. But again, same problems, you know, haven't been able to fix. Yes. उस तरह से. तो अगर मुझे कोई चीज़ नज़र भी आती या वह समझ आती तो मुझे समझ मतलब मुझे समझ आ रही है कि Blue X IPO कर रहा है. मुझे समझ आ रही है उसकी. You know, like that. That's logical and I can see the growth and I can see it from going from $3,000,000,000 to $10,000,000,000 to जब वह दस billion dollars दाहरे के market में माल move हो रहा है तो उसमें utility आएगी. जब market में fridge, AC बड़ा माल move करना शुरू करेगा तो उसके लिए आपको चीज़ों को optimize करना है. I just don't get last mile. Anyways, wrap up करेंगे. One hour twelve minutes roughly हमारा हो चुका हुआ है. So, Didn't feel like that. That was a lot. But I'm gonna ask you a question that I asked all of my guests. You know, you've been out of Pakistan for seventeen years and you you were in and out and then eventually you decided to come back full time. You've been here for two years, and एक चीज़ already आपने कही कि, you you've fallen in love with the place or at least the version that you're at least exposed to.

That's very important to say because I don't want to come off as privileged. I am a little privileged. Yes. So उस context में,

you know, you're 41 now, thirty years from now. How do you see Pakistan knowing all of what you've seen, seeing all of what you've experienced? How do you see Pakistan over the next thirty years? Your take on it?

That could take another hour and twelve minutes. But, look, since I've come, we've been hit with COVID, and we've done a relatively good job of not losing everyone. I thought everyone in Pakistan was gonna die, honestly. So we've done a decent job of that. If you'd ask me this this question, like, a couple of days ago, I think I'd have a different answer, but Noor's killer is being hanged. And I know I bring that up, like, five, six times already, probably in this hour. But it's the biggest deal for me. I think that there's gonna be justice.

I mean, there is it's it's the first step. Just to put it out there, k k k bloke against the disappoint. This is the first step. Now there's going to pay an appeal in the high court, and there's going to, that's gonna run, and then there's going to be an appeal the court. Do you think the appeal could I mean, we don't know at this point in time. So that's gonna run its course. But yes, it's one step in the right direction. One step.

And then there's a lot of initiatives for startups and startup funding and business being done in Pakistan that's made it easier. Now I don't know much about the politics of Pakistan. Honestly speaking, sitting from outside, I've always been against it. I haven't talked much about it because I know nothing about the politics here. I was super excited about Imran Khan coming here, and I'm super disappointed at at what he's done. And, again, I keep telling my parents all the time that we cannot sit here in our seats and criticize somebody till we've been in that seat and understand why somebody's doing what they're doing. Right? Like, as I've gone up in my career, I've realized that it's very easy to blame somebody up there and not realize why they're doing what they're doing. So put yourself in other people's shoes. I wanna be hopeful for Pakistan, but unless we have some sort of change in leadership, the only people I know is Navazh Sherif and Zardari and Imran Khan. Who else is there? Unless there's somebody else there, I don't see us improving. And I see, like, our middle class struggling and even everyone struggling because it is ridiculous. Like, the I don't understand how we can control the gas prices and how we can control the dollar rate. Like, I think dollar rate's gonna hit 200 very soon, and so's the gas rate. So I'd this is possibly the toughest question out there. I I want Pakistan to do well. I love Pakistan, and I wish there was something that I could do. And if there was something that I could do, I would be willing to do it. I'm just not, I'm not sure what it is.

Do you think que... I mean, so, one of the things जो अब मैं generally देखता हूं, growing up versus now, is कि globally अगर आप देखेंगे तो governments generally are, they're not the best, you know. आप Trump था, थोड़े से पहले America के अंदर. Canada में there's, you know, there's a чудо. Tiny martial law happening there. Yes. I mean, Russia, Europe is freaking fighting. But the war is on. But the world is just sort of the world has been moving on. And so my question to a lot of people is, particularly in people in who are very active in the in the private sector and the startup sector is, do you think we're at a point where... And and and वह point होता है. जब जब countries start हो रही होती हैं तो generally वह, status quo and people in the power generally are so small that they're able to control, you know, the fates of the countries very easily. Yeah. But as we grow, as as the media gets freer, as they we you have more information, Internet, democratization of different institutions. And democratization does not necessarily have to be government institutions. I mean, just the access to information has been democratized at this point in time. Yes. Know? Do you think there is a certain level of state control that diminishes over time where, irrespective of the of how inefficient and disconnected the leadership is, you're you're at a tipping point where the private sector eventually ends up leading the charge and driving the the the policy because of the rate of change that they're, essentially. So think of it like this. No, I get what you're saying. At the end of the day, जब आपका जब आता है पैसा, देखो, तो पांच साल पहले startups were a thing where a second year state minister might be invited to an opening ceremony of an NIC and he'd have no understanding and he'd be like, okay, sure. Today a startup gets funded and the finance minister and इमरान खान tweets and the reason for that is because now the government is not controlling action. The action is being is controlling the government. That's right. True. And so irrespective of It's perfectly said, by the way. So so irrespective of whoever comes, I feel like que, well, मैं सीखकर बहुत अद believe करता हूं. It's the people, it's it's the youth that's showing its power now. Not through, you know, the power of vote maybe, but through just this action which makes it difficult to stop them at at at this point in time.

That's beautifully said, and it makes a lot of sense. But then the start up culture, the private culture, is what percentage of the actual economy of this country? The problem is there's so many people in so many of these state jobs that, you know, do these jobs or there's so many state run companies that have employed so many people and you you talk to people, right? And most of them don't even care. Like, talk about, मुझे मुझसे आप थोड़ी देर पहले पूछते तो मुझे था कि अच्छा कौन कौन है? I still don't know who बुज़ार is and I was sitting next to him at the STZA का launch जो हुआ है जिसका Collabs को license मिला है and I had to be told who बुज़ार was, which is really sad. I look. Indonesia was we're Indonesia ten years ago. This is the kind of funding that came in. This is what happened, But I don't think much has changed in this in their how they're ruled or how things are done over there. I think we need the youth to be a lot more caring of what's happening in the country, and I don't see that. I don't I sit in all these conversations with all these people that have raised money and that are in in startups. I've never had been asked this question or have not had this discussion.

So Discussion of?

Where do we see our political, scene going? Where do we see Pakistan going? They're so focused in, यह startup है, यह हमने raise किया, यह international जाना है, यहां से पैसा जाना है, Tiger Global आ गया है. It's after very and I've been on like so many podcasts in the last year. This is the first time I've been asked this question

and I really like this question and I'd want to sit with my friends and talk about He sort of tells you what the future looks like, right? Because मैं आपको यह chance बताता हूं. मेरा एक छोटा सा एक analysis है. Have you looked at the IT sector growth over the last three years? I've heard about it. It's phenomenal. So, छोटी सी मेसाल है. दो हज़ार the reason my conversation start हुई ना was फिर से because आपने बोला कि a lot of times what we do is we tend to hear a lot of these conversations and we tend to begin to see them in a certain light. Right? So you talked about the dollar rate going up to 100 and and I understand that always puts a pressure on both the inflation as well as the ordinary public जो कि एक import led economy, consumption led economy के अंदर hit hit लेती है. दो हज़ार तेरह से लेकर दो हज़ार अठारह तक dollar control किया गया था और dollar को एक बहुत certain rate पर रखा गया था. उसको artificial था? Artificial था. अब artificial ही होगा because जब तक आपकी economy consumption based रहेगी, आप export ज़्यादा नहीं करेंगे, आप import करते रहेंगे तो आपका dollar average जो dollar की rate है Pakistan में unless कोई something some major force majeure happens वह 7% पर गिरेगा. आप कुछ भी कर लें वह गिरेगा. अगर वह नहीं गिर रहा तो artificial ही है. Artificial है. वह तो मुझे पता है. वह तो मैंने macroeconomics में पढ़ा था. हां. काफ़ी है. अब उस पर आपका आपने जब पांच साल उसको control रखा था आपकी heat किसने ली? आप heat export led ने ली. So आपकी textile तबाह हो गई. Literally survival mode में चल रहा था क्योंकि उनके पास बस जो projects आदित्य वह cost पर लेकर जाता है. Yes. अच्छा, अठारह में जाकर हमने dollar free float कर दिया. आज everybody every upper middle class, all of us who actually buy the Tabascos and the Red Bulls and so on and so forth, हमें बड़ी hit पड़े ही इस वक़्त dollar free float की. एक घर भी ले लिया. अगले साल उसने कहा अभी पचास पांच करोड़ रुपए का करो. उसने कहा यार दस बच्चे extra hire करो, चलो train कर लो उनको. And this but they began to grow in terms of how they were looking at new businesses, new markets and so on and so forth. जिसकी वजह से आपने यह देखा कि not only did your IT sector grow, your freelancing sector grew incredibly Yeah. अच्छा, similarly एक और बड़ा एक major component था economy का जो कि आपके वह थे overseas पाकिस्तानीs थे. ठीक है? यह तो है. जो आपका IT sector है, जो आपका export sector है वह growth की तरफ़ जा रहा है, वह move कर रहा है. अब इसको दस दस साल में extrapolate करें. Who is going to be running the policy makers? Who is going to be lobbying for the government? तो वह IT sector definitely जो है automatically एक power position में होगा ना so suddenly now your economy के जो जो economy चला रहे हैं वह फ़र्क़ आ गया. वही policy maker भी उस किस्म का लेकर आ रहा है. वही politician भी उस किस्म का back कर रहा है. And so that is where you see an entire shift in the sort of people that you see in your ruling class. Classes हमेशा रहेंगी या आप नहीं बदल सकते? Classes तो रहेंगी. That's not But the वह कौन सी class है? क्या वह rent seeking class है? या वह labor class है जो के ऊपर आ रही है. Right? And so this time around what we're seeing is a new class that has grown. वह अभी नज़र आना शुरू हो गया with the IT sector. But last week prime minister ने वह किया होता है rock star event. Center के ऊपर e commerce की conference की हुई थी. उसके ऊपर, you know, a bunch of startups were there. बादा खुश्नोद? SNSIA was there, बादा खुश्नोद was there. You know, so why is this happening? Why is this suddenly become so sexy? It's become sexy because these people are growing, and they're growing On their own because they've raised the money on their own. Absolutely. Do all the work on their own. And so when I look at Pakistan thirty years from now, I see a fundamental shift in the way that we see everything here because the folks who've

you know, you you get what I'm saying? I'm very happy right now. I'm gonna change my thinking and think like this. But seriously, this is the first time it's so refreshing that this is the first time this is the first time I'm hearing it. You should talk more about this. It's gonna change the way people think. It's gonna change people. When I was talking about people who are very focused on fundraising and all of that, that's me. I I haven't cared. I'm able to, because of privilege, afford whatever's happening and take out some time in my day and say, oh, how is everyone else surviving? But this is really quite

I think you should cut my part out if you're expecting your part, because I'm gonna look like a dumb bimbo. Father, we're at we're at one hour twenty five minutes. This was extremely insightful. What a phenomenal journey. No. It was more insightful for me. I'm so happy I came. I'm glad. I'm glad. That that makes it a conversation. Thank you so much for coming here and for sharing all the insight. And I'm super excited to be at collapse very, very soon. I'd actually we're doing

road shows for thought behind things, getting a bunch of people in, and maybe we can set up in collabs the next time we're in Lahore. Yes. If you do it after March, we're setting up a recording studio, so you can come use it all the time. And, please, if you're able to bring more people that are talking about this kind of the last ten minutes, please, I'd love to hear it. Bring more people in. Actually, you should go on a podcast and tell people this. We're gonna get you to come and speak at at Colab Stocks. We're gonna We'll do that. No. No. But seriously, want you there.

Federal cabinet just trying to understand कि जो thought क्या है उनकी policy के पीछे. So you can check that out as well. There is a recent episode by मुशायद एज़सैन सेवित my personal favorite. You should check that out. Talks about Pak China, China, US, a lot of what's happening in the region. इसी के साथ साथ we've started the TBT shorts का channel for people who can't go through long format content like this one and want shorts तो वह भी आप जाकर subscribe कर सकते हैं. But anyways, this was Sayyam Mazamir Rasen Zaidi. You were watching ThoughtBandThings. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see in the next one.