Thought Behind Things · Nov 29, 2023 · 1:30:47
Why Jaffer Haider never took the VC money for PosterMyWall
Jaffer Haider, founder of PosterMyWall, on building a profitable product company out of Lahore that serves 20 million users globally — without venture capital, without an iOS app for years, and without ever leaving the city he grew up in.
with Jaffer Haider
19 min read
A product company built out of Lahore
The episode opens with Muzamil framing the conversation as a rarity. In 385 prior episodes of Thought Behind Things, this is one of the first proper product conversations he has hosted — and the reason is sitting across the table from him. Jaffer Haider runs PosterMyWall, an online design and marketing tool used by around 20 million people every month, with roughly three to four million of them active in any given month. The company has 42 employees, all based in Pakistan, and serves customers almost entirely outside it.
Muzamil is direct about why this matters to him. He has been, in his own words, “a long critic of doing more and more consumption business in Pakistan” because the rupee revenues do not move the country forward. What he wants from Jaffer is the opposite story: a product built in Lahore, sold globally, generating dollars, employing Pakistanis. PosterMyWall fits that brief almost exactly, and the rest of the conversation is an extended attempt to understand how Jaffer got there — and why almost nobody else has.
A VTech laptop and the early grammar of programming
Jaffer’s path to software starts earlier than most people’s. He was born and raised in Lahore, went through Beaconhouse end to end, sat all eight of his A-level subjects in one round in 2002, and got into computing not through school but through a toy. An uncle of his father’s brought back a VTech educational laptop from Dubai when Jaffer was around ten or eleven. The toy ran a stripped-down version of the BASIC programming language, with a printed booklet explaining the syntax. He built a text-based cricket game on it and made his mother play along.
He returns to this anecdote when Muzamil asks whether he has pushed his own children toward coding. The older two, he says, are doing block-based programming and Scratch courses run by a LUMS spin-off. The point he wants to make is not that every child should grow up to be a software engineer. It is that programming, at that age, teaches two things that are useful regardless of what the child ends up doing. “The ability to break down a complex problem into smaller chunks and really understand the basics,” he says, “and logical thinking. There is no magic. You have to build everything by yourself. Every step is discrete and you have to understand.”
Muzamil agrees with the framing. He says it explicitly: “This is not computer science, it’s fundamental of problem solving.” Both of them treat this as the under-appreciated case for putting kids in front of code — not vocational training, but a discipline of thought.
LUMS, Technologix, and the choice between services and product
Jaffer applied to LUMS, GIK and FAST for university. LUMS was a walking distance from his home in Lahore, which he names as a real factor in the decision. He enrolled in computer engineering — the new, telecom-boom-flavoured degree of the moment — but by the end of his first year he had decided the hardware and signals-and-systems courses were not for him. He moved to computer science and graduated in 2006 with a 3.5 GPA.
The interesting part of his early career is the deliberateness with which he rejected the obvious paths. Google, Amazon and Microsoft were on the radar but took only one or two LUMS students a year. The big local players were Systems, NetSol and Technologix. He picked Technologix, and he is unusually clear about why. “Technologix had a very engineering focused culture compared to NetSol or Systems,” he tells Muzamil. The other two were, in his reading, more focused on customising existing products and reselling them. He was after the craft itself.
This is the first appearance of a distinction that returns repeatedly through the conversation: the difference between people who optimise for the engineering work and people who optimise for the contract. He stayed at Technologix for about eighteen months, doing outsourcing work for an American startup that was digitising school yearbooks — building software to lay out photos and animate photo books. It was, by his own description, the kind of work that taught him what corporate engineering felt like and what he did not want to do for the next forty years.
Fulbright, Carnegie Mellon, and the addendum that sent him home
Jaffer applied for the Fulbright twice. The first time was, in his telling, peer-pressure: a wave of LUMS classmates were applying and he joined in despite having no real idea what to write in his statement of purpose. The second time, a year later, he had actually worked in industry and could write the essay honestly. He got it.
His top choice was Carnegie Mellon, which he describes — accurately — as “the birthplace of software engineering as a discipline.” He is interested in the lineage. CMU’s software engineering institute was originally funded by the US Department of Defense, which was, at the time, the world’s largest buyer of software. The processes for building software at scale, with hundreds of engineers in coordination, were largely worked out there. Jaffer wanted to build things real people used, not write papers, and CMU’s industry orientation fit. He also liked that the university sat at the intersection of art and engineering — they did collaborative work with Disney through their drama and arts schools.
He spent sixteen months at CMU. He got married before leaving and his wife went with him. He describes it as “an extended honeymoon” — no settled job, no green card pressure, and family in the US to visit on weekends. The catch was an addendum to his Fulbright cohort’s agreement that did not exist for the previous batches: master’s students were required to return to Pakistan for two years before they could re-enter the US. He returned. He never went back.
PosterMyWall, June 2010, and the first sale a few weeks later
Before he graduated from CMU, a contact he had met on the client side at Technologix reached out with an idea. That idea became PosterMyWall. Jaffer flew back to Lahore in January 2010, set up a home office, and spent six months building the first version — the proprietary tech for high-resolution output, the website, the editor. They launched in June 2010 and waited. The first sale came within a few weeks.
The product addressed a specific gap. In 2010, if you wanted to make a poster or any marketing imagery, Photoshop or other desktop applications were essentially your only choice. PosterMyWall offered a browser-based editor that a layperson could use, with a free download option that watermarked the output with a large “postermywall.com” stamp — which Jaffer credits as one of the early growth loops that brought direct word-of-mouth traffic back to the site.
For the first four years, the team was effectively two people: Jaffer writing code, and his wife — who taught herself web design and Photoshop after looking over his shoulder at the launched product — handling the artwork and the early templates. “She was like, you know, this is never going to work. Users cannot see their designs or templates,” he recalls, before she went and rebuilt the website. The first full-time engineering hire did not come until 2014.
Muzamil asks the obvious question. Four years, no employees, the steady drumbeat of friends and family asking when he is going to get a real job. Did he ever second-guess himself? Jaffer is honest. “Yes, of course, there were dark moments and there was a lot of uncertainty at the start. We even stopped working on the product for a few months and started picking up services projects for some sort of revenue stream.” What carried him through, he says, was the discipline his wife enforced — a clean separation between work hours and life — and the simple fact that the numbers, while never spectacular, were always pointing the right way.
The conscious decision to stay bootstrapped
By far the sharpest answer Jaffer gives in the interview is to Muzamil’s question about venture capital. The years from roughly 2014 onward were the years when everyone in the founder ecosystem was salivating over term sheets. Why did PosterMyWall never take the money?
“It was a conscious decision,” Jaffer says. “It was about controlling the product and controlling our lifestyle and where we wanted to take the team.” Offers did come later, after the user base grew large enough to attract them. They turned the offers down. “We were happy with the profitability, happy with the growth, and we had a clear vision for where to take the product, and we didn’t need them frankly.”
He makes a related point about how the company grew. Because the money was theirs and the revenue was real, every marketing decision had to be defensible on its own terms. “Whereas these days it’s typical to pump in a few hundred thousand dollars into paid ads, we never did that. We always focused on getting users in ways that were sustainable and didn’t require a lot of funding.” The biggest inflection point in growth, he says, was when they opened up the template marketplace — letting designers from Malaysia, Argentina and Europe upload templates and earn royalties. Suddenly there were templates for hyper-local holidays and regional events the Lahore team had never heard of, and the SEO surface area exploded.
The scale numbers Jaffer eventually shares are not small. 20 million users overall. Three to four million active users a month. Over 130 million designs created on the platform. Eighteen million emails sent through PosterMyWall’s marketing tools. Half a million social media posts published. Over two million templates contributed by the community. The competitor list is what you would expect: Canva in design, Buffer and Hootsuite and Sprout Social in social media, Constant Contact and Mailchimp in email. All of them are VC-funded. PosterMyWall is not. Jaffer is unbothered by the asymmetry. He says he tells new hires the same thing on day one: bring your A game, because look at the landscape you are competing in.
On AI, on Google, and on the platforms you cannot escape
Muzamil presses on two anxieties. The first is AI. Designers and freelancers are worried that generative tools will eat their work. Jaffer’s answer is shaped by PosterMyWall’s own history. When online design tools first appeared, the equivalent fear was that they would democratise design and put professional designers out of work. The opposite happened. The platform’s most active users include small shops that use PosterMyWall to push designs out to clients quickly — work that, by Jaffer’s reckoning, would not have gone to a Photoshop expert anyway. He expects something similar with AI. The team is training its own model on the millions of designs in their system. He is, in his phrasing, “very excited” about the space, while acknowledging that the actual set of genuinely useful AI products today is much smaller than the hype suggests.
The Google question is more delicate, because PosterMyWall depends heavily on organic search. Muzamil asks whether it bothers him to sit at the whim of one platform. Jaffer is direct that it has been a top-of-mind concern from the beginning, and that there were marketing goals at PosterMyWall explicitly framed as reducing reliance on Google. But, he says, “you can never be independent of Google.” His operating answer is that as long as the product is genuinely providing value to users searching for what it offers, Google is, in his words, “pretty fair.” The thirteen years of algorithm changes have not killed them.
He treats the rise of ChatGPT as the same kind of opportunity. PosterMyWall could plug into ChatGPT as a first-class option and use that as a funnel. The landscape is moving, and the answer is to stay on top of it rather than try to hedge it away.
iOS, the long-overdue app, and the cost of a small team
One of the more candid moments in the conversation comes when Muzamil asks why PosterMyWall, after thirteen years, still does not have an iOS app. The Android app exists. The mobile web works. But there is nothing in the App Store, and Muzamil — a Canva user himself — admits that the absence of an iOS app subtly trains him to think a product is less serious.
Jaffer does not defend the gap. “iOS is long overdue,” he says plainly. “We’ll be getting to that.” His explanation is the one a bootstrapped founder gives: a small team has to pick its battles, the mobile web carried the product for a decade, and Apple’s historical strictness about its design language made a clean port expensive. The composition of the user base also matters. In PosterMyWall’s top-paying markets — the developed economies — most paying users are still on laptops. The Southeast Asian markets that have overtaken those countries in traffic are mobile-first, but conversion rates there are lower because the users are not used to paying. The investment case for an iOS app was not as obvious as it looks from the outside.
Atoms versus electrons — and the wedge for Pakistan
The most ideological stretch of the conversation comes when Muzamil widens the lens to Pakistan’s broader startup ecosystem. He has a running critique that he repeats here. The last few years of Pakistani startup growth have been overwhelmingly focused on consumption businesses built for the Pakistani market, propped up by Careem-style valuation games that he believes do not move the country forward. The dollars are not real. The margins are not there. The country, in his framing, is being asked to imitate the wrong template.
Jaffer agrees, and he frames the wedge in a phrase he picked up from TechCrunch in his student years. “Atoms are physical products that you can sell. Electrons are digital services that you can sell.” For an economy with Pakistan’s constraints — capital-poor, infrastructure-poor, exposed to currency shocks — selling electrons is the only thing that adds up. “Given Pakistan, if it’s on the cloud, it just makes sense. You don’t need raw material. All you need is a laptop, internet and people.”
The missing ingredient, he says, is product thinking. He has been hiring in Lahore for over a decade. For most of that time, the concept of a product designer — let alone a product manager — did not exist locally. He hired fresh graduates because retraining services engineers was harder than starting from scratch. The services style, in his characterisation, is to find a quick solution on Google, paste it in, ship the project, and move on. Product work is the opposite: autonomous problem-solving, long time horizons, strong craft. He sees the local design and product manager pool finally starting to fill out. It is small but vibrant. He compares it to India, which is, for now, still known for services rather than product innovation. He believes Pakistan is on the same arc, ten or fifteen years behind.
The men in suits, and the missing operators
The deepest disagreement in the conversation is also the one Muzamil seems most interested in surfacing. He puts a critique on the table. The generation of Pakistani founders who came up between 2002 and 2010 are, in some readings, complacent. They built nice service businesses, capped at maybe two hundred employees, and settled into a comfortable life — a good house in DHA, a German car, a farmhouse if the interest is there. They had a difficult hand to play and they played it competently. But the sharper, more aggressive mode of growth that some newer players are now showing was never their style. Was the absence of that hunger a mistake, given that the economics — particularly the dollar peg breaking in 2018 and the export-friendly direction of policy since — now actually favour aggression?
Jaffer’s answer is not defensive. He locates the problem in two structural absences. The first is cultural and goes back to a much older socialist baggage in Pakistan, where the state demonised wealth creation and where, as Muzamil puts it, business has a “dirty feeling” attached to it. People still hesitate to acknowledge that companies are how countries pull people out of poverty.
The second is more specific. At Carnegie Mellon, he saw Google and other large companies set up offices on campus, working alongside the business schools, not just the engineering schools. In Silicon Valley, he says, there is a term for what happens next: adult supervision. “When technical founders build something, they bring in a foreign CEO, a businessman in a suit. Eric Schmidt was that for Google.” Pakistan, he argues, does not yet have its men in suits with tech experience. The business operators who could scale what the engineers have built do not exist in sufficient numbers, and the engineers themselves are not built to play that role. The early signs of change are the large local groups — he names Fatima Group — starting to invest in tech, which will produce the next generation of operators, mentors and VCs.
Muzamil pushes him on whether he would ever step back from PosterMyWall and let a hired CEO scale it. Jaffer is open to it in principle — if the vision aligns, if it is good for the product, good for the country’s economy, good for the jobs. He is also honest about the trade-off. Real scaling almost always requires decisions a founder close to the user would not make: alienating segments of the user base, taking shortcuts on craft, optimising for a different metric. He is not pretending the choice would be costless.
Brain drain, remote work, and the talent that never leaves but is still gone
Muzamil’s next question is about the talent market and what the post-2018 devaluation has done to it. Jaffer’s answer reframes the standard brain-drain narrative. Three or four years ago, his company was competing with Pakistani master’s applicants who would graduate and never come back. The newer pattern is different. People do not need to leave physically anymore. European and American companies hire directly into Lahore, paying salaries that Pakistani product companies cannot match and services companies cannot survive against.
The shift, he says, was accelerated by COVID. Before the pandemic he was personally against remote work; even applicants from Islamabad were expected to relocate. Now PosterMyWall runs a hybrid model with three days in the office, and Jaffer is more open to hiring on talent rather than geography. The flexibility helps small companies hire. It also makes retention harder, hurts productivity in some cases, and lets foreign companies “swoop in with a better package and take away top talent without ever bringing them across a border.”
The picture he paints is precise. The brain drain is now both physical and digital. Pakistani engineers are competing in a global salary market while sitting at desks in Lahore. He treats this as both a sign of how good the local talent has become and a structural problem for any Pakistani company trying to grow.
The community that does not exist yet
By the end of the conversation, Muzamil is trying to surface something more concrete. He has spent the hour listening to the founder of one of the few global product companies in the country, and the founder has just said that he too is looking for a community of people doing what he is doing — and cannot find one. Muzamil tells the story of a Lahore-based gaming company he visited recently, a building near M.M. Alam Road, eight or nine hundred people, that nobody he knew had ever heard of. He asked the founder there the same question. The answer was the same: “We are just doing our own work.”
Jaffer agrees the gap is real and that the absence is costing the industry. He has been discussing brand Pakistan with friends at PASHA. Externally, the work is starting — he mentions a strong Pakistani presence at TechCrunch Disrupt this year, and the vacuum left in services as Indian companies move up-market to enterprise work. Internally, the picture is thinner. He says he has personally looked for a community of Pakistani founders building for global markets and has not found one — not even a WhatsApp group. He suggests two paths forward. PASHA or the government could hold more local events oriented inward rather than always toward foreign clients. And influencers like Muzamil, he says, have a role to play in bringing people from different parts of the industry into the same room.
Pakistan 2050, cautiously
Muzamil closes with the question he asks most of his guests. Knowing everything Jaffer knows — having seen Pakistan from the inside since 2010, having watched the IT industry go from completely unregulated to State Bank-supervised, having raised three kids in the same schools he himself attended — how does he see Pakistan in 2050?
Jaffer is careful. He answers in data points. The IT industry is in a different place than it was in 2006. There is a startup ecosystem now where there was none. The State Bank knows what freelance income is, where in 2010 they had no category for it. Private education has improved noticeably; he sees families moving back from the US and putting their children into the same Lahore schools he went through. The passport is still the same passport. The human development metrics are still where they were. “If in a few words, I would be cautiously optimistic about 2050. Some things are on the rise, but the great multiplier in all of this is geopolitics and leadership. That is the multiplier where the graph can go up, it can go flat, or it can go down.”
Muzamil closes the conversation at the one hour twenty minute mark by thanking Jaffer and noting, for the audience, that this was one of the very few product conversations in the show’s 385-episode run — and a rare look at what it takes to build a global product company while staying in Lahore.
Full transcript
सलामाल ख़बदीना उज़राज welcome back to the three hundred eighty sixth episode of Thought Behind Things. Today is the 11/29/2023 और आज हमारे साथ मौजूद है एक बहुत ही ख़ास मेहमान जाफर हुसैन साहब who is the founder and CEO of poster my wall इनको बुलाने का मकसद यह था कि he was able to build a product company in Pakistan हम बड़ी दफा बात करते हैं startups की हम जब भी सोचते हैं business startup तो ऐसा business होता जो कि हम Pakistan में बना के पाकिस्तानियों को बेच के rupees में business करते हैं जो कि as most of you know I have been a long critic of doing more and more consumption business in Pakistan it doesn't do much for the country लेकिन इन्होंने Pakistan से बैठ के एक ऐसी product बनाई जिसको इस वक्त 2,000,000 people use every month और जो मेरी understanding है ज़ाहिर उन्होंने तो वो numbers नहीं दिए but my understanding is the company is doing revenues of anywhere between 3 to $5,000,000 at least per month which is remarkable right like 30 to 50 or 40 to $60,000,000 a year again exclusively based out of Pakistan almost 42 employees all पाकिस्तानी all based here इस conversation में हमने उनकी journey के बारे में भी discussion की और साथ ही समझा के how does one go about building a scalable international product for the global audience क्योंकि आजकल digital का ज़माना है और इस digital के ज़माने में आप Pakistan से बैठकर पूरी दुनिया में theoretically business कर सकते हैं, पैसे कमा सकते हैं and we need more and more of these stories to come up ताकि Pakistan में finally जो हमारा dollar का crisis है वह ख़त्म हो and we can begin to make our place in the global economy. अगर आप channel पर नए हैं तो channel को subscribe करना मत भूलिएगा. अगर आप पुराने हैं तो video को like करना मत भूलिएगा. अगर आपको कोई thoughts हैं तो comment section में ज़रूर आ के बताएं. I read all of the comments and it really helps me improve the quality of the conversation. Overseas पाकिस्तानीs can help support the channel by following the Stripe link down below. It will help us remain independent for as long as possible. But, anyways, here is जाफरोज़ सैन on TBT Go, लाहौर studio.
Jafarbhai, how are you? I am good. How are you? To Thank
you, thank you. Welcome to TBT. Thank you. मुझे यह बताएं just to start the conversation. Where were you born and early life आपने कहां पर गुज़ारी? So, and bred in लाहौर. Spent most of my life here. Right. मुझे बताए where do you go to school?
So, I went like to Beacon House. I have been you know a proud Beaconite all my life. End to end? End to end. मेरे बच्चे भी Beacon House में ही जा रहे हैं कौन से campus में थे आप? So, उस time पर you know जो purpose built campuses इतने ज़्यादा नहीं थे so I think private schools were going through that like transition of like moving from really old large houses उनके अंदर जो campuses बनाए थे into purpose built. So, have been all over लाहौर like गुल्बर्ग में होता था. फिर Liberty Campus ने आए इनका बना था. So I think my class was one of the first there and then you know for ONA levels I ended up in Garden Town. कलमाचौक उस time पर होता था उधर एक बहुत बड़ा campus है. So I ended up there. Interesting और आपने कौन से year में complete किया था A levels अपना? So I got done with A levels in 2002. उस time पर आप सारे subject एक ही दफा you know कठी देते थे. Right, ASA two नहीं थी. ASA two नहीं था. All eight
you know courses. Were you a good student?
Yeah, I got eight A's. NO levels? NO levels, yeah. And A levels? मैंने A levels में एक B आया था. अच्छा अच्छा. वह याद है अभी तक.
And you chose to do computer science at the time again this was a different time. I always ask people जिन्होंने दो हज़ार जिन्होंने 98 से दो हज़ार पांच से ज़्यादा में computer science किया कि भाई क्यों? उस time पर तो generally you know your cousins or your बड़े would recommend कि जी accounting कर लो, doctory कर लो. But why did you decide to pursue computer science?
Interesting story. मेरे अब्बू के एक दोस्त होते थे. You know he went to Dubai and and got me a toy laptop, educational you know toy था. VTech एक American company है they make educational toys. So I was in like grade six at that time. 10 or 11 years old. So initially I started playing with it. उसमें like question answers और general knowledge वाली, you know, like quiz games थी. It also had a programming language called basic. उसके अंदर उसका compiler था and, you know, with the laptop एक पूरी booklet I. Of the syntax and how to do, you know, like what each command was and how to use it. So that really you know blew my mind. I got sucked into that. I remember you know making a text based cricket game as well and forcing my mom to play it with me and I made other things in it as well but उस time पर obviously career के साथ तो मैंने connect नहीं किया था. I was just you know like 10 or 11 but I understood that as something that I enjoyed. But that's interesting. 10 or 11 year old
could understand the fundamentals of programming given the right tool.
Yeah, I mean it's a testament. It's actually, you know, a testament to their, you know, packaging and educational thing that अब I look back on it and look at the tools. अब तो information का बहुत ज़्यादा overload है, you know, for like children at any age. But at that time internet भी नहीं था.
उस तरह जैसे आजकल है and it was a very you know like well built educational thing. Yeah and उसमें particularly the reason why I say that is because even though there is that informational overload today the way that you build a product really defines how people end up using it, right? So चाहे अब आज बहुत सारे बच्चे हैं उस time के ऊपर तो you were one in a million जिसके uncle ने Dubai से एक चीज़ ला दी. आज everybody has the opportunity available on a on the internet but nobody is inherently using it. हालांकि अगर उस time पर बंदा envision करता है कहता यार एक time अगर आएगा internet के ऊपर तो everybody would want to be a part of this. Do you think, do you have kids of your own? Yes, three kids. Have you gotten them into coding or any of?
Yeah, the older two are into programming. अभी तो, you know, they are young, they are into block based programming. The older one is 10. He started doing HTML in school as well. अब educational institutions are really, improving in this sense as well. But from a young age I have always exposed them to you know like programming concepts mainly through video games. Right. You know buying the right video games for them and Is exposing there an example of? I remember there was a tool MIT का जिसमें वहां blocks करके. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch, yeah. So both of them are taking online scratch courses. In fact, Lumsk NICL का ही startup था. Right. They offer, you know, classes on Zoom. So, you know, they're doing those and, yeah, they're really enjoying it. अब actually these tools are so much more better because in my time खाली आठ लाइनें होती थी और उसमें मुझे अपना output नज़र आता था जो मैंने code का लिखा होता था. Right. But these guys are making animations with audio. They are recording their own audio and dialogues and what not. So it's a very visual and fulfilling experience for the kids because as a programmer जो initial spark आपको होता है ना because it's it's you write some code and you make the computer do something. Yeah yeah yeah. So the kids these days are, you know, have a much better time. Do you think beyond I mean for a lot of people who are not part of the sort of computer science
space वह कहते हैं यार हमने तो बच्चों को computer scientist नहीं बनाना तो हम क्यों उसको coding कराएं? मेरा opinion थोड़ा फ़र्क़ है. मुझे लगता है कि this is not computer science, it's fundamental of problem solving. Do you think, what's your opinion on this? I mean, what sort of things do kids learn when they, you know, utilize tools like Scratch or try to create small programs?
Right. So I think, like, two big things. One is the ability to break down a complex problem into smaller chunks and really understand, you know, the basics or or the core thing. And the other is logical thinking. Again के you know there is no magic. You have to build everything by yourself. Every step is discrete and you have to understand. तो एक वह discipline मिलता है like सोचने का जो कि I feel Pakistan में वैसी बहुत ही चीज़ है.
It's very interesting आपने दूसरी वाली चीज़ particularly identify की है यह वाकई everybody has an idea. Nobody has the patience to actually slowly walk and build that. So you graduated in 2,002 A levels and then what about university? दुनिया भर में technology बहुत evolve कर चुकी है अब आप घर बैठे एक mobile phone से पूरी दुनिया में किसी किस्म की भी different assets, stocks या even cryptocurrencies खरीद सकते हैं जहां पर यह technological evolution आए वहां पर भी unfortunately हालात ऐसे हैं कि economy एक ऐसी जगह पर पहुंची हुई है कि बड़े आजकल बुरे हालात हैं, inflation बहुत ज़्यादा बढ़ रही है, savings हमारी deplete हो रही हैं. ज़्यादातर लोग investments करते ही नहीं और जो करते भी हैं वह 90% losses unfortunately बनाते हैं. इसी problem को solve कर रहा है sharmaya. P k जो कि अपने financial trading platforms पर trainings भी offer करता है और data भी offer करता है जिससे आप पूरी दुनिया की markets ख़ासकर पाक्षतानी markets को आसानी देख सकते हैं. अगर आप लोग अपनी investments और trading में struggle कर रहे हैं तो I would definitely urge you to check out Sharmaya Financials platform. It's a remarkable place जहां पर आपको बहुत interesting you know reports के through data भी मिलता है, investment की advice भी मिलती है और खासकर उनकी trainings जहां पर उनके experts जो है वह आपको crypto और stock market और commodities और assets के अंदर trade करके पैसे कमाना सिखाते हैं so check out the platform and check out their trainings. Now back to the podcast.
Yeah, so उस time पर interestingly computer science was something that I wanted to do. But the popular thing उस time पर was computer engineering. So this was this new hardware focus degree. उस time पर telecom का बहुत boom था. So, you know, there was everyone was telling me कि computer engineering is the next big thing. So I started looking for, you know, universities that offered that program. I, you know, personally wanted CS but I wanted to, you know, peer pressure भी होता है, parents का भी होता है और उस तरह का. तो we started looking at GIK, FAST and Lums. You know, Lums was my top priority because of its reputation or, you know and it was walking distance from my place. So, that was also a big factor. तो I ended up applying at Lumbs mainly और फिर you know GIK was not an option although a lot of my friends went there. Was that a cultural reason or कि भाई इतना दूर है? Yeah, mean एक जगह walking distance है, एक जगह you know एक और share है so that was a factor as well. Right? So, I ended up you know just applying to lumps और fast. मैं apply करने का सोचा था I got the prospectus and everything but I was like you know उस time पर YOLO का concept नहीं होता था but I was like YOLO let's go to lums and just apply there. Interesting. Lums में computer engineering नहीं थी उस time पर. उस time पर computer engineering थी. It was a very new program. अभी भी ऐसे ही होता है कि साल के end पर अपना अपना major declare करना होता है. Right. So, I enrolled into CE, computer engineering. But by the end of the second semester, end of the first year, I was clear कि this is, you know, not the thing for me because I took some hardware courses, I took some, you know, signals and systems और उस type के courses and they were very dry and difficult. So, you know, at that time I decided कि, you know, like CS
is is the thing for me. How are the four years at lumps
if you? The four years were great. सबसे पहली चीज़ you know आप O level, A level से आ रहे होते हो and you know अच्छे scores आपने किए होते हैं. Like lumps में आकर एक reality check मिलता है कि you know there are so many more accomplished people than me. Right. So, in my remember I took economics, you know it was a new like subject for me, one on one course लेना होता है. So I took that in my first semester and in the first few weeks like my dad pointed out कि you know पहली दफा इसको पढ़ते हुए देखा है क्योंकि वह actual you know workload बहुत ज़्यादा होता है and and you know you have to research and and learn everything on your own. So एक वह जो होता है ना shift from very like prescribed syllabus और वह वाली teaching to you know an open ended thing वह एक difference था और obviously the level of competition and everything was so वह एक initial like झटका था. But otherwise it was great you know I made good friends who you know are still good friends and
had a lot of fun. There were lot of people from लोहौर. I don't know आपके exact batch के थे plus minus one year, two years. Confiz, Texel, a lot of these guys they are from Lums as well, computer science. Were there? Confiz के seniors थे? ठीक है. जो Texel, उमर जावेद, उमर जावेद. उमर उमर जावेद. Was an instructor.
He was an instructor? Yeah, at that time. अच्छा, interesting. Yeah, he taught us object oriented.
Interesting. What, where did most of the folks who were with you end up? Are they in Pakistan?
So, majority, the vast majority is outside of Pakistan and but there is a small minority in Pakistan. Some working in tech, some in their own, you know, either in corporates or in their businesses.
So, you would say businesses or founders or
It's some working as a mix. I would say it's an even mix. Interesting.
दो हज़ार छह में आपने graduate किया? Yes. And you graduated like you again, were you a good student? Were you a? Yeah, I was a recent student.
जो graduating GPA था वह 3.5 था and उस time पर फिर जो आखिरी साल था I was set on working in the industry because, you know, I had like done a lot of programming and I enjoyed it and I wanted to build things.
तो I was set on, you know, working. And the industry होती थी उस time के ऊपर. Like, who are the players in the industry के यार? जितना
अच्छा. So like Google, Amazon and Microsoft were on the radar but they only took like one or two people. Right. And they took you know like people at the very top usually. So like most people like me didn't even consider that as you know as Yeah. An उस time पर जो बड़े you know players in लाहौर at least थे were systems, NetSol and Technologics. You know those were the ones I remember. I ended up interviewing at a lot of smaller you know setups as well. घरों के अंदर startup you know खुले हुए थे. उस time के startup से I guess उस time पर startup का तो इतना concept भी नहीं था, funding भी नहीं थी, कुछ भी नहीं था. But there were definitely a lot of decent small companies operating in the space as well but these three were the big you know, And you ended up in Technologics?
I, yeah. How did Yeah, that
so I actually did an internship, you know, while I was at Flumps at Technologics. I like them and they like me. So I had a job before I graduated. I chose Technologics because this time पर, I don't know if, like that was the impression at that time. Technologics had a very engineering focused culture compared to, you know, NetSolar Systems which were, you know, more into customizing their existing product and selling it again. Like, nothing wrong with that. But I wasn't, you know, and I knew a few people who went there, but I wasn't interested in that. I was more interested in the engineering aspect of it. Interesting.
That particular thought because a lot of young kids today, when they're looking at careers, they're looking at, k, what's the biggest name? What's the biggest salary? The the way that they envision growth वह बड़ी different होती है. When you say कि यार मैं engineering पर focus करना चाह रहा था. What was happening in your mind? What were you thinking कि यार अच्छा मैं engineering पर focus करूंगा तो मुझे क्या upside मिलेगी जो कि long trip शायद मुझे मेरे लिए beneficial हो? I think वह एक एक passion था for the craft
which led to other things down the road as well. But you know obviously एक एक naivety भी थी उस time पर, you know कि पैसों का इतना नहीं शायद सोचा, जितना you know actual काम का सोचा and एक और you know technologics का एक और भी था because of the work culture. You know, it was popular
in our circles as What do you mean by that?
By culture that is not driven by sales or by the sales team. Right. It's more focused on, you know. Quality of the Quality of the craft and little bit of innovation जो कि इतनी ज़्यादा तो नहीं थी but जो भी you know customers कहते थे. और यह कर रहे क्या थे against hard core services team for? So after I left there was a big change of technologies in which I think they, you know, started focusing on customizing either a Microsoft or an Oracle product. Right. I I forget. But at that time, it was a lot of, like, service oriented calm, you know, startups, companyयां were outsourcing work to them. Interesting. So I actually like did end up working on a team that was outsourcing work for US startup. Interesting and what sort of work were you doing at the time? So, वह जो startup था that was focused on like building like photo albums for schools. Like schools में हर साल जो है gear book होती है और वह होती है. So they were, so this was a very different time from today. Right. Like technology was not what it was. Mobile phones were not a thing. Like smartphones were not a thing. So it was very new technology there. So they were focused on digitizing that and selling that as a package or a service to school. So we were building the technology जो कि, you know, like photos को layout करती थी and photo books and nicely animate करती थी उसे and everything. Right.
You were, how
long were you working there for? So I worked there for a year, a year and a half as all like good lump students do and then we decided to, then we usually decide to apply for a masters. तो इसकी भी यह story है कि actually you know before I graduated उस time पर एक wave चली कि सारे full bright पर apply कर रहे थे, full bright के लिए apply कर रहे थे and I was dead set on working in the industry but I just applied for the COVID के. चलिए सारे apply कर रहे हैं, मैं अभी GRE देकर देखता हूं. उस time पर and and now that I look back उस time पर when I wrote the you know the statement of purpose एक ऐसे होता है. I had no idea what to write because I, you know, I had no idea what impact I could make or what was even going on in the industry. Right. But या fast like forward one year एक साल हो गया full bright की applications फिर से खोलनी, फिर से एक wave चली कि चलो अब apply कर लेता हूं. And and at that time I did, like redid the GRE and and actually had a better idea of what to write in my statement of purpose now that I had actually worked in the industry And so I got it. And at that time, you know, once I got it, and at that time on the side I used to run a blog about programming, about the craft and about other things as well. And that blog actually was a nice source of job offers. Because again उस time पर LinkedIn भी इतना नहीं था. Right. So I ended up, you know, like having conversations with उमर सेफ. He at that time had a small startup, a social like web, like plug in type thing. I think it was called Bump In. I ended up having a conversation, an interview with रज़ा सईद at Park Wheels at Confizz. But I eventually went to a small startup in Islamabad. Like they were building a web collaborative editing document, you know, So I ended up working from home for them, you know for there after after Tech Logics. So I mean अभी आपका masters का final नहीं हुआ था and you left Tech Logics for this startup. Yeah. Virgilally for after year and a half. Year and a half उस time पर full bright accept हो गई थी. अच्छा. Yeah. So I had that you know like think कि मुझे
corporate
career की requirement नहीं है. I will go do something interesting with my Yeah, life for so I was like I will be going offer a masters in six to eight months. Might as well try something you know else. Corporate मैंने flavor ले लिया है. हां. What is the startup you know culture all about? और यह आप लाहौर से ही बैठकर कर रहे थे? मैंने mainly लाहौर से बैठकर काम किया था but for a few months they rented out you know a small house in I like I 10 I don't know उस time पर क्या था. कोने में था इस्लामाबाद के. एक एक बंदा उधर होता था जो मैं Friday बनाकर सुबह देता था और बस फिर हम lounge में बैठकर coding करते थे. Interesting. So that was also a very interesting experience. एक महीना या दो महीने I remember, you know, we did that. It was again a very small team. I think three or four people. Yeah,
so that was an interesting experience as well. And then six to eight months you were off to your masters? Yeah, I got married and then. अच्छा पहले we will get to that before that पहले मुझे यह बताया Fulbright how does that work? You apply for the scholarship first and then apply to universities or do So
first you apply to an area computer science में रहता and once you get it then Fulbright helps you get into you know different universities. They have a certain preference for certain universities. So for example MIT में घुस्ताहोना Fulbright is fairly difficult. Okay. Like Georgia Tech, UIUC, these are easier in the engineering space.
Easier because, I mean, generally they are easier? Or like Fulbright prefers them. Okay.
I believe for funding reasons or for other reasons as well.
Right.
And yeah, so I ended up selecting Carnegie Mellon in आपने वैसे generally apply कहां कहां किया था? मैंने Carnegie Mellon किया था. That was my number one choice and as a backup I applied to like two other universities. एक Georgia Tech थी and the third one I forget. Because वह आपने अपना like balance रखना होता कि एक आपने top tier पर करना है, एक middle tier पर करना एक और एक एक safety net है वह. Right. नहीं so,
why Carnegie
So Carnegie Mellon was, is the birthplace of software engineering as a discipline. अच्छा. Yeah. So it was funded by the DOD and the DOD at the very, you know, inception of the internet and software was the biggest vendor of software. So they, you know, so this university actually, you know, created a lot of the processes and tools that are used in everyday industry these days for, you know, collaborative like software engineering at scale, you know, hundreds of people writing software. It can be very chaotic. Right. So, like that always interested me and I was very, you know, like industry focused, product focused from the start. I didn't want to go into academia. I didn't want to do research. I wanted to, you know, build things that real people used. Right. So that was a consideration, yeah. And the other thing, interesting thing about Carnegie Mellon was that it was at a cross section between art and engineering. So I don't know if you know, but they do a lot of like work for Disney as well where they have a very old and very mature drama school and art school and in the same university and they do a lot of collaboration like building robots for plays or you know entertainment. Right, right.
Must be quite fun. Yeah yeah yeah, that was very interesting. And so you went in 2008. Yeah. And you, I mean, graduated, you had a job you seemingly settled but now you are unsettling yourself you are going for a masters on a scholarship. Why decide to get married right before that? That's just taking the anxiety pill alternate भी हो सकता है ना कि मैं बस चारों masters के लिए दो साल जैसे ही I land and I'll get married. What was the thought I
think it's a, it's a generational thing perhaps. उस time पर parents का ही होता था अगर बच्चा बाहर जा रहा है तो शादी करके भेजो. So I think it was, it was that. And your wife went with you to The US? Yes yes. How was that? Doing a master? I mean were either of you working there at the time then? I think आपको तो allowed ही नहीं था. Anyways allow नहीं था हां, like Fulbright पर ही होता है even if you work तो they deduct it from your stipend. I see. And she ended up working like part time as well at a store. So, I think she had a great time there. How was that experience as a young couple
going to The US and not really pursuing the American dream of उस तरह से because you are studying and you know this is a timed thing but still it's exciting, right? Yeah, I mean it was like an extended honeymoon for like sixteen months there you know
because like like कोई strings attached नहीं थे to The US. So we weren't really thinking of, you know, like putting down और roots उस type की कोई serious life decisions नहीं लेनी थी उस time पर. Right. तो yeah, I was focused on education. She was focused on, you know, her job as well and we explored and I have family there as well. We ended up, like, traveling and meeting family there as well. Did you guys do, like, road trips or go to multiple states or? नहीं, extended road trips नहीं थी. We usually just took either a bus or a flight or Boys वाली road trip. Interesting, interesting.
Full bright के बाद you have to come to Pakistan. Is that a definitive thing or you have to be outside of The US and can go anywhere?
So there was this infamous addendum in our batch to the full bright agreement. पहले ऐसे होता था where it wasn't required that you had to come back to Pakistan. You could stay abroad. But in our batch or either in the, you know, batch before us, यह addendum हुआ था कि I think it was lax for PhD students but for masters students you had to come back. अच्छा यह आप यह निकलते हैं US से निकल के आप let's say Canada चले जाएं या England चले जाएं? नहीं. I actually had a batchmate at CMU who was on the full ride from Panama और उस बंदे ने बहुत जान मारी थी trying to stay in The US somehow. उसने बहुत interviews दिए थे and that when we think ok this is not a पाकिस्तानी thing.
But he ended up going back as well. Right and is there a timed thing कि जी इतनी तरह से बाहर ही है बस वापस ले जाएगा फिर वापस जाकर किसी और route से आप आ सकते तो आज नहीं कोई मस्त नहीं है. नहीं फिर you have to stay back for masters students के लिए for two years. So
आपने वापस Pakistan में दो साल spend करने होते हैं and then you can go. You never went back. Yeah. Why not? I ended up, so before coming back, I at that time I didn't know he was my future co founder but I, you know, met him at Technologics and before I was graduating from CMU, he contacted me about an idea that he had. Right. Which is now called poster my wall. So, you know, we worked on that idea. I liked it and, you know, I had always wanted to work on something of my own.
So you know we ended up. This person was a client at Techlogix?
At that time yes, he was on the client side. Right. I was on the outsourcing side. Right.
Yeah. So tell me about post my war and this is what you still do, right? Thirteen years, fourteen years Thirteen, fourteen years on.
This is what we're still doing. So Post My Wall is an online design tool that helps, you know, people make designs and do marketing online and in store as well. So we started off initially as just a design tool. In 2010, if you wanted a poster or any marketing imagery, Photoshop or any of the other desktop applications were your only option. So, like, we were the only tool at that time where you could, you know, it had easy to use options. Any layperson could make a design and then, you know, download a high resolution file and print, you know, a six foot tall poster. Yeah, so we started off as that in 2010.
जो poster printing and the the the latter part of that sort of funnel you guys never touched that. बहुत सारी products ने यह भी किया ना उन्होंने उसको integrate कर दिया. चाहे ख़ुद क्या हो चाहे services से integrate कर दिया कि आपने बना लिया है poster तो हम ही आपको आप इतने पैसे दें हम आपको print करके आपके घर भेज देंगे. So at launch time we actually did offer that in The US only. Right. So we did partner with a printer
that, you know, our users could order prints from. But around COVID के बाद या COVID से थोड़ा सा पहले, you know, the world had shifted well not completely but a lot of marketing had shifted online. Right. Since 2010 and we were seeing a decline in interest in print like products and print marketing as well. Right. When did you launch launch this product? So, हज़ार दस में मैं वापस आया. Like January दो हज़ार दस में. उस time पर, you know, in The US we had signed, you know, the LLC and everything and I set up a home office in Lahore. And it took me around six months to build, you know, the first version of the product with, you know, the proprietary technology that we built for high resolution output and then a whole website around it, you know, everything. So we launched in June 2010 or, yeah. And then we waited for the first sale to happen. How long did that take? It took about a few weeks. अच्छा. Yeah, so it's a initial like startup वाला time होता है, मैं अपनी जो team है उसको यह कहता हूं कि you know you guys have joined at the you know at the easy period. Yeah. Like we have gone through the rocky startup phase. So,
you know. And how do you go about it initially? I mean were you using sort of Google Ads or because I mean आपने एक product बना दिया एक deep abyss of the ocean of the internet have hang दिए. Yeah. How does one come about getting orders there, right? Yeah yeah, so initially we focused a lot on
SEO making sure that we got as much organic traffic from Google as possible. उसके ऊपर फिर Google Ads हमने लगाए. Social media was starting out so obviously we उस time पर खाली Facebook होता था और Twitter. So we made those profiles, Pinterest भी होता था. So we made those profiles, started blogging. So, you know, in the first like year after we launched I was spending like 70% of my time in writing code and the 30% was writing blog posts and doing digital marketing. So, that was a start. पर product के अंदर, you know, we had like product led growth like type things. KB offered a free download but the free download had a large watermark saying poster mywall.com. That ended up being very valuable at the early, you know, at the early stage in bringing like direct word-of-mouth traffic to the site.
आपने कहा आपने initially एक home office बनाया और उसमें you were working. Yeah. How long before you hired your first engineer?
Would say. Yeah yeah. So we hired our first engineer in 2014, 2015
के time पर. So, four years you were just building this all on your own? Yeah. So,
it was just me for, you know, full time. When we launched the first version of the website, my wife was just passing behind my screen and she saw it and she was like के यह कभी नहीं, you know, चलेगा. Like users cannot see, you know, their designs or templates. So she like taught herself, you know, web design and Photoshop and everything and she made, you know the second iteration of our website which we launched I think I made it in November like 2010. So yeah she started helping me a lot with the web design and the actual content because हमने like June में editor तो launch कर दिया, website तो launch कर दिया but we didn't have any content to put on it. No concept of templates. So, we needed backgrounds and we needed templates. So, like she started doing a lot of, you know, the artwork and the templates that would, you know, go there. So, yeah, it was her. But the first full time employee came in in 2014.
So, mean, was four years and जब बंदा लम से graduate करके कार्निगी मेलन से graduate करके Pakistan वापस आता है तो आपको left right हर बंदा pull कर रहा होता और आवाज़ें डाल रहा होता है कान में कि यार क्या कर रहा है यार? देख ले पता नहीं चलेगा नहीं चलेगा. Times आया कर रहा है type. No matter how much you believe in something ठीक है उसमें numbers भी आ रहे होंगे सारा कुछ चार होगा but one does second guess themselves right कि यार I mean am I gonna be 50 years old and sitting alone and trying to build this product? Did you have those moments? Specially COVID I think really helped as मतलब मैं मेरा यह था कि मैं जो है ना वह. ज़ाहिर ही घर से काम कर रहा था I was a in the digital media space and I had my own thing. In the first couple of years we didn't hadn't hired anyone. And so even आप घर से कर रहे हो तो पैसे भी आ रहे थे. लेकिन वह parents भी आप corona कर रहे होते हैं कि अच्छा यार ज़रूर दही ले आओ वह मामू आए नीचे आगे बैठ जाओ भाई मैं काम कर रहा हूं. COVID ने at least यह किया they went abroad to my brothers and they saw कि यार वहां पर भी job पेशा लोग जो हैं वह अब घर से home offices में काम करते उससे पहले तो concept ही नहीं था ना. In a lot of ways people would come and judge you कि क्या scene है? Do you think you faced that sort of a you know questioning yourself करना है नहीं करना maybe I should quit this, maybe I should get a job, maybe I should look for other opportunities.
Yes, so like my dad was a banker as well and उनको ऐतराज़ होता था जब Technologics में jeans पहन कर जाता था. Yeah, you know, where is the suit or at least a dress But coming back to your question, yes, of course, you know, there were dark moments and there was a lot of uncertainty at the start. You know, we even, like, stopped working on the product for a few months and started picking up services वाले products, services वाले projects for, you know, some sort of revenue stream. So, स्त्रांभी हुआ था. But, you know, we were looking at the numbers and and they were always encouraging and well not always encouraging but एक था कि अब, you know, एक risk लिया, एक bet लिया तो let's at least, you know, see it through for, you know, like six more months and six more months. Let's see क्या होता है? And and and yeah, it it paid off. उसमें एक तो factors यह भी थे कि I think my spouse was very supportive in in in maintaining a discipline of you know work is work. So और मैंने भी बहुत discipline रखा कि मैं you know नौ बजे उठता था और बैठता था camp, like नौ बजे काम पर बैठता था और छह बजे या पांच बजे उठ जाता था. So there was that from the start very like clear distinction between work and life. So that helped a lot and you know when we had kids you know we still maintain that as well. इसलिए जब COVID हुआ, work from home हुआ, schooling from home हुई तो we were you know well prepared because we had a lot of experience in that as well. Interesting. What do you think was the
was the point where you realized कि अच्छा, this is not just an idea that I'm pursuing. This is now a legitimate thing, and this can now begin to grow and scale and like you mentioned twenty fourteen में when you hire your first employee more often than not that's when एक general वह तो हो जाता है कि अच्छा जी अब मैंने किसी को तनख्वाद देनी है. अपना तो मैं कर लेता हूं. कोई मतलब नहीं है आज अच्छा महीना, कल बुरा महीना but hiring someone is a big deal. It changes the way that now you are looking at that entire thing. What do you think was that inflection point for you guys?
So, even at the start without any employees since this was entirely bootstrapped, there was that sense of commitment कि, you know, हमने invest किया है. I need to try my best to, you know, make this work और, you know, for the first four years I am repeatedly reminded कि कोई vacations नहीं ली मैंने and, you know I worked through most public holidays as well. And yeah, hiring people also adds another layer on top of that where you are, you know, like responsible for someone else as well and it only gets worse as the, you know, that sense of responsibility as the team grows and grows. And so we have had, so the growth was was pretty again, हमारी जो growth थी since we were not a VC backed startup एक typical hockey stick, Silicon Valley style growth नहीं थी. It was very calm and and steady and real growth. Like not the sort of hyper hyper growth that you see in startups where you know they pump मिली into एकदम से बहुत सारे आए हो फिर एकदम से बहुत सारे चले गए and you are just stuck. Sustainability उस time Exactly. से बहुत So because you know this was our own money and this was you know like real money like that was coming in from customers. From the start, we were very mindful of where to spend it for marketing. So whereas अभी आजकल it s typical to, you know, pump in a few $100,000 into paid ads. We never did that. We always focused on, you know, getting users in ways that were sustainable and didn't require a lot of funding. And those moments and those methods were almost always from within the product. So the first you know inflection point that happened in our growth was when you know again हमने editor बना दिया, हमने concept of templates बना दिए. Initially you know, हम हम खुद ही templates बनाते थे. Like Sunday Magazine होता था, उसमें full page ads आते थे. We would just, you know, open them up and start copying them and making them. But then we decided to crowd source this. We built a community that let anyone in the world sign up as an artist or a creator on Post From My Wall and make templates and put them up for sale. And then there was this whole royalty वाला model around that where, you know, for each download or each sale, the artist would get some royalty as well. So that really helped with the growth of the product because एक हमने SEO एक framework डाला हुआ था and we started seeing, you know, designers from Malaysia, from Argentina, from, you know, Europe making like designs for things that we didn't even know of like really hyper local holidays or regional events that we hadn't thought of and and you know like that helped with the growth a lot. Makes sense. Why didn't you go for VC money? I mean,
this is a time period when all you hear is इसने this guy left his job and now he's worth $10,000,000,000 type situations and everybody was salivating over the idea of कि मेरी net worth ऐसी हो जाए मैं मुझे VC $1,000,000 दे लेकिन 1% लेकर तो मैं $100,000,000 की worth बना लूं you know. It's very easy to get seduced by that. Was that a conscious decision from you guys कि यार नहीं हमने control नहीं छोड़ना या हमने you know, I don't know कुछ भी हो सकता है. So what was the thought process behind that? Yes, it was a conscious decision.
It was about, you know, controlling the product and controlling our lifestyle and, you know, where we wanted to, you know, take the team as well. Offers आएं थी धरमियान में? No, not at the start. उस time पर जब आप बिल्कुल like छोटे होते हो और user base पर नहीं होती, उस time पर offers नहीं आती. Like they started coming in many years later. Right, but you never took them? We never took them because we were happy with the profitability, happy with the growth and and we had a clear vision for where to take the product and and we didn't need them frankly. What's the scale right now if you have some numbers to share for the product? Yes, so overall we have 20,000,000 users who have used us on a monthly basis. There is like on a given month, three-four million users actively using the site. Over 130million designs have been made on the site. We also offer marketing features, so more than I think 18,000,000 emails have been sent out through our system. 500 k like social media posts have been made. And the design community has made over 2,000,000 templates for everything from a poster to an Instagram post to a TikTok video reel to a business card.
And what's the revenue model?
So, back in the day when we started, subscriptions were not a very popular or a very, you know, ubiquitous way. So we started off with the pay as you go model कि आप आते थे site पर, you know, you made a design, आपको high res download के लिए, you know, like payment करनी पड़ती थी. So for the first four five years, it was mainly that. And then we added a subscription model on top of that as well. And now we have a monthly subscription like two tiers, am a basic one and then another one more pricier one for,
you know, marketing tools as well. And do you guys at this point in time, now that you are a profitable running comfortable business, do you think you will go for like an acquisition or an exit or do you think अभी ठीक है, चल रहा है, जैसे चल रहा है we will see where it goes?
नहीं, at the moment we aren't interested in selling or, you know, an acquisition. We have a clear vision of what we want to achieve and we are just, you know, focused on that.
Who is the biggest competitor at this point in time?
So interestingly, over the years we have, you know, I told you, okay, we started off with design, but now we are into the email marketing space. We are in the social media marketing space. So the list of competitors has actually grown over the years. आजकल I think the biggest household name that we compete with is Canva, which is an, you know, an Australian unicorn backed by VCs. So in the design space and, like, we compete with them. On the social media side, we compete with tools like Buffer and Hootsuite and Sprout Social. And on the email marketing side, again we have competitors, Constant Contact and Mailchimp.
Does it concern you कि यह जो दूसरी आपके competitors हैं their VC backed unicorn level question mark तो बन्दे के दिमाग़ में आता क्या? We're a very niche team of passionate developers and designers and marketeers who have spent many many years building this but on the other side जो machinery है उससे शायद हम compete ही ना कर पाएं.
नहीं, it actually excites me and it's a it's a source of you know pride कि you know we are a very small team from Pakistan competing with these giants and that's something that I mentioned to all new hires that when they joined the team as well, bring your A game because look at the landscape in which you're competing. It's exciting And, you know, having a small team has some advantages. We can move in certain spaces much faster. And, you know, given the diverse offering that we have inside one product, we can create a lot more value under one roof for our user than some of our competitors cannot.
Is your user base largely driven by SEO?
The incoming traffic, yes. The user acquisition is mostly driven by SEO and then, you know, word-of-mouth and direct traffic is also, you know, important. Does it concern you कि I mean एक होता ना कि
active user है मेरा और वह built है और वह मेरा ही user है और मैं उसको value देता रहूंगा वह मेरे पास रहेगा. Sort of microservice products या app products जो होती हैं उसका जिसमें बस consumer SEO पर आ रहा है, देख रहा है, use कर रहा और आगे निकल रहा है. उसमें does it have a concern you कि यार I'm sitting at the whim of one platform or the other. So either socials जिसके through मैं you know I'm I'm funnel का वही खेस है या मैं SEO तो Google, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok इनके ऊपर मैं constantly वह हूं. If anything changes there suddenly you know my life becomes hell.
Yeah, like that's been a thing like top of mind for me for, you know, since we started and since, you know, we clearly saw our reliance on Google. So there were many years where, you know, marketing goal like यह भी था कि to end our reliance on Google or actually to, you know, reduce. You can never be independent of Google. And Google, you know, will also, like over the last thirteen years, we have seen them make drastic changes to their search algorithm, for example, as well. But as long as you are providing value to your customers who are looking for a service that you offer, it's not a problem that is worth worrying about because Google is is pretty fair and, you know, it's a it's a well documented space on how to compete on I ranking on want to talk about the evolution of AI that's happened recently and that's really
exciting and worrying a lot of people. For designers for example वह परेशान है कि यार पता नहीं अब तो AI सब कुछ AI हो जाएगा. At least जो low value services में freelance पर लोग थे वह कह रहे हैं कि you know what like with AI potentially replacing a lot of redundant same type की चीज़ again and again तो पता नहीं हमारी requirement रहेगी या नहीं रहेगी. इसको मैं दो end से सवाल पूछूंगा आपसे. पहला यह कि because you are in the design space and design is one of the most talked about, you know, use case of AI at this point in time with the mid journeys of the world and so on. What are your thoughts? Like, what are you looking at in terms of कि आने वाले वक़्त के अंदर आपने AI को integrate करना है, नहीं करना? क्या changes आप envision कर रहे हैं user behavior में जिसके लिए आपको शायद potentially ready होना पड़े? Considering कि बहुत सारे just have a conversation with an AI app. A company based in Islamabad very young दो साल. उन्होंने यही किया कि उन्होंने वह बहुत सारे AI portraits, AI design, AI this, AI that कि वह apps बनाती है like millions of downloads crazy. Right and तो वहां पर आपको नज़र आता कि अच्छा there is another at least एक एक fad तो at least आया हुआ है you know और वह fad जो है वह drive तो कर रहा है लोगों को. वह sustain कितना होता है? That's a big question mark. और दूसरा कि again यह जब आपने Google SEO की बात की तो मेरे दिमाग में आया है of people are really concerned, marketers are really concerned कि potentially the the user behavior where आज तक मैं हर चीज़ जाता हूं जाकर Google करता हूं and I get a series of answers. Potentially if that is replaced by me talking to a personal assistant and the personal assistant just sort of deciding what it wants and giving me one output and unless मैं उसको कोई alternate prompt नहीं देता तो वह output ही मैं उसको आगे ले लेता हूं. That's what most people do. पहली चीज़ लेते हैं वह आगे निकल जाते हैं. आगे नहीं. तो that just might change the the very foundation of how advertising works and obviously for Google even that's a big question mark क्योंकि उनका सारा bread and butter ही वही है और वह जो है लेकिन उन्होंने इसमें आना भी है क्योंकि यह नहीं करेंगे तो वह बंग आगे निकल जाएगा या दो और services आ जाएंगे और वह आगे निकल जाएंगे. तो what are your thoughts on that? So इसमें initially at the start you mentioned कि you know जब AI आई तो people were worried about designers and marketers were worried about कि, you know, it could take their jobs.
If we were to step back and look at our niche, online design tools, हमारे ऊपर भी यही criticism तो नहीं but concern होता था कि they are democratizing design. अब जो professional designers हैं यह उनकी you know jobs ले रहे हैं. But we've actually seen the opposite happen in the sense कि on our marketplaces or even as our users, a fair bit of our users are actually small shops that make designs on poster my wall and they're, you know, perfectly sufficient for end users. उनको उसमें बहुत ज़्यादा you know, artistic like features नहीं होते, but they are good enough for the end user. So they end up using, you know, our tools instead of Photoshop or very pro tools to pump out designs very quickly, you know, to different customers. So, you know, there's always an opportunity. You just have to keep evolving. On the AI side, it's a very interesting space, काफी ज़्यादा hyper or, you know, and if you look at the actual, like, useful, like, number of useful products that you can use today, that set is actually, you know, much smaller. But, you know, that said, like, we're very excited about the AI space because, you know, like we have millions of designs in our system and we are working on training our own model just to see how we can make use of this generative AI technology. As far as the threat to Google and the impact on marketing, it's going to be, you know, a moving landscape and it's going to be, you know, we're in the same boat as everyone else. Yeah. So it's going to be a very interesting ride that we're, you know, looking at carefully. उसमें एक दो options यह हैं कि, you know, if we mention, you know, the top competitor to Google at this time which is ChatGPT, you have the ability to integrate with ChatGPT. So you can offer, for example, Post from My Wall as a first class, you know, option inside of ChatGPT. So that's a marketing opportunity or a funnel that, you know, you can build on, you know, which people are looking at. And open opportunities लाएंगी संखी. Again, it's going to be a moving landscape and you just have to, stay on top of it. Makes sense. Did you guys move from web to mobile apps? So, yeah, that's a very interesting topic. Because of the small size of the team, we have been able to launch on Android. But iOS is very strict about its requirements. And it sort of, you know, requires us to make our own iOS app, which we haven't invested in yet. But we are working on अच्छा, isn't there like a
React or something that can do a bit of both?
There is but even with that iOS is fairly picky. Ok. And we have a large website which was built pre React. So, the new parts are in React, but there's a lot of areas that we can't just offer or port.
How much of the
user base is now on Android versus the web? So that's an interesting question because it varies a lot from country to country. In our top selling markets like developed countries, the majority of paying users are still on laptops. But the Southeast Asian countries or the developing economies over the years have actually not dwarfed but overtaken a lot of the developed economies just in terms of traffic. Conversion rates unketched है नहीं है because they aren't used to paying money. But, so all the traffic that we see from these countries are mobile first. These are, a lot of these are users whose main device is a mobile phone. So it's lopsided. Some of the markets that matter more are still using computers, but some of these emerging markets, which will hopefully be more important in five years down the road,
are on mobile first. Do you think you'll be launching an iOS app anytime soon? Yes. Would that work on iPad as well? Yes. Yeah, we will,
you know, iPad will be a focus. Again, numbers की अगर हम देखें the iPad is a very small percentage. Most people still you know prefer to use the iPhone because that's the device they have in their pocket or in their handbag all the time.
But yeah, it'll be across the board. Is there a redesign required for iPad? या आप same
को थोड़े से tweaks के साथ multiple devices में launch कर सकते हैं? This was, redesign would have been required like five or six years ago but over the years Apple has become more open to different design you know languages. पहले they were very strict but, yeah, a redesign will not be required, thankfully. Why do you think you,
why do you think iOS was not a focus for you guys? I would have assumed कि there would have been a focus maybe seventy eight years ago with when everybody was getting into applets. More importantly at least three four years ago. Yeah. क्योंकि आजकल के time पर मैं consumer experience देखूं ना मैं तो I just quickly sort of app store में गया और जाकर मैं वह गया. We use Canva as a small business and मेरा user experience generally यह कहता कि when I do user applet on my laptop and if there is no corresponding iOS device, iOS sort of app Somehow बहुत फिकुल सी बात है but somehow मेरा back of the mind मेरा यह आता कि you know what like this product maybe isn't good enough. That they're not available on an app and second मेरा उस पर यह आता है कि particularly for cloud based things I want things on the go so if I if I created something on the web I would like कि मेरी device पर भी वह available है उसको मैं थोड़ा tweak वगैरह भी कर सकूं I can quickly work on it. Why was that not a more pressing initiative?
Yeah. No. From day one, we have supported mobile in the sense कि you can go to post from mywall.com on Chrome in your browser or on Safari on your iPhone and everything will work. Okay. So you are able to make changes on the go or buy designs on the go and everything. So that we've made sure, you know, all this works. It was just, you know, again, working with a small team. You need to pick your battles. We were seeing, you know, decent, you know, usage on laptops. But, yeah, iOS is is long overdue. We, yeah, we'll be getting to that. Interesting.
थोड़ा सा I'm gonna expand the conversation. You guys are a product business out of Pakistan. This is a rarity on its own. First of all, do you have you I mean because you are so focused on this कि बंदा ख़ुद से अपने जैसा ढूंढ लेता है ना? Are there a lot of folks like you who are running successful product businesses out of Pakistan and you know does not necessarily have to be लोहौर, इस्लाम, अल्लोहौर, कराची and और विश्वार, पिर्ण, दादल खान, wherever.
So I have been around for you know a while in the sense कि in 2010 and when we, you know, more importantly in 2014 when we started interviewing people, उस time पर, you know, all the experienced people that came in for an interview were all from services backgrounds. उस time पर like product की background वाला बंदा ढूंढना impossible था. Which is part of the reason why, you know, historically I have hired fresh grads because उनमें you know, you can
instill that work culture or the style that a product company needs. What's the difference between the style of services guy and a product guy?
So, in a lot of, again I don't want to you know make them sound bad or anything but like business needs यही होती हैं for a services company in some cases to just you know like finish the you know like the project and hand it over to the client. Long term thinking उतनी नहीं होती. Innovation की बहुत ज़्यादा कभी कभी ज़रूरत नहीं होती. Again, it's an eighty twenty thing. 20% of, you know, large projects will be very focused on innovation but the vast majority of work is simple, you know, like Shopify को यह customize कर दिया, WordPress को यह customize कर दिया. So, you know, the people who were working in this 80% of the area and that we interviewed, we realized के you know, like they were very used to finding quick solutions off of Google and and, you know, using them in the code, which would be, you know, create problems down the road. Whereas, you know, an engineer or a product manager on the product side, we would need people who were a lot more autonomous in their thinking, in their problem solving solutions, and, and again, having a very strong craft when it came to coding. So even in our, you know, for example, our interviews and tests for engineering, we don't require any particular programming language. हमारा focus बहुत ज़्यादा problem solving पर होता है. Ok, you know, like does this person, can this person think around a problem or think through, you know, through a problem. So, वह एक focus on problem solving and, you know, and good craft is a thing, is a focus. Right.
Again, so have you found other product companies in Pakistan? Yes, I was coming to that.
उसमें यही है कि initially we, you know, we didn't used to like see a lot of like people who advert at product companies. But in recent years we have started seeing, you know, more people. It's been great watching, you know, the local startup ecosystem, Well, not thrive, but at least where ITI has started. Right. Right? And there are, I know of a few, I forget their names, but there are a few shops in Islamabad who are actually working in the social media marketing space as us as well. एक एक social media network for work होता था, I forget their name as well. They were like pretty big as well. They were based in Islamabad. And then we have a lot of like local product, you know, based companies as well. I wish there were a lot more, you know, product companies that were focused on international clients or international users than, you know, focusing on the पाकिस्तानी market because I feel that's a lost opportunity.
Pakistan में जो startups का boom at least narrative में आया है पिछले तीन चार साल में उसमें largely focus इस पर रहा है कि यार हम Pakistan में पाकिस्तानियों के लिए क्या products बना सकते हैं, चीज़ें बना सकते हैं, services बना सकते हैं. मैं generally I'm I'm a somewhat of a critic of that idea largely because Pakistan being a developing country you don't have the margins required. You don't have the fiscal space required कि जिसमें आप कोई बहुत massive amount of efficiency drive करें तो वह valuation game में आप जा सकते हैं, right? Consumption driven again मैं हर दिन दफ़ा almost every time I talk about a startup. तो मैं even करीम की example देता हूं which is by and large our biggest success story being a पाक़िस्तानी founder but even for them Pakistan is their worst market and they just they use that as a number to prop up the valuation game but by and large you know आपके जो revenue है peanuts है और वह largely loss ही बनाती है आखिर में. And that should really tell you something about the पाकिस्तानी market. Unfortunately, it didn't and so a lot of people particularly those based out of Pakistan started building in Pakistan hoping कि हम भी उसी pace of growth से जिस pace of growth से क़रीम ने grow किया, हम grow कर जाएंगे. क़रीम model is not bad. I I I don't mind it at all. You test test Pakistan as a as a training ground and then you launch globally. That's fine. But करीम had that advantage of their team having that global network connectivity so on and so forth. On the other hand अगर मैं आपकी जैसी product की बात करूं कि यार आप global market में इतनी opportunities हैं. आप उसके लिए build services digitally you know while sitting in Pakistan just a cost over and the margin is right there, right? कि engineering margin and so on and so forth. वहां पर focus ज़्यादा आता नहीं है. अगर वह आता भी है तो उसके ऊपर वह जो normal critique मिलता है वह यह मिलता है कि यार हमारे पास globally competitive talent ही exist नहीं करता. Which I can again. चलिए, what are your thoughts first of all कि Pakistan से बैठकर आपके case में upside definitely यह थी. You went to गानेगी Melon. Had a co founder who was not sitting in Pakistan. You know, that just does make it easier कि drive हो रहा है from outside of Pakistan तो आपको constantly आवाज़ आ रही है कि exactly requirements क्या हैं, यह क्या हैं, वह क्या हैं? At least in the start. But what are your thoughts on that?
I am as surprised as you are, you know, at the lack of companies that are focused on, you know, international users or going international and not focusing on Pakistan. Focusing on Pakistan is not a bad thing, but I feel companies, you know, that build products for the local market should keep the international market in their mind so that they can repackage and sell it for the international market. And I'm again mystified at the lack of companies that are focused on this because I disagree there is a lack of talent that can compete internationally and build products. You know, given the right, you know, culture, given the right guidance and given the right focus, we can, you know, like be as good as engineers from any other country or marketers. So, वह एक है and again having a co founder अब तो बड़ा आसान हो गया. आप, you know, लाहौर में बैठे हो, एक Delhivery LLC आप खोल सकते हो and you can get access to everything. And you can you know like start running
US business with access Legal तो चले आपका हो जाएगा. Yeah yeah. But एक होता है ना देखें जैसा मेरे दिमाग में इसकी solution यह आती है कि I may be not don't expect a पाकिस्तानी kid जो fast से graduate किया वह यहां से बैठकर उसका exposure ऐसा होगा कि उसको exactly पता है कि Swig Silicon Valley में कौन सी product मैं करूंगा तो वह exciting होगी. बहुत सारी चीज़ें hand in hand होती हैं. बिल्कुल. Having the right idea जो कि exciting हो जिसको media भी उठा ले तो grow भी कर जाता है उस तरह की economy में. But then I see a huge जिस तरह आपने mention किया मेरे अपने भाई सारे fast graduates हैं 99 o one batches के. 95 या 99% of all of their class fellows are sitting either in Germany or in The US, in Canada and because these guys went in early जो 02/2010 वाला time था they are all fairly seniors in in wherever they are working, right? मुझे यह feel होता है कि overseas पाकिस्तानी ने अपने आप को disconnect कर लिया जो उस time पर गए थे ना? Because they could be those activators जो कि idea पर focus करें, structure पर focus करें कि यार मैंने steps क्या क्या क्या क्या build करने हैं वो चीज़ें missing हैं Pakistan में at the end of the day exposure नहीं है ना यहां के engineer का वो बहुत चीज़ बना सकते हैं बस कोई direction ही नहीं है तो direction has to come from somewhere abroad और उसमें आप गोरे पर wait करते रहेंगे तो वह तो कहीं ना कहीं आप masters करने गए तो कोई personal connection निकल आया उससे आपने build कर लिया. पाकिस्तानी could play that role but a lot of the वापिस्तानी as well you know there are people आते फवान folks like those जिन्होंने आकर consumption based businesses में invest किया, consumption based businesses को वह आगे लेकर गए rather than ऐसी products पर focus करते जो कि eventually American market में compete कर सकते हैं. Yeah, so yeah a few points.
When I was a student I remember, you know, one of the first websites that I used to, well, a website that I used to frequent to was TechCrunch. And that was, you know, for those who don't know, it covers the Silicon Valley and the startup culture in The US. So वह एक inherent, you know, sense develop हो गई हुई थी of what is a good product, what is a product. How, you know, the difference between selling atoms versus electrons. Pakistan जैसे मुल्क के लिए, Pakistan जैसी economy के लिए everyone should be focused on selling electrons. You know online services. Explain that. Yeah so atoms are physical products that you can sell. So And electrons are digital services that you can sell. Again, like given Pakistan, all the infrastructure, if it's on the cloud, it just makes sense for you to be able to. It's just easier to get a product that is selling electrons off the ground and in front of customers. You don't need raw material. All you need is a laptop, internet and people. Where we are lacking right now, I think it's a very good point is a lack of product thinking. But I think you know we are on the up in the sense कि again I have been hiring for over a decade now. पहले product designers का concept नहीं होता था. Like product managers तो दूर की बात है. You didn't even, you couldn't even find people who could connect design with the product. Now I feel that space is actually very vibrant. There are very passionate people working in that space and it's a good place. It's a good pool of people that you can hire. Obviously, बहुत छोटा है, but it's there. I'm seeing a similar thing happening in the product manager space as well. And, you know, all this takes time. अभी जो startup history है Pakistan की, जो startup ecosystem है, it's very nascent. It's very small. अभी आप, you know, if you look across the border, India is not known for innovation at this point. They don't have startups or large companies or product based companies. They are still known. For services. Yeah, for services. So it's a natural evolution. But yeah, I think the mandate needs to be set that, you know, focus on international service, you know, like product based opportunities because it's big lost space. Makes sense.
In terms of talent, have you been impacted by the recent devaluation in terms of कि जितने भी मैं लोगों से बात करता हूं कहते हैं या तो quality जिस बंदे पर हमने focus किया क्योंकि यह investment है ना at the end of the day when you're hiring someone जैसे जी मैं बताता हूं fresh graduates hire करता हूं मैं उसके ऊपर invest करता हूं दो तीन साल मैं उसका वह culture पूरा develop करता हूं जिसमें वह he can work autonomously essentially, right? Masters masters one way और they are they are moving out. Either that or talent की जो availability है developed talent की availability इतनी कम है कि आप talent develop करते हैं दो साल के अंदर और वह suddenly uncompetitive हो जाता है because वह market में left right आते हैं और आकर double triple salaries करके वह ले जाते हैं because उनके काम चल रहे हो तो उनको they just need to get the job done as soon as possible. Which is problematic because specially services industry में तो there is an economic model and the only way to grow is that economic model where you can say कि भाई मैं बाहर जाऊंगा मैं जाकर nobody cares कि जी But वह जो margin call आपने बनानी है उसके लिए आपके पास ample supply होनी चाहिए ताकि relevant pricing के अंदर मैं उस चीज़ उस पूरी supply chain को connect कर सकूं जो कि recent time से बहुत difficult हो गया because supply कम थी तो automatically उसकी एक supply side inflation आ गई और वह you know the economics were not very conducive for growth. Did you face similar problems? Yes, so
three four years ago we used to compete with people going for a masters. In most recent years, यह जो आपने बात की है, you know, people getting hired directly while sitting here, you know, from companies mostly in Europe and little bit in The US as well. So, even you know अगर लोग physically भी बाहर नहीं जा रहे हैं, you are still having to compete with foreign companies who are hiring directly here. It's a, it's a good sign for talent here. For product based companies, it's also a problem but it's a very big problem for services based companies because again उनका एक economic model होता है and they need to be able to compete. So yeah, we have been affected. पहले कभी ऐसे नहीं होता था कि if someone accepted an offer, they didn't end up showing up. But in the past few years a lot of people have just, you know, told us, oh, I got an offer from a German company or, you know, so, like we are just going to work from home for them
there. Work from home and remote work do you think has increased post COVID? In terms of के Germany से directly hire to Pakistan because उससे तो आप compete कर ही नहीं सकते ना? Yeah. Because वह जो आपको salaries offer कर रहे हैं वह कर रहे हैं उससे तो पाकिस्तानी company virtually impossible हो जाता Local company को यार आप कर रही है आप कहते यार मुझे बताओ offer क्या मैं थोड़ा सा उसे आप पर down कर लेता हूं. But do you think that has increased since COVID as the world has sort of opened up to the idea gets fine like I don't care where you are working from as long as your your talent is good. Yeah yeah, so COVID
you know the catastrophe or the calamity it was like did help in normalizing remote work. COVID से पहले मैं भी I was never opened to having people work remotely on their team. It wasn't just a concept that you thought of, right? अगर कोई इस्लाम बाद या किसी और लाहौर से you know buyer भी किसी ने अगर if they applied requirement होती थी that you be, you know, relocated to लोहर. We'll help you do that. But you would still have to work from the office five days a week. After COVID, we ourselves are, you know, like following a hybrid model where people are only required to come in three days in the office and then they can work from home for the rest of the you know few days और कुछ लोग हैं जो कि Lahormani and they can work from home as well. So I think वह एक अच्छी चीज़ है you know that has you know उसकी acceptance. अच्छी चीज़ है, बुरी भी चीज़ है hiring के point of view से flexibility बहुत आ जाती है. I am now more open to you know really focusing on talent than their actual physical you know place. So that helps especially small companies in hiring But it also makes, you know, retention like challenging as well. उसमें retention भी and productivity as well. Because not everyone can be, you know, productive while working from home. So, that's a challenge. And then, you know, companies from abroad just, like, swoop in with, you know, a better package and then they just, you know, take away their top talent without actually, you know, so the brain drain is happening physically and,
you know, is digitally as well. Interesting. Do you think, and this is a, this is a critique that comes, that's coming recently, by some of the more aggressive companies, जो कि जब से यह दो हज़ार अठारह का dollar peg टूटा है तो IT industry में एक जाना ही है जिसके बाद से some players here or there have started to be a lot more aggressive in the way that they're growing. And there is a critique कि जो आप लोगों की generation थी ना जो दो सौ दो हज़ार से दो हज़ार दस के दरमियान पढ़कर निकल गए, वह बहुत complacent थी in a way that they they were dealt a difficult hand I am not gonna lie Pakistan, brand Pakistan was very bad terrorism and politically and then उसाम इलाह then randomly pops up one day and you just like your theft साथ load shedding चल रही sir things weren't easy right? Anyway आप एक तरफ से problem solve करते थे वो दूसरी नहीं problem में merge कर जाती थी. But simultaneously and again मैं इसमें हमेशा हवाला देता हूं कि systems के एक senior leadership ने on a podcast gave me a very interesting insight where he said कि you know India में businessman got into IT business. Had nothing close to nothing to do with core programming or IT at all they were people जिनको business करना आता था and they saw IT as just another thing businessman है वह pharmaceutical में घुस रहा है he doesn't have to be a chemist he will hire chemists right so so they they knew how to scale they had the thirst for it Pakistan में by enlarge the people who came in and created these sort of smaller enterprises were mostly engineers Engineers जिनकी total जो life के goals थे वह यह थे कि यार मैं I would have made it अगर मैं Microsoft में job कर लूंगा बाहर जाकर और मैं पूरा career Microsoft में गुज़ार दूंगा और मुझे stock options मिल जाएंगी और एक अच्छा सा घर मुझे Redmond में मिल जाएगा and I'll be happy. उसी के corresponding जो Pakistan में रहे उन्होंने कहा कि यार ठीक है हम job कर रहे थे job से हमने आपके case में product बहुत सारे case में services हमने service company बना ली premium बड़ा अच्छा है. So आपको एक एक एक पूरी वह नज़र आती है कि Audi होगी या Mercedes होगी. इधर दो canal का DHA का घर होगा या पांच आठ canal depending on interest कैसा है कि वह एक farmhouse होगा. You know एक अच्छी सी बड़ी सी गाड़ी rally शैली के लिए होगी या जो भी आपका interest है वह एक interest पूरा हो जाएगा and धंधा चलता रहेगा. You know so so cap at 200 anywhere between पचास से दो सौ के दरमियान हम fluctuate करते रहेंगे काम चल रहा है और you know and आपसे भी मैं बात कर रहा हूं so one way you can say you know I want to keep the I want to make sure कि I control the product I control this. Some would argue कि वह शायद sharp mentality missing है जिसकी वजह से and I am not necessarily saying कि a lot of these players are doing a poor job. They have a great business. They're making good money. They're taking care of their talent. Recently I spoke to someone else again lumps graduate 2,002 के आस पास ही थे वह. उनका भी यही था कि मेरा ख़याल है उनकी सौ लोगों की company है. बीस साल लोग हैं उनको company दो हज़ार दो से चला रहे हैं और उनका भी यही था कि जी हम बहुत niche में काम करते हैं, हम बहुत ख़याल रखते हैं सबका. हमें समझ नहीं आ रही हम किस तरह से grow कर रहे हैं बस हम उसमें ख़ुश हैं. What are your thoughts? How would you answer that critique you know of कि maybe you being at the forefront of the industry need to be a lot more aggressive in your approach now that we're at a time where the economics have started to favor you. The dollar will always favor the export courtesy of the latest IMF agreement जिसमें वह अब तो खैर वह जो last डाल साहब ने आकर दस महीना और करने गोज़ की थी तो by and large understanding भी हो गई है policy maker और उसमें क्या dollar को control नहीं करना है, exports को promote करना है. And then एक overall society में भी एक एक एक understanding आ गई है ना कि digital will be our salvation. So even quality talent जो है वह अब computer science की तरफ जा रहा है. Overall एक आपको वहां पर push नज़र आ रही है. Do you think you could be more aggressive when you choose not to be? Yeah, so there are many thoughts around this.
एक तो you know something that like there are a few fundamental ingredients that are missing, you know which I feel are the causes of of what you are describing. एक तो अगर हम बिल्कुल history में जाएंगे, थोड़ी सी जो like socialist, you know एक movement थी where you know the state was demonized and making money was sort of you know like demonized. You know so वह एक baggage एक चलता आ रहा है which is you know
like सब dirty feeling होती है. Dirty feeling होती है कि यार हां मैं पैसे कमाने के लिए एक धंधा करता हूं. हालांकि भाई करता हूं तो अच्छी बात है. हां हां exactly. So we fail to realize or we fail to acknowledge कि it's it's these you know state or these large companies
that will you know take people out of poverty. Yeah. As an example. एक वह factor है. एक missing ingredient that I saw at Carnegie Mellon when I was there कि you know there were actually offices of Google and other companies on the campus working on projects with their business schools or with and not just with the engineering schools, you know working with relative schools. So वह एक और एक और you know similar concept है Silicon Valley में उसको adult supervision कहते हैं कि you know जब like technical founders बना लेते हैं they bring in you know a foreign you know like CEO, a business you know man in a suit. Eric Schmidt था Google के लिए and there are other examples to really scale up the business जैसे आप कह रहे हो. Right. हमारे जो men in a suit हैं उनको tech का experience नहीं है अभी, right? But again, I think the groundwork, well, not the groundwork but we are seeing baby steps in that area when, you know, the last few years you saw large groups like Fatma Group and others starting to invest in tech, you know, like that businessman actually evaluating tech as, you know, as a possible investment. So that s a good sign. I think that will be a source of, you know, future business minded people who are able to come in either as a VC or as a mentor or as an owner and and drive growth in existing businesses. So, ये दो चीज़ें हैं you know which I feel एक और ingredient था which I have forgotten.
That's alright but यह आपने बड़ी interesting बात कि man in a suit, you know, build something and then let the man in a suit sort of scale that up. Yeah. Do you think you would ever take a back seat
from your own business? Yeah yeah, I mean if if if again the vision aligns, if the goals align and if at the end of the day it's, you know, if it's good for the country's economy and it's good for, you know, we're creating more jobs and it's good for the product then yes, for sure. But reality ऐसी होती है कि a product, you know, if you really have to scale it, you have to take a lot of like shortcuts or decisions that you wouldn't normally make if you were very focused on the user. You would need to let go of a lot of, you know, users in the pie, alienate a lot of, you know, people. So वह एक चीज़ है.
Right. But, if the vision aligns. Beyond poster my wall, I mean, you have a एक तो आपके पास experience है of building a product and then marketing it and sustaining it and that's largely a three sixty degree scope that you and your company have and that's very valuable, right? That's missing in Pakistan. Have you ever thought about कि जी one way or the other चाहे उसका capitalist model हो where I can I mean I can't do everything myself? I don't have the time to be very honest but I can potentially begin to invest or partner or something or the other with other teams where I can help them again reach the scale or or take that knowledge and be able to target global markets. चाहे वह percentage रखकर again capitalist model हो and और मैं एक community build करूं of local founders जो कि global product businesses के ऊपर focus कर रहे हैं और मैं उनसे सीखूं, मैं उनको कुछ सीखाऊं. I feel like that community doesn't exist. I feel like product business में global product business में you find literally आप आप झाड़ झाड़कर ना आपको मिलते हैं कोई इधर कोई हीरा ख़ाम हो चीज़ अपना काम करा I remember recently लोहौर में I met this guy I don't know gaming company है उनकी call मैं भूल गया हूं. M M आलम है उनकी building है. तो मुझे उन्होंने randomly invite किया था सौ podcast or two and they were like, you know, why don't you come over? Was like, मैं बड़ा busy busy था last time. Last year मैं आया था podcast करी and I was like, अच्छा पता नहीं कोई है? मैं तो कभी सुनाई नहीं जिनका नाम. खैर, I just randomly went there with a friend of mine. अब वह main है में आलम फिर उन्होंने कोई छह सात floor का building बनाई है और एक वह building और उसको सामने वाली building है और आप हर floor पर जाते हैं तो it's it's incredible. बनाई है हमने बनाई है. Amazing. The story and infrastructure to prove that story was right there. They were talking about कि जी हम gaming के अंदर हम मतलब already आठ नौ सौ बंदे पर वह जा चुके हैं. किसी को पता ही नहीं है. Right and I asked him the same question. Was like do you know other people who are doing this? नहीं जी हम तो अपना काम कर रहे हैं. The guy is a graduate from Punjab University. Design में something like that. So, वहां पर मुझे होता है कि यार अगर अब यह बंदा individually जो कर रहा है यह acceleration तो हो ही नहीं सकती ना industry की acceleration इतना नहीं हो सकती अगर आप अपने silo में बैठकर अपना तो कर रहे हो. But वह unionization and on some level important है because that unionization allows for better policy, that unionization allows for better problem solving. Talent का problem है why does every company need to solve it individually? When you sort of unionize, then you identify कि हमें एक एक amount of talent चाहिए. Let's all pool in our resources and start building that. So, you ever thought about building such a community? Because you're probably one of the oldest I would say जो कि इस space में काम कर रहे होंगे both in terms of experience you know and in terms of कि when you started दो हज़ार दो नहीं? दो दो दो हज़ार छह. In the sense कि हां, you know.
Yeah, so I was like discussing with a friend who is involved in PSCB or पाशाब and we were discussing you know brand Pakistan and how both externally and internally we need to work on it a lot. Externally वह आपने बात की थी you know पहले कि you know India को हम you know और like services में compete करना हो. उधर भी actually एक interesting चीज़ हुई है कि a lot of the Indian companies have moved to the enterprise level or have moved up market and have sort of left a vacuum, you know, for us to fill. So, is a very good opportunity and I think इस साल Pakistan की Tech Crunch Disrupt is a very large, you know, conference in The US for startups so there a काफी अच्छी presence थी and, you know, so-so that work is being done to improve brand Pakistan in the tech space. Right. Internally, you know, बहुत ज़्यादा I have been looking for a community that you have just described. Right. Right and मुझे कुछ नहीं मिला. लूंढ Maybe even कोई WhatsApp group भी मैं you know ढूंढ लूंढ लूंढ लूंढ where we can actually share ideas and उस्त्रा. Yeah. So that's I think a space where organically I don't know अभी तक क्यों नहीं हुआ. But that's maybe, you know, a space where organizations like the PSCB or the government can come in and start holding more local events that are focused on, you know, like networking internally in the community versus rather always looking for clients abroad. So, वह, you know, community building or talent building or knowledge sharing inside the community. And I think in other spaces, you know, people or influencers like you who who bring people from all sorts of backgrounds together. I think,
you know, influencers have a role in have a role to play in this as well in in bringing people together. Makes a lot of sense. Jeffrey, I'm gonna wrap this up here at the one hour twenty minute mark. But this was super insightful. One of the first product conversations we've done out of 385. So you can see the rarity of this particular industry. But it it was an absolute pleasure talking to you. And I'm excited to see where you take poster my award in the future. Thank you so much for coming in. I'm gonna ask you one last question. I generally ask all of my guests. You went to The US for your master's at a very prestigious university. I'm sure you travel abroad here and there. But आप वापस आए वापस आकर आपने यहां पर एक business setup किया. You've been here since thick and thin. Times have been tough. Most recently even the most solid people उनका वह faith challenge हुआ था कि यार पता नहीं यहां पर future है मेरे और मेरे बच्चों का या नहीं. जो आपने सारा experience किया throughout your life उसको मद्देनाज़ रखते हुए. If I were to ask you, how do you envision Pakistan of twenty fifty, twenty seven years from now? How does Pakistan look like to you knowing all of what you know now, seeing all of what you've seen? What are your thoughts on that?
So if you were to, you know, if you were to take data points, आजकल का and I guess compared to when I graduated 2006 के लिए, you know, that post war on terror time. If we look at some things that have improved, you know, within, you know, the space that I have been exposed to or working in, you know. अगर IT industry को आप देख लो, तो you know it's improved a lot in the sense कि पहले एक ecosystem था ही नहीं, startup का concept नहीं था. मैं bank के पास गया था उन्हें freelancer account का you know उनको नहीं पता था. So you know there have been you know the startup ecosystem is there and is showing some vibrancy. So that's a positive. जो government की policies पहले completely unregulated था. Again, the State Bank didn't know about outsourcing or any of that. It was not regulated in 2010 to the extent जो कि अब है in terms of support and and all of that. So that's a good thing. अगर मैं देखूं higher education and private education, that's you know if I compared you know the schools that I went to you know and compare them to the schools that my kids are going to or you know like बीकनाहो सी अगर मैं compare कर लूं. It's improved a lot. I know people who have moved back from The US and their kids are going to these schools and they are perfectly happy. So that's encouraging to see. Some things that haven't improved, I guess our passport is still, you know, is still the same, still as worse. Human development index की जो चीज़ें हैं, we are still where we were. So there is like good and bad. If in a few words I would be cautiously optimistic about about twenty fifty. Some things are on the rise, but the great multiplier in all of this is geopolitics and leadership. So, you know, that is the multiplier factor where the graph can go up, it can go flat, or it can go down. So it is random
at this point in time, particularly we're in a chaotic time globally. And so projection seems increasingly difficult these days. Japa, thank you so much for coming in and sharing all that insight. This was products outside of Pakistan for the global audience? क्या मसला आते हैं? क्या चीज़ें आपको रोकती हैं generally? कौन से ऐसे सवाल आते हैं जो कि आप answer करना चाहते हैं when you think about building for the global audience? Let me know in the comment section below. YouTube वाले like का button दबाएंगे. Engagement पर एक गिरा लोगों को लोगों तक हमारी conversation पहुंचेगी. Audio platform वाले subscribe button दबाएंगे. आने वाले episodes के notification मिलेगी. But anyways this was सईद मुज़मिला संजय दी. You are watching thought behind things. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one.
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