Why PriceOye sells you a $500 phone before a $5 t-shirt

With some of Pakistan's most exciting startups combined इन startups की net worth $1,000,000,000 से ज़्यादा है और मेरे हिसाब से जो हमारा model है उसके तहत अगले पांच से दस साल के अंदर इनमें से दस companyयां ऐसी हैं जो individually unicorn status cross करेंगी, achieve करेंगी यानी कि इनकी individual net worth $1,000,000,000 cross करेगी. Combined यह companyयां कमा कम हमारे अंदाज़े के हिसाब से पांच हज़ार लोगों को already employ कर चुकी हैं directly और एक डेढ़ लाख से ज़्यादा लोगों को indirectly employ कर रही हैं. लेकिन यह जिस speed से grow कर रही हैं companies आने वाले दिनों में they will be employing hundreds of thousands of more people जिसकी वजह से जाहिर है जहां पर यह growth आती है वहां पर अगर आपने company से काम करना है directly या आपने partner करना है इनके साथ या आपने कोई sub product sub category में बनानी है तो इन companies के vision को समझना बड़ा ज़रूरी है. Pakistan में काफ़ी दफा हम इन बातों को seriously नहीं लेते लेकिन यह ऐसी companies हैं, ऐसी startups हैं जिन्होंने Pakistan के worst economic crisis के दौरान 60,000,000 पाकिस्तानी इनकी website पर गए हैं पिछले एक साल के अंदर. Pakistan की जितने भी mobile phones और smartphones बिकते हैं उसमें से पांच percent पूरे Pakistan के इस वक़्त इनकी website से sale हो रहे हैं. हमारा model क्योंकि मैंने पहले भी आपको बताया लोग जो हैं वह ख़ुद से numbers यह हमें पता है कि पिछले जो last इन्होंने amount raise की थी वह की तकरीबन 7 to $8,000,000 थी और उसी के साथ साथ इनकी बहुत ज़्यादा growth हो रही है particularly छोटे शहरों के अंदर जहां पर अब 60% of all of their orders are coming from और जब आप देखते हैं कि यार वह सातवीं जमात में बैठकर nineties के अंदर web servers जो हैं वह जाकर Pakistan में different companies को बेच रहे थे तो you could understand कि यह किस किस्म का DNA है that allowed for him to be able to create this company? Steve Wozniak, one of the founders of Apple, he is a personal mentor to, you know, Price OA team and अद्धान भाई. साथ ही Peter Thiel, a very famous investor जो कि Trump साहब के बड़े क़रीब हैं आजकल. He is one of the investors in his company Price OA. साथ ही chain smokers जो बड़ा मशहूर band है, they are also invested in his company. तो बड़े बड़े international VCs, बड़े बड़े international investors, वह कैसे आ गए इनके पास? A very small simple company in Pakistan जो पांच साल पहले शुरू हुई. How were they able to grow so big हमने देखा कि यार यह किस तरह से grow कर सकते हैं और आगे किस तरह जा सकते हैं. तो हमें लगता है कि they will achieve unicorn status by twenty thirty seven thirty eight जो कि तकरीबन आज से बारह साल बाद है. अगर वह उसी तरह चलते रहे जिस तरह वह आज चल रहे हैं, जाहिर है इसके अंदर certain risks भी हैं. क्योंकि unicorn status achieve करने के लिए अगर वह सिर्फ़ smartphone category में रहते हैं तो they will have to control 25% of the market. हमें already पता है कि five percent वह control कर रहे हैं, लेकिन क्या वह 5% को 25% ले जा सकते हैं? बहुत बड़ा question mark है. लेकिन इसमें इनके पास opportunity भी है वह इस twenty thirty seven को पीछे लेकर आ सकते हैं. अगर वह different categories में घुसें, अगर वह अपने जो overall उनकी you know service offering है उसको वह expand करें और वह अपने margins को increase करें और ऐसी products launch करें जैसा कि already हमने इस conversation में सुना भी कि वह किस्त बाज़ार के साथ competition में जाना चाहते हैं. किस्त बाज़ार का हमें पता है कि it is a buy now, pay later platform जो कि consumer electronics बेचता है. लेकिन आप price वाले भी उस category में जाना चाहते हैं ताकि वह एक बड़ा chunk रख सकें. अगर वह for example eight, nine, 10% EBITDA पर चल रहे हैं तो क्या वह उसको 13% पर ले जा सकते हैं by offering further services and further products to the consumer? अगर आप पच्चीस हज़ार रुपए का direct phone नहीं खरीद सकते तो क्या आप तीस हज़ार रुपए में breakdown करके एक phone अगर लेते हैं तो क्या उससे price और extra margin निकाल सकता है? यह तमाम चीज़ें आने वाले वक़्त में देखने को होंगी. मेरे हिसाब से it's a remarkable story, it's a remarkable business और इसके अंदर इन्होंने जिस तरह से इसको पूरे को setup कर दिया है in a country like Pakistan जहां पर ecommerce का trust deficit exist करता रहा है. Particularly जब आप high end products की बात करते हैं, phones की बात करते हैं, तो लोग कभी भी नहीं trust करते कि यार, you know, order करेंगे, डब्बे के अंदर पत्थर आएगा, fraud हो जाएगा. उसके अंदर इतना ज़्यादा business करना, इतना बड़ा brand create करना, it is not an easy task. And I definitely recommend the team for being able to do that. But I think for the viewers as well, there is a lot to learn in this no bullshit episode because the the speaker was not all about यह story, वह story. He was razor sharp. He had a sharp mentality. And just as he was able to maneuver through his decision making and life to be able to create what he has, There is a lot of insight that he offers in the same way for a lot of the listeners अगर वह उसको समझ सकें. But nonetheless, this is अद्नान शफ़ी, the CEO and cofounder of PrySew on TBD podcast season five. Despite the best efforts of governments to move the world apart, entrepreneurs are bringing us closer together as we see innovation literally everywhere. The reason I love it never so much is you realize that you could create something anywhere.

Companies can also come, like, you know, from anywhere. Can come from Brazil. It can come from Mexico. It can come from Istanbul.

If you're ambitious, go to Europe, get the job, or to The US. But here you're mega ambitious. Stay home and build. This episode of Thought Behind Things is presented in partnership with Endeavor Pakistan. अद्नान भाई, first of all, you know, thank you for taking the time out and being part of the show. असामिक उम्मीद thank you for having me. It's a real pleasure. मैं conversation को start करूंगा just trying to understand आप पैदा किधर हुए? Early life आपने कहां पर गुज़ारी and you know growing up what was life like for you? So I was born in कराची.

वहीं पर पहले पढ़े, studying in a school in the heart of Karachi called PAF College. So, वहां से पढ़ा mostly जो colleagues थे, friends थे, वो उनकी family background different forces से थे. We were one of the few civilians studying in the school. So it was a different experience, different culture. उसको देखा, but I think that was, that was a good learning experience. वहां पर grid आपकी बहुत strong हो जाती है वह school में. तो वह बहुत ही अच्छा experience था which kind of helped us throughout in our life.

Interesting. मुझे यह बताएं कि आपकी जो family थी was like was your father a businessman or was he working all his life at another

company? नहीं, my father was a businessman. I think since start he was into business. उसी की वजह से हमने भी घर में जब देखा different लोग किस तरीके से business करते हैं because dinner conversations mostly revolved around you know my father having discussions with you know his brother and family you know about how his day went down. तो I think उससे बहुत कुछ सीखने को मिला. In fact जो first हमें business जो हम का flavor मिला that was very early on when I was in the seventh grade. So उस ज़माने में web hosting used to be a cool thing. बहुत ज़्यादा लोग interact करते थे different service के साथ, internet dial up connection वाला होता था. तो we were like This was the late nineties, early two thousands? This is early two thousands. तो internet was booming in Pakistan और schools में ऐसे, हर school में common ऐसे होता था कि internet के फवायद और नुकसानात, you know. तो काफी interact करने का मौका मिला internet के साथ और because my father was into technology all his life. In fact Pakistan में जो बिल्कुल शुरू में Mac and Torch laptops आए थे. He, he owned one. Pakistan में जो mobile phone connections आए थे. He was one of the first users of mobile phone. तो I think वहाँ से technology की एक वो कीड़ा जो होता है ना वो start होता है. वो start हुआ और हम लोगों को हमेशा से technology के साथ खेलने का शौक था लेकिन पैसे नहीं होते थे. वो pocket money इतनी ज़्यादा नहीं थी कि हम लोग ना वो कुछ कर सकें. तो उस वक़्त हम लोगों को शौक था, हम लोगों ने Ubuntu install किए, different चीज़ों पर देखा and we wanted to buy our own server. अब उस वक़्त जो servers मिलते थे US के अंदर वो थे around I think $300 per month. We didn't had enough money कि हम $300 per month afford कर सके. So what we did was we said कि अच्छा हम लोगों को server के साथ खेलना है तो हम उसकी एक portion of space को हम resell कर सकते हैं consumers को for fab hosting. तो just because we wanted to play with it and we didn't have the money, we started selling the extra space that we had. तो वो हमने sell करना start की, different businesses को जाकर अखबारों में flyers डाले, वो भेजे, You know, हर तरह का हमने उसमें hack किया, कोशिश की कि हम वो कर सकें and I think हम तीन साल तक उसको चलाते रहे. We never earned enough money कि हम उसमें से कुछ profit draw करें because whenever we got more money, we kind of upgraded the servers, added more. तो we we started doing that and I think for the next three years we had over I think 95 clients

we that we were engaging with. And you were, you guys were school going students? Yes. Running a hardware server in Pakistan? In The US,

selling it in Pakistan. जी जी. So, of the customers were in Saudi and Pakistan. Right. और जो हमने initial customers बनाए थे, that was through cold calling. So, उस ज़माने में वह जमाल yellow pages होती थी जिसको आप खोल के देख सकते थे different businesses के numbers. So we used to call them up and because we were technically sound, we were able to convince their IT teams कि, you know, we are the best company to outsource their business to us, the web hosting part of it. तो वो हम लोग कर लेते थे. In fact एक large MNC Pakistan में है जब हमने उनसे phone पे interact किया उनके IT department से और उस ज़माने में IT departments बहुत छोटे होते थे. तो उनसे interact किया, they kind of understood, they really liked, you know, जो technical aspect था team का and they decided to give us the contract. But उन्होंने कहा आपने contract sign करना है तो you have to be physically in our office. तो हम गए bus पकड़कर उनके office और वह जो होता है ना वह tie पहन के और वह जो एक तरीका होता है वह हम पहन के पहुंच गए उनके office. हम वहां बैठे रहेगा आधा घंटा हो गया, घंटा हो गया. उसके बाद receptionist ने पुछा जी आप किससे मिलने आए हैं? हमने बताया. Obviously he was very forward thinking too. He understood कि, you know, अगर इन्होंने मुझे phone पर convince किया and I gave them the contract on the call, तो फिर it must be something. तो फिर उसके बाद obviously he said, you know, legally I can't side a contract with you. I need someone, you know, older than 18 who can do this. And then obviously my father stepped in and he said, ok, he will do that for us. So he was kind enough but I think वह वहां से जो हमने था ना business first, जो taste आपको मिलता है business का और how you go about it, वह we started learning in the early days when

we were in the seventh grade. Very cool, very cool. मुझे थोड़ा सा just to get context कि what sort of business was your father in? Because जिस time का ही आप बात कर रहे हैं, most fathers weren't as progressive कि वह ख़ुद technology को इतना ज़्यादा interact कर रहे उसके साथ और फिर वह अपने बच्चों को वह कर रहे हैं. And I think I've seen a lot of these stories early two thousands की of people who actually had the opportunity to interact with technology जिन्होंने eventually बहुत बड़ी बड़ी interesting चीज़ें की. So just literally वह make और break था. जिन लोगों ने early technology से interact कर लिया, उनका एक direction और trajectory बिल्कुल different है versus a lot of other people जो कि as things have become mainstream तो वह time पर आए. तो I'm curious कि you you mentioned कि your father was a techie. Was that because of his the nature of his work? No.

So he was in a very traditional business petrochemicals and it, it was just his passion. He liked interacting with technology, you know. He always had PDAs and you know, different devices का उनको हमेशा से shocked था. तो he was an early adopter in that sense. In fact, while he was working, his company kind of got a software developed from a large software company but उसकी maintenance के लिए कुछ challenges आ रहे थे. तो उन्होंने जो court थी that was very high and then he decided, you know, will learn programming myself and then do it. So after office he joined a programming class, kind of learned how programming is and then kind of fixed the software himself rather than, you know, outsourcing it to another company. So he has always been, you know, progressive and very early adopter of technology.

Makes sense. And so you you you started this company in seventh grade. तीन एक साल आपने चलाई. Where did you go for university? I mean, now you have a business का flavor. You're very tech savvy already at an age where most people aren't. And my understanding is your co founder is your older brother. Yes. How how much older is he and how much of an impact did he make in in your evolution?

I think he is a year older than me. So, we did from the beginning, we did it together and you know, for a very long time people used to call us आदिल अद्नान, you know, so because उनको पता था कि दोनों साथ ही होंगे. It was always, you know, a call together. तो I think वह हम लोगों ने हमेशा जो भी किया साथ किया and that's how we kept learning from each other. Also because we have very complementing skill set. So जो मेरी lacking है वह उसकी जो है ना strengths हैं. So we kind of flourish on each other strengths and weaknesses, you know. तो वह complement बहुत अच्छा करते हैं. So generally co founders में यह होता है लोग जो generally गलती करते हैं, वह यह करते हैं कि दोनों same skill set के लोग एक साथ आ जाते हैं. उससे obviously पर जो आपकी weaknesses होती हैं उसको cover करने वाला कोई नहीं होता. So the advantage that we have is that we have very complementing skill sets जिसकी वजह से we are able to, you know, make a great team. Makes sense. Education का आप मुझे बता रहे थे कि वह फिर आपने कहाँ से ली? जी, so I studied in Berry University. I wanted to go into GIK because my brother went there and summers में मैं वहाँ जाता था, you know, and they had a great culture. So I used to stay in a dorm पूरा हफ्ता, दो हफ्ते उसके साथ summers में every alternate week. So, it was amazing university. I loved it. I wanted to go there but numbers कभी भी इतने अच्छे नहीं आते थे कि admission मिल जाए. So, I just got stuck on the waiting list और कभी उससे आगे admission नहीं मिला. And this was also the time when the family was moving from Karachi to Islamabad. अच्छा. Because my dad was moving his businesses here and you know, their family decided to move. तो I was also moving and जब इस्तामबाद आए तो university, कुछ universities में admission खुले हुए थे. Beria University was one of them. So I got admission in Beria University and while I was doing, so I got enrolled in electronics engineering because उस ज़माने में electronics used to have the highest merit so I thought you know अगर पढ़ना है तो might as well study with the best people and I got in admission in the electronics engineering department. वह पढ़ना start किया but studies boring लगने लगी because you are suddenly in a new city, आपके दोस्त नहीं हैं, आपके पास बहुत ज़्यादा time है extra, आप क्या करो तो? सुबह मैं electronics पढ़ रहा था और शाम वाली shift में I started doing computer science engineering. So, in the same And from the same university? जी, so I was doing two degrees. In the morning shift I was doing electronics engineering and in the afternoon evening shift I was doing computer sciences. So, used to go to the university at like 08:30AM and then come back at probably you know 9PM or 8PM.

What compelled that decision? I mean was that something that your father pushed for? मतलब I mean that's you don't hear that, right? Like for an average young person वह ख़ुद से rarely Pakistan में इतना empowered होता है कि वह कहता है कि you know what I feel like कि I need to study another shift and specifically I'm curious did you have to like what was the process like? Did you have to take another test, enroll separately, fees

वगैरह? Tell me a bit about that. हां, so it was a completely separate degree so I have to enroll again but because मैं university का part था तो admission test दुबारा नहीं देना पड़ा. Also because in my computer subjects, I always used to, you know, top the class. So, उसकी वजह से I got admission directly in the computer science division और फिर उसके बाद I started, you know, studying. But उसमें nobody pushed me to be honest. It was out of गोर्डम. आप imagine you're suddenly in a new city, you're an introvert so you don't have a lot of friends. आप सारा दिन घर पर बैठे हुए हैं तो university तो खत्म हो जाती है एक बजे and the studies were not challenging enough to be honest. तो मुझे लगा कि यह तो time waste हो रहा है, क्या करूं? तो फिर I thought I'll, you know, just because I love computer science तो computers भी पढ़ लेते हैं. तो that's how I think continued for the entirety of your program. Like चार चारों साल आपका ऐसी इतना छुलता रहा या दिरव्यान में आने का बस ठीक है बस हो गई है मैंने सीख ले जो सीखना था and? नहीं, I think for three years I did that and the fourth year I did not because, you know, while we were in Beria, so Beria में एक interesting चीज़ थी कि वहां पर student clubs बहुत ज़्यादा जो है ना popular थे. So, different student clubs for instance dramatic society, musical society, computer science society, they were very very active. So उस ज़माने में Facebook was kicking off in Pakistan. So I joined different societies, I started skipping some of the classes that I didn't found useful and, you know, I started enjoying these different events. So, वहाँ पर I interacted with a lot of smart people. You know, in fact, some of the top bloggers of Pakistan were, you know, a batch older or younger than me. So, वहाँ पर बहुत कुछ सीखा I think साद अमित भी आपके साथ आस पास गए होंगे? जी जी, साद अमित was a year older than us. Fascinating. तो उनसे भी बहुत कुछ सीखा. He was always an inspiration. हमरदार was a year junior than me but obviously learned a lot from him as well. तो बाहर लोगों से बहुत कुछ सीखने को मिला and at that time there was a social media was becoming a new concept. So I started playing with social media, you know, quickly became one of the top 100 social media experts globally. Worked with different brands internationally like Coca Cola and others and then realized कि जब हम उनके लिए काम करें तो why can't we do it, you know, for ourselves? So, I started my first company again with a deal called Chip Hazard. So, Chip Hazard was focused on technology and the hazards that come within and how to solve them to take advantage of them. So, वह हमने start किया quickly, kind of drew for the next two years. So, then what we were doing कि सुबह पढ़ रहे थे और रात को both of us were running this company. Started from our bedroom with like a 2,000 rupee investment, you know, and then it quickly grew to a team of 12 people, some of them in The US, mostly in Pakistan, and then kind of continued building that. And while we were doing that in, I think, a few months before we graduate, I graduated, we got an acquisition offer और this is pre startup buzz in Pakistan. तो हमें पता नहीं था acquisition क्या होती है, you know startup का word इतना common नहीं था. We were just running a business. We didn't knew if can, if we can call it startup or not और वो grow करता गया and then when we got an acquisition offer तो वो हमें suddenly लगा कि वो निजेरी prince वाली email नहीं होती कि वो आ गई है and you know, this legit? You ignore it or you don't? So we discussed it with my father and he said कि, you know, कोई हर्ज़ नहीं है just, you know, engage with them and see if it's a real thing or not. What's there to lose? And then we interacted with them. Suddenly lawyers jumped in. There was a proper due diligence process. So due diligence for wider audience is basically when the buyer comes and see every aspect of your business and see कि सारी चीज़ें in order हैं यानी जिस तरीके से आप बता रहे हैं वो true हैं या नहीं, जो user base है उनको verify करते हैं. So हर चीज़ को verify करने के बाद, you pass the due diligence process. So that was the first time we knew what due diligence is. You know, वह हमने सारा go through किया and then we sold that business in 2011 to a British private equity company. How interesting.

My understanding is you would be what? 22 years old, 23 years old? Around that age, yes. Right and so is this, can we have a number of how much you made at the time as a 22 year We old made very good money.

In fact, we were shocked, you know, the idea of becoming सोरिच at that time while you were just you know graduating. It was unreal you know. We didn't imagine कि हम लोग कोई चीज़ इतनी जल्दी पैसे बना लेंगे, right? Because this is the time when you are about to graduate और आप at that time students used to think like that और

one में six figure थी या five figure की थी या six figure की थी से. Seven तो I am assuming नहीं होगी. It was around that, very close to that. Six or seven? So around seven figures. Interesting. Very cool. What I'd be curious to know is, I know again साद ने उस time के ऊपर if I'm not wrong wake up. He was on also into blogging and he was doing the whole meme redirection and काफ़ी सारे लोगों की इस तरह की acquisitions हुई थी. For young students, आपकी अगर एक six figure acquisition हो जाती है तो फिर आप एक बड़ी आप एक अजीब से एक दलदल में हैं, अब एक वह motivation and incentive structure out हो जाता है कि, you know, मैं काम करूं तो क्यों करूं? लेकिन हूं तो मैं एक fresh graduate. मेरे पास वह वाला experience तो नहीं है और यह internet businesses के साथ बहुत ज़्यादा हुआ था कि, you know, a lot of us learned a new skill or two, really made it big rapidly. But in a lot of ways, we were pretty immature. Right? वह वह जो आपको एक काम कर करके जो आपको एक skill set आता है, experience आता है, work ethic आती है, वह तो नहीं नहीं होगी I'm assuming. नहीं. So psychologically and emotionally, अगर मैं पूछूं कि उसे post acquisition,

what were you guys like? तो क्या चल रहा था? अच्छा post acquisition एक चीज़ तो बड़ी clear थी कि अब हमने job market में नहीं जाना. Right. Because job market में नहीं जाना तो फिर आपको कुछ तो करना है because you can't sit idle. As a human being, our brain is trained in a way कि we cannot sit idle because अगर आप फ़ायदे बैठे रहते हैं तो आपका दिमाग बंद नहीं होता, वह चलता रहता है different directions में. कुछ लूंगा positive, कुछ negative depending upon which phase of life you are in but we realize कि we cannot settle. तो हमें कुछ ना कुछ तो करना है. क्या करना है? We need to look at different things. So हम लोग उस वक्त we were very data driven हमेशा से. तो हम लोग देखते रहते थे कि क्या चीज़ कर सकते हैं? Global trends किस तरफ जा रहे हैं? You know, और क्या चीज़ different देख सकते हैं? So at that time because we were figuring that part out, आदिल said कि यार मुझे business का इतना नहीं पता, मुझे MBA के लिए जा रहा है. So he went for his MBA and at the same time, my father said कि you are not allowed to sit at home. Come join the family business. So for one year, I worked with him and when you are working with your father, you cannot be undisciplined. You know, you have to have and that work put in those hours to be able to learn because my father has always been like a person कि you cannot start from the top. You have to start from the bottom. So, you sit with the labour, you know, interact with them, you eat with them, you spend time with them. तो उससे आपका work ethic automatically बहुत बेहतर हो जाता है. So, I think that one year helped me shape as a person and then build that work ethic a lot

that I didn't had before. Makes sense. I saw on your LinkedIn के Steve Wozniak sent you a book signed. So tell me a bit about that. What happened there and how did he manage to find out these two boys in स्लाहाबा doing some tech blog essentially?

जी, so Steve is now a mentor for us as well. We kind of learn a lot from him. So, while we were doing Chip Hazard, हम लोगों ने पहली iPhone 4S उस वक्त होता था. उसके कुछ images leak कर दिए थे. Some of our fans was, you know, working in China at an Apple related company तो वहाँ से उसने हमें वो screenshots भेजे, कुछ images भेजे. हमने उनको verify किया, हमने legal से check किया. उन्होंने कहा because ये images original Apple के नहीं है और आप लोगों ने किसी ने खुद click किए हैं so you are legally allowed to post it. तो वो हमने उसको post कर दिया, that went viral and Apple because they are a very secretive company और कोई चीज़ अगर out हो जाए तो they get very furious. तो officially Apple ने हमें email किया कि हम आपको sue कर देंगे and this is not right and all that kind of stuff but because we had our legal basis covered तो हमने कहा नहीं we are not removing it. यह बिल्कुल genuine product है तो हम लोग उसको नहीं हटा रहे हैं. So, Apple pushed us really hard, you know, talk to our advertisers कि हमारी advertising ban कराते हैं. हमने कहा nothing doing. अब जो मर्ज़ी करते हैं we, we are sticking to it because it's, it's about a principle. तो we, we did that and जब हमने यह किया तो फिर obviously we got noticed a lot, you know. You're-you're fighting with one of the largest companies in the world and sticking to your ground. That kind of helped you get traction and get notice. तो वहाँ से you know we got connected with Steve और फिर उन्होंने you know we had our first call और फिर we we became kind of you know friends or he became our mentor और वहाँ से फिर नैसीका and then that is the time when he just had finished that book and he sent us copy of that. Very cool.

You worked with your father's company for a year or a couple of years?

Yes, a year essentially. So, what did you decide to do next? So, I decided to go for my MBA then. So, this was the time when I was trying to figure out कि मुझे बाहर से MBA करना है या Pakistan से करना है. So I got enrolled into some good universities but essentially I decided कि I am not doing this for a degree. I am doing this for the knowledge. So during this time I had interacted with certain professors which I really liked and I liked their thought process. So I wanted to study with them A and B I wanted local context. क्योंकि मुझे यह था कि अगर Pakistan में काम करना है तो आपके पास local context होना बहुत ज़रूरी है. You can learn like the Harvard case studies and all but वो Pakistan में implementation उसकी बहुत कम होती है. So, I need to learn the local contacts. So, I went to KSPL for my MBA, did that for two years and then decided to do something on our own and this was the time when we were kind of figuring out on what we need to do and because we had saved up some money, we decided to travel. तो फिर हमने family से कहा कि अब हमें travel करना है, you know. तो पहले तो बड़ी डांट पड़ी कि, you know, यह क्या तरीका है कि एक साल छुट्टी करनी है, घूमना फिरना है और यह कौन सा है? But वह IT वालों में एक बीमारी होती है थोड़ी सी कि हमें छुट्टी लेनी है और यह. So, we, you know, our parents were very supportive. We were lucky. So, we got a chance to travel and during that we came across the Indonesian startup ecosystem up close और हमने यह realize किया कि जो भी चीज़ हम Indonesia में देख रहे हैं, हमने कुछ साल पहले इन्हीं के बारे में India में पढ़ा है. So let's just see if there is a pattern. So what we did was we plotted around 1,300 startups on a timeline and we realized कि दो बड़े clear pattern नज़र आ रहे थे and we were shocked. It was like a time machine, you know. So, पहला pattern यह था कि in the consumer internet space, whatever was happening in India, with a two to three year lag, the same phenomena was happening in Indonesia and with a seven year lag, the same thing was popping up in Pakistan. So it was like, you know, you can see what worked in India, what worked in Indonesia and then localize that for Pakistan and that might work. So it was like a time machine, you can go into the future and see what will work in Pakistan. And then the second pattern was in the consumer internet space, the first wave of innovation always comes through e commerce और जब e commerce mass scale पर adopt हो जाता है, उसके बाद दूसरी wave आती है which is fintech और जब fintech की mass adoption हो जाती है, फिर third wave आती है which is the social commerce और उसकी reason है because अगर आप fintech के अंदर पैसे डाल देंगे, आप spend किधर करेंगे अगर e commerce नहीं है तो. Also fintech के जो customer acquisition cost है वह बहुत ज़्यादा होती है लेकिन अगर आप उसको e commerce से couple कर दें तो essentially zero हो जाती है उसकी customer acquisition cost which is why you see कि China में, India में, Indonesia में जो भी large fintech companies हैं they are owned by e commerce companies You know, and this was the time in 2019 when a lot of funding was available for fintech companies. Fintech was the it thing, for venture, capitalist to invest in and a lot of people were starting companies which were on path to becoming a fintech or have a fintech angle. But we realized कि fintech e commerce से पहले नहीं चल सकता. So लोग कर रहे हैं but to make unit economics work, you have to couple it with e commerce और e commerce Pakistan में exist नहीं करता. And then social commerce में भी लोग आ रहे थे. So social commerce is जहां पर आप collectively order place करते हैं और फिर वह order split हो जाते हैं multiple लोगों में ताकि आपको bulk ordering का जो discount है वह मिल सके. So China में एक company थी Pinduodu. उन्होंने उसको start किया. It became viral. बहुत से लोगों ने उसको copycat किया उस model को. Pakistan में भी किया internationally. हर किसी ने किया and we realized कि social commerce में हमको payments split करनी होती है and you cannot split the payment without fintech. तो आप social commerce कर सकते हैं but true social commerce कभी भी exist नहीं कर सकता before fintech और it's a very rare chance that it will work without fintech. तो Pakistan में हमने देखा कि e commerce में कौन सी companies हैं. एक company बहुत अच्छा कर रही थी but उनका जब net promoter score है जिसको basically customer satisfaction score भी आप कह सकते हैं layman terms में, वह negative था and negative 27 which is कि अगर आप सौ लोगों को product बेच रहे हैं तो उसमें से सत्ताईस लोग कहेंगे कि इनसे दोबारा मत खरीदना. So, assuming we are talking about the राज here. I know you can't name them but.

So, I think it's a it's a weird phenomena. I've like दुनिया में Amazon exist करता है, यह करता है, वह करता है. They have this perception problem. They for the life of me I cannot understand. They've never been able to fix it. I don't know if that's a a metric of I mean culture की बात लोग करते and we'll get into this same problems statements with yours as well but it's a good point to make कि ecommerce का trust, ecommerce का जो consumer का जो experience है वह unfortunately जो सबसे बड़ी आपकी success story है उसने एक जो collective दिमाग़ में बनाया वह बड़ा बुरा बनाया Pakistan में कभी उस तरह हो ही नहीं सका कि oh you know this is so convenient and so nice and so interesting.

I think उसमें दो तीन reasons हैं तो उसमें सारा एक particular player का नहीं है. उसकी reason यह है कि, so I'll break it down into three parts. First, e commerce का perception जो सबसे ज़्यादा खराब किया है, वह किसी platform ने नहीं किया. वह Instagram, Facebook जो छोटे छोटे pages बने हुए उन्होंने किया है. हज़ार, दो हज़ार order page की गायब हो चुका होता है और फिर हम कहते हैं कि सारा e commerce ही ख़राब है. हम यह realize नहीं करते कि हम जिस product को जहां से order कर रहे हैं, वह platform जो है वह trusted है या नहीं. तो एक तो यह बहुत बड़ा problem है कि platform पर particular अगर कोई fraud कर रहे तो लोग उसको पूरी industry से associate करते and that is how it works globally because इंसान का जो सोचने का तरीका है वह यही है. तो इसमें लोगों का कसूर नहीं है but this is how the industry is evolving और जहां पर हमारी industry फँसी हुई है.

दूसरा मेरे ख्याल, welcome to the, welcome to the trust and all of those things later. पहले मैं थोड़ा story complete लूं.

अच्छा, सुभू हमने देखा कि जब social commerce नहीं चल सकता, e commerce Pakistan में exist करता है लेकिन वो इतने अच्छे तरीके से नहीं कर रहे हैं. So let's just see what we can do about e commerce, right? But we also realized कि e commerce is nothing new. पूरी दुनिया में हो चुका है. Most countries में घिस पिट गया है. There are, you know, one or two large companies which are over $1,000,000,000 doing great. तो हमें कुछ wheel को reinvent करने की ज़रूरत नहीं है. We just need to make it faster, better and cheaper. अगर हम इन तीन चीज़ों को nail down कर सकते हैं तो we can actually build a successful business. So what we did, what we went to you know the Middle East, spoke to their, the founders of their largest e commerce companies. Know, we spoke with the indian founders, you know the founders of Flipkart, Snapdeal, मित्रा try to learn from their experience and they said कि they learn a lot from the Chinese guys. So we went to China twice and in each trip we did over like a thousand interviews, you know. So what we used to do was we used to fill our bags with chocolates, go to the subway and ask people questions और हम बिल्कुल simple questions पुछ रहे थे कि आप product क्यों खरीद रहे हैं online? आप Jingdong से क्यों खरीद रहे हैं और Taobao से क्यों नहीं खरीद रहे? किस type के products आप एक particular platform से खरीदते हैं और दूसरे से नहीं खरीदते? And we realized कि China में दो particular platforms हैं. एक Alibaba owned Taobao और दूसरा jd.com which is Jingdong और लोग जो expensive products हैं वह Jingdong से खरीदते हैं और जो traditional regular everyday product होते हैं वह Taobao से खरीद रहे होते हैं and we wanted to understand why. So we started you know diving deep in and we did more interviews. In fact while we were during our second trip, we were 600 or some interviews through, we almost got arrested, you know, because police आ गई and they were like, you know, you are not allowed to talk to people in China. What are you doing? And stuff like that. So, they took us to the station and luckily, you know, they saw our scripts, transcripts and everything and they're like, okay, you're fine. But in China, need to have a permission before you do these things and we were like, sorry we knew about it and, you know, we were let go. So it was a pretty interesting experience but during that trip we met this gentleman जो किसी e commerce company में ही काम कर रहा था. तो उसने कहा कि if you really want to understand this, you know, give me a $100. तो we were curious, you know, this was a strange request कि अगर आपको समझना है तो give me a $100. तो we gave them a $100 and you know, उसने हमारे सामने Taobao के ऊपर एक LV का bag order किया, you know, और उसने कहा तीन दिन बाद यह deliver होगा. यह मेरे office का address है, उसके नीचे Starbucks है. आप वहाँ पर आ जाएं, इतने बजे मुझसे मिले. I'm like ठीक है. तीन दिन बाद हम उसके office के नीचे Starbucks थी. वहाँ पर गए. तुम? तो he was like, नहीं नहीं नहीं. Now you need to come with me. So he took us to the LV store in Beijing और वहां पर उसने उनको कहा कि यह जो product है, यह मुझे gift मिला है. आप इसको authenticate कर सकते हैं. आप इसको authenticate करके मुझे इसका color पसंद नहीं आप color change कर दें. And they authenticated the bag somehow. वह हो गया और उन्होंने उसका color change कर दिया. And we were shocked. You know, we couldn't understand कि सौ dollar के LV का bag. Product आपने replace कर लिया original store से and then he kind of explained कि China में जो knock offs हैं, वह इतने अच्छे हैं कि it's very very difficult even for the store owners because they are not trained enough to realize कि यह counterfeit है और जो Taobao है वहां पर counterfeit का बहुत बड़ा problem है because वह एक pure marketplace है जहां पर कोई भी जाकर store पर अपना platform पर store register कर सकता है और बेच सकता है product. तो होता यह कि लोग counterfeit भी बेच रहे होते हैं. जिसकी वजह से अगर आपने कभी भी expensive product खरीदना हो तो लोग Jingdong पर जाते हैं which is a managed marketplace. Which means कि वह सिर्फ brand को allow करते हैं या उनके authorized sellers को allow करते हैं platform पर बेचना. तो अगर आप LV का bag Jingdong से ख़रीद रहे हैं तो वह सिर्फ़ LV या उसका authorized seller ही बेच सकता है. तो उसकी authentication जो है वह बहुत important हो जाती है and people believe कि यह वहां से आ रहा है तो it's 100% accurate. जबकि दूसरी जगह से counterfeit का बहुत ज़्यादा problem आता है. In fact अली बापा ने अपने annual reports अगर आप उनकी पढ़े for for the longest time they have been writing कि counterfeit is a big problem and we are trying to solve it and they kind of did a lot of work around it but a pure marketplace it's very difficult to manage, you know because you don't know आपके platform पर कौन register कर रहा है, वह क्या बेच रहा है. इसी तरह going back to what you were saying about the things about trust. Pakistan में एक online store ने eleven eleven के ऊपर sale की. बहुत ज़्यादा products पीछे, you know और बहुत ज़्यादा लोगों की complaint भी आई कि हमने phone order किया था और अंदर से एक दूध का डब्बा निकल रहा है. You know, अब उस marketplace के लिए सिर्फ एक ही तरीका था verify करने के लिए कि customer झूठ बोल रहा है या vendor जिसने product भेजा है वह झूठ बोल रहा है. अब उस vendors ने किया यह कि 80% products सही भेजे, 20% negative भेजे. तो उनका system यह कहता कि अगर 80% is positive feedback, 20% को ignore कर दो. लेकिन क्योंकि complaints इतनी ज़्यादा आई जब उन्होंने verify करना start किया तो उनके लिए एक ही तरीका था कि वह courier company से पूछें कि उस box की weight range क्या थी? Turns out कि दूध के डब्बे की weight range और phone के डब्बे की weight range similar होती है. You know, तो they said कि नहीं उन्होंने आपको phone ही भेजा है and people ordered दो लाख रुपए के phone और अंदर से उनको बीस रुपए का एक वह दूध का डब्बा निकल रहा है. तो they got furious obviously but as a marketplace, pure marketplace, they couldn't do anything about it because consumer भी misrepresent करता है और vendor भी करता है. तो दोनों side पर trust deficit होता है. इसलिए हम लोगों ने जब price वो start करनी थी in March 2020, we started it as a managed marketplace where we only allow brands to sell on the platform. So अगर आपके पास Samsung Pakistan का phone order आप कर रहे हैं तो वह Samsung के official representative से आपके पास आ रहा है. So, everything we sell on price हुए, all the phones are PT approved, have one year official brand warranty, you know, and we give you the guarantee कि it's, it's a real product. जबकि बाकी platform से आप जाएं तो कहीं कुछ sellers warranty वाला बेच रहे होंगे, कुछ बगैर warranty वाला बेच रहे होंगे. हम लोग वो चीज़ allow नहीं करते. उसके ऊपर obviously we lose some sales but we are, we are fine with that. We believe कि long term में अगर आपने चलना है तो आपको trust build करना है और आप उसको compromise नहीं कर सकते. जैसे एक दो brands है Pakistan में अगर आप देखें Oneplus है या Google Pixel है, उसके demand priceओं के platform पर बहुत ज़्यादा है but हम वह sell नहीं करते क्योंकि उसकी one year official warranty नहीं आती Pakistan में. So we don't sell anything जिसकी official warranty नहीं है. Makes sense.

I would love to get into price होए detail में क्या कर रहे हैं, कैसे कर रहे हैं, क्या exact scale है. But before that, कुछ चीज़ें I wanted कि मैं उसको double down करूं. पहला मुझे यह बताएं कि आपने कहा कि जी हम UAE गए और बाकी जगह पर गए. There's a there's a obviously a gap period, right? आप MBA करके वापस आए, आपके भाई ने भी MBA complete कर लिया हुआ था. But you you guys weren't working anywhere. You guys weren't building a business. And yes, you've had you'd had an acquisition a few years ago, quite a few years ago. But यह जो seventeen eighteen का I'm assuming time है जिसमें आप basically यह सारी अपनी sort of research कर रहे थे कि हमने क्या build करना है. How did you manage to? आपने कहा कि मैं Middle East गया. वहां पर मैंने बहुत सारे companies के CEO से या founder से मुलाख़ाते कि how did you get get those connections, those conversations? Was this a conference उस तरह से? और फिर आपने कहा कि मैं China गया. So again, what I'm curious is for a lot of for a vast majority of the people वह यहां पर ना अपना roadblock निकाल लेंगे. एक आपका process मुझे बड़ा अच्छा नज़र आ रहा था कि यार ठीक है you have a very analytical mind and you were utilizing data that anyone can do as long as they have that mindset, right? And you were identifying the trends and you were but then this is something just clear a certain either network effect is required or certain money is required. Anyone cannot just take a trip to China and, you know, do that or go to the go to Dubai. And even if they can, a lot of people probably would be able to. But they don't know who to talk to and how do you even reach out to people like this. So tell me a bit about how did you manage to secure these meetings?

So we had zero network. You know, we didn't knew anyone in the industry, especially e commerce. But we had, you know, this ability to reach out to people shamelessly. तो हम लोगों ने बहुत cold call किया है लोगों को. In fact, इतने लोगों को हम cold call करते थे कि भैया develop this formula internally on our excel sheet कि if a startup has raised less than $10,000,000, you call them up, founder directly call उठाएगा. If they raise between 10 and 50,000,000, the secretary would pick up the call but वह founder से आपको connect करा देगी and if they have raised over 50 then just good luck. वह आपको किसी network के through ही उनके पास जाना पड़ेगा. तो I think we, we spent a lot of time calling these people specially like Indian founders, Indonesian founders. You know, Adil went to India but I couldn't. So what we did, we used to just find out their numbers and start calling them and you know, we, we just used to be upfront with them क्योंकि अगर आप किसी से चिलाकी करेंगे ना उसको समझ आ जाती है. तो we were very upfront. हम day one पर उनको जब call करते थे, we are like, you know, are calling from Pakistan. We want to learn because your company and your country is like this many years ahead from us and we want to learn from your experience and that's it. बहुत लोगों ने बंद कर दिया phone, बहुत लोगों ने कहा times आया ना करें लेकिन उसमें से कुछ लोग थे, they were you know very curious कि यह randomly Pakistan से क्यों call कर रहा है मुझे? क्या सीखना है? And they start giving us time and when they realize कि you are not wasting their time, you are asking genuine questions and you want to learn, that is when they start to open up with you, you know and then when you talk to one founder then they help you connect with another one. फिर वह एक relationship होती और फिर वह network खुद से develop हो हो जाता जाती है. In fact, one of the founders we met was when we went to Dubai, we went to his office and we found out कि वह अपने घर, office से घर पैदल जाते हैं. तो हम उनके office के बाहर wait करते थे. जब वह निकलेंगे तो हम उनके साथ walk करेंगे. तो हम उनको कहते हैं we won't disturb you at your work time but यह जो आपका time है इसमें just you know allow us to walk with you. Right. और वह हमने करना start किया एक दफा, दो दफा, तीन दफा and then he were like you know let's, let's just have coffee together. Right. और फिर उसके बाद we we developed a relationship with them. And and in terms of funding all of this, pre research, right? Was again so

shamelessly was your dad funding you? Yeah, was this the acquisition money that was still left over and you decided to You guys weren't rushing into a business. You guys were very elegant with with your process कि अच्छा ठीक है. हमें scheme तो समझ आ गई है कि lag effect के साथ चीज़ होनी है लेकिन अब हमने घुसना है तो तरीक़े से घुसना है. उसको करने के लिए were you using the money that you'd made earlier Or was this, you know, the the privilege of having, you know, a family business and and and and, you know,

father's wealth that sustained you guys? So we never took a dime after we graduated from our dad. So, it's not कि we couldn't. You know, he was always there, so वह एक safety net होती है which always give you that comfort कि अगर, you know, Worst के scenario होगा तो, you know, there is always there. You, you, you have a backup plan. तो I think वह एक comfort ज़रूर थी but we had our own money. We kind of started building towards that but we wanted to build a generational business. So it was not like we want to start a company that we can flip it very quickly and make good money. The idea was always to start a company that you know, can become our legacy. So we were very very obsessed with building something that we are proud of and that we can, you know, say that that is our legacy. So we wanted to take our time and we wanted to make sure that we don't rush into anything and then regret it later because the most important commodity for a person is their time. You know, you can earn money, you can lose money but you can't earn back your time. So we wanted to make sure that we kind of have a 100% conviction

before we kind of jump into it. And you guys started this price वही जो था वह originally एक blog नहीं sorry एक price comparison website थी. बिल्कुल. तो उस वक़्त यह already यह vision में था कि यार अच्छा इस तरह से शुरू करेंगे, SEO में rank करेंगे, consumer को ले आऐंगे और फिर ICICI market Place पर लेकर जाएंगे या पहली फ़र्सत में आपने कहा

So while we were doing that we said let's set up a tech team, let's let's start building something. तो हमने as a price comparison launch किया because we also realize कि अगर आप किसी भी economy में देखेंगे जहां पर e commerce exist करता है, वहां पर the first acquisition that happens or the there is at least a billion dollar price comparison engine that exist.

Right? Look at Europe, Middle East, wherever you go India. मुझे याद है पुराने वक्त में वह GSM arena होता था और वह सारे होते थे जहां पर in that's where everybody would be going to figure out वह सारी specs लिखी होती थी price लिखी Absolutely.

तो we thought कि you know, worst come worst we, we can have that और उससे हमें data भी मिलना शुरू हो जाएगा कि लोग कौन सी categories को देख रहे हैं. Because अगर हमने e commerce start करें we can't launch an everything store because for to launch an everything store at that time हमने calculate किया था you need at least $50,000,000 to start it and we didn't have that much capital. तो we thought कि हमने जब category by category जाना है तो we need to figure out कि, you know, कौन सी category सबसे ज़्यादा difficult है, कौन सी category लोग लेना चाहते हैं. तो उस वजह से हमने price comparison launch किया, we started looking at the data, लोग क्या देख रहे हैं online, क्या चीज़ खरीद रहे हैं, क्या समझना चाहते हैं, कौन सी category सबसे मुश्किल है. तो हमने electronics को इसलिए select किया because we realized कि एक तो standardized category है तो it's, you know, the shipping and everything is well established but also because it is the most difficult category to nail down because the average ticket size is around 50,000 rupees, right? तो अगर आप पचास हज़ार रुपए के लिए किसी platform पर trust कर रहे हैं तो आप हज़ार रुपए की T shirt भी वहां से खरीद ही लेंगे. तो we realize कि हम e commerce is, we are not in the e commerce business. We are in the business of creating trust, you know. और अगर हम trust create सकते हैं एक पचास हज़ार के product के लिए, तो हज़ार रुपए के product के लिए तो कर ही लेंगे. तो हमें बहुत से लोगों ने कहा तुम उल्टा चल रहे हो, वहाँ से start कर रहे which is the most difficult category and we is like, we want to figure it out. अगर हमने वह चीज़ कर ली तो फिर हम यह तो easier है हम कर ही लेंगे. लेकिन अगर हमने हज़ार रुपए की चीज़ को figure out कर लिया तो पचास हज़ार तक कैसे जाना है we don't know. हम जा पाएंगे भी या नहीं तो we don't know. So let's just start from the difficult thing and then see कि हम उसको reverse engineer कैसे कर सकते हैं. Interesting.

So just trying to understand price होए at this point in time. You you guys have ज़हर है जब मैं website पर जाता हूं तो उस पर लिखा आता है जी lowest priced mobile phone आपका available है सारा कुछ है. Price comparison I think price comparison still exist somewhere within the website. Yes. Again, SEOD routing वहां से OD होती है. But right now, when when I think marketplace, I think a platform that does not, is not in the business of procuring things and selling things. Yes. Right? My understanding is कि a lot of sellers are now coming together and they are utilizing this sort of funnel to reach to the consumer. आप लोगों के case में I'm seeing the price wide boxes right next to you, right? यह आप लोगों का model किस तरह से काम करते हैं? क्या आप जाते हैं और जाकर के different different लोगों से कहते कि यार अपना stock कर लो हमारे पर, हम आगे बेचते रहेंगे और हम तुम्हें उस पर credit पर करते रहेंगे. Tell me a bit about how the entire infrastructure works. जी, so we are a managed marketplace.

So we don't own the inventory. जो भी product आता है, vendor का होता है, वो हमारे पास पड़ा है, but we have our own warehouses. So vendor हमें product देता है, हमारे warehouse में आता है. हम उसको inspect करते हैं कि वो product original है, even though हम हर vendor से काम नहीं करते. We only work with registered or authorized sellers. So अगर आप for instance Infinix का phone खरीद रहे हैं तो Infinix के जो Pakistan में official authorized dealers हैं वह हमारे पास अपना product रखवा सकते हैं. वह product आता है, वह हमारे जब warehouse में आ जाता है, सारी brand guidelines के accordingly वह inspect होता है. उसके बाद वह shelves में जाता है. जब वह shelves में जाते हैं तब वह आपको website पर in stock नज़र आता है. I see. So, it's not like कि, you know, Zener Electronics वाला जो है वह mobile बेच रहा है और कामान electronics भी बेच रहा है mobile same mobile वह दोनों लोग बेच रहे हैं. अगर एक mobile है तो वह एक ही बंदे से आ रहा है और वह बंदा most likely official

distributor है या वह जो भी उस तरह से. बिल्कुल. In a way basically it's like your mobile shop but on a monumental scale जो normally होती है कि पीछे से direct

distributor से चीज़ आ रही है और वह है and then you're basically जो दिन्यान का जो एक extra margin होता है एक third party seller का वह भी आप cut करके वहां से directly you're basically able to reduce the costs as well. So in terms of cost आप दो तीन तरीके से कम करते हैं. एक तो जो आपका physical retail है उसकी commercial space बहुत महंगी हो गई है Pakistan में. उसका rent बहुत ज़्यादा बढ़ गया है. Then electricity cost क्यों के ऊपर चली गई है तो उसका AC बिजली उसकी cost बहुत ज़्यादा आ रही है plus एक दुकान में उसने चार लोग रखे हुए हैं. अगर एक बाहर guard भी रखा हुआ है तो उसकी भी पैसे हैं. इन price में we kind of eliminate all that because we are an e commerce platform digital only. तो हमारी वह rental cost तो वह सारी चीज़ें नहीं होती जिसकी वजह से हम वह profit pocket करने के बजाय हम consumer को pass on कर देते हैं. Secondly because of our volume, we जो एक अगर आप अच्छा दुकान वाला देखें, जितने वह phone एक महीने में बेचता है या बाकी appliances एक महीने में बेचता है, उतनी हम एक घंटे में बेचता है या शायद उससे भी कम. तो उसकी वजह से वह volume और scale जब हम move करते हैं तो obviously आपकी unit economics बेहतर हो जाती हैं, आपकी cost efficiencies बेहतर हो जाती हैं जिसकी वजह से आप वह pass on कर सकते हैं consumer को. So what we do is we guarantee the lowest prices to the end consumer and then we we sell authentic products. So those are the two things that really help us scale the business.

2020 में जब आपने इसको किया March 2020 था, COVID was at the peak. उस time के ऊपर generally business खोलना बड़ा मुश्किल काम है और था. But upside यह थी कि जी everything was going digital so it made lot more sense to actually say कि भाई ok, the world is going digital. इस वक़्त अगर आपने बेचना है तो, you know, where the funnel to to be able to do that? How did those conversations span out? I'm curious कि भाई आप, you know, couple of guys probably mid thirties at the time. वह आ रहे हैं, उनका कोई past experience नहीं है. Technology selling का, expensive products हैं. जो initial आपका start था, how did that sort of happen? Who did you talk to? कितनी बड़ी inventory की थी? उसमें क्या आपने invest किया था products के ऊपर या आपने उस वक़्त directly credit पर लेना शुरू कर दिया था? Run me through the the process.

So, we started before COVID. A couple of weeks before COVID. So, we spent a lot of time convincing some of the best engineers to join us on the team on a mission to change e commerce in Pakistan. And, you know, suddenly two weeks later COVID came, ठाक everything is closed, you can't go to the office, logistics भी नहीं चल रही तो it was a scary time because we didn't knew कि हम क्या करेंगे? Will this ever open up or not? या अगर दो महीने भी नहीं हुआ तो लोगों की salaries कहाँ से देंगे? You know. So we were thinking कि अच्छा क्या करेंगे? गाड़ी बेच देंगे? You know something like that. कि किस तरीके से हम उसको fund करेंगे फिर्ते. But just by luck you know e commerce started to take off right after COVID and we found ourselves at the right place at the right time. You know just by pure luck. There was no planning, no calculation or anything like that और वहां से we started growing pretty quickly. So जब हमने start किया because उस वक्त office तो खोल नहीं सकते थे. हमने अपने bedroom से ही start किया. वही हमारा Warehouse होता था. We were packing orders ourselves.

माल आ कहां से रहा था? अभी तो order में तो आप पहुंच गए ना. अब आपने कहा कि जी वह लोगों ने खरीदना है. उस time पर खरीदना था. Perfect time था कि लोगों ने

आपको नहीं जानता. हमने कहा हमारा ID card रख लें आप हमें product दे दें. तो because उस वक़्त orders बहुत कम थे दिन में दो order आ रहे चार orders आ रहे हैं तो उन्होंने कहा अच्छा ठीक है आप ले लें product. तो they trusted us और फिर वहां से हमने grow करना start किया. इस तरीके से हमने पहले initial vendors को onboard किया. हम उनके because उस वक्त shops भी बंद थी तो हम खुद जाकर उनके घर पर उन्होंने products रखे होते थे उनके घर से जाकर phone लेकर आते थे और फिर खुद pack करते थे और फिर उसको भेजते थे consumer को. Interesting.

So what's the scale now? अगर मैं directly इस current time पर आ जाऊं तो क़रीबन पांच साल हो गए हैं आप लोगों को. बिल्कुल. I'm sure उसके अंदर इतने याने ups and downs होंगे सारा कुछ लेकिन as of today what's the scale? How much do you move a month? How much do you move in a year? Both in terms of the total number of units across multiple categories and the revenue.

जी, so Priceway is now the second largest e commerce company in the country. We are the second most visited shopping website as well. So, on average 6,000,000 unique visitors visit our platform. The years अगर आप देखें Every month, month. Every month, wow. So, over the years अगर आप देखें तो पिछले बारह महीने में 60,000,000 लोगों ने Priceway को visit किया है. अगर just to put that in context, Pakistan में जो digital connected लोग हैं वह 110,000,000 है. उसमें से 60,000,000 ने Priceway को सिर्फ बारह महीने में visit किया है. That means कि 50% of all people connected in Pakistan have visited Priceway once in the last twelve months. So सड़क पर अगर आप हर दो लोगों को रोकें तो उसमें से एक ने बारह महीने में Priceway को visit किया होगा. So that, that's what we are doing right now. In terms of numbers, we are moving 5% of the entire smartphone market in Pakistan. So जितने भी mobile phones Pakistan में बिकते हैं उसमें से पाँच percent

at any given month price हुई के ऊपर sell होते हैं. What's the order directly? Same. क्या volume क्या बनती है? I mean I am not just talking about cell phones, right? So कोई भी order हो सकता जो वह छोटी आजकल वह Zero वाली smart watches भी हैं. Headphones भी I am seeing all of them on the website. What does that number look like in terms of total number of orders per month?

So in terms of the volume we we are moving in billions on a monthly basis.

Rupees wise. Rupee wise. जी. चलिए, so यह मुझे बताएं कि and I remember I'm not sure if it was you guys or who. मुझे यह तो याद है कि आप लोगों ने start से ही जब अपना marketing करना शुरू की थी तो it was all about कि you know we're authorized, managed, clean, trust was always a very big part of it. But expensive आपने ख़ुद यह mention किया कि expensive products, expensive technology को order करना, वह हमेशा मतलब मैं कभी भी ना करता. I'm a big ecommerce guy. My entire family is in The US. वह हम पंद्रह साल से sun रहे हैं कि अब तो हर कोई Amazon करता है, हर कोई उससे मंगवाता है. मैंने आज तक Pakistan में किसी website से order उस तरह से नहीं किया बड़ा expensive item. क्योंकि I don't know there's this weird Fear होता है आपका बिल्कुल. Fear होता है. अगर iPhone ख़रीदना है दो ढाई लाख रुपए की चीज़ है तो मैं वह जो दुकान है blue area में जो कि मुझे पता है कि जी you know देखो उधर से ही ख़रीदूंगा जाकर. Have you, like, did did you have challenges? आप लोगों के case में कोई मसले आए in the start? Trust कैसा रहा है historically? And how were you able to break into that consumer mindset कि यार नहीं

कोई मसला नहीं है, इतनी महंगी चीज़ें खरीद लेते हैं online. तो I think trust is build over time so you have to constantly work towards that. So हम लोगों ने यह किया because we were doing a lot of things ourselves, हम order खुद pack कर रहे थे शुरू में, customer को खुद जाकर deliver कर रहे थे order. तो we kind of learned from them. So instead of doing what we think is right, we let the data tell us what's right. You know, ये जो आप boxes देख रहे हैं, ये हमने खुद design किए boxes because जब parcel return आता था तो जो package box की हालत होती थी वो इतनी अच्छी नहीं होती थी. तो we realize कि you know इसका एक कोई और box होना चाहिए. तो कैसे उस box को design करना है? कैसे वह खुलेगा? बंद होगा? You know ताकि आपका time कम से कम लगे. वह सारा कुछ हमने खुद उसको design किया. Now it's an industry standard. आप industry में देखेंगे जितने बड़े players हैं, even brands use a very similar box that we had designed before. Is it a five ply

corrugated? Five ply. Is a five ply. और इसके अंदर मतलब यह जो जाता है चाहे product बड़ी भी हो सकती है, छोटी भी हो सकती तो आप क्या करते उसको paper वगैरह डाल के उसको थोड़ा वह कर देते हैं ताकि नहीं यह different sizes के boxes हैं plus हम bubble wrap करते हैं product को फिर उस box में जाता है flyer में बंद होकर फिर वह deliver होता है.

But हम लोगों ने because we were listening to the consumers we realize कि trust में क्या क्या gaps आ रहे हैं और it's an e commerce platform हम उसको कैसे solve कर सकते हैं. So हमने multiple चीज़ें की. एक तो हमने यह किया कि जब आपके पास जब आप order करते हैं priceroke के ऊपर, वो warehouse में जब rack से order pick होता है और pack हो रहा होता है एक unique serial number के flyer के साथ तो उसकी एक पूरी video वन रही होती है उस process की और जब तक वो product seal नहीं होता उस flyer के अंदर, उसकी एक video बनती है और जैसे ही वो seal होता है आपको WhatsApp पर उसकी video आती है कि इस तरीके से आपका product pack हुआ है. यह आपके flyer का unique serial number है. जब आपके पास आए, आप पहले check करें कि वह tampered तो नहीं है, वह sealed है या नहीं so that आपके पास parcel आने से पहले आपको पता होगा आपका product किस care के साथ pack किया गया है और किस तरीके से आ रहा है. उस package के अंदर actually है क्या? यह हर product के साथ होता है. Every time someone orders. Every product 100%

of the orders. And so is this is this automated? Like I am curious. This is automated.

जी जी जी. If we developed the entire software to be able to do this. That's nuts.

I mean if I order something right now just to confirm. If I order something right now on the price of your website I order a pair of headphones and I put my phone in तो मुझे WhatsApp के ऊपर एक video आएगी जब वह package होकर उसके serial number के साथ.

बिल्कुल 100%. For every single order we do that. Crazy

and so and

and and so. And then we go step ahead. हमने यह किया कि जब आपके पास rider आ रहा होगा delivery के लिए तो आपको एक WhatsApp पर message आएगा कि आपके पास यह rider आया और यह उसकी picture है. तो make sure कि यही बंदा हो जो कि आपको product दे रहा है. तो यह, how are you getting, how are you getting that data? Because I'm I'm my understanding is you're using third party logistics companies. Are you have you set up your We have our own fleet now. Oh, you have your own fleet So we had to build that.

My next question was gonna be किया तो marketplace मतलब Pakistan में दोखाई. आप एक problem solve करते तो नहीं आती है ना? तो were you using third party in the start? Did you suffer losses? What compelled you to get into the logistics business effectively? Right? Like last mile delivery business that in itself is an entire उसकी दस startups हैं और वह पैसे raise कर रही हैं सारा कुछ है. Compared you to that?

अब हम इसको खुद करते हैं let's see what we can do it. So हमने जो चोरियों का problem है उसको दो तरीके से solve किया. पहले तो we take care of our people, you know. Every single rider that we have has a full fledged health insurance plan, you know जो कि किसी को नहीं मिलता. Then we do small things like you know we don't call them riders, we call them delivery heroes. Stuff like that so that you know you they feel respected and then taken care of. Then company की कोई retreat होती है, they all the riders are you know going at the same place. You know हमारे यहां इफ्तार parties जब होती है तो what we did was we every rider we gave them coupons of you know five star hotels. So हमने कहा कि instead of going alone or coming with the company, what you should do is, you should go with your spouse. Know, take your spouse to a five star hotel that you have only dreamed of going in. Have that experience, you know, so that you can be connected with the company's success and then we also give them stock options because they when they get that they realize की company grow होगी हम भी साथ grow होंगे. एक तो वो चीज़ हम करते हैं. दूसरा हम यह करते हैं कि on the security checkpoint, we have developed a mechanism and are working with Pakistan telecommunication authority कि अगर आप product चोरी करेंगे तो वह product block हो जाएगा. So, it essentially becomes a break. तो आप एक दफा चोरी करेंगे, दो दफा करेंगे, तीसरी दफा आपको पता है यार बिकना तो है नहीं मैं क्यों कर रहा हूँ?

And then we have a security team obviously कि you know अगर वह चोरी होकर कहीं बिक रहा है तो फिर उसको पकड़ना, वह सारी चीज़ करना है. तो यह जो आपकी तुम्हारी अपनी diversity में I am assuming यह KLI में exist करती है at this point in time या यह अब multiple stations में और भी stations में चली गई है. नहीं four cities we have our own logistics और बाकी जगह पर हम third party off. Are you planning on expanding based on the order size

I think अगर order split देखें तो around 40% would be from KLIR और बाकी जो है वह that is obviously from

Smaller smaller cities. In terms of and I am curious and we spoke about this last time we met at NIC इस्लाहाबाद. I'm curious कि जो छोटे शहर हैं जहां पर access to quality products generally कम होता है, वहां पर my understanding would have been कि e commerce would be more popular because अगर मैं स्लाहाबाद लाहौर कराची में हूं तो consumer size इतना ज़्यादा है कि generally main शहर के अंदर या at least fifteen twenty minute के commute के अंदर आपको बड़ा कोई store मिल जाता है वहां पर हर किस्म की product मिल जाती है. तो I always have accessibility at least. But जैसे जैसे आप second, third, fourth year में जाते हैं तो वहां पर you know वह बस एक दो चार छह बड़ी दुकानें हैं. वह बस देखती हैं कि market में आवाज़ किस चीज़ की ज़्यादा है. वह वह चीज़ें ले आती हैं. IPhone है, iPhone बिकेगा ही बिकेगा तो वह आ जाता है. There's a time lag to that as well. And then through multiple distribution channels कि भाई एक बड़े शहर में आया, फिर medium शहर में आया, फिर छोटे शहर में गया तो वह फिर cost भी उसकी उस हिसाब से theoretically बढ़ती जाती Absolutely. I would have assumed कि यह वाली जो इलाक़े हैं यहां पर बहुत rapidly grow करेगा e commerce. Generally मैं general e commerce की बात कर रहा हूं. आप लोगों के case में how have the trends been so far? I understand start में तो हमेशा जो सबसे modern consumer होगा वह KLI का, KLIR का ही होगा लेकिन बाकी consumer किस तरह से evolve क्यों over time? हमारे साथ भी बिल्कुल similar है. So 60% of our orders are from smaller cities.

उसकी reason exactly यही है कि assortment कम available होती है वहां पर lakh ज़्यादा होता है. Different लोग margin इतना ज़्यादा add कर देते हैं कि वह consumer के reach से product बाहर निकल जाता है. तो हम लोग यह नहीं करते. हम पूरा margin cut करके, instead of pocketing it ourselves and, you know, milking that customer, we pass that on to the end consumer ताकि वो एक product ले सके. Because हमारा एक और belief है कि अगर आपने किसी भी इलाके को uplift करना है तो वहाँ पर digital penetration होना ज़रूरी है और digital penetration का first step जो है वो smartphone है. अगर आपने basic bottom of the pyramid की job के लिए भी किसी को enable करना है तो उसके पास, you know, एक internet connected smartphone होना बहुत ज़रूरी है. अगर आप delivery rider हैं, food delivery कर रहे हैं, कुछ भी कर रहे हैं तो एक smartphone की necessity बहुत बढ़ गई है. इसलिए हम लोग कोशिश करते हैं कि हम सस्ते से सस्ता smartphone end consumer को पहुंचाएं ताकि वह उसको use करके अपनी पूरी family को uplift कर सके. Makes sense. थोड़ा सा funding की side पर आ जाते हैं. Right? So you guys started this off with your own bootstrapped

as everybody calls it. Yes. उसी के ऊपर आपने पहले दो साल चलाया. My understanding is कि जो आपका price comparison even though it was getting a lot of clicks, that was not really making a lot of money. Like AdSense वगैरह के ऊपर Pakistan में कितना ही आता होगा? But हमने कभी art लगाई नहीं उसके ऊपर. अच्छा लगाया है. Because user experience ख़राब कर देता है. Right, so आपने effectively were you making I mean was there an any advertising play at any given time कि यार चलो local directly brand से बात कर ली, techno वालों ने का sponsored ऊपर लगा दिया या क्योंकि landing page तो था ना उस time के ऊपर तो आप pick and choose कर सकते थे. तो was was advertising ever a play या पहले दो साल बस कुछ सिर्फ़ money drain था जब तक आपने March में launch नहीं किया? हमने कुछ advertising की but very very limited because the उस वक्त होता यह था कि एक page के ऊपर छह ads were common.

तो हमने जब भी advertise किया हमारी policy थी कि एक page पर एक से ज़्यादा ad नहीं होगा. Right. ताकि consumer का जो you know user experience है वह destroy now. जिसकी वजह से हमें traction ज़्यादा मिलना शुरू है because उस वक्त पर अगर आप किसी भी website को देखें तो छह ads were very standard और beach में एक दो pop ups भी लगा देते थे. But on price so it was a very clean layout. It was no ads mostly और अगर है अभी तो it was maximum one ad जिसकी वजह से consumers started loving our platform and then it became a go to platform for consumer products. Right. My then my understanding is कि it was a money drain up until you guys actually.

जी. COVID के बाद आपने launch किया आपने कहा कि जी products लेना शुरू की, ख़ुद से deliver करना शुरू की. जहां पर आप ज़ाहिर base थे वहां भी कर रहे थे. From that moment to warehousing and obviously a lot a lot of this now is cost, right? Even though you're not keeping inventory but just managing that warehousing की cost, technology build करने की cost, video आती है, जाती है, WhatsApp है WhatsApp business की cost, you know दस दस चीज़ें. Have you been consistently funding all of this yourself? Have you had funding rounds in the middle? Tell me a bit about that.

So we raised two funding rounds. The first one was from a local syndicate जिनसे हमने raise किया. इसमें तीन family offices थे Pakistan में फात्मा group which is a very well respected group based out of लाहौर. Then we have कोहार्त cement group and then the third one was artistic group based out of कराची, one of the largest denim manufacturers in the country. So we raised $450,000 from these three companies. कब की बात है And the idea was this is back around 2020. अच्छा, start में. So, बिल्कुल. So the idea was to raise money, only enough money that we need to figure out you know a business model and then have something that makes sense you know and not raise too much money. So our round was oversubscribed even at that time but we realized कि नहीं हमें ज़्यादा पैसे raise नहीं करने है and we will only raise enough money that we actually need. Right. And then fast forward to 2022 we raised another round that was again oversubscribed. तो हमें उसमें advantage यह हुआ कि we were able to bring some relevant people in the round which we thought can help us grow strategically. So instead of bringing everyone who was giving money, we were able to hand pick people जो हमें grow करने में help कर सकते हैं. Beyond the money वह network and institutional, yeah. Absolutely. So the we when we were raising the round we brought Bnext in the round. So Bnext is one of the most well respected Japanese VC. They were one of the first investors in Tokopedia which is one of the largest e commerce companies in Indonesia. So the idea was because they have seen that journey in Indonesia, they can help us, you know, have more meetings with the founder so that we can learn. Right. So we gave them an allocation. We got Palm Drive Capital जो कि one of the first investors थे jd.com के. Second largest player in China, they kind of have seen that journey. Jd.com started from electronics and then became an everything store. So we gave them some allocation, bought them on board. Then we got Peter Thiel coming in the round, his first investment in the country. Then we got, you know, JAM fund, quite a few other funds. All of the people who could help us grow significantly. So rather than just bringing anyone in, we wanted to make sure that we bring strategic investors and because we had more demand than what we were raising, we were able to do so. What was the size of this particular raise? So we raised around, I don't remember exactly but because it's not very important for us how much money we raise but how much users like us. So we raised around 7 or $8,000,000. Interesting, that was 22. Yes, 2022. And are you,

is, are there plans for further

rounds in the future? No no no no. So price is profitable. Bottom line profitable after tax and everything not a better or anything like that. So because we are adding more money into the bank every single year, we don't have to go for a fund raise anytime soon. Okay. So you're basically or that money, the the the the extra

cash, that is getting reinvested into growth? Yes. Interesting. Right now, you guys are, you guys are into technology. What's the what's the five year, ten year vision here? क्या आपने again technology electronics से start करके everything store की तरफ़ जाना है? क्या आपने categories में add करनी है? The upside is that you have a brand that does not necessarily have to stick to electronics, right? Price हो गया ना? Price हो गया तो किसी भी चीज़ के बारे में हो सकता है. बिल्कुल. So what's the growth plan? क्या आप इसी category को double down करके अभी तो मेरा ख़याल से तो Pakistan में तो अभी शुरू हुआ है ना? पूरा जो भी आप 100,000 की बात करें तो यह 1,000,000 भी हो सकता है. क्योंकि बिकता तो इतना ही है. आपने कहा 5% है so हम percentage में चले जाते हैं. Five से या 15 पर भी जा सकते हैं. क्या

आप vertically grow करेंगे, horizontally grow करेंगे? What's the vision here? So the idea is कि we want to make price a verb for consumer electronics. You know whenever you think about consumer electronics the first name that should pop in your head is price. So, अभी for the next five years we don't want to be an everything store because we realize कि आप जब electronics खरीदते हैं और बाकी products खरीदते हैं तो उसमें जो consumer journey होती है और consumer behavior होता है that's very different from when you're buying for instance fashion. Fashion mostly देख के बिकता है, impulse purchase होती है, Instagram पर आपको एक अच्छा सा you know video या image नज़र आया आपने उसको देखा और फिर आप वहां से उस के ऊपर entice होते हैं और आप खरीदते हैं. Electronics is a more planned purchase. So you spend about two weeks you know as per our data before making a decision because पहले आप सोचते हैं फिर आप पैसे जमा करते हैं फिर आप decide करते हैं कहां से लेना है कौन सा product लेना है. अच्छा पैसे आ गया देख लेता हूं शायद कोई और नहीं offering तो नहीं आ गई और फिर आप purchase करते हैं. तो I think the consumer behavior is very very different in both categories which is why for the next five years we really want to stay focused in this category.

And you just want to double down on the brand, the trust and just increase the overall volumes? Yes,

so I think trust is one thing that we are really laser focused on and we want to make a brand which is very very trusted. So जब भी price हुए लोग कहें तो naturally mind में आए कि trusted है, you know. So they don't have to worry about

कि कुछ और हो जाएगा मेरे साथ. In terms of the business processes, आपने already एक जगह पर expand किया in terms of setting up your own logistics fleet. Are there other areas जहां पर new and innovative ways आप explore कर रहे हैं to increase efficiency and reduce costs maybe?

So, terms of technology तो हम लोग constantly develop करते रहते हैं. We have some of the best engineering teams in the country and everything we have built in Frysoe is custom coded. So, we don't use any off the shelf platform because उसमें scalability और flexibility बहुत limit हो जाती है. So for instance, in our logistics we offer this solution which is called open parcel delivery. तो जब आपके पास घर पर parcel आता आपको trust नहीं है, कोई मसला नहीं है. आप डब्बा खोलें. आप product देखें. It's a completely different ball game. In terms of vertical, we really want to focus on fintech in the next few years because we realize कि वह एक iron triangle होता है which you need to complete to actually own the customer which is a marketplace

followed by logistics and then fintech. So what would that entail for you guys fintech मतलब क्या wallets आ जाएंगे? How

would that work? So what we need are really focusing on is buy now pay later. Okay. Because we realize कि a lot of people want to buy a product. They have a good credit score but they are not because banks are not lending to them. But Pakistan में consumer banking इतनी कम है कि अगर आप एक अच्छा credit score भी रखते हैं, you work at a multinational company or a top tier company, you know, a triple A rated customer but आपको भी loan नहीं मिल रहा या अगर आपको एक 30,000 rupees का loan लेना है तो आप physical bank जाकर वह forms भरना और फिर, you know उसकी verification और एक हफ़्ता wait करना वह आप नहीं करेंगे. तो उस चीज़ को हम solve करने की कोशिश कर रहे हैं. Interesting.

Credit score की अगर हम बात करें आपने बोला कि you know you you have a good credit score but you're not able to get the money. मेरे experience में तो credit score को ही किसी ने सही तरीके से solve नहीं किया Pakistan में. Bankers घुसे इसके अंदर और bankers का वह जो पुराना style था कि जब तक उनको वह चार दखियान उसी data points नहीं मिलते तो वह कहते हैं कि credit score निकाला ही नहीं जा सकता. The real, the only I mean the opportunity in my opinion for something like this connected to e commerce is is absolutely mind numbing. But that requires a certain level of collaboration where modern credit scoring is not just dependent on, in my opinion, is not just dependent on your, your your your cash based spending. It it it has a lot of other things जो कि I don't know why this never happened. In the last three years I've had like a billion conversations from logistic companies to this and that and I've said why don't you collaborate with your partners that you are doing business with and say कि listen don't even give us the data like create your own score. We'll have our own score. We'll connect the score and we'll see कि, you know, how do we. So consumer data का जो protection privacy का मसला है वह भी नहीं होगा. For some reason it never happened. दरमियान में I remember तो आप उसको like similarly आप consumer blacklisting systems बना सकते हैं as a as an industry. Juan, I'm curious when you're saying कि भाई listen we can we have a lot of data on our own. जाहिर आपके पास एक एक घर से पांच पांच लोग orders कर रहे हैं, return orders बहुत सारे होंगे, return customers बहुत सारे होंगे. तो you can potentially create scores for them. But are you also then beginning to imagine at least कि यार इसमें हमने collaborate करके जो दूसरी verticals में दूसरे लोग काम कर रहे हैं या दूसरे partners हैं उनके साथ भी हम कुछ ऐसे value create कर लें कि वह हमें कुछ दें. हमें भी फ़ायदा हो, उनको भी फ़ायदा हो and we can actually create something. या हम इसमें यही है कि यार मैं outsource करूंगा BNPL को, third party player को वह आए और आकर देखे जो भी उसने करना है. अब

हम लोग यही कह रहे हैं. So, बगैर collaborate किया I think industry में आप grow नहीं कर सकते. Specially with this much data evolution happening जहां पर आप पुराने data जो या जो पुराने data sets थे वह इतने relevant नहीं रहे और नए data sets can give you a lot more powerful results. It's even more important to collaborate. The challenge becomes when you talk to a traditional businessman in Pakistan, they are not very open to collaborate. Obviously they have their past experiences which were not very good, which is why they are saying this क्योंकि हर चीज़ के पीछे कोई ना कोई history होती है. So they also have a history जिसकी वजह से they are also right but we are trying to solve this by bringing all these guys together and creating a new company in which everyone has equity so that the incentives align. Right. We are trying to do something that one link date with banks. You're you're basically trying to solve

the collaboration model in the first place. यार collaboration में win win किस्ता निकाली जाए. मुझे यह बताएं कि मुझे यह बात समझनी आई कभी. आप आप technically इस data को monetize भी तो कर सकते हैं. ऊपर collaborate कर लेते हैं, customer के ऊपर collaborate कर लेते हैं, credit scores बना लेते हैं वग़ैरह वग़ैरह. Food पांडा कहता है यार आपको convince कर रहे हैं कि यार देखो long term में भाई चार एक एक से फ़ायदा होगा. It's a hard sell. Right? और मैं भी कर लूंगा. तो तुम जब hit मारोगे तो एक रुपया मेरे सीले जाना. अब technically, what what एक intermediary layer of data transfer that actually monetizes your existing business. Yes. In my opinion just solves that problem, right? कि मेरे लिए it's an additional product. Now I don't have to be convinced. Now I have to rush to build this because, you know, मेरा competitor पहले build करके वह data बेचना शुरू कर देगा. Right? और at least data के ऊपर जो भी outcome है वह बेचना शुरू कर देगा. In your case when you're talking about कि हम एक third party company बना लें. Is that just ok हम equity सबको बांट देंगे और फिर जो बस initially equity बटी थी वही वाला बंदा collaborate कर रहा है या

So do you think this might be able to do something similar as well? So हमारा model तो यही है जो आप कह रहे हैं कि हमने उसी तरह से collaborate करके build करना है because this is a standard global model that's been done all across the globe. Pakistan में unfortunately challenge जो आता है जब आप किसी के पास जाते हैं कि मुझे आपका data चाहिए या let's collaborate तो उनका mindset बड़ा फ़र्क़ होता है. इसी को मैं अगर startup context में बताऊं for ease is कि अगर एक startup है जो कि struggle कर रहा था बहुत ज़्यादा और बंद होने वाला है और आप उसके पास जाते हैं कि जी आप one point in time for instance $10,000,000 की आपकी value थी but आज आप बंद होने वाले हैं दो महीने में आपके पास payroll नहीं है pay करने के लिए और मैं आप पर बहुत एहसान करूंगा अगर आपकी दस million की offer मैं accept कर लूं. And you are like, you know, I don't know where this guy is thinking from or what what is he smoking but दो महीने बाद news आएगी वह startup बंद हो गया उसने सब लोगों को lay off कर दिया और company बंद हो गई. तो Pakistan में एक mindset बड़ा अजीब सा है. तो लोग नहीं आपको जब आप acquisition के लिए जाएंगे कि मैं ख़रीदना चाहता हूं तो वह एक ridiculous price बोलेगा. Similarly, उसको जब तक industry mature नहीं होगी यह problem रहेगा. यही चीज़ जब हम बात करते हैं different regional players से India, Indonesia, Egypt यह same phenomena बाकी countries में भी था. लेकिन जैसे जैसे startups mature होते गए, industry mature होती गई, people learned from their mistake and then they kind of, you know, improved. Pakistan is still stuck in the first wave. जब तक हम grow नहीं करेंगे, second wave में नहीं जाएंगे, तब तक ये problems I think देखने को मिलेंगे. Then it also becomes a chicken and egg problem, you know, कि पहले ये चीज़ solve होगी तो grow करेंगे या grow करेंगे तो ये चीज़ solve होगी.

तो only time will tell कि लिए. किस तरीके से आने No, that makes sense. Mean, feel like the last three years since I've been talking to so many people, there is a certain level of maturity that's happened within the ecosystem. There's a certain level of maturity that I've seen now with the founders as well. I've interacted with a lot of these people. I think जब एक कोई भी नई चीज़ होती ना मेरी अपनी industry ना digital media की. पहले दस साल जो थे ना दो हज़ार दस से दो हज़ार बीस तक. तो नए नए लोग जब viral होना शुरू हो गए थे और following हो गई थी तो एक thing होती है. आप जब चाढ़े होते हो ना तो सब अकड़ में होते कि यार हमसे तो बड़ा king ना कोई आया था. हां. ना कोई आएगा. फिर वह एक निज़ाम है cycles हैं. You know everybody goes down, everybody goes some of them come back up as well. जब एक दबाव down होकर वापस आते ना तो एक certain certainty humility आ जाती है और वह फिर you know people are much more open to doing a lot of other things जो कि पहले नहीं कर रहे होते थे. मैंने वह same चीज़ अब startup वाले ecosystem में भी देखी जिसमें पहले लोग बात नहीं करते थे. उसको मैं ego नहीं कहूंगा. उसमें insecurity भी थी. Everybody was trying to pretend to be the biggest king in the world. अब लोगों को पता है कि भाई मैंने धंधा चलाना है. मैं king if you consider me a king or not I don't give two shits. What I care about is कि मेरा धंधा चले because अगर बंद हो गए तो ज़रीर हो जाएंगे. तो अब आपको ना एक certain maturity overall नज़र आ रही है. And I I agree with you कि वह collaboration में भी जाएगी, वह merges and acquisitions में भी जाएगी and and उसमें भी जाएगी. थोड़ा सा downturn की बात करते हैं जो दो हज़ार बाइस का आया and that humbled a lot of people. पहला तो मुझे यह बताएं कि जब सब pump कर रहे थे पैसा तो आप ख़ैर वैसे आपने भी दो हज़ार बाइस में लिया तो है ठीक ठाक अच्छा पैसा लिया है. But you did not go like वह pump हुआ dump नहीं हुआ. What what made you different than a lot of other players that announced a lot of big numbers and are now unfortunately nowhere to be seen and I don't want to throw shade at anyone like they were were again for the consumer these were good people you know आप inexperience की बात कर सकते हैं आप कह सकते हैं कि you know they were at the wrong people wrong place at the wrong time But यह अच्छे लोग थे यार बेचारों ने बड़ी मेहनत की है, सारा कुछ किया है.

बस वह unfortunate था. What made you fortunate enough to be able to sustain through that time? हमने जो पैसे raise किए वह हमने 2022 के end में किए जबकि जो wave थी for funding that was in 2021. Right. तो हमने जब किया उस वक्त वह wave die down कर चुकी थी और वह stricter times already आ चुके थे. But at the same time I think if you look at startup ecosystem anywhere across the world, success ratio बहुत कम होता है. The problem that Pakistan faced was हमारा ecosystem start होने से पहले ही die down कर गया या start होते साथ ही die down कर गया because वह global changes ऐसे हुए economics में कि वो funding एकदम से रोक गई. Otherwise अगर आप देखें different markets में even Nigeria had more money pumped into the startup ecosystem than in Pakistan. You know, so a country like Nigeria is getting more money and Pakistan is not, that means we have to rethink what's wrong with our country and what the challenges are and how we can solve them. One of the things that we as founders decided was कि unless we figure out the right unit economics we won't go in that direction. So day one से price हुए has been unit economic positive. हमने कभी पैसे burn नहीं किए. लोगों का था कि सौ रुपए का product अस्सी रुपए में बीच रहे थे. Price हुए ने अपनी history में कभी यह नहीं किया. जिसकी वजह से हमारी obviously जो DNA था that was not burning. We were also you know very tempted of course you know, one of our investors told us कि if you can burn $5,000,000 in five months, I can write you another check. You know and that's that's pretty exciting because you can grow so much by dumping $5,000,000 in like five months but we told them, no Pakistan is not that market. We need our time to grow and grow sustainably because we were growing 300% year over year you know so 300% was a good growth for us but at the same time they were like you know when you can grow 3000% we are not focusing on that. So I think that's more of a founder's personality कि we wanted to make sure that we grow sustainably because when we raised funding, we became very aware that when you are taking someone else's money and they are trusting you with it, you have to be very very careful with that. You know, if your own money you can throw around, you can do whatever shit you want but if someone else is trusting you, that burden of trust is very very important and you have to maintain that trust. So I think उस वजह से we were very cautious

and we thought we will grow sustainably only and that is what we have been doing so far. Makes sense. In terms of the the the VC choices, right? So very interesting in a sense that you guys went with family offices in the start. Pakistan में historically, अब तो ख़ैर उसमें भी maturity आ गई है but historically you know वह एक बड़ा फ़र्क़ है conventional business में और conventional businessman में और जो यह modern business की modern requirements है. And so there's a lot of chatter about how जो सेठिया business है ना वह उसको यह समझ नहीं आती कि भाई मैं अब आपने जो यह पहला साढ़े चार लाख का किया वह effectively pre seed range है. You know, you you weren't there really there in the market. आपने amount भी उतने उस हिसाब से raise की. उसकी एक amount percentage भी एक बड़ी वह छोटी सी होगी. Valuations किस तरह से बनाई जाती हैं. जैसा कि आपने पहले बताया कि वह दोनों दोनों ends से problem है. या तो founder आएगा क्या कहा यार यह लोग 0.001% of with वह Shark Tank पर आए थे ना एक साहब पता नहीं कितने billion मांगकर गए थे. तो either you have that or you have people who are saying कि भाई you know the company is now mine and you are a worker, right? And so you just like कि भाई what are you talking about? हमें तो अभी पूरा एक road map है उस पर लेकर जाना है. More often than not, VCs और VC picks are a very it's not just money. Like, you're not just getting money. आपका make मेरे हिसाब से make और break है. For a lot of the startups that I've seen, VCs were make or break for them. In the way that they pushed them, in the way that they started driving there and धैर्य एक power dynamic ऐसी है जिसके पास पैसा है कि वह founder बेचारा अच्छा ख़ासा था, उसका अच्छा vision था लेकिन वह VC के उसमें परेशान हो गए और VCs were just playing around. Right? Like, were like, oh wow, now we have a toy to play with and they just took them on a ride. How important were these VC picks for you, first of all? Second of all, how difficult was it to convince the first time you actually went and spoke to a पाकिस्तानी VCs? This was the pre pump. Pakistan में भी वह नहीं start हुआ था कि एकदम से एक narrative और सब फोमों में घुस रहे हैं और यह family offices थे. तो even more difficult because to convince them to कि यार यह हमें एक sugarcane का plant नहीं लग रहा या वह नहीं लग रहा है. यह this is a tech company जिसकी growth projections बड़ी फ़र्क़ हैं, जिसका scale बड़ा फ़र्क़ होगा और उसके हिसाब से जाएगा. Tell me a bit about that and I'll come to the second round later. So we were very lucky in the sense कि

we were not desperate for money when we raised our underground. So if you look at the family offices we got on board are some of the best family offices in the country. Very very progressive and very helpful as well. So they will open doors for you, they will arrange meetings for you. The only thing they ask is what are the hurdles that you are facing that we can help remove. So this is very rare in Pakistan but because these are young guns, young blood coming into these family offices, so they are also changing the dynamics of the overall group as well. And we were lucky to get some of these guys on board. In fact, one of the investors we got out of these three called us on the helpline when we were not even raising funds, right? You know, they were like, you know, we love your service. We have used your product. I believe in the vision and I would like to invest. And we're like, we're not raising funding, but because you love us as a platform, we would like to learn from your customer journey and let's let's just stay connected. So we stayed connected with them for for a year and a half and then when we were raising funds, then we decided to, you know, invite him and give them the first tips on investing. So I think the dynamics were as such that we were able to get the right people on board. So there were other family offices which gave us term sheets as well. In fact, we had two term sheets which gave us a higher valuation than what we had accepted, in the first pre seed round. But we realized, you know, cultural fit नहीं है, वहां पर हमारी synergies उतनी नहीं वन रही है. They can't help us grow. That would be just money जिसकी वजह से we turned them down and we even told these investors like लोग and some say कि you know you were very dumb to do that but we were very open हमारा हमेशा से focus था कि हमने pie को बड़ा करना है rather than कि हम जो है ना एक छोटी सी चीज़ के पीछे हो जाए. तो we went to them and we told them कि you know आपने जो valuation दिया उससे ज़्यादा कि मेरे पास ये दो term sheets हैं not, not even one. Like I have two term sheets which are valuing me far more than what you are but I trust you, I trust your, you know that you will help me grow in the long run and which is why I will accept your offer. हमने उनसे negotiate भी नहीं किया कि you know आप इसको बढ़ाएं मेरे पास यह ज़्यादा है यह. It was just a casual conversation where like you know let's just build this together and that is what has helped us grow in that. This was after you had launched in the market? जी. But we were pre revenue at that time. You were pre revenue? Pre revenue when these guys came in. So you were effectively an idea

with some

MVP. With a lot of traction. With a lot of traction? We we had technology,

we had traction but we were pre revenue. Right, so basically आपने उनको convince इस बात की pay किया कि यार देखो बंदा जो है ना वह mobile को समझने के लिए हमारे पास आ रहा है. How many people would have this pitch कि भाई मैं एक मैं mobile platform build कर रहा हूं जो कि मैं एक platform build कर रहा हूं जो mobile phone बेचेगा, right? A 100,000 people could have had that that pitch. What do you think, in your opinion, made your pitch different? Was that your background? That that we क्या उन्होंने founder पर trust किया? क्या उन्होंने क्या the fact that you launched two years earlier and built that baseline कि भाई I can show you that there are people who are interested and willing, it's just a matter of building the right infrastructure that they'll convert. A, what was the pitch that जहां पर आपको लगा कि यार यह चीज़ चली है. हर और यह हर इंसान के को पता होता है. जब वह बता रहा होता ना वह practice करता है जाकर हम यह करना चाह रहे हैं. तो करते करते आपको पता लग जाता है कि मैं क्या बोला, उसका कैसे expression बदला and, you know, what's the moment when that person got interested? And दूसरा how did you even access these people? Were these were these connections built over over the years because of your cold calling or this or that and या क्योंकि a lot of times मसला यह होता है कि लोग you know just keep on hitting people कि I need money because I'm going to become a gazillionaire and they don't focus on the relationship part first. And and so I'm curious, were these relationships that have that had already been nurtured before Yeah, were you meeting these people for the first time and you were just, your pitch was strong enough for you to be able to convert? So we didn't knew these people from before. As I mentioned like even locally we had zero connections.

But what we did was when we were building these platforms, we met a lot of people. You know, through different networks, through different you know conferences, meetings, we kind of met these people and we were like, our pitch was very simple. We are not raising funds. Right. You know, but we want your time. Progress reports to them. You know, हर महीने हम उनको एक progress report भेजते थे और हम बताते थे कि हम पिछले महीने यहां थे और हम यहां पर खड़े हैं आज और next month हम यहां पर जाएंगे. And every single month we were beating our targets that we have set for ourselves. So they were seeing कि you know they are consistently building and they are actually beating the targets that they set which means कि कुछ ना कुछ तो है. And then at during this time we were recognized by Forbes Magazine as 30 Under 30 for changing the e commerce landscape in Pakistan because we were building something different. We won the best platform in Asia, sorry not Asia but South Asia that was consumer focus and very very customer driven as one of the best platforms in China so we won that award and then a couple of others obviously वह credibility भी उसके साथ build होती जाती है and they realize you know globally they are getting recognition, locally they are you know delivering on what they are saying. So essentially that kind of trust builds over time and when you have that conviction that is when you pull the trigger. Make sense. जो आपका दूसरे वाला था round,

उसमें I mean you mentioned Peter Thiel, you mentioned a lot of these sort of global regional and global VCs that for a lot of people that will like अरे यह कैसे हो रहा है? Pakistan में how are you? I mean, या तो आप कोई बहुत ही अनोखी चीज़ कर रहे हो जिसके ऊपर people would catch that attention. वह pitch तो हमेशा है ना वह तो सबके लिए थी कि, you know, left भी funding हो रही है, right भी funding हो रही है, black spot Pakistan है तो Pakistan कहा के you know होना ही होना है वगैरह type का. Did you curate your your your VCO and did you specifically go and pitch them? How did you go about choosing this next set of VCs जो कि global थे? And इसी के follow up पर बल्कि follow up में बाद में पूछूंगा ताकि आप उस पर focus कर सकें.

So हमने in fact VC को again we never reached out to these VCs for funding. So VNext for instance their founder Tiru who is now a very good friend as well he IPO ed his company on the Japanese stock exchange when he was 27. So we reached out to him for advice because he started a price comparison kind of IPO ed that and then created a fund which was a very well respected fund. So हम उनको हर quarter एक call setup करते थे कि यार हम यह करें यहां फ़ंस गए हैं. आप advice करें क्या करेंगे? And somehow he didn't knew about Pakistan, never visited. Somehow he used to say कि यार यहां तक जब पहुंचोगे ना तो यह मसला आएगा तुम्हें और जब हम वहां पहुंचते थे वही मसला आ रहा था. I was like, how can he, you know, predict this? तो we were more curious. We were setting more calls with him. He was kind enough to give time to us and we were learning, learning, learning and suddenly once, one day we get an email from him कि you know hey guys we love what you are building and at that time we were doing $5,000,000 a year in top line. तो he said when I invested in Tokopedia they were doing $5,000,000 in top line. So I think you guys are on the same path. So would love for me to invest and we are like you know, this is great but we still have money in the bank. We don't want to raise and he is like guys I won't give you my time now because you're not taking my money. I'll only give it if you take money. He was like, Oh, okay. ठीक है. Help me connect with the founder of Tokopedia, so they learn from you. I'll manage that. Then we said, Okay, we'll raise from you. So we opened up a funding round. We reached out to a couple of investors who we thought were strategic, jumped on a call with them and then suddenly, you know, they said, okay, we love what you guys are building and we want to be a part of it. Some of these investors we didn't even knew. Sir, I remember I was on a call one day and these were bunch of investors I was talking to, we were pitching. So जो दरवाजा था वह शिषेका था in my room and there were people outside watching and suddenly they when I came out of the call they were like how do you know this guy? How do you know this guy? I was like you know कि I don't this is the first call and I don't know how it went and because वक़्त बर्श हो रही थी इस्लामवाल में internet बहुत shaky था, beach में call disrupt हो रही है बार बार you know we have to reconnect and all that so I was pretty disappointed about it. So I came back and I was like no no no do you know these guys? I was like नहीं whatever these guys are the chain smokers. I didn't knew about them and when I spoke to them after the call they were like you know you didn't treat it as special for everyone they say that they are the chain smokers so पहली बात कुछ और होती है फेर पेच होती है you were very focused on your business मैंने बोला because I really didn't knew who you were. So,

I think those kind of things. Interesting. Did these guys end up investing in?

They are one of the investor. They actually invested twice. Very cool. In the business and then, you know, now when we go to The US, you know, they invite us to their ranch or, you know, backstage. They even are doing a promotional video for price for free obviously. So I think these kind of things really help. When you have that connection with the investor, they also understand the vision and then they help you. They go out of the way to help you. I think one thing that keeps on coming back in your story is the

the importance and power of mentorship. Right? So the importance and power of learning consistently from people because for you, that has been at the heart and core of relationship building and a wide range of other benefits that you've taken out eventually one way or the other. जो कि I feel like a lot of people miss. They're constantly so focused on the money कि वह जो बाकी सारी actual चीज़ें हैं जो कि शायद ज़्यादा आपको help कर दें वह उसको ignore कर जाते हैं. I'm gonna sort of bring it towards a wrap. We're at the one hour forty minute mark. मुझे यह बताएं कि Pakistan जाहिर है ups and downs आते रहते हैं. दरमियान में बहुत बुरा time आया, बहुत सारे लोग छोड़ छाड़कर निकल भी गए. बहुत सारे लोगों को यह बाहर हां कहा गया कि यार startup में अगर काम करना है तो या startup build करना है तो ठीक है Pakistan में बैठकर जो भी कर लिया कर लिया. अब you know go towards the Middle East or go towards here and there. आपको भी I'm sure लोगों ने बोला होगा कि यार platform या ढांचा पूरा का पूरा है जाओ जाकर Saudi में launch कर दो. Replicate कर दो. हां, you know At least if not कि मैं completely Pakistan को abandon कर रहा हूं तो you'll be able to hedge your bets because Pakistan के हालात का कुछ पता नहीं लगता कब चीज़ें वहां पर down हो जाए. First of all, I'm curious. Why did you not expand out of Pakistan as yet? Are there any plans of expanding out eventually? And thirdly, how do you see the पाकिस्तानी market overall? Amidst the whole ups and downs, आज stability है, बारह महीने बाद क्या होगा? Honestly, नारा words can tell. You know, even with all of the noise around सब set हो गया. एक कोई political crisis की मार है, एक international financial crash की मार है कि जिसके अंदर I mean I feel like Pakistan में ना चल रहा होता है system. तो वह आपको ज़्यादा कोई यह नहीं होता कि कोई आपके पास कोई भ्रांचा है, कोई पांच साल का plan है कि आपको पता है यार ठीक है यह plan है follow करो sir नीचे रखो eventually हम निकल आऐंगे. It's so haphazard and वह कि जब हालात ख़राब होते तो फिर सब भाग जाता है. Everybody jumps ship and, you know, for a while there you're just like, लताला please आप बचा लेंगे क्योंकि अब तो कोई नहीं समझ आ रही. So how do you, now that you've gone through the the toughest time potentially that Pakistan has seen, how do you see the पाकिस्तानी market and are there any plans of going global or regional?

So right now I think Pakistan has a lot of potential but it's delayed gratification in Pakistan. So we of course have two fifty million population, all the fundamentals are there but the problem is our middle class is shrinking every single day. So the GDP per capita has decreased in the last three years, then actually increasing. If you look at the, global scale, generally, starts to flourish or online commerce starts to flourish when the GDP per capita crossed $2,000 mark or when you're near that mark because once you cross that, you start seeing that hockey stick growth. The problem right now is that our middle class has been shrinking. We're hopeful that it will increase, but obviously the challenge is that our population is growing at 2.4%. Our GDP in real terms is growing at 1%. So it's essentially negative growth of 1.4%. So अगर हम उसको पिछले सालों में तो हमने कुछ नहीं किया लेकिन अगले दो तीन सालों में जो हमें fiscal space मिली है global commodity prices के lower होने की वजह से उसके अंदर हमने कुछ fundamental reforms कर लिए तो obviously हम देखेंगे कि Pakistan बहुत तेज़ी से तरक्की करेगा. लेकिन अगर हम लोग fundamentals reform ना कर पाए और global commodity prices are essentially bound to rise तो वह दो तीन साल के बाद आप देखेंगे जो dollar है वह भी change होगी उसकी value, international commodity prices भी ऊपर जाएंगी, the dollar, the moment oil hits $80 mark, Pakistan में inflation का बुरा हाल होगा तो वो सारी चीज़ें आना शुरू होंगी. इसलिए बहुत से startups currency risk को और इन risk को hedge करने के लिए different international markets जाते हैं. But we realize कि international markets are more expensive than they look. So launching in Saudi or Dubai is more difficult and expensive than it looks from sitting in Pakistan. So I will give you an example. If you hire a software developer in Pakistan, you know, you will probably be paying two-three thousand dollars a month. The same person you hire in Saudi, you will be paying like $10,000 a month. Right? So the price would jump so much कि unless you have that much deep pockets, you cannot do it. But wouldn't that also, sorry, wouldn't that also be your advantage, right? So you're sitting in Pakistan, you're the cost is पाकिस्तानी

but you're able to launch in a market where the competitor then would have to spend a whole lot more money to do the same things that you're doing. So in a lot of ways, I mean, you know, we have you have the book me and and a lot of these जो कि eventually गए उस route पर और वह यही कर रहे हैं कि वह अपना existing infrastructure को use कर रहे In fact, I just had a call yesterday with the with the founder of MedIQ, right? So they they're huge in Pakistan. They've done phenomenally well. This is a space that a lot of people had been trying to solve, and, you know, they were actually successful with it. And I mean, she's not a very founder. I'm sure you've met her, doctor Sayra. Space थी and the numbers that she was quoting were just, oh my god, they were just phenomenal माशाला से. Where even though she's fully committed to her Pakistan business, Saudi is where it's at now. And because that market is just opening up in terms of digitization and and so on तो वह, you know, जो Pakistan का hard mode है, वह वाला बंदा वहां जाकर के thrive करता है. So I'm curious कि while I do understand आपके case में ज़ाहे logistics वग़ैरह भी है, but I think a lot of those things you don't have to do yourself over there. You can just sort of offload and just really focus on the the core technology engine that's similar to what you have in Pakistan.

Yes. I think doctor सायुर्य is building a phenomenal business, a fighting spirit, a great person. But what she is building is a kind of a SaaS product and in SaaS what's important is कि आपकी back office की cost सबसे ज़्यादा होती है. तो you shift your back office in a country जहां पर labor arbitrage हो so that you can reduce your cost and then sell in international markets. So her basic market is the Saudi market or The Middle East and then just the back office for Pakistan. The problem for Prysoy is कि we are very operation heavy. So once you are operation heavy, your cost would be the same as your competitor in that country because back office की cost is only a fraction. Right. So एक तो वह चीज़ बहुत different है. दूसरा, in GCC there are already large place that exist, right? They have the Amazon's and noons of the world. In Pakistan we are building that. Right, right. So, you want to focus, stay focused in this market and we feel कि यहाँ पर अभी बहुत growth का potential है and as a founder, you cannot launch two markets and you know, not be there. So if I launch Saudi, I have to be in Saudi. Right. And if I am there then probably you know the growth will start to taper off.

Makes sense यह वही आपकी वाली बात है कि यार I'll I'll go at a point maybe but पहले मेरी foundations इतनी rock solid होनी चाहिए कि मेरे पास यह ना हो कि मेरा मैं दो में distribute हो जाऊं और फिर वह attention जो है ना वह वहां पर हो. Do you think, do you see price होए दो as eventually if not Saudi? चलिए Saudi आगे निकल गया वहां पर you know और competition है. But Africa भरा पड़ा है. बहुत सारी countries हैं दुनिया में जहां पर आप eventually जा सकते हैं, right? So do you see price eventually growing out of Pakistan?

So we have a team that's looking at Africa right now based out of our Abu Dhabi office. So what we want to do is we want to launch in the African market with a low touch model which means कि instead of doing it on our own, we'll work with a partner and collaborate with them. So it would be our technology platform, our expertise but they would be the delivery partner or the consumer facing app. So what we are doing right now is working with one of the largest telecom companies there and integrating PriceWave within their app so that you know we can become essentially an engine. So it's still you know some more details that evolving.

But you're exploring that opportunity and. Yes yes. Fascinating. अनानवाई I'm gonna wrap this up. एक last question generally I ask everybody particularly I mean you've traveled extensively. You've, you know, now you have this sort of network that you've built is just absolutely phenomenal and petrol मांगने जाते हैं तो वह कहते हैं जी हम खुला petrol नहीं देंगे. तो आप कहते हैं यार मैं करूं क्या ना मैं किधर जाकर सर मारूं? So just to sustain, yes the rich are sustaining themselves in a larger than life way but actual में these are basics जिनको you know, figure out करने की requirement ही नहीं होनी चाहिए but it's still taking the top of your mind. So कभी कभार जब बंदे का बहुत ही हालात tight होते हैं तो सोचता ज़रूर है कि you know, what if what if abroad? What if here and there? आपने double down किया? आपने invest किया? अलहम्मद अल्लाह you've you've gotten success as well. I would say early success because there's a long way for you guys to go and make yourself, your families and Pakistan proud as well. How do you see Pakistan twenty five years from now in 2050? Your, one thing I love about you is you have a you have a personality that's very rare in Pakistan, which is a very data driven, projection based you know personality. जिसमें मैं यह नहीं कह रहा कि आपको नजूमी हैं आपको exact पता है क्या हो रहा है but you utilize data to show you different directions and then sometimes you fail, you pivot. But at least आप किसी सोच से आगे जा रहे होते हैं. आप बहुत एक rudimentary उससे नहीं निकल रहे होते हैं. And so I'm sure that you've done certain projection at least in your mind कि यार यह मुल्क इस तरफ़ जा रहा है with the current situation. I don't want an answer around if this happens then this result. You know, we all know those ifs and we all know कि यार top down ifs क्या हो सकते हैं जिससे हम सारे के सारे rich millionaires वन जाएंगे. But knowing what you know now, seeing what you see today without the ifs happening, where do you see the next twenty five years? In terms of the economy, in terms of the consumer class, in terms of the, you know, overall society and जहां पर आपने देखा Indonesia कहां खड़ा था और कहां पर है, India कहां पर था और कहां पर है? A lot of these markets, lot of people actually compare us कि Dubai में देखो यह हो रहा मैं कहता कि यार those are not the markets like these are city states. You know, you can compare इस्लाहाबाद to दुबई and you can say यार हमारा DC वह क्यों नहीं कर रहा जो वहां का prime minister कर रहा है. But if you wanna compare Pakistan, compare it to Turkey, compare it to Indonesia, compare it to India, these are large population, really complex economies, right? And so you've studied them. How do you see Pakistan twenty five years from now in 2050?

So the World Economic Forum says कि despite all the ifs and buts, you know, despite all the challenges,

there's a 90% probability that Pakistan would be ranked among top 25 economies in the world. Interesting and do you see, I mean again वह Goldman Sachs की भी एक report थी $20.75 की गाले बंजिस पर उन्होंने कहा कि जी top 10 में आ जाएगा और top six में आ जाएगा और you know वह और उसमें भी उन्होंने लिखे हुए थे कि risks क्या हैं और opportunities क्या हैं? What's your personal hunch? Do you think कि यार यह ठीक है projection तो है? I mean भी हम एक तरफ़ जिसको जो feeling होती है ना वह optimist है तो वह यह वाली projection फ़ेंक देगा. Pessimist है तो वह कहेगा कि you know what like Pakistan का यह वाला number, corruption ranking, authoritarian ranking this that what not. What's your personal hunch? कि यार ठीक है with all of the problems एक inevitability factor होता है societies का, right? हम काफ़ी दवा देखते हैं तो हम hindsight is always क्या होता वह 20 by 26 by six because उसमें बड़ा आसान होता कि इस बंदे ने यह कर लिया but उस time पर वह उन societies में भी बस things were happening and and and they were just evolving.

What's your personal hunch? So I'm very bullish on Pakistan and I'll give you an example that I was offered a nationality of two countries but I declined both of them because I wanted to build priceway in Pakistan and I am very bullish on the country. So you still have a पाकिस्तानी passport? I do only have one passport, that is the पाकिस्तानी passport. Fascinating. It's difficult to travel on that passport but but it is.

Fascinating. अनान भाई, this was a phenomenal conversation, a phenomenal story. I wish you all the very best and I hope, इंशालाह, you guys are able to grow even further. I think, I hope कि यह बिल्कुल एक वह वाली हो conversation की अभी तो net practice हो रही है और इंशालाह, the real growth and the real story is still to come. Thank you so much for taking the time out and sharing sharing all that insight. नहीं, thank you for having me. Was a great fun being on the show. And for all of you guys, thank you so much for watching. अगर आपके episode पसंद आई और दोस्तों ने साथ ज़रूर share करिएगा. Let me know in the comment section below. Have you bought from price OA? आपका experience कैसा रहा है? अगर आपको कोई missile आए हैं तो what sort of missile have you faced? What sort of resolutions were there? जो आपने different different Pakistan में e commerce के साथ interact किया है. आप कितना trust करते हैं? क्या आप ecommerce पर अब native हो चुके हैं? क्या आप regularly उसको use कर रहे हैं या नहीं कर रहे? I would love to know कि पाकिस्तानी अब at this point in time जो evolution अद्नान भाई ने बताई कि यार India सबसे आगे उससे पीछे at least region में, उससे पीछे दो साल पीछे Indonesia, उससे सात साल पीछे Pakistan. तो क्या आप उस को किस तरह से देख रहे हैं? आपको लगता है कि क्या पाकिस्तानी venture उस side पर आएगा? क्या आपकी अपनी evolution हुई है in terms of your own trust for different e commerce businesses? Let me know in the comment section below. But nonetheless, this was the same as MLS and Zedi. You're watching Thought Behind Things. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.