Dil ki Baat · Jun 7, 2024 · 1:01:13
Startups are a symptom, not Pakistan's solution
Muzamil argues Pakistan's startup boom was borrowed money, not proof its economy is ready for billion-dollar exits.
10 min read
The graveyard of Pakistani startups
Muzamil opens by naming names. Airlift raised $85 million and still shut down. Swvl left Pakistan. Waada Cars, CarFirst, Trella, and TruckItIn are gone. Uber closed its Pakistan operations. Retailo, which had raised over $30 million locally, shut its Pakistan business and moved to Riyadh. Daastgyr and Paymob laid off more than half their workforce. Cheetay’s founders are reportedly weighing whether to close the company altogether.
Against that backdrop, the government has just announced a new startup fund: two billion rupees a year, no equity taken, up to $300,000 per company. It is not the state’s first attempt. Muzamil notes that Punjab and federal governments have poured billions of rupees into incubators and accelerators over the past decade without producing a single startup that scaled successfully out of them. The question he sets out to answer is whether this new fund changes anything, and whether startups can move the needle on Pakistan’s economy at all.
A decade of incubators, one real success story
Pakistani startups first appeared in the early 2000s, mostly out of LUMS, FAST, and GIK research circles, but the country’s digital infrastructure was not ready and none of it went mainstream. Umar Saif’s Plan9, launched in Punjab in the early 2010s, was the first serious incubator: office space, connectivity, networking, a path to market. PlanX followed for companies ready to scale, and once Umar Saif moved into the federal government, National Incubation Centers opened in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Quetta, and Peshawar.
A decade and billions of rupees later, Muzamil says the honest tally is one real win. Patari, a music streaming service incubated at Plan9, tried to beat Spotify to the Pakistani market and did not survive. “The only name that has actually worked out is Bookme.pk,” he says, pointing to a company that later raised multiple funding rounds and kept operating successfully while everything else around it stalled before reaching the mainstream.
What Muzamil means by “startup”
Before judging whether Pakistan can produce one, Muzamil pins down what the word actually means. People message him constantly calling a T-shirt line or a naan shop run with a friend a “startup.” Technically, he says, that fits the textbook definition: a venture built to develop and validate a scalable business model. But that is not what investors, venture capitalists, or the media mean by the term.
The real distinction is the cost of scaling. Open a naan shop in Bahria Town for ten lakh rupees and it might return one lakh a month; opening ten shops needs roughly ten times the capital, and the ceiling rises in a straight line. A digital product like Spotify needs upfront investment once, and after that costs barely more to serve ten crore users than a hundred. That is why venture investors are not chasing a steady 20 to 30 percent annual return. They are chasing 40x, 50x, 100x multiples on an exit, and that appetite for an exponential outcome, not steady profit, is what actually defines a startup in the modern sense.
Cheap money built the game before Pakistan ever played it
Muzamil traces the mania back decades before it reached Pakistan. Apple and Microsoft were dismissed by Wall Street through the 1980s until personal computers proved themselves in the 1990s, which primed investors to chase the next “computer” story: the internet. That produced the dot-com bubble and its 2001 crash, when companies lost 80 percent of their value within weeks. After the 2008 financial crisis, the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates to zero, handing investors free capital and rebuilding their appetite for outsized bets, first in Google, Facebook, and Instagram, then across ride-hailing and grocery delivery through the 2010s.
In between those two crashes, Muzamil notes, the surviving giants consolidated rather than competed: Facebook bought Instagram and WhatsApp, Google bought YouTube, Microsoft bought LinkedIn. Each acquisition reinforced the same lesson for Wall Street, that early money into the right idea could return well beyond a normal business, and each retelling of that story widened the pool of capital chasing the next one.
Then came COVID. The US printed roughly $3 trillion in a single year; money supply went from $1.5 trillion in 2020 to $6.5 trillion by 2022. That capital had to park somewhere. It trickled from Wall Street to London, Dubai, and Singapore before landing in Pakistan as part of the roughly $350 million in announced 2021 startup funding, a figure that included Airlift’s $85 million round for an app delivering groceries in ten minutes on a bike. Muzamil calls this whole stretch, from the ride-hailing boom through the pandemic, an exercise in “quack economics”: capital chasing growth numbers and user counts with no real interest in whether the underlying business could ever turn a profit. India’s Byju’s is his outside example of where that road ends, a company once held up as a generational success story that took on heavy debt and had to restructure once the free-money era closed.
Careem’s exit sold Pakistan a fantasy
The single biggest validator of the “Pakistani startup” idea, in Muzamil’s telling, was Careem. Its engineering ran out of Karachi, its middle management was largely Pakistani, and its growth into the largest startup in the Middle East built a national narrative that a Pakistani-led company really could scale. When Uber acquired Careem for $3 billion in January 2020, employees who had joined straight out of university on modest salaries and stock options woke up as millionaires overnight.
Muzamil is careful not to single out individuals caught up in that moment, but the effect on the wider market was structural. A generation of “Careemers,” and the investors watching them, concluded that if Dubai-based Pakistanis could build and flip a company that fast, the same playbook could run inside Pakistan itself. It set off a wave of copycat founders and family money chasing the same exit, with the same disregard for whether the underlying business made money.
A billion-dollar valuation is not a billion dollars in Pakistan
This is where Muzamil turns from narrative to arithmetic. When a $10 million round is announced, it does not arrive in Pakistan. It lands in a holding company in Singapore or Dubai, and only a fraction trickles down to pay a lean local team of twenty to forty people. The bulk goes to marketing and to foreign vendors, Meta ads and AWS hosting among them. It never touches the local economy at all.
“That doesn’t mean it’s bringing a billion dollars into Pakistan every year,” he says of a headline valuation, which is really one investor’s estimate of worth, not cash flow. When that company eventually sells, the money moves from one investor to another outside the country. Startups, he argues, are fundamentally part of the consumption economy: they optimize spending patterns, the way Careem and Uber turned a taxi’s idle return trip into a paid one. That is a legitimate business in an economy built on consumption, like the United States. It is a much harder case to make in a country losing $2 to $3 billion a year in dollarized terms and financing the gap with debt.
He points to grocery delivery as the clearest case of money substituting for a real business model. Startups were paying a rider’s fuel and wages to deliver a drink that cost less to buy off the shelf a few doors down, selling it to the customer for less than retail while absorbing the loss themselves, all to keep the user and revenue numbers climbing for the next funding round. That subsidy, Muzamil says, was never really a product; it was investor money being spent to manufacture growth metrics, and it evaporated everywhere in the world, not just Pakistan, once free capital dried up.
Consumption economies need manufacturing first
Muzamil’s structural argument is that developing economies climb a ladder: hard industry, then soft industry, then services, and only then a consumption layer. Pakistan, he says, keeps trying to skip straight to the top rung. He points to the everyday example of trying to assemble cars locally: pull the thread from parts to alloys to raw materials, and the supply chain simply does not exist, so manufacturers default to importing everything instead.
India built roughly $150 billion in annual IT exports before its unicorns arrived, creating millions of middle-class jobs and a consuming public underneath the startup boom. Indonesia did something similar, building toward roughly $320 billion in exports over two decades of reform. Pakistan’s oft-cited statistic that 65 percent of its population is young is not the same as a middle-income population with disposable cash to spend on new digital services. A company chasing a billion-dollar valuation, Muzamil says, needs something close to $100 million a year in revenue to justify it, and Pakistan’s consumer market simply does not hold that much spending power yet.
“Startups are not a solution,” Muzamil says. “They’re just a symptom, an outcome of a good, thriving economy.” Pakistan, in his view, has not yet built the economy that symptom depends on. He is careful to add that India’s own sequencing was not perfect either: its heavy tilt toward services over manufacturing has left it with real joblessness and inequality, since not every worker in a densely populated economy can be absorbed into IT jobs. A country Pakistan’s size, he argues, needs the factory floor as much as it needs the services layer, so that a person without a university degree still has a path into a stable, consuming middle class.
The seth problem: family capital that won’t do the work
Muzamil reserves some of his sharpest criticism for Pakistan’s traditional business families, the seths, who he watched pivot from sugar mills and conventional industry straight into startup investing without understanding the sector, chasing the same flip that Careem’s exit had validated. “Our seth, who I keep calling a rent-seeker because he doesn’t want to do the work, is like a degenerate gambler,” he says, contrasting that instinct with how Indian industrial money built Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys: real companies that now employ hundreds of thousands of people in stable, exportable IT services.
His prescription is a partnership Pakistan has rarely tried: businessmen who understand scale and capital allocation working alongside engineers who understand the technology, instead of both sides insisting on full ownership and refusing to trust each other. He calls the country’s failure to build a serious IT services industry, despite having every necessary ingredient, a problem of trust rather than of talent or opportunity.
Startups are a symptom, not a solution
Muzamil closes by resetting expectations rather than dismissing the sector. Startups are good, he says, and will keep emerging in Pakistan as they do everywhere. The problem is the timeline and the promises attached to them. Anyone building one honestly should expect ten to fifteen years to reach real scale, not the two-to-three-year multiple that boom-era investors promised.
He is blunt that the government’s new fund misreads the moment. “This isn’t helping Pakistan’s economy,” he says. “It’s helping some private investors, definitely, but the economy at large isn’t benefiting from it.” Two billion rupees a year spent building actual technical talent, he argues, would do more for the country than another equity-free bet on the next Careem, since Pakistan’s IT industry is limited far more by a shortage of trained people than by a shortage of ambition.
His advice to a young graduate who genuinely wants to build something is to go ahead, but to build for the value rather than the race: serve two customers or two million with the same patience, and stop measuring progress against a two-year payoff that the market’s current variables simply do not support. His closing appeal is directed at the startup community itself: stop treating criticism as betrayal, the way Pakistani cinema once demanded blind loyalty regardless of quality, and start treating honest critique as the only way the same mistakes stop repeating.
Full transcript
Khawateen-o-hazraat, welcome back to another episode of Dil Ki Baat. Pakistan mein aap log bade arsay se sun rahe honge ke startups aa rahi hain, startups kaam kar rahi hain. Phir humne suna ke startups tabah hona shuru ho gayi hain, band hona shuru ho gayi hain. Airlift ka pata laga ke ji 85 million dollars raise karne ke baad Airlift band ho gayi hai, Swvl Pakistan se chali gayi hai, Waada Cars, CarFirst, Trella, TruckItIn, even Uber jo hai unhone apne operations Pakistan mein band kar diye hain. Meanwhile, Retailo, jisne well over 30 million dollars Pakistan mein raise kiye thay, usne apne operations Pakistan mein band karke Riyadh move kar diye hain. Dastagir aur Paymob ne apni aadhi se zyada workforce jo hai woh layoff kar di hai aur Cheetay ke founder struggle kar rahe hain aur soch rahe hain ke woh apni startup Pakistan mein band kar dein. Acha jahan par purani startup struggle kar rahi hain, wahan par Government of Pakistan ne ek nayi startups ko promote karne ke liye ek startup fund announce kiya hai 2 billion rupees per annum ka, jisme woh kisi qisam ki equity liye baghair, yani ke aapke startup ke andar koi ownership liye baghair aapko up to 300,000 dollars ki funding denge. Aur yeh government ka koi pehla initiative nahi hai for startups, pichle 10 saalon mein Government of Punjab aur Government of Pakistan ne different incubators aur accelerators setup kiye like Plan9, PlanX, NICs jo pure Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Quetta aur Peshawar mein exist karte hain. Aur inmein billions of rupees lagane ke bawajood abhi tak humne koi ek bhi Pakistani startup successfully launch hote, chalo launch toh phir bhi ho gayi but successfully scale hote hue humne nahi dekhi. Ab kya is naye startup fund ki wajah se finally Pakistan ki startup industry sustain kar payegi? Kya startups Pakistan mein chal bhi sakti hain? And most importantly, startups ka Pakistani economy ke upar kitna serious impact hai? Aaiye in questions ke bare mein jaante hain is video mein. Acha thodi si nazar daalte hain Pakistan mein jo startups hai uski history ke upar. Pakistan mein startups aana shuru ho gayi thi early 2000s mein, mostly jo badi universities thi, LUMS, FAST, GIK, inke students ya yahan pe jo log research kar rahe hote thay, woh different different startups banane ki koshish karte rahe lekin zahir hai ke Pakistan ki economy aur Pakistan ka jo overall digital infrastructure tha woh itna conducive hi nahi tha ke unmein se koi bhi jo hai woh scale kar sakti ya mainstream mein aa sakti. Toh yeh apna hi ek underground scene mein system chalate rahe aur constantly jo academic circles thay na wahan par aapko sunne ko milta tha. Generally yeh woh log thay jo ke bahar ki duniya ko dekh rahe thay, study bhi kar rahe thay, unko pata bhi tha ke acha yaar bahar yeh kuch major ho raha hai, startups aa rahi hain, iske bare mein baatein ho rahi hain, fund raising ho rahi hai. Yeh sara kuch unko pata tha, unhone usmein different tryiyan bhi mari Pakistan mein but woh seriously kuch ho nahi saka. Phir early 2010s ke andar Umar Saif sahab jo ke us time ke upar chairman thay Punjab IT Board, PITB ke, unhone Plan9 banaya Punjab ke andar, Lahore ke andar aur us Plan9 ka purpose yeh tha ke ek incubator of sorts tha, jisme agar aapke paas koi acha business idea hai, koi innovative business idea hai toh aap us incubator mein ja sakte thay, woh aapko office space bhi dete thay, internet connectivity bhi dete thay, networking ki opportunities dete thay, different industry leaders se aapko milwate thay aur basically aapko facilitate karte thay ke aap apne business ko launch bhi kar sakein aur phir usko eventually consumer tak pahuncha bhi sakein. Kuch saal unhone Plan9 chalaya, phir unhone PlanX launch kar diya jo ke ek accelerator tha ke agar aapka business already chal raha hai aur aapne scale karna hai, maslan aapke paas agar 100 customers hain, aapne 10,000 customers tak jaana hai toh mazeed facilitate karne ke liye aapko again office space, connectivity, networking, woh tamam cheezein provide karne ke liye unhone PlanX banaya. Acha Umar Saif sahab jo thay woh PML-N government mein Punjab mein thay, unhi ko dekha dekhi PML-N ki jo government thi, Federal ke andar, unhone NIC ke naam se Plan9 ki dekha dekhi National Incubation Centers banaye pure Pakistan mein, Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Quetta aur Peshawar mein, jo ke taqreeban pichle 10 saal se operate kar rahe hain, wahan par bhi yahi hai ke har saal jo hai different batches mein nayi nayi startups jaati hain, wahan par train hoti hain, unko space di jaati hai, unko networking ki opportunity di jaati hai, unki trainings karayi jaati hain. But afsosnaak baat yeh hai ke aaj tak in tamam incubation centers mein se koi bhi success story ubhar kar samne nahi aayi, matlab na koi proper aisi company launch ho saki hai jo ke aap keh sakte hain ke nationally, you know, badi ek successful company aayi hai aur unhone aake scale kiya hai, jobs banayi hain, value create ki hai. Plan9 mein toh phir bhi hum ekka dukka sunte rahe, darmiyan mein Patari aayi which was a music streaming service jo ke Plan9 mein incubated thi, jo ke us time pe bada early thi aur uske saath saath jo hai woh Spotify puri duniya mein chal raha tha, Pakistan mein Spotify launch nahi hua tha, badi ummeedein thi ke Patari jo hai woh successfully yeh market le jayegi but they couldn't do it. Phir isi tareeqe se do teen aur aise naam aaye jo ke thoda sa uthte uthte ek dum se gir gaye aur phir woh, you know, kabhi mainstream nahi ho sake. Ek naam jahan tak meri research hai, the only name that has actually worked out is Bookme.pk, unke CEO aur founder jo thay woh hamari podcast pe bhi aaye thay, aap dekh sakte hain, channel mein kahin pe unki video hogi ya yahan kahin pe appear bhi ho rahi hogi. He was actually incubated at the Plan9 aur ab toh khair unki multiple rounds raise ho chuke hain, kaafi successfully woh operate kar rahe hain. But beyond this, jitne bhi incubation centers hain, iske upar billions upon billions of rupees lag chuke hain, abhi tak usmein se koi major success story nahi aayi. Meanwhile, jo Umar Saif sahab hain woh Federal Government mein aaye, caretaker IT minister ban ke aur unhone recently announce kiya ke woh ek Pakistan Startup Fund bana rahe hain jisme 2 billion rupees har saal startups ke andar investment hua karegi, jo ke jo nayi hukumat hai woh bhi usko chala rahi hai aur usko continue kar rahi hai, toh humein pata hai ke as of now, government ka yeh initiative naya bhi launch ho raha hai. Meanwhile, jahan pe private sector ka taluq hai toh maine aapko bataya early 2000s mein kuch startups aayi, woh kabhi they never caught on, phir 2010s ke baad startups on and off aati rahin, hum constantly sunte rahe ke ab yeh startup aa rahi hai, woh startup aa rahi hai, different different ideas, you know, experiment hote rahe aur largely kyunki duniya bhar mein startups ka ek boom chal raha tha, investment ka boom chal raha tha, jiske bare mein main aage aapko detail mein bataunga ke kya ho raha tha, toh uski wajah se usko dekha dekhi Pakistan mein bhi usko emulate karne ki constantly koshish ki ja rahi thi. Phir towards the latter half of the decade humne dekha ke kuch startups, serious startups emerge karna shuru hui. Careem jo ke Dubai mein launch ho chuki thi, woh phir Pakistan mein bhi aayi, Foodpanda jo ke I believe EatOye tha isse pehle, woh ek bahar ki company thi, Rocket Internet ke naam se unhone local company ko acquire karke Foodpanda launch kiya, Daraz jo hai woh ek bada major player Pakistan mein establish ho gaya, toh ek toh humein is tarah ki kuch startups hoti hui nazar aayi. Meanwhile, 2020 mein COVID ke aas paas humne dekha ke ek dum se ek boom aaya startups ka Pakistan mein jahan par different different type ki startups ek dum se aana shuru ho gayi, chahe woh ride hailing services thin, chahe woh grocery startups thin, chahe woh fintech companies thin aur suddenly aisa laga ke yaar Pakistan ka moment ab finally aa gaya hai, jisme startups jo hain woh aake completely disrupt karengi puri economy ko, puri industry ko, pure system ko aur har banda jisse baat ho rahi thi woh bas startup startup kar raha tha aur millions upon millions ki baatein kar raha tha ke yaar 2 million dollar ki investment hui hai with 20 million dollar valuation, Pakistani jinhone 10, 15, 20, 25 lakh rupay nahi dekhe thay kabhi, toh woh aake ek dum se millionaires ke khwab dekhna shuru ho gaye aur suddenly ek boom cycle aaya 2 saal jisme bas har banda jo hai woh startup pe focus kar raha tha. Phir humne dekha 2022 ke andar woh cycle pura reverse hua, ek bahut bura crash hua aur uske baad phir jo aapko maine start mein bahut saari different startups batayi ke jo ke band huin, millions of dollars jisme invest hue thay, woh companiyan jo hain woh exit karna shuru ho gayi, bahar ki jo bahut saari startups thin jinhone Pakistan mein aake socha tha ke yaar yeh bahut ek important, interesting market hai, unhone apne Pakistan offices band karna shuru kar diye aur suddenly narrative pura change hua aur logon ne aake show daalna shuru kar diya ke yaar startups toh yeh toh tha hi chuna aur yeh saari qaum hi chuna hai aur talent talent koi hai nahi aur startups toh bilkul hi farigh cheezein hain aur fraud hai aur yeh hai aur woh hai. Toh again do different jo narratives, as with everything in Pakistan, polarization ismein bhi aa gayi aur ismein ek side ne kaha ke yaar startups are your salvation aur dusri side ne aake kaha ke startups toh chal hi nahi sakti, woh toh hai hi drama aur Pakistan toh hai hi farigh. As with everything, sach iske kahin darmiyan mein tha aur usko samajhne se pehle humein startup ki definition ko samajhna zaroori hai. Acha waise toh mujhe bade saare log message karte hain, woh kehte hain ke yaar Muzamil bhai meri startup hai, maine ek t-shirt ki company start ki hai apne dost ke saath toh main aapko t-shirt bhejunga, aap usko influencer marketing kar dein ya Muzamil bhai meri jo hai na woh ek startup hai, humne naan ki dukan start ki hai aur main jo hai na cheese naan bhejna chahta hoon aapko. Toh technically agar aap startup ki definition pe jayein toh haan bilkul aapka startup hai, lekin agar hum industry wide dekhein ke jo startup ki term hai, what is that understood as? Kyunki agar hum definition dekhein, jo technical definition hai woh toh yeh hai ke a startup is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop and validate a scalable business model. Toh main bilkul understand karta hoon ke ek insaan dekhta hai, woh kehta hai yaar main ek entrepreneur hoon, main ek risk le raha hoon aur chahe woh main ek naan ki dukan mein loon ya main ek t-shirt ki company mein loon aur main us risk ko validate kar raha hoon apne ird-gird ke logon ko pehle bech ke aur bech ke eventually maine usko scale karna hai. Scaling in this case woh yeh soch raha hai ke yaar agar meri ek naan ki dukan hai aur woh successfully chal rahi hai toh main is tarah ki 10 naan ki dukanen khol loonga ya agar main t-shirts banata hoon aur main 1000 logon ko bechta hoon toh main 10,000 logon ko bech doonga toh scale toh main karunga, toh woh apne aap ko startup kahega. Lekin globally accepted term jo startup ki hai woh thodi si isse different hai, jo ke agar hum kahein na ke investors ho gaye ya venture capitalists ho gaye ya media ho gaya ya overall jo yeh mainstream startup ecosystem hai, ismein jab hum startup ki term use karte hain toh what that means more often than not is a highly scalable business jisme jo cost hai na woh scaling ki woh itni zyada na ho. And let me explain what that means. Dekhein agar aap ek naan ki dukan lagate hain, let's say Bahria Town Phase 1 mein aur aapko 10 lakh rupay us dukan ko lagane mein kharcha aata hai aur aap us dukan se har mahine jo hai woh 1 lakh rupay profit kamate hain. Aap dekhte hain yaar bada behtareen business hai, aap is tarah ki agar 10 dukanen lagana chahte hain toh har dukan pe aapka 10 lakh rupay kharcha aayega aur aapka cap wahi hoga ke har dukan se aap 1 lakh rupay nikal sakte hain. Toh yahan par jo aapka scale hai uske liye continuously aapko capital investment chahiye, aisa nahi ho sakta ke aapne naan ki dukan laga li aur bas woh agar naan ki dukan successfully operate kar rahi hai toh woh aaj 1 lakh rupay ki sale kare lekin woh shayad aaj se 3 saal baad jo hai woh 10 crore ki sale karna shuru kar de, kahin na kahin uska bottleneck aayega. Whereas is tarah ki bahut saari digital services hain jaisa ke hum dekhte hain Spotify hai, for example, aapne ek dafa ek app bana di, aapne uska infrastructure setup kar diya, ab uske andar aapko capital investment itni zyada karne ki zaroorat nahi hai, aapne jo hai woh start mein woh ek basic jo R&D karke aapne ek product bana di, uske baad chahe woh 100 log aapke subscriber hon ya 10 crore log aapke subscriber hon, aapki overall cost mein itna koi difference nahi aa raha. Toh is tarah ke business model ka fayda yeh hota hai ke jahan par aap ek naan ki dukan mein 10 lakh rupay lagate hain aur woh 10 lakh rupay apni hi agar investment pe woh chalata rahe toh shayad woh grow karke ek dukan se do dukanen ho jayega, toh aapki 5 saal baad net worth jo hai us investment ki woh 10 lakh se ho sakta hai ke 20 lakh ya 25 lakh rupay ho jaye, jabke is business model ke andar aapne agar let's say 10 lakh dollar kyunki dollarized hota hai, toh 1 million dollar aapne iske andar invest kiya, 5 saal mein woh company bahut zyada scale kar gayi, grow kar gayi toh aapka jo 1 million dollar hai woh ho sakta hai 100 million dollar ho jaye. Toh jo return hai na jahan par aapko standard businesses ke andar 20%, 30% return milta hai, you know, profits milte hain, wahan par is tarah ke business ke andar shayad profitability itni na ho kyunki mostly investors profitability itni nahi dekh rahe hote, is tarah ke business ke andar jo aapki investment ka return hai eventually woh aapka multiples mein hota hai ke ji 40, 50, 100x return aapko mil raha hai aur zahir hai yeh thought badi enticing hai, insaan jo hai woh inherently greedy hota hai aur jab woh dekhta hai ke yaar ek cheez hai jisme mujhe mehnat karni hai, mujhe time lagana hai aur us pe mujhe kaafi had tak guaranteed, chalo guaranteed nahi but low risk ke upar 30% return mil raha hai, whereas ek aur cheez hai jiske upar main paisa lagata hoon aur mujhe potentially 100 times zyada milega. Zahir hai ke insani fitrat jo hai woh hamesha aapko us taraf dhakelegi aur yeh jo greed hai na, yeh greed hum aap jaise sirf logon mein nahi hota, yeh greed jo hai woh bade bade investors mein bhi hota hai, bade bade bankers mein bhi hota hai, even American market ki agar main baat karoon toh 80s ke andar jo unki startups thin woh mix hardware software type ki jo yeh Apple aur Microsoft aur is tarah ki startups emerge kar rahi thin jo ke, you know, yeh bade interesting qisam ke nerdy qisam ke log thay jo ke computer bana rahe thay, jo ke us zamane mein, you know, enterprise level ya even government level ke upar toh ho raha tha lekin nobody thought ke computers will be such a huge thing. Toh yeh ek interesting bunch of nerds thay, Silicon Valley ke andar baithe hue thay aur woh jaake constantly yeh keh rahe thay ke yaar yeh personal computer ek cheez hai aur yeh puri duniya badal dega aur main aapko bata raha hoon aap iske andar invest karein aur aapko bada fayda hoga aur zahir hai ke theek hai unko investments mil rahi thin but overall industry at large, khaskar jo aapka Wall Street ka banker tha, woh inko seriously nahi le raha tha. Phir 80s mein unhone jaake jo investments wagera leke apne aap ko establish kiya, establish karke unhone validate karke dikhaya ke yaar hum logon ne jo cheez build ki hai woh waqai duniya badalne wali hai aur 90s mein yeh cheez evident hona shuru ho gayi jab ghar ghar ke andar personal computer aana shuru ho gaya ke yeh jo computing ki revolution hai, yeh waqai ek badi serious cheez hai aur jo Wall Street ka banker tha usne dekha ke yaar jinhone early invest kiya tha in companies ke andar unke toh ware nyare ho gaye, toh woh ek dum se aaya usne kaha yaar chalo Microsoft aur Apple aur yeh companies toh already mature ho chuki hain, yeh toh pakad se bahar ho chuki hain, toh ab agli humein kya cheez nazar aa rahi hai kyunki agar kisi insaan ko let's say 100x return mila hai toh humein bhi woh 100x return chahiye aur uski wajah se ek frenzy start hua, ek mania start hua late 1990s ke andar jisko dot com bubble bhi kaha jata hai, jisme har us company mein invest kiya ja raha tha jiske aakhir mein dot com ka naam laga hua tha kyunki us time pe naya naya internet aaya tha aur constantly yeh kaha ja raha tha ke ji internet ab puri duniya badal dega aur sabke ware nyare ho jayenge aur jo narrative personal computer ke bare mein tha jisme log cynical thay in the start and they were proved wrong, wahi narrative jo hai ab unhone internet ke upar steroids pe lagana shuru kar diya aur uski wajah se humne dekha ke paisa theek thaak pump hua aur badi badi valuations aa gayi, niche fundamentals koi hain ke nahi hain, koi business hai ke nahi hai, bas paisa lagna shuru ho gaya aur phir eventually 2001 ke andar yeh dot com bubble crash hua aur ismein jin companies mein investments hui thin usmein 80% unhone value lose ki within a few weeks aur ismein jo companies ke andar investment hoke aur paisa lag ke jo ek crazy qisam ki valuation ho gayi hui thi, un companies ne kuch hi hafton mein 80% apni tamam value lose ki, usmein se bahut saari companies band ho gayin, bahut saare layoffs hue aur ek dum se market ko bahut bada dhachka laga. Phir zahir hai jab aapko dhachka lagta hai toh aap ek dum se conservative hoke baith jaate ho ke yaar yeh toh koi fayda nahi hai, yeh toh cheez chalegi nahi, jaisa maine aapko bola ke yaar ya toh aap yeh kehte ho ke yeh toh farigh hai, yeh chalegi nahi, phir jab aapko koi validation aati hai toh phir aap kehte ho ke sirf yahi cheez chalegi, matlab insani fitrat bhi ek ajeeb si hai, cycles mein chalti hai aur black and whites mein chalti hai. Toh again yahan par jab jhatka laga toh ek dum se investor peeche hoke baith gaya, usne kaha yaar ab jo hai na hum bada soch samajh ke paisa lagayenge, ab humein jo hai na dheere dheere chalna padega aur wahi hua ke early 2000s ke andar jo hai nayi nayi innovative companies emerge huin, Google aayi, Facebook aayi, Instagram aayi, YouTube aayi, is tarah ki bahut saari companies aayi, lekin start mein na unko dekha gaya, haan unko investments mili but koi frenzy nahi hua uske andar, uske andar Wall Streeter nahi ghusa, uske andar banker nahi ghusa, abhi woh ahista ahista side se dekh rahe thay ke yaar acha yeh chalegi, nahi chalegi, kya hoga, kis had tak iska impact duniya mein aa sakta hai. Toh again 2008 mein American financial crisis aa gaya aur uski wajah se waise hi markets bilkul crash kar gayin aur bahut saari layoffs huin aur ek dum se America jo hai woh ek recession ki taraf chala gaya toh halaat bade kharab ho gaye, but iske saath US government ne kiya yeh ke unhone apne interest rates jo thay woh bilkul zero kar diye jiska matlab basically yeh hai ke agar aap bank se loan nikal rahe hain toh aapko koi interest nahi padega, yani ke aapko free money available hai bank se, kyunki economy recession mein thi, US government wanted ke logon ke paas paisa aaye taake woh us paise ko kharch karein, taake us paise se economy wapas bahal ho sake. Toh phir jab yeh free money investors ke hathon laga aur again kyunki yeh literally free money tha toh jo unki risk appetite thi woh ek dum se bahut zyada badh gayi aur unhone phir se dekhna shuru kiya ke yaar hum kahan invest kar sakte hain, khair 2010 tak yahi system chalta raha till the time ke jo companies thin yeh bahut bade bade magarmach ban ke emerge hona shuru huin, Google, Microsoft, Microsoft toh khair pehle hi bahut bada magarmach tha, Facebook ek bahut major player ban ke emerge kiya aur yeh itne bade ho gaye ke unhone ek dusre ko khareedna shuru kar diya, Facebook ne jaake Instagram aur WhatsApp ko khareed liya, Google ne YouTube ko khareed liya, Microsoft ne LinkedIn ko khareed liya aur ek consolidation hona shuru ho gayi. Meanwhile yeh companies ab bahut badi badi magarmach ban ke samne aana shuru huin and again jaisa ke maine aapko pehle bataya ke yahan par phir se Wall Streeter ne dekha, usne kaha yaar yeh dekho zara yeh toh hum conservative huye baithe thay pichle 10 saalon se aur yeh companiyan toh kahan se kahan nikal gayin aur woh us tarah ki kahaniyan viral hona shuru ho gayin ke yaar agar tumne 2001 mein Microsoft ke andar itne rupay daale hote ya Facebook ke andar itne rupay daale hote toh aaj tumhare paas pata nahi kitne kharab rupay hote, toh us tarah ki kahaniyon ki wajah se automatically ek frenzy ka mahol phir se banna shuru hua jo ke ahista ahista badh raha tha aur iske badhne ki ek aur wajah yeh bhi thi ke American government ne jo apne interest rates thay unko zero kar diya tha after the 2008 financial crisis, kyunki unki economy ek dum se recession ki taraf chali gayi thi toh unhone kaha ke yaar isko wapas stimulate karne ke liye hum free money effectively market mein baant te hain ke yaar tumne agar bank se loan lena hai toh tumhe koi uske upar interest nahi hoga, tum paisa lo aur paisa leke jo karna hai karo taake economy ka pahiya chalta rahe aur uski wajah se there was a lot of free capital available in the market jahan par jo risk appetite thi woh ab bahut zyada badh chuki thi jisme log keh rahe thay ke yaar khair hai hamara paisa thodi hai, bank se humne liya hua hai toh abhi hum lete hain aur kahin na kahin invest karte hain aur agar hamari lottery nikal aayi toh hamare ware nyare ho jayenge. Toh phir se humne dekha ke different different startups mein paisa pump hona shuru hua, fundamentals went out the window ke yaar business sense hai ke nahi hai, bas yeh tha ke valuation ki game thi, jisme ride hailing companies aayi, Uber badi mashhoor jo hai woh ek constantly uske upar paisa lagta raha aur woh bada hota gaya, halanki profitability unki koi thi nahi, lekin bas woh usko constantly scale kiye ja rahe thay, scale kiye ja rahe thay, usko dekha dekhi America ko copy karte hue puri duniya mein humne dekha ke copycats emerge hona shuru ho gaye, Careem was a similar story, jab logon ne dekha ke yaar yeh toh scene ho ne hai, aap ek innovative, ek somewhat innovative product banao, usko jo hai jaake market mein launch karo, launch karke agar aapne dikha diya ke yaar waqai hamare paas customer base hai aur hum jo hai woh 10 saal baad itne paise kama sakte hain toh aap market se acha khasa paisa raise kar loge, jab aap paisa raise kar loge toh automatically aapki ek value ho jayegi, aapki ek value ho jayegi toh usko aap eventually flip karke aap itne saare paise gher sakte ho, jo ke humne Careem ke case mein dekha ke eventually hua bhi aur yeh wala cycle I would say early 2010 se leke 2022 tak chala, jisme in the last few years humne dekha ke yaar woh 10 minute delivery startups ke upar paisa lag raha hai aur pata nahi completely random startups ke upar paisa lagna shuru ho gaya, kyun kyunki ek toh greed thi jahan par pehle ek institutional investor aake invest karta tha jisko fundamentals ki samajh hoti thi, jo baith ke pura jaanchta tha ke yaar yeh kya cheez hai jiske andar hum invest kar rahe hain, wahan par ab har qisam ka random banda ghus gaya hua tha, ek banda hai usne let's say 10,000 dollar, 10,000 toh khair kam hai, 10 lakh dollar kamaye hue hain, woh kisi tarah koshish kar raha tha ke yaar main bhi apna kisi fund mein paisa daal loon taake main kisi startup ka investor ban jaaun aur main 50,000 dollar ko kisi tareeqe se 50 million dollar mein convert kar loon aur humne bahut saare aise log dekhe, woh different stock options ya companies se exit lekar recently paisa kama kar aaye thay and they wanted to multiply that money and so obviously they were not trained ke woh investments relevant sahi wali kar sakein aur unhone jaake investments karna shuru kar di, phir again jaisa ke maine aapko bola ke pehle hi US government free money aapko de rahi thi but 2020 mein toh matlab kamaal hi ho gaya jab COVID aaya aur ek saal ke andar US government ne 3 trillion dollars print karke market mein phenke, to the extent ke 2020 ke andar jo money supply available thi US economy ke andar woh 1.5 trillion dollars thi, by 2022 this money supply had increased to 6.5 trillion dollars, yani ke jo market mein har 5 dollar jo available tha usmein se 4 dollar pichle 2 ya 3 saal ke andar print hoke market mein aaya tha, ab is level ka jo free money aap isko keh lein ya new money jo market mein ab available tha na, us paise ne kahin na kahin jaake park hona tha, woh zahir hai pehle US stock market mein laga, phir US mein different startups mein laga with crazy valuations, whether they make sense or they don't make sense but woh wahan jaake lagna shuru ho gaya, eventually trickle down karte karte karte woh different badi capitals mein gaya, London, Dubai, Singapore, idhar udhar to the extent ke woh trickle down karte karte eventually Pakistan bhi aa gaya aur isi wajah se humne 2021 mein dekha ke Pakistan mein koi taqreeban 350 million dollar ki announced foreign direct investment aayi, funding aayi different startups ke andar jisme jo sabse famous startup investment thi woh Airlift ki thi, 85 million dollars in the Pakistani economy for a startup jo ke grocery aapko 10 minute mein ghar pe deliver kar rahi thi. Even us waqt mujhe yaad hai hamari podcast chal rahi thi, we were actively talking to people, with startup founders, with people jo ke startups mein invest karte hain aur sab log isi baat pe sar khuja rahe thay ke Pakistan mein agar aap mujhe kehte hain na ke yaar main ek startup bana raha hoon, main ek hawa mein baat kar raha hoon but you know just roll with me, main ek startup bana raha hoon jisme main aapko jo bijli hai na woh sasti provide karna shuru kar dunga ya main aapko jo Pakistan mein power generation hai uske masle solve kar dunga ya main load shedding ka masla solve kar dunga tab toh main phir bhi maan sakta tha ki yaar yeh ek badi valuable problem hai aur ismein cost overrun jo hai na usko aap potentially bacha rahe ho ki 60 rupay ki bijli ke unit ko agar aap kisi tarike se 20 rupay mein le aate ho usko aap 10 rupay apna margin rakh ke 30 rupay ka bechte ho toh ek direct utility hai lekin Pakistan jaisi country ke andar jahan par log char char rupay ke upar jo hai na ek dukan se dusri dukan mein ja ke shopping karte hain grocery ki aur margin call hai koi nahi aur economic halat jo ki covid se bilkul hum abhi nikle the aur already economy ke halat bade kharab the aur logon ki buying power jo hai woh ruli padi thi us pe aake aap grocery startup chala rahe ho jis pe aap keh rahe ho ki yaar main bike ka fuel laga ke aapke ghar mein aake aapko thandi pepsi 10 minute ke andar la ke dunga how does that make any economic sense what are the fundamentals but hum jaise bahut saare the jo us waqt sar khujha rahe the keh rahe the yaar shayad hum bahut bewakoof hain ki hum fundamentals ka puch rahe hain aur zahir hai itne bade zaheen log jo ki bahar se aaye hue hote hain woh agar aake and again main kisi ko keh nahi raha jo ismein airlift ya airlift kyunki bahar se log aaye hue the ya baki jaghon pe the but I am just generally saying ki yeh banda sochta hai ki yaar you know yeh bahar se overseas Pakistanis aaye hue hote hain inko toh zahir hai bahut behtar pata hai Pakistan ke baare mein toh obvious si baat hai hum bewakoof hain hum khamosh ho jaate hain they are going to work it out unfortunately hua wahi jo ki expected tha jismein na sirf lack of fundamentals ki wajah se yeh company toh crash ki hi ki balki puri duniya mein grocery startups crash ki kyunki it was a novelty it was a nice to have haan grocery abhi bhi deliver hoti hai puri duniya ke andar but bahut thodi ab startup reh gaye hain compared to jitni saari pehle thi aur unke models ab radically redesign ho rahe hain woh us tarike se nahi ho rahe ki yaar 5 minute mein aapko grocery mili warna free type jo models aa rahe the crazy kisam ke jismein aapka majority paisa is baat pe lag raha tha ki yaar jo aapko market se 15 rupay ki pepsi mil rahi hai woh hum aapko 8 rupay mein la ke denge matlab how does that make any sense ki already uske upar fuel extra lag raha hai uske upar ek insaan ki extra cost lag rahi hai woh wahan se utha ke aapko ghar la ke de raha hai uske bawajood woh aapko sasta de rahe hain largely because that was being financed by a lot of this investment jo ki woh bahar se lekar aa rahe the all for the single purpose of growth kyunki unhone karna yeh tha ki unhone dikhana tha ki yaar dekho hamare paas customer itne zyada hain hamara revenue itna zyada hai aur unhone ja ke agle bande ko jahan par 85 million dollar unhone raise kiya tha unhone agle bande ko 350 million dollar raise karwana tha phir us 350 million dollar se agle bande se 500 million dollar raise karwana tha aur eventually us company ko unhone utha ke bech dena tha 2-3 billion dollars ka jis pe again profitability kya hai core fundamental kya hai uske baare mein koi question mark nahi hai baat saari is pe ho rahi hai ki yaar company ki valuation kya hai jab valuation game mein aap chale jaate hain na toh phir aapko pump and dump kafi had tak nazar aana shuru ho jaata hai jo ki ek greed based cycle jo hai na jo pump and dump ka jaisa ki humne dot com bubble mein dekha jo ki ek bubble market hai basically woh usmein phir apparent hota hai jo fundamental wali cheez hoti hai woh itni quickly scale nahi hoti woh yeh aapko nazar aati hai uske peeche underlying aapko fundamentals hamesha positive nazar aa rahe hote hain aur usmein zahir hai ki woh jo return hai jo aap expect kar rahe hain ki yaar main 2 saal 4 saal paisa double type woh toh shayad aapko na mile lekin actually aapko ek strong foundation ke saath ek cheez mil rahi hoti hai khair ek toh yeh reason tha ki bahar bahut saara paisa jaisa ki maine aapko bataya ki free money available hona shuru ho gaya tha sirf America mein nahi puri duniya mein jo unke central banks the woh paisa chaap rahe the andhadhund aur woh market mein phenk rahe the toh us free money ne kahin na kahin toh park hona hi tha but meanwhile Pakistan mein ek aur badi interesting cheez hui thi jiski wajah se startups jo hain woh kafi zyada traction gain karna shuru ho gayi thi aur ismein Careem ka ek bahut major role raha hai Careem jo ki ek Dubai based company hai jo ki middle east mein aur aur bahut saari countries mein operate karti hai woh basically usmein Pakistani co-founders the usmein jo uski engineering ka saara kaam ho raha tha woh Karachi se ho raha tha usmein bahut saari jo middle management thi jo operations ke log the woh Pakistan se aaye hue the toh generally Pakistan mein yeh ek narrative ho gaya ki yaar Careem is inherently a Pakistani company jiski wajah se logon ne kaha ki yaar acha waqai ek Pakistani startup ban sakti hai successfully establish ho sakti hai successfully scale ho sakti hai toh wahan par jo validation thi woh wahan par hona shuru ho gayi aur Careem ki growth jo thi woh badi exciting thi puri duniya usko dekh rahi thi kyunki it was beginning to emerge as the largest startup in the middle east again Pakistan mein 100 masle ho sakte hain usko hum criticize kar sakte hain hum aage ja ke discuss bhi karenge ki Pakistan ki economy mein aise kya masail hain jiski wajah se startups ka chalna mushkil hai lekin Dubai ya middle east mein toh bahut saari startups aati hain usmein ek Pakistani led startup ek dum se itni badi ho jaana was a very exciting story aur drop scene iska yeh hua ki January 2020 ke andar Careem jo hai usko Uber ne acquire kar liya for 3 billion dollars aur isse hua yeh ki overnight bahut saare log jinhone right after graduation bade young log the unhone ja ke graduation ke foran baad Careem mein kaam karna shuru kar diya Pakistan mein unhone Careem mein job li zyada tar log jo graduate karte hain na woh Pakistan mein nikalte saath hi corporate ka rukh lete hain woh kehte hain yaar maine you know UBL mein kaam karna hai ya HBL mein kaam karna hai ya main kisi badi you know MNC mein kaam karunga Procter and Gamble ke andar Unilever ke andar kuch log the generally woh jitna maine experience kiya woh koi itne high achiever type nahi the woh street smart type log the jinhone yeh socha unhone kaha yaar unhone startups ke baare mein padha hua bhi tha aur Careem jab Pakistan mein launch ho rahi thi toh unhone kaha yaar yeh toh ek badi interesting si nayi company hai bada interesting sa inka work environment hai I remember main bhi jab graduate hua tha toh maine ja ke ek interview diya tha Careem ke andar aur unka work environment aisa hota tha ki aap unke office jaye toh kuch bean bags pade hue hain sab maze mein baithe hue hain aur woh keh rahe hain ki yaar tum kya kar sakte ho kaise kar sakte ho acha kar sakte ho chalo theek hai kal se aa jaana dekhi jayegi aur bahut hi you know shugal mele mein kaam chal raha hai aur everybody is trying to solve a problem again jo woh startups ka core DNA hota hai na woh wala ek culture tha woh wala environment tha jisko bahut saare jo IBA LUMS type ke bachche hote hain woh toh waise hi dekh ke kehte hain ki yaar bro yeh kya scene hai yeh mera desk kidhar hai bro like kya situation chal rahi hai even mere saath fast ke bade aise ladke the jo keh rahe the ki yaar yeh toh inka ajeeb hi mahol hai yeh toh zyada der se chalegi nahi lekin na sirf woh chali aur usmein bahut saare ladke gaye aur unhone ja ke apni jobs li aur usne scale bhi kiya aur bahut saare inmein se jo achche performers the unko eventually woh Dubai le gaye aur Dubai se le ja ke unhone nayi nayi markets launch ki aur bahut quickly unhone scale kiya koi 17-18 different markets ke andar unhone apne aap ko launch kiya unhone ride hailing launch ki food service launch ki aur bahut saari cheezein launch ki aur ismein se bahut saare logon ko jo employees the na sirf woh tankhayein de rahe the but saath unhone stock option di kyunki jo startup hoti hai na uske paas limited paise hote hain toh woh yeh kehti hai ki yaar theek hai main tumhe utne paise toh nahi de sakti jitna let's say woh badi corporate de rahi hai HBL de rahi hai Pepsi de rahi hai Coca Cola de rahi hai but main tumhe stock options de deti hoon taake agar main successful ho jaaun aur agar main waqai paise bana jaaun jo main aakhir mein mera khwab hai ki main banaungi toh tumhe apni is tamam mehnat ka phal us time pe mil jayega aur woh yahi hua ki jab 3 billion dollar ki sale hui toh overnight lots of people became millionaires lots of people got hundreds of thousands of dollars aur ismein bahut saare Pakistani log the jo ki basically bahut zyada lucky ho gaye agar woh kahin HBL mein naukri kar rahe hote toh woh aaj wohi naukri kar rahe hote lekin woh Careem chale gaye usmein koi magic nahi ho raha tha they were doing just another job as they would be doing anywhere else but because circumstances aise unko mil gaye ki jismein unko ek exit mila aur suddenly they were able to make a lot more money than their counterparts acha ab Careem ki example badi powerful thi kyunki Careem ek aise environment mein aaya tha jismein again market mein frenzy mode on tha market constantly dhoond rahi thi ki yaar kaunsa aisa idea hai jismein hum paisa double double double triple karein kyunki Careem ki underlying profitability nahi thi jaisa ki Uber ki for a very very long time profitability nahi thi toh Careem ne ja ke yeh nahi kiya ki yaar apna business launch kiya usmein profits kamaye us profits ko eventually unhone apne employees ko diya ya apne shareholders ko diya unhone yeh kiya ki unhone apne aap ko scale mein itna bada kiya ki jismein woh future prediction karke ki yaar dekho itna banda mere paas hai itni badi market share mere paas hai iski wajah se meri jo value hai woh 3 arab dollar hai aur is 3 arab dollar ki investment ke ewaz tum agle 10 saal mein isse pata nahi kitne paise nikal loge toh unhone ja ke woh company banayi aur company bana ke unhone eventually flip ki flip karke kisi aur ko bech di lekin is time pe kyunki already frenzy mode on tha toh ismein se bahut saare log jo nikle unhone socha unhone kaha yaar acha agar Careem yeh kar sakta hai toh hum kyun nahi kar sakte aur usmein se bahut saare logon ne ja ke apni apni choti choti different companies banana shuru kar di aur sirf unhone nahi yeh socha balki bahut saara investor left right baitha hua tha usne kaha yaar Pakistani agar Dubai mein baith ke kar sakte hain toh woh Pakistan mein kyun nahi kar sakte aur yeh toh itna behtareen model hai paisa kamana dekhi jayegi koi fundamentals ke baare mein discussion karna woh sab dekhi jayegi kya aap ek interesting innovative idea lekar aa sakte hain kya aap uske upar customers lekar aa sakte hain whether woh customer jo hai woh profitability nikale ya na nikale we don't care customer hona chahiye product honi chahiye aur uski wajah se suddenly market ke andar ek race start ho gayi again mujhe yaad hai 2020 21 22 ke andar pehla toh hum ek class of Careemers nazar aayi again main maazrat khwah hoon bahut saare inmein se ex Careemers meri podcast se bhi aaye hain bahut smart log the saara kuch tha lekin jo environment tha aur us environment mein jo unhone khela woh usko khud bhi samjhenge usko khud bhi accept karenge main kisi ek individual ko nahi keh raha us us environment mein jab zahir hai ki ek narrative ek hota hai toh usmein hum sab bewakoof bante hain aur bane the toh main kisi ko single out nahi kar raha lekin that that was the direction jo us waqt chal rahi thi khair 2020 21 22 mein mujhe bhi yaad hai meri podcast ke upar off camera bhi bahut saare log aate the milte the woh ek pitch hoti thi har bande ki ek pitch hoti thi ki ji Pakistan toh jo hai na left aur right puri duniya mein investments ho rahi hain unicorns emerge ho rahi hain startups emerge ho rahi hain Pakistan is the most under invested country in the region Pakistan has 65% youth population a booming urban middle class Pakistan mein agar aaj aapne invest kar liya toh aapke thousand x returns aa jayenge aur total addressable market itni badi hai aur yeh hai aur woh hai aur woh ek hi set of slides thi matlab woh literally na kuch 6-8 indicators the koi numbers the jo ki har different chahe woh fintech wala aake bech raha ho chahe woh edtech wala bech raha ho chahe woh martech wala bech raha ho har banda aake ek hi narrative puri market mein phenk raha tha aur uski wajah se ek FOMO fear of missing out start hua jismein na sirf jo investors the left right again mere paas bahut saare log aaye unhone kaha ki yaar mere paas paisa hai maine startups mein invest karna hai kyunki startup is the next big thing aur woh random bande the like ek sahab the woh keh rahe hain yaar meri poultry farm hai maine usko bechna hai aur bech ke maine startup mein invest karna hai kyunki future toh startup hai oh bhai aapka poultry farm hai aap achi murghiyan bechte ho achche paise kamate ho chodo usko rehne do lekin woh frenzy ke andar fear of missing out ke andar everybody wanted a piece of the pie because the pie was about millions and millions of dollars khair 2022 mein finally jo hai woh American fed jo basically unka central bank hai usne interest rate finally badha diya kyunki jab aap itna zyada free money market mein phenkte ho toh usse hota yeh hai ki goods and services toh ek hi amount ki available hain lekin jo quantity of money hai woh badh jaati hai toh the same amount of money chasing a limited amount of goods usse hota yeh hai ki demand and supply ka basic usool yeh define karta hai ki aapki inflation aayegi aapki jo yeh limited goods hain yeh mehngi hona shuru ho jayengi aur wahi hua America mein ki free money could only take them so far and eventually they had to increase the interest rates jo ki almost 0% se badha ke woh 5 5.5 pe le gaye jiski wajah se ek pura shift puri duniya mein gaya woh sirf America mein usse farq nahi pada America mein toh markets jo hain woh ek dum se collapse ki taraf gayi gayi aur free money ki farawani khatam hona shuru hui aur you know bahut saari startups jo hain jo isse pehle continuous scale pe thi unhone roll back kiya eventually bahut saari band ho gayi crash ho gayi eventually humne even recently yeh bhi dekha ki bahut badi badi tech companies jo hain unhone eventually layoffs bhi karna shuru kar diye kyunki isse pehle jab aapke paas free money hota hai na toh aap shugal mele ke bhi bande rakhte ho apne paas ab yeh tha ki you know jab belt tight hona shuru hui toh jo faltu ka excessive fat tha woh har jagah se across the board cut hona shuru hua lekin uska effect sirf America tak mehdood nahi raha kyunki jab woh paisa dry up hua toh woh baki humne puri duniya mein dekha ki ji jahan jahan pe startups thi wahan pe mergers and acquisitions hona shuru ho gaye buyouts hona shuru ho gaye bahut saari companies jo ki at some point were considered as you know ki yeh toh badi unicorn hai aur yeh toh ab sab kuch disrupt kar dengi woh phir eventually unki jo valuations thi woh crumble kar gayi even India mein Byju was such a huge success story lekin agar Byju ko aap 2-3 saal pehle dekhein aur aaj dekhein toh uski valuation bahut different ho chuki hai unhone bahut saara debt liya hua tha jisko unko restructure karna pada aur phir Pakistan mein humne dekha ki you know Airlift aur aur bahut saari different companies na sirf band hui balki ab jo thodi bahut hi reh gayi hain woh layoff kar rahi hain woh constantly figure out kar rahi hain ki is naye environment mein kaise raha jaye khaskar aisi companies jo ki bas growth growth growth mein thi jinke core fundamentals nahi the unmein se agar fundamentals kabhi ban hi nahi sakte the toh unko toh band hona pada kuch aisi thi jinhone figure out kiya ki yaar chalo theek hai zara drawing board pe jaate hain dekhte hain ki yaar hum profitability ki taraf kaise ja sakte hain toh woh ahista ahista in a much smaller footprint ab operate kar rahi hain lekin overall halat jo hai na ab woh utne conducive na rahe hain na agle kuch saalon tak at least I would say 6-8 saalon tak conducive honge but having said that thoda sa samajhte hain ki startups ka model hota kya hai dekhein startup jo hai na aap ek basic idea lekar aate hain aap ek investor ke paas jaate hain aur usko kehte hain ki yaar yeh mera idea hai mujhe aap thode se paise de do lakh dedh lakh 2 lakh dollar de do main us paise se ek basic minimum viable product banaunga yani ki ek aisi basic product jo ki main ship kar sakta hoon mujhe ismein saare features daalne ki zaroorat nahi hai abhi main ek basic aisi cheez bana raha hoon jo ki koi ek problem solve kar degi aur is paise ko seed money kehte hain normally yeh early investor aata hai aur aake jo hai na aapki company ke andar invest kar leta hai kafi dafa aapke family friends hote hain kafi dafa aap apna paisa laga rahe hote ho seed money ke taur pe aur aap ek MVP bana lete ho MVP aapka successfully ban jaata hai toh aap jaate ho phir ek investor ke paas aap kehte ho ki yaar dekho mera MVP taiyaar hai ab mujhe tum thode se paise doge toh main market mein isko launch karunga aur main validate karke dikhaunga ki yeh jo cheez maine banayi hai yeh waqai bik sakti hai aur isse waqai paisa banaya ja sakta hai toh phir aap series A funding mein jaate hain jismein aapka round thoda badh jaata hai 1-2-3 million dollar aap ja ke raise karte ho woh raise karke aap basically apni product ko launch karte ho launch karke aapne validation kar li ki yaar waqai mera product ban bhi gaya hai bik bhi raha hai aur successfully ek business chal raha hai uske baad phir series B C D depending on ki you know aapne kis level pe scale karna hai jab bhi aapne scale karna hai aapne let's say Pakistan mein ek successful product launch kar di ab aap kehte hain ki yaar paisa bhi ban raha hai mera saara kuch ho raha hai lekin agar mere paas let's say 10 million dollars aur ho toh main Pakistan market ki tarah jo hai na main Indian market UAE market Kuwait market mein bhi launch kar sakta hoon toh main phir kisi investor ke paas jaunga kahunga yaar mere se 5% lo meri company ka aur jahan par mere is waqt 2 million users hain main potentially 20 million users tak pahunch sakta hoon toh mujhe 5% ke ewaz 5 million dollars de do jo ki meri cost hai you know un tamam markets mein launch karne ki toh woh phir depending on aapki kya growth ki strategy hai aap different investors ke paas paisa raise karte rehte ho aur jab jab aapki investment raise hoti hai toh aap basically apni company ka kuch kuch chunk jo hai woh us investor ko de rahe hote ho toh aapka jo apna chunk hota hai woh dilute ho raha hota hai ahista ahista investor jo hai is case mein usko isse koi garz nahi hota by and large most investors jo hote hain unko isse koi garz nahi hota ki yaar main 25 saal ke liye is company mein invest kar raha hoon yeh badi achi company hai is bande ka bada achcha vision hai yeh eventually jo hai na har saal mujhe 30% paisa kama ke profitability mein degi modern day startups ke andar investor largely aa raha hota hai paisa flip karne ke liye woh aata hai woh paisa daalta hai woh kehta hai ki yaar theek hai abhi tumhe main ek round se dusre round tak pahuncha dunga main bhi aa raha hoon tumse MVP banwa raha hoon jaise hi tum isko market mein launch karoge toh jab seed money ke liye tum paise raise kar rahe hoge toh mera stake bech ke mere jo 50,000 dollar hain uske ewaz tum mujhe dedh lakh dollar wapas dena aur meri jo equity thi ya meri jo ownership thi woh tum usko de dena aur main apne paise ko triple karke aage nikal jaunga toh investor ka jo interest hota hai woh paise ke multiples generate karke exit lena hota hai aur iski wajah se kafi had tak jo humne dekha na jo frenzy bhi hui jo market quack economics pe chalti rahi kyunki jo investor tha aapka woh constantly push kar raha tha ki yaar apne aap ko na inflate karke ek aisi ponzi scheme mein bas dikha do agle investor ko ki yaar tum kitne amazing ho without actually focusing on the underlying value kyunki underlying value is costly it is difficult it is hard and more often than not it takes a longer time agar mujhe for example make sure karna hai ki yaar jo mera customer hai woh satisfied hai woh value generate kar raha hai woh mujhe relevant profitability ke upar mere saath juda hua hai toh shayad main itna quickly grow kar nahi sakta lekin is tarah ke jo investors the unhone constantly push kiya founders ko ki yaar grow grow grow grow grow more often than not at the back of profitability more often than not at the back of relevant unit economic positive fundamentals kyunki unka largely interest yeh tha ki yaar bhaad mein gayi company mera paisa flip ho aur main agli pe jaun acha jab hum Pakistan ki baat karte hain toh mujhe personally yeh lagta hai ki pichle 2-3 saalon ke andar jab yeh pura narrative create ho raha tha startups ke baare mein toh usse kuch badi galat thoughts bada galat narrative mass market mein chala gaya dekhein jo startup se log jude hue hain na woh jab yeh sun rahe honge toh woh kahenge zahir hai kyunki main bahut simplify karke dumb down karke bol raha hoon toh woh shayad mere se naraz bhi hon ki yaar tum over simplification kar rahe ho dekhein yeh aapke liye hai nahi video yeh video ek aam aadmi ke liye hai jisne on a side baith ke yeh pure startup ke phenomena ko dekha aur usne bahut saare different talking points absorb kar liye jo ki galat the for example ek talking point jo constantly dimagh mein aata raha jo aapke dimagh mein dala gaya ki yaar startups Pakistan ki taqdeer badlenge startups se bahut saara paisa aayega humein dollar ka crisis hai humein startup se paisa chahiye humein fund raising karni hai toh hamare dollar ka crisis solve hoga ya hamari economy ka problem solve hoga jismein aapke liye samajhna yeh bada zaroori hai ki yeh paisa kis tarah aata hai aur yeh paisa kis tarah jaata hai jab bhi Pakistan mein koi startup ki investment announce hoti hai na toh usmein yeh nahi hota ki yaar 10 million dollar ki investment announce hui hai ab 10 million dollar Pakistan aa jayega more often than not ek holding company banti hai Singapore mein ya Dubai mein jahan par woh 10 million dollar aa ke park ho jaata hai usmein se ahista ahista paisa Pakistan aata hai depending on ki cost kya hai aur cost bade thode set of employees hote hain kyunki yeh companies koi bahut bade footprint pe operate nahi kar rahi hoti more often than not unke thode se 20 25 30 40 employees hote hain kyunki startup ka jaise maine aapko pehle bataya DNA hi yeh hai ki thode se employees bahut badi ek value chain produce karein toh jo actually cost lag rahi hoti hai woh badi thodi hoti hai badi minimal hoti hai aur woh wala paisa Pakistan mein aata hai meanwhile jo majority aapka paisa hai na woh aralle tarallo mein istemal ho raha hota hai woh marketing mein istemal ho raha hota hai woh kafi dafa kyunki digital services hoti hain toh woh aapki bahar hi baaron baari hi chala jaata hai ki ji mujhe Amazon data servers ke liye payments karni hai mujhe Facebook ki marketing karni hai mujhe XYZ karna hai toh woh paisa kabhi Pakistan dekhta hi nahi hai woh bahar se bahar different services ko pay ho ke woh wahin chala jaata hai aur kafi dafa again jab quack economics ka time chal raha tha toh usmein aapki product ko subsidize karne ke liye paisa bahut zyada waste ho raha hota hai jaisa ki Airlift ke time ke upar aapki bahut saari aisi grocery thi jo ki agar market mein 20 rupay ki available hai toh usko 3-4-5 rupay subsidize karke app mein dala hua tha jiski wajah se bahut saare frauds bhi hue jiski wajah se bahut zyada ghapla bhi hua aur paisa jo hai woh basically aapki consumption ke upar na distribute ho ke woh saara paisa zaya ho gaya woh bajaye iske ki tankhaho mein jaata woh bajaye iske ki middle class jobs banane mein jaata woh paisa consumption mein aur irrelevant cheezon mein saara ka saara consume ho gaya aur uske baad zahir hai naya paisa ban bhi nahi saka acha ab assume karte hain ki aapne company banayi usmein aapke 50 employees the aapne ahista ahista apna scale badhate gaye aur aapne woh jo paisa investment li aapne woh apne marketing mein lagayi idhar lagayi udhar lagayi app downloads ho gayi customer base ab bahut badi ho gayi hai company magically billion dollar ki valuation ho gayi hai toh Pakistani sochte hain kehte hain yaar billion dollar ki company Pakistan mein agar exist karti hai iska matlab hai ki yaar hamara toh bada good scene hai dekhein aapki company ki valuation billion dollar hai iska matlab yeh nahi hai ki woh billion dollar cash flow hai uska matlab yeh nahi hai woh billion dollar Pakistan mein lekar aa rahi hai har saal uski value usko jo banda dekh raha hai uski nazar mein uski value 1 billion dollar hai ab jab hum bahar se investor se paisa lete hain aur uske ewaz hum equity dete hain toh woh jo investor aap mein invest kar raha hai usne paisa double karna hai toh agar woh billion dollar valuation company ko eventually aap bech bhi dein toh woh paisa Pakistan mein nahi aayega woh ek investor dusre investor ko paisa dega aur woh investor chalta banega Pakistan mein bas ek valuable company hogi again company achi hai billion dollar valuation wali hai bilkul Pakistan ki woh pride hai toh humein tareef bhi karni chahiye humein taliyan bhi bajani chahiye lekin woh economic problem nahi solve kar rahi woh paisa lekar nahi aa rahi woh billions of dollars Pakistan mein nahi la rahi woh paisa bahar se bahar hi ja raha hai Pakistan mein sirf woh paisa hai jo ki us company ke operations ke through local PKR mein economy mein ghoom raha hai isi ke saath aapne samajhna hai ki startups by and large consumption economy ka hissa hain yani ki woh consumption ko optimize karti hain aur us optimization ke andar woh koi efficiency draw karke usse paise kama rahi hoti hain for example aapki taxi cabs hamesha exist karti thi puri duniya mein exist karti thi Careem Ubar ne aake kya kiya? Unhone kaha ki yaar ek taxi hai, usne ek bande ko point A se point B pe chhodna hai. Ab woh jab point B pe pahunchta hai, toh usko point B se wapas point A aane ke upar petrol utna hi lagta hai, banda koi nahi hota uske paas. Toh ek app bana dete hain jisme fuel jo hai woh same lage, lekin dono taraf uski rides ho jayein. Toh jahan par woh ek bande ko point A se point B chhodne ke 1000 rupaye le raha tha, kyunki uska 250 rupaye fuel ka kharcha tha, lekin aane jaane ka total 500 rupaye fuel ka kharcha lag jata. Wahan par ab woh jo hai na jaane ka 700 rupaye kharcha lega aur wapsi ka 700 rupaye lega, overall same trip ke woh 1400 rupaye kama lega. Toh us tarah se woh ek optimization bhi kar raha hai, jo customer hai uske bhi paise bach rahe hain, jo driver hai woh bhi jahan pe pehle 1000 rupaye kama raha tha, woh 1400 rupaye kama raha hai. Overall aap consumption mein optimization lekar aaye, efficiency lekar aaye aur aapne usse jo value generate ki, woh value aapne apne stakeholders ko bhi pass on ki aur usse aapne apni jeb mein bhi paise dale. All of this is well and good. Khaskar agar hum American market mein dekhein jahan par inherently ek economy consumption driven hai, unke paas US dollar as a reserve currency hai, woh basically crazy current account deficits pe chalte hain, woh puri duniya se maal mangwa mangwa usse consume karte hain aur usse valuation banate hain. Unke liye yeh behtareen cheez hai. But suddenly jab aap us cheez ko Pakistan mein lekar aate hain toh aapko realization hoti hai ki aapki economy ka sabse bada masla yeh hai ki aap consumption driven economy hai aur kyunki aap consumption driven economy hai toh aap har thode arse baad jaake aapki economy baith jati hai aur constantly baithti rahegi jab tak aap manufacturing aur export mein nahi ghusenge. Jiski wajah se samajhna bada zaroori hai ki Pakistan mein jo hum baat karte hain na ki startups aayengi, startup scale karengi, startups ki billion dollar valuation hogi, woh nahi hogi. At least in the near future woh nahi ho sakti kyunki Pakistan ki jo economic fundamentals hain, they are not conducive for startups to be successful. Pakistan jaisi developing countries ko sabse pehle apni hard industry build karni hoti hai, phir uske upar soft industry build karni hoti hai, phir uske upar services industry build karni hoti hai, phir uske baad woh jaake consumption driven economy mein aa jayein, 100 bismillah. Again, humein badi dafa misaal di jati hai ki India aur Indonesia ko dekhein. Sir, India agar aaj jaake innovate kar raha hai aur startups bana raha hai aur billion dollar unicorns bana raha hai, toh usse pehle woh 150 arab dollar ki IT exports karta hai. Woh jo 150 arab dollar hai, jo ki woh salana revenue generate karta hai, woh revenue kuch logon ki jebon mein nahi ja raha. Us 150 billion dollars se lakho logon ki middle aur upper middle class jobs lagi hui hain, jiski wajah se ek middle class consumption layer banti hai, jo ki actually jaati hai aur jaake consume bhi kar sakti hai. Pakistan mein jo hum kehte hain ki yaar hamari 65% jo hai woh youth hai aur woh jo hai na middle class hai. Sir, woh middle class zaroor hogi, woh middle income nahi hai. Unke paas itna disposable income hi nahi hai, woh itne paise kharch kar hi nahi sakte. Aap nayi nayi services le toh aayein, lekin agar bande ke paas kharch karne ke paise hi nahi hain, toh woh kahan jaake 1000 rupaye ki subscription legi aur 500 rupaye XYZ faltu ki cheezon pe kharch karegi jab uske paas buying power hi nahi hai. Sabse pehle aapne buying power create karni hoti hai. Again, innovation aati hai at a later stage. China agar aaj AI aur electric cars bana raha hai, toh woh 90s mein unhone lote, baltiyan aur har qisam ki plastic ki cheezein banayi, phir unhone copycat qisam ke saste China mobile banaye, phir jaake jab unki industrial base ban gayi, jab unka talent ban gaya, jab unki overall economy optimize ho gayi, toh aaj woh jab innovate karte hain, toh woh actually puri duniya se compete bhi karte hain aur unki value makes sense. Similarly, Indonesia ka bhi yahi hai. Maine aapko pichli videos mein bataya tha, Indonesia aur India dono ko taqreeban 20-25 saal ho chuke hain since unki jo liberation hui hai economic aur unke reforms aaye hain aur unhone apne aap ko growth ki taraf le jana shuru kiya hai. Indonesia ko aaj dekhein toh 320 billion dollars ki exports hain unki. Uske baad jaake woh unicorns bana rahe hain toh it makes sense kyunki unki ek bahut major middle class already jo hai as a consumer, woh jobs apni karti hai different industries ke andar, different export industries ke andar, manufacturing industries ke andar aur woh as a consumer different apps ko istemaal kar rahi hai jisme jo unke paas disposable income hai, uska kuch chunk woh un apps ko deti hai. Aur jab aapne market ko analyze karna hai ki yaar main Pakistan mein aa raha hoon, main agar billion dollar ki valuation nikal raha hoon, toh mera salana revenue kitna hoga? Matlab billion dollar ki valuation ka matlab yeh hai ki yaar main, for example, main quack numbers phenkta hoon. Main kehta hoon yaar kam az kam 100 million dollar toh mera salana revenue ho na, main profitability ki baat bhi nahi karta. Main kehta hoon ki yaar ek company hai jo ki salana 100 million dollar ka revenue kar le na, toh main usko evaluate kar doonga ki yaar iski main value jo hai na woh iske revenue ke 10x, 1 billion dollar laga loonga, jo ki normally itna hota nahi hai, lekin chalo main kehta hoon main laga loonga. Toh 100 million dollars ka matlab yeh hai ki salana woh taqreeban 30 arab rupaye ka revenue generate kare. Pakistan mein companies ke paas itna sa nahi hai, itna paisa hi nahi hai. Market ke paas itna revenue nahi hai ki woh jaake companies se products aur services khareed sakein itne paison ki. Toh again, Pakistan jaisi countries ke andar sabse pehle humein consumption driven products banane ke bajaye humein sabse pehle apni hard industrial layer build karni padegi. Hard industry se murad kya hai? Ki hamara kagaz Pakistan mein banna shuru ho, hamare chemicals Pakistan mein banna shuru ho, hamara jo basic raw material hota hai na, aapne agar SimCity waghera kheli ho, toh sabse pehle kuch basic cheezon ki supply start hoti hai. Phir uske upar aap further optimization karte hain. Maslan for example, aap kehte hain ki yaar main steel banana shuru karoon Pakistan ke andar. Steel ek dafa banna shuru ho jayegi, toh main uske baad gaadiyon ke frame banana shuru karunga kyunki mere paas steel available hai. Aaj agar hum baat karte hain ki yaar hamari gaadiyan Pakistan mein assemble kyun nahi ho rahi, toh aap notice karenge ki yaar assemble karne ke liye aapko jo jo cheez chahiye na, woh agar aap kehte hain ki yaar theek hai gaadi ki assembly ke andar jo purze istemaal hote hain, woh main Pakistan mein banana shuru kar deta hoon. Aap wahan tak pahunchte hain toh aapko pata lagta hai ki yaar us purzon mein jo alloy istemaal hota hai, woh bhi Pakistan mein nahi banta. Phir aap alloy pe jaate hain toh aapko pata lagta hai ki jo raw material chahiye us alloy ko banane mein, woh bhi aapko Pakistan mein available nahi hai. Toh aapki puri supply chain jo hai woh exist hi nahi karti, jiski wajah se aap aankhein band karte hain aur bahar se maal mangwa lete hain. Pehla toh yeh ki Pakistani economy ke andar agar aap consumption driven solution koi bhi lekar aayenge toh na toh woh solution chalega, na usse economy ko koi fayda hoga. Doosra, jab yeh slide decks aate the aur woh kehte the ki yaar Pakistan mein aaj sooratehal yeh hai ki 65% youth hai, itni aapki urban middle class hai, 10 saal baad yeh idhar hogi, overall meri consumer base itni zyada badhegi, toh main eventually jo hai na itna zyada revenue karunga aur usse meri itni zyada valuation hogi. Is puri equation ke andar aapne pehle Pakistan ko yeh dekhna hai ki yaar Pakistan mein net dollarized terms ke upar kya salana hum increase kar rahe hain ya hum salana decrease kar rahe hain? The fact of the matter is ki Pakistan salana, Pakistan ki jo net worth hai na, Pakistan as a country, dollarized terms mein hum salana 2 se 3 arab dollar lose karte hain. Iska matlab basically yeh hai ki har saal jitna hum bechte hain aur jitna hum kamate hain, usmein 2 arab dollar in good years aapke paas kam hote hain aur in bad years kabhi kabhar 20 arab dollar aapke paas kam hote hain aur jo woh deficit hai, usko aap finance karte ho loan lekar. Toh basically aap keh rahe ho ki yaar Pakistan ek bada achha household hai jiske andar jaake aap invest karein toh aapka bada good scene hoga. Lekin agar main us household ki fundamentals dekhoon toh main toh yeh dekh raha hoon ki yaar har saal woh paise lose kar raha hai aur har saal uske upar karza badh raha hai. Uska jo overall outlook hai, uska agar size of the pie nahi badhega, agar woh exports apni badha karke yeh keh sakta hai, for example, ki yaar main toh 10 arab dollar, 50 arab dollar jo hai main salana exports ki mad mein lekar aa raha hoon, woh paisa mera distribute ho raha hai, us paise ko main achhe tareeke se market mein ghumaunga, uski wajah se meri value badhegi. Jitna zyada paisa Pakistan mein aayega, utna zyada woh meri company mein ghoomega, jitna zyada woh ghoomega, utni zyada meri value hogi. Agar mujhe pata hai ki yaar har saal paisa hi kam se kam aa raha hai, toh main kaise define kar sakta hoon ki 10 saal baad meri kya value hogi? Toh yeh jo idea hai ki startups Pakistan mein aayengi, startups agle 2 saal, 3 saal, 4 saal mein humein unicorn startups nazar aana shuru ho jayengi, billion dollar ki valuation ho jayegi, billions of dollars Pakistan mein aayenge, ek booming si ek industry hogi, bahut fit hamara job environment ho jayega. Yeh sara facade hai. Yeh actual mein realistically nahi possible, na yeh ho sakta hai kyunki underlying jo variables hain, they are not conducive to it. And very honestly, a lot of this narrative and a lot of the people pushing this narrative are very short-sighted. They are thinking short-term ki bas woh again woh aapko yeh baat bech rahe hain ya woh investor ko yeh baat bech rahe hain is khaate mein ki yaar kisi tareeke se paisa nikalo, paisa banao, usko double karo aur aage nikal jao, dekhi jayegi. Hamare politicians bhi aaj tak yahi karte aaye hain, hamara bahut sara businessman bhi yahi karta hai aur mujhe personally bada dukh hua jab maine bahut zyada actively interact kiya na with the startup ecosystem ke logon ke saath, toh usmein mujhe bahut saare family offices wale log nazar aaye, jo seth jinko Pakistan mein kaha jata hai aur maine dekha ki yaar woh seth jo hai woh jiski sugar mill hai ya jiska woh XYZ different historical conventional industries mein stakes hain, woh un stakes se woh let's say ki IT services mein ghuste ya you know aur bahut saari interesting innovative cheezein jisme hard fundamentals ke upar mehnat karke woh dollar Pakistan mein consistently, sustainably la sakte the, woh aaye hue hain aur woh aake keh rahe hain ki yaar batao kaunsi startup mein hum kaise paisa laga sakte hain aur woh log taliyan baja rahe hain ki yaar dekho kitne progressive hain yeh seth log jo hain, yeh finally ab startups mein invest kar rahe hain. Mujhe woh progressive nahi laga, mujhe woh dumb laga. India mein jo seth tha, woh hard industry se uthke woh Tata Consulting banane mein ghusa, woh Infosys banane mein ghusa. Usko IT ka sar pair pata nahi tha lekin usko paisa banana aata tha aur aaj Tata Consulting jo hai woh 6 lakh logon ko employ karti hai, 6 lakh middle aur upper middle class jobs provide karti hai, 6 lakh khandan wahan par ab successfully established hain, jo ki consumption market mein enter hue hue hain. Hamara jo seth hai na jisko main rent seeker baar baar kehta rehta hoon ki yaar usko kyunki usko kaam nahi karna, woh ek degenerate gambler ki tarah hai. Usko hota hai yaar mehnat kaun kare, kaun bahar jaye jaake projects uthaye, kaun yahan pe baithke talent ko train kare, lakho logon ko agar mujhe IT services mein ghusana hai aur mujhe har saal uska IT exports ki mad mein paisa lekar aana hai, toh kaun us sardardi mein ghuse? Jaate hain aur jaake ek company mein invest karte hain, uski quack fundamentals banayenge aur jaake agle ko bechenge aur paisa double karke aage nikal jayenge. Khair video lambi ho rahi hai toh yahan par main isko lapet ta hoon aur main kuch cheezon ki summary deta hoon aapko. Dekhein ismein yeh yaad rakhiyega ki main bilkul yeh nahi keh raha ki startups Pakistan mein chal hi nahi sakti, Pakistan mein startups hone ka fayda hi nahi hai, jo tamam log startups kar rahe hain woh bewakoof hain, jo log tamam log startups mein invest kar rahe hain woh bewakoof hain. Main sirf aur sirf yahan pe expectations ko manage karwana chaah raha hoon. Pakistan mein, duniya mein tamam economies ki tarah, tamam countries ki tarah, startups ne eventually chalna hi chalna hai. Startups ne aake nayi services, nayi utilities, nayi disruption deni hi deni hai. Question sirf aur sirf yahan par finance aur economics ka hai ki kya valuations jo Pakistan mein humne pichle 3 saal mein dekhein companies ki jab boom cycle tha woh justified thin? Kya yeh cheez justified hai ki agle 2-3 saal, 4-5 saal ke andar billion dollar startups aa jayengi? Bilkul bhi nahi hai. Realistically haan paisa Pakistan mein invest hoga, Pakistan mein startups apni base banayengi, us pe jo quick short-term, quick return jo promise agar koi kar raha hai toh woh ghalat kar raha hai. But yes, long-term mein definitely paisa banega. Us paisa banne se pehle certain cheezein hongi. Startups ke through Pakistan ki exports nahi badhengi, startups ki wajah se Pakistan ki economy nahi badlegi. Startup is a very small node in the economy jo ki apna kaam kar rahi hai, sar jhuka ke chup karke karti rahe, koi aisa masla nahi hai. Unko overly glorify bhi nahi karna chahiye, unko overly criticize bhi nahi karna chahiye. Woh apna kaam kar rahi hain, unko karne dein, koi aisa masla nahi hai. Lekin as third party, aapko yeh pata hona chahiye ki yaar startups are not a solution. Startups are a just a symptom, an outcome of a good thriving economy. But pehle aapne us economy ko thrive karana hai so that startups can perform well. Startups jisko kabhi kabhar becha gaya as the solution to our economy, woh hargiz aisi baat nahi hai. Pakistan mein pehle aapko manufacturing banani padegi. India ka for example yeh bada masla chal raha hai ki unhone services ke upar toh bahut zyada dhyan diya, lekin unhone manufacturing base apni utni strong nahi banayi, jiski wajah se wahan par joblessness aur inequality ka ek bahut bada problem hai. Kyunki aapne yeh bhi dekhna hota hai ki aapki economy ke andar jo itne saare log hain, khaskar heavily populated economies like Pakistan aur India, toh ismein aapne har qisam ke logon ko account for karna hai. Aapne dekhna hai ki yaar jo ghareeb aadmi hai jo itna padha likha nahi hai, woh shayad IT ki jobs na kar sakta ho, woh shayad factory mein baithke manufacturing jobs kar sakta ho. Toh aapko manufacturing bhi banani hai taake woh jo hai woh ek lower middle income sustainable job mein aa sake aur woh bhi ek consumption market ka hissa ho. Phir isi tareeke se aapne IT services aur is tarah ki digital services jo modern day mein aa rahi hain, aapne usko bhi build karna hai taake bahar se successfully aap jo hai na woh dollar Pakistan lekar aa sakein. Toh pehle aapki yeh layers establish hongi jisme hard industry, soft industry, services industry, yeh puri build hongi aur yeh saath saath iske startups build ho sakti hain. Main again yeh nahi keh raha ki jab tak yeh build nahi hongi toh startups wale apna kaam na karein. Woh kaam karte rahein with the right expectation. Agar aaj ek naujawan hai, university se graduate ho raha hai aur woh kehta hai maine startup karni hai, bhai karein aap startup, koi problem nahi hai. But yaad rakhiyega, 10, 12, 15 saal lag jayenge usko us scale pe pahunchane ke liye, us glory pe pahunchane ke liye jis khwab se aap nikle hain. Agar aap startup karna chahte hain ki yaar main value ko chase kar raha hoon, maine sar neeche rakh ke apna maine kaam karna hai aur maine chahe woh do logon ko main value provide kar raha hoon ya main 200 logon ko kar raha hoon ya main 20 million ko kar raha hoon, mujhe is race mein nahi ghusna ki main bahut speed mein aage nikal jaoon. Maine aaram aaram se ahista ahista maine karna hai, then it's fine. Kyun? Kyunki jo market ki jo variables hain, woh aapke khilaf hain aaj. Toh jaise jaise woh sort hote jayenge, aap bhi aage badhte jayenge. Lekin agar aapki expectation ghalat hogi, toh aap apna bhi time zaya karenge, aap market ka bhi time zaya karenge aur kaafi dafa aapki jo mehnat hogi jo ki aap shayad successful hote agar aap lage rehte 10 saal tak ke liye aur aapne apna pura jo economic model hai, chahe woh aapki apni personal life ka ho, chahe woh aapke business ka ho, woh aapne banaya hi aisa hota ki 10 saal tak maine yeh karna hai, toh then maybe you might pull through. Otherwise ho sakta hai ki aap jo hai na woh chhathe, saatvein saal jaake kahein ki yaar himmat haar jayein ki yaar maine toh expect kiya tha 2 saal mein return aayega, yeh toh aa hi nahi raha return. Halanki shayad return ek saal aage khada ho. Woh expectation manage karna bahut zaroori hai aur khaskar jab main dekhta hoon na ki government 2 arab rupaya laga rahi hai salana startups mein invest karne ke liye, toh sir usse Pakistani economy ko nahi fayda ho raha. Usse kuch private investors ko fayda ho jayega, definitely ho jayega, but economy at large is not benefiting from it, especially pertaining to the problems that Pakistan is facing today. Yeh toh wohi wali baat hai ki aaj main 20 arab rupaya lagaun aur main space program start kar doon Pakistan ka, bahut achhi cheez hai. Main argue yeh nahi kar raha ki startups buri cheez hain aur woh toh sirf private sector ka fayda de rahi hain aur usse toh kisi ko bhi fayda nahi hoga. Main yeh keh raha hoon ki is waqt startups mein khaskar government ko invest karne ki koi logic nahi hai. We have bigger problems to worry about, we have bigger things to find solutions for. Aapne 2 arab rupaya salana lagana hai na, aap usse behtar hai ki aap talent ke upar lagayein taake woh talent create ho Pakistan mein jo ki eventually monetize ho sake. Pakistan mein talent ka ek bahut bada fuqdan hai. IT industry ke andar jo sabse bada masla hai uski growth ka woh yeh hai ki aapke paas quality ka talent nahi ban pa raha. Uske around solutions nikalein, uske around figure out karein ki yaar kaise aapne us cheez ko solve karna hai aur jo hamare investors hain, khaskar jo family money wale investors hain, sir baraye karam khuda ka wasta hai gambling band karein. Startups ke andar agar aapko, agar aapne invest karna hai again 100 bismillah aap karein, lekin phir is soch ke saath kariye ga ki yeh 10, 15, 20 saal ke liye aap apne paise daba rahe hain aur yeh paisa jo hai na itna double triple nahi ho sakta. Aur agar yeh soch ke aapko lagta hai ki yaar nahi mujhe toh 2, 3, 4 saal mein multiples wala return chahiye tha toh phir behtar nahi hai sir ki thoda sa aap paisa usko lagayein aur aap IT ke upar invest karein, jiske andar shayad aapko mehnat thodi zyada lage, lekin actually aap achha paisa bana sakte hain in the longer run. Pakistan mein I don't know aapko kisne is truck ki batti ke peeche laga diya hai ki yaar main aapke paise double triple karke jo hai na dekhein puri duniya wale kar rahe hain toh aapke bhi ho jayenge. Honestly, Pakistan mein jab main IT industry ko particularly dekhta hoon na mujhe dukh hota hai kyunki Pakistan mein IT industry chala rahi hai engineers. Aise IT ke log jinhone pehle darmiyan mein koi projects waghera kiye, thoda paisa waisa banaya, engineers the, computer scientist the jinhone eventually companiyan bana li. India mein saari growth aayi hai businessman se. Businessman ka style alag hota hai, businessman ko pata hota hai maine scale pe khelna kis tarah hai, maine cheezon ko multiply kis tarah karna hai. Hamare yahan businessman kabhi IT mein ghusa hi nahi. Uska bas apna woh apna cheeni, aate se aage nahi ja raha tha, abhi woh thoda sa gaya bhi hai toh bas woh again startup ki gambling mein ghus gaya hai woh. Agar businessman aaye, aaj IT wale ke saath baithe, paisa woh lagaye, IT wala apni technical skills istemaal kare, woh businessman jo apne paise se duniya ke smart minds ko lekar aaye, charter accountants ko lekar aaye, operations ke logon ko lekar aaye aur ek robust machinery build kare ki yaar IT services humne puri duniya mein bechni hai toh sir itni badi market hai aur ek growing market hai, matlab it's a no-brainer. Mujhe toh samajh hi nahi aa rahi ki Pakistan mein hum aaj tak IT ko kyun solve nahi kar sake, considering it is not that difficult. It is just this simple matter ki relevant stakeholders jismein businessman jinke paas paisa hai, jismein IT tech ke log, jismein government jo facilitation provide kare, yeh tamam stakeholders milke agar kaam kar lein na toh itna koi mushkil nahi hai. Honest to God woh IT wala kehta hai ki yaar main apni company banaunga, main kyun business wale ke saath kaam karoon? Businessman kehta hai ki yaar main kyun ismein lagaun? Ismein bas aapas mein saare ladte rehte hain, woh har banda kehta hai yaar meri company hogi, 100% share mere paas hoga, main ek empire khada karunga. Toh sir ek doosre ko trust karna seekhein, ek doosre ke saath partnerships karein, build institutions, build something strong jo ki Pakistan ko zaroorat bhi hai, jo ki chal bhi sakta hai. Kyunki economic variables ko samjhe baghair aap agar business khelenge toh aap short-term ke upar aap paisa flip kar kar koi MLM scheme, koi Ponzi scheme style chala toh lenge, lekin long-term ke upar zahir hai woh phir wohi hota hai crash aata hai, phir log kehte hain ki yaar Pakistan ke halaat aise hain, conducive nahi hai business ke liye. Obviously conducive nahi hai sir. Jo halaat the na aapne unko samjha aur aapne bhi aisi harkatein ki, jisse halaat ne badtar hi hona tha, usse behtar toh nahi hona tha. But nonetheless mere bahut zyada iske baare mein zahir hai opinions hain aur maine podcast ke upar bahut saare different startups se bhi baat ki hai aur VC se bhi baat ki hai aur un saaron se baat karne ke baad main is nateeje aur tajziye par pahuncha hoon. Kaafi dafa mujhe bada dukh bhi hua kyunki bahut smart log, inteha se zyada smart log, unhone bahut zyada ghalat tareeke se cheezon ko becha, jiski wajah se ek achhi cheez, again main baar baar yeh keh raha hoon, startups are good, startups are innovative, they are good in the longer run, but uske andar woh jo element of greed aur jo element of ke bas ji you know paisa double karo aur ek ajeeb qisam ka narcissism daal diya na, usse industry ko overall I feel like ki bada nuqsan pahuncha hai aur logon ke dimaghon mein badi ghalat qisam ki cheez gayi hai. I feel like ki usko fix karna ab hamari startup ki industry ke logon ka hi kaam hai. Jo log usse jude hue hain, unka kaam hai ki woh expectations ko realistic banayein, unka kaam hai ki woh manage karein logon ko aur batayein ki yaar aur aur ghaltiyan jahan par hui hain unko maanein. Matlab main yeh bhi dekh raha hoon ki startup ki industry ko thoda sa criticize kiya jata hai toh suddenly woh darwaze band karte hain aur woh kehte hain ki yaar tu toh hai hi bura aur Pakistan mein jo hai na, jis tarah Pakistani film industry nahi hai, 15 saal ho gaye hain aaj tak achhi buri product ko aapko support karna hai kyunki yaar support the film industry. Oh sir kitne saal karein support sir? Khuda ka khauf karein. Maybe aap successful honge jab aapko respectful critique milna shuru hogi, aap us respectful critique ko accept karna shuru karenge aur is discussion ko karna shuru karenge ki yaar kya hamari ghaltiyan thin aur kya aise variables the jo ki humne ghalat us waqt samjhe aur ab hum usse seekh ke aage jayenge. Agar aap darwaze band kar lenge toh you will continue to make the same mistake again and again and again. Toh mujhe yeh discussion jo maine aaj yeh episode ki hai jiske upar mere bahut saare dost yaar shayad disagree bhi karein, shayad nala bhi hon aur shayad woh kahein ki yaar tumhe pata nahi hai, tumne jo hai na ghalat variable bola hai aur tumne ghalat fact diya hai. Toh agar aapko lagta hai aisa toh respectfully meri islah kar dein. Mera toh opinion hai yeh sara kuch, main us opinion ko evolve kar loonga. Lekin mera zaati khayal yeh hai ki iske upar discussion hona bahut zaroori hai. Personally jahan par mujhe startups nazar aayengi, achhi innovative startups hongi, achha innovative kaam kar rahi hongi, main unko support karunga, main unko podcast pe bhi lekar aaunga, main unke baare mein baat bhi karunga, but with the added salt ki yaar jo jo idea hai na ki you know hum revolutionise karke ab puri duniya badal denge, woh main thoda sa ab thehrao ke saath aaunga aur main agar koi mere paas aata bhi hai in the future startup wali side se toh main phir unse bahut aggressively unko question karunga, chahe unke business model ki baat ho, chahe unke numbers ki baat ho. Um ab main yeh nahi kar sakta ki sir aap aake left right chuna party bechein aur hum usko chup karke sun lein. Mujhe lagta hai ki that is a disservice not just to yourself, to the industry and to Pakistan in general. Yahan par main is episode ko khatam karta hoon. Let me know what your thoughts are. Bahut lambi hai toh mere editor bhai jo hain woh bade naraz honge, but I am sorry Jawad bhai, which reminds me ki Jawad bhai jo hain woh ek behtareen editor hain, aapne already dekha hai tamam podcast bhi woh edit karte hote hain aur yeh jo hamari solo episodes aa rahi hain dil ki baat ki woh bhi wohi edit karte hain. Unke paas additional time tha aaj kal toh unhone bola ki yaar aap logon se pooch lein agar if someone wants to hire a remote editor toh aap jo hai woh Jawad bhai ko reach out kar sakte hain. Quality aapne already dekhi hai meri videos ki toh is level ka kaam woh behtareen karte hain. Yahan par kahin par Jawad bhai ka email address aa raha hoga. If you are interested in getting some editing work done at a very very good cost, main aapko bata raha hoon honestly, aapko bahut behtareen pricing Jawad bhai denge. agar aap jo hai woh chahte hain toh baraye karam reach out kar lijiyega is email address ke upar. But anyways yahan pe main isko khatam karta hoon. Let me know what your thoughts are about all of this. Kya aapka startups ke saath koi interaction raha hai? Jab Pakistan mein startup ka boom and bust aa raha tha toh aapke us waqt kya opinions the? Aapko kya lagta hai ke startups ka failure ka reason kya raha hai aur kya aane wale waqt ke andar startups emerge karengi Pakistan mein jo ke billion dollar valuation ki hongi ya nahi? Let me know in the comment section below. Overseas Pakistanis jo hamein support karte hain, main unka tahe dil se shukriya ada karna chahunga. Agar aap bhi hamein support karna chahte hain toh Stripe ki link niche di gayi hui hai jahan par aap click karke hamein monthly ek choti si fees hai woh aap subscribe kar sakte hain. Agar aapke koi questions hain toh yahan par thoughtbehindthings@gmail.com wala email address appear ho raha hoga, aap wahan pe mujhe woh questions bhej sakte hain. But anyways, this was Syed Muzamil Hasan Zaidi. You were watching Dil Ki Baat. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one. Agar aap apna ek digital personal brand banana chahte hain toh main apni digital media masterclass launch kar raha hoon jahan par main aapko digital media aur influencer marketing ke fundamentals sikhaunga in a two month long live bootcamp where I will be summarizing 14 years of my experience in the field. If you are interested, you can sign up with your email on the link down below. See you there.
More from Dil ki Baat
Jul 2, 2026
Five days, $500, and a one-person media engine
Muzamil documents two weeks of building his own AI stack with no recent coding experience — what Replit and Claude Code actually let a non-technical operator ship, and what it costs.
Listen →
44:30 Jun 20, 2026
The space economy's real wealth is in the startups under SpaceX
Muzamil reads the space-tech decade through one variable: the falling cost of reaching orbit. As that number drops, hundreds of companies and millions of jobs open up beneath the headline names.
Listen →
1:00:00 Jun 16, 2026
SpaceX's IPO is a pump. The space industry is real.
Muzamil reads the SpaceX IPO line by line: a 2 trillion dollar valuation on 18 billion in revenue and a 5 billion dollar loss, the index-fund rule that forces the buy, and why the real value is the hundred startups underneath.
Listen →Never miss what's next.
The dispatch - new writing and conversations, straight to your inbox.
First name, last name, email - in your inbox weekly. No spam.