Haziq Ahmed

Early life and background

Ahmed was born and raised in Karachi, and he lived in Malir during his childhood. He studied at an Army school in his early years. He was a consecutive topper in his early school years, though he says he was not a good student up to eighth grade. He failed four of eight papers at one point. [1]

As a boy he was fascinated by basketball, and he listened to Michael Jackson and Def Leppard from an early age. He practised band music on a table with pencils. He enrolled in every extracurricular activity at his school. He passed matric with A+ grades, completing it in 2003, and then studied intermediate at a college. [1]

His father worked at PIA for 42 years. His grandfather died in a car accident when his father was 16. His father later started his own home textiles buying house and connected Ahmed with one of his suppliers. [1]

Education

In 2005 Ahmed enrolled at TIP, which he said stands for the Textile Institute of Pakistan. He studied a four-year BBA honours programme, and his major was apparel manufacturing and merchandising. He failed Textile 101 in his first semester and decided to retake the course. He said his interest in textiles grew once he began to understand the subject himself. [1]

Early business

Ahmed said the business he was part of was a buying house, and he saw that a buying house earned thin margins. He realised the buying house model would not last, as manufacturers were growing larger. At university he said he wanted to have his own brand. [1]

He had his own clothing brand by the final year of his degree. His first brand sold button-down shirts. He collected fabric in different colours himself, and customers chose the colour and style while he had the shirts made. He delivered orders himself at the university, with no delivery fee. He said his shirts sold for about 400 rupees, with a 50 rupee profit margin. [1]

He added kurtis when female customers started turning away. By the end of his final year, his business was up and running, and after graduating he turned down job offers to pursue his own business. He built his own cut, manufacture and trim (CMT) production facility, which he described as the work done after fabric is made. He added machine embroidery and then hand embroidery as the business grew, and he moved into bridal wear because margins were higher there. He began getting international clients through word of mouth, with orders arriving from the UK, Australia and America. [1]

Manchester and the United Kingdom

Ahmed applied repeatedly to an entrepreneurship programme, and his applications were rejected for two years. He was admitted to Manchester after two years of applications. He said the programme he joined was much the same as what he was already doing. He worked on a document on Zara's Asian expansion strategy, and on a Louis Vuitton project proposing a virtual flagship store. [1]

He ran for General Secretary of the Students' Union of Manchester. He said he was the first holder of a Pakistani passport to contest that election. He lost the election by 280 votes, he said. He said he was disqualified when the results were announced, hired a lawyer, and the disqualification decision was overturned on appeal. He also formed a band in Manchester. [1]

He said conditions in Karachi became severely bad in 2012. His UK orders began to fail, and he and others concluded that the business had to be closed. A client threatened to sue him. His brother had to relocate the factory twice because skilled workers were hard to find. [1]

Ahmed lived in a friend's kitchen when his money ran out, and at one point he had about 10 pounds in his bank account. He had never held a job and did not know how the job process worked. He sold monthly charity subscriptions door to door in the UK for about seven months, knocking on about 100 doors a day. He was offered a team lead role in that sales job. He then came back to Pakistan, and he said his emotions were very high when he decided to leave the UK. [1]

Career in Pakistan

Ahmed pitched a concept that was picked up by a Chinese company. He built his own hologram, and he said he pitched the concept to at least 100 CEOs in Pakistan, who liked the idea but did not want it. He returned to Pakistan in 2013 and spent 2014 trying to build the business there. [1]

A textile company wanted to build the Kapray brand from scratch. Ahmed joined Kapray as a brand manager and stayed at that company for about one and a half years. He helped develop the Zellbury brand. He moved to Alkaram with a colleague from his previous company, and he asked Alkaram to remove the double lines from its logo. He said he left a company about three years in, around the launch of its 43rd outlet. He said his role was head of retail operations and that he had become largely redundant. [1]

Foodpanda

He said Foodpanda Pakistan built about 13,000 riders within three months, and that orders passed 100,000 within eight or nine months. He said the home chef business was the first of the verticals to become gross-profit positive. He sees rider work as a major opportunity for people with few other options. He said research found the average rider earns more than a junior accountant, and that the platform integrated riders with financing companies. [1]

Krave Mart

Ahmed's mother encouraged him to start something of his own. He took an opportunity at Dukan, which he said aimed to digitise mom-and-pop retail networks. [1]

Ahmed said Krave Mart uses AI-based surveillance on ordinary cameras to track movement. He said they went live on 1 December 2021 and had raised money in October. He said they operate in Karachi, Lahore and Pindi, and that the unit economics do not work in Islamabad at present. He said they are currently a grocery mart business, and he described quick commerce as delivery in 10 to 30 minutes. [1]

He said the average basket size was about 1,000 rupees, and that customers increase their basket size once they are hooked on a platform. He said a two-kilometre drive takes six to seven minutes without rushing. He said they had started work on an automated micro-fulfilment centre and had key people on board from day one. He said they were not laying off anybody for at least the next 18 months. He expects consolidation in the quick-commerce sector. [1]

Views

Ahmed said Pakistan's apparel market rests mainly on two products: unstitched clothing for women and for men. He said he believes Pakistan could export 50 billion dollars within a short time. He said morality is the biggest problem, in his view, and that he asks what can be done today. He said he is all in for the rider community. [1]

Timeline

2003

Completed matric.[1]

2005

Enrolled at the Textile Institute of Pakistan.[1]

2012

Described conditions in Karachi as severely bad.[1]

2013

Returned to Pakistan.[1]

2014

Spent the year trying to build a business in Pakistan.[1]

Appearances

Frequently asked questions

References

1. Why Krave Mart won't lay off anyone for 18 months . Thought Behind Things , 2022-06-08.