Jaffer Haider

founder of PosterMyWall

Compiled from 1 recorded interview. Every statement below is drawn from the passage cited beside it.

Jaffer Haider is the founder and CEO of PosterMyWall. Haider decided to work in the industry after graduating because he enjoyed programming and wanted to build things. He had an internship at Techlogix while at LUMS and had a job there before he graduated.

Early life and background

Haider was born and raised in Lahore. A friend of his father brought him a toy laptop from Dubai. As a child he built a text-based cricket game and made his mother play it. He enjoyed programming at age 10 or 11. [1]

Education

Haider attended Beaconhouse for his whole schooling. He completed his O and A levels in Garden Town, finishing his A levels in 2002 with a B in physics. [1]

He had planned to apply to FAST and collected its prospectus. He personally wanted to study computer science but felt peer and parental pressure. LUMS was his top priority because of its reputation, and it was within walking distance of his home. He enrolled in computer engineering at LUMS, and by the end of his first year he was clear that it was not right for him. He found the hardware and signals courses dry and difficult. Haider said the four years at LUMS were great and described himself as a decent student with a graduating GPA of 3.5. [1]

His Fulbright scholarship was in computer science. He chose Carnegie Mellon as his first choice for his master's and described it as the birthplace of software engineering as a discipline. At Carnegie Mellon, Google and other companies had offices on campus working with business schools. He spent about 16 months in the US during his master's. Fulbright master's students in his batch had to return to Pakistan afterwards. [1]

Career

Haider decided to work in the industry after graduating because he enjoyed programming and wanted to build things. He had an internship at Techlogix while at LUMS and had a job there before he graduated. He chose Techlogix because it had a more engineering-focused culture than NetSol or Systems. There he worked on a team outsourcing work for a US startup, and he worked at Techlogix for about a year and a half. He had about a year and a half at Techlogix before his Fulbright was accepted. [1]

After Techlogix he joined a small startup in Islamabad building collaborative web document-editing software. Before PosterMyWall he ran a small startup building a social web plug-in. He also ran a blog about programming and the craft, which brought job offers. He wanted to build products that real people used rather than go into academia or research. He said he did not need a core corporate career and would do something interesting with his life for now. [1]

PosterMyWall

Haider met his PosterMyWall co-founder while working at Techlogix. Before he graduated from CMU, the co-founder contacted him about the idea that became PosterMyWall. He returned to Pakistan in 2010 and spent about six months building the first version of the product. PosterMyWall launched in June 2010, and the first sale took a few weeks after launch. [1]

The company initially focused heavily on SEO to win organic Google traffic, and Haider said user acquisition is still mostly driven by SEO. In the first year after launch he spent about 70% of his time coding and 30% on blogging and marketing. The watermark on free downloads brought early word-of-mouth traffic, and the company never spent heavily on paid ads. Its first full-time employee joined in 2014. Haider said PosterMyWall can never be independent of Google. [1]

Haider said the early years held dark moments and much uncertainty. The team kept going in six-month stages to see whether the risk would pay off. In the early years he paused product work for a few months to take services projects. He said the risk paid off, and that he has been building PosterMyWall for 13 to 14 years. [1]

PosterMyWall was entirely bootstrapped and never took venture capital money. Haider said it never took such money because it was profitable and had a clear vision. He chose not to take it to keep control of the product, their lifestyle and the team's direction. He said the company is not currently interested in selling or an acquisition. [1]

The company built a community where anyone could sign up as an artist and sell templates, and template artists earn royalties on each download or sale. PosterMyWall started with pay-as-you-go downloads and added subscriptions later. It has two monthly subscription tiers, the higher one including marketing tools. According to Haider, 3 to 4 million users actively use the site in a given month. He said over 130 million designs have been made on the site, the design community has made over 2 million templates, and more than 18 million emails have been sent through the system. [1]

Haider named Canva as the biggest household-name competitor. He said PosterMyWall competes with Buffer, Hootsuite and Sprout Social in social media, and with Constant Contact and Mailchimp in email marketing. He said a small team can move faster than bigger rivals and offer more value under one roof. A fair share of its users are small shops, not professional designers. [1]

PosterMyWall has supported mobile web use from day one and has launched on Android. Haider said an iOS app is long overdue and will come. He said most paying users in developed markets still use laptops. [1]

Haider said PosterMyWall is training its own AI model on its millions of designs. He said PosterMyWall could be offered as a first-class option inside ChatGPT. He also said AI is heavily hyped and few useful products exist yet. [1]

Haider said he hires fresh graduates because they can be trained in the working style a product company needs. PosterMyWall's engineering interviews do not require a particular programming language. He said three or four years ago the company competed with candidates going abroad for master's programmes. Some candidates are now hired directly by companies, mostly in Europe, while staying in Pakistan, and many people told the company they had received offers from a German company. He said before COVID he was never open to remote team members, and PosterMyWall now runs a hybrid model with three office days a week. [1]

Haider said he does not have time to do everything himself. He said he could potentially invest in or partner with other teams to help them scale. He said scaling a product forces shortcuts he would not normally take if focused on users. [1]

Views

Haider wishes more Pakistani product companies served international users rather than only the local market. He said a developing country like Pakistan lacks the margins and fiscal space for local-market startups. He defines atoms as physical products and electrons as digital services, and said digital services need only a laptop, internet and people, with no raw material. In his view, Pakistan's main gap is a lack of product thinking. [1]

He said a community of local founders building global product businesses does not yet exist. He said Indian firms moving up-market have left a vacuum for Pakistani firms to fill. He said Pakistani engineers and marketers can compete globally with the right culture and focus. He said government policy on the sector was far less regulated in 2010 than it is now, and that the startup ecosystem is showing some vibrancy. [1]

Haider said he is cautiously optimistic about Pakistan in 2050. He said geopolitics and leadership are the main multiplier on Pakistan's future, and that Pakistan's passport has not improved. [1]

Haider said coding teaches children to break complex problems into smaller chunks. He said Pakistan badly needs the logical thinking discipline that coding builds. [1]

Personal life

Haider got married before leaving for his master's in the US. He said his spouse was very supportive in keeping a clear line between work and life. His two children take online Scratch courses, and his older child, aged 10, started learning HTML at school. [1]

Timeline

2002
Completed his A levels.[1]
2010
Returned to Pakistan.[1]
2010
PosterMyWall launched in June.[1]
2014
PosterMyWall's first full-time employee joined.[1]

Appearances

DateTitleWhere
2023-11-29 Why Jaffer Haider never took the VC money for PosterMyWall Thought Behind Things

Frequently asked questions

Who is Jaffer Haider?

Jaffer Haider is the founder of PosterMyWall, an online design tool for making designs and doing marketing online and in store. He was born and raised in Lahore.[1]

What company did Jaffer Haider found?

Jaffer Haider founded PosterMyWall, which launched in June 2010. Haider said the company was entirely bootstrapped and never took venture capital money.[1]

Where is Jaffer Haider from?

Jaffer Haider was born and raised in Lahore. He returned to Pakistan in 2010 after his master's in the US.[1]

What is Jaffer Haider known for?

Jaffer Haider is known for founding PosterMyWall. Haider said over 130 million designs have been made on the site and that 3 to 4 million users actively use it in a given month.[1]

Did Jaffer Haider take venture capital for PosterMyWall?

No. Jaffer Haider said PosterMyWall never took venture capital money because it was profitable and had a clear vision. He said he chose not to take it to keep control of the product, their lifestyle and the team's direction.[1]

Who are PosterMyWall's competitors according to Jaffer Haider?

Jaffer Haider named Canva as the biggest household-name competitor. He said PosterMyWall also competes with Buffer, Hootsuite and Sprout Social in social media, and with Constant Contact and Mailchimp in email marketing.[1]

What did Jaffer Haider do before founding PosterMyWall?

Jaffer Haider worked at Techlogix, where he had an internship while at LUMS and a job before he graduated. He also joined a small startup in Islamabad and ran a small startup building a social web plug-in.[1]

References

  1. Why Jaffer Haider never took the VC money for PosterMyWall . Thought Behind Things , 2023-11-29.
Show the source passages (106 statements)
  1. He was born and raised in Lahore. So, born and bred in Lahore. Uh, spent most of my life here.
  2. He attended Beaconhouse school for his whole schooling. so I went, uh, like to Beaconhouse. I've been, you know, a proud Beaconite all my life.
  3. He completed his O and A levels in Garden Town. for O and A levels, I ended up in Garden Town.
  4. He completed his A levels in 2002. So, I got done with A levels in 2002.
  5. He got a B in physics in his A levels. And A levels mein ek B aaya tha. Physics mein.
  6. A friend of his father brought him a toy laptop from Dubai. Mere abu ke ek dost hote thay. You know, he went to Dubai and and got me a toy laptop.
  7. As a child he built a text-based cricket game and made his mother play it. I remember, you know, making a text-based cricket game as well, and forcing my mom to play it with me.
  8. He enjoyed programming at age 10 or 11. I was just, you know, like 10 or 11, but I understood that as something that I enjoyed.
  9. He made LUMS his top priority because of its reputation, and it was within walking distance of his home. LUMS was my top priority because of its reputation or uh you know, and it was walking distance from my place.
  10. He personally wanted to study computer science but felt peer and parental pressure. Uh, I, you know, personally wanted CS but I wanted to, you know, woh phir peer pressure bhi hota hai, parents ka bhi hota hai aur us tarah ka.
  11. He had planned to apply to FAST and collected its prospectus. Um, aur FAST mein apply karne ka socha tha. I got the prospectus and everything
  12. He enrolled in computer engineering at LUMS and by the end of his first year was clear it was not right for him. I enrolled into CE, computer engineering, uh but by the end of the second um semester, end of the first year, I was clear ke this is, you know, not the thing for me.
  13. He found the hardware and signals courses dry and difficult. Because I took some hardware courses, I took some, you know, signals and systems aur us type ke courses and they were very dry and and and difficult.
  14. He said the four years at LUMS were great. Uh, the four years were great.
  15. He described himself as a decent student with a graduating GPA of 3.5. Yeah, I was a decent student. Uh, jo graduating GPA tha woh 3.5 tha
  16. He decided to work in the industry after graduating because he enjoyed programming and wanted to build things. I was set on working in the industry because uh you know, I uh like done a lot of programming and I enjoyed it and I wanted to build things.
  17. He had an internship at Techlogix while at LUMS and had a job there before he graduated. Yeah, so I actually did an internship, you know, while I was um at LUMS at Techlogics. I liked them and they liked me. So, I had a job before I graduated.
  18. He chose Techlogix because it had a more engineering-focused culture than NetSol or Systems. Techlogics had a very engineering-focused culture compared to, you know, Netsol or Systems
  19. At Techlogix he worked on a team outsourcing work for a US startup. So, I actually like did end up working on a team that was outsourcing work for a US startup.
  20. He worked at Techlogix for about a year and a half. So, I worked there for a year, uh a year and a half as all like good LUMS students do.
  21. His Fulbright scholarship was in computer science. Computer science mera tha. Uh, and once you get it, then Fulbright helps you get into, you know, different universities.
  22. He chose Carnegie Mellon as his first choice for his master's. Maine Carnegie Mellon kiya tha, that was my number one choice, and as a backup I applied to like two other universities.
  23. He described Carnegie Mellon as the birthplace of software engineering as a discipline. So Carnegie Mellon was is the birthplace of of software engineering as a discipline.
  24. He wanted to build products that real people used, not go into academia or research. I didn't want to go into academia, I didn't want to do research. I wanted to, you know, build things that real people used.
  25. He spent about 16 months in the US during his master's. it was like an extended honeymoon for like 16 months there
  26. He got married before leaving for his master's in the US. Yeah, I got married and then
  27. He said his spouse was very supportive in keeping a clear line between work and life. I think my spouse was very supportive in in in maintaining a discipline of, you know, work is work.
  28. He said PosterMyWall is an online design tool for making designs and doing marketing online and in store. So PosterMyWall is an online design tool that helps, you know, people make designs and and do marketing online uh and in store as well.
  29. He said PosterMyWall launched in June 2010. So we launched in in June 2010.
  30. He said the first sale took a few weeks after launch. It took about a few weeks.
  31. He said PosterMyWall initially focused heavily on SEO to win organic Google traffic. initially we focused a lot on SEO, making sure that, you know, we got as much organic traffic from Google as possible.
  32. In the first year after launch he spent about 70% of his time coding and 30% on blogging and marketing. in the first like year after we launched, I was spending like 70% of my time in writing code and the 30% was writing blog posts and doing digital marketing.
  33. He said the watermark on free downloads brought early word-of-mouth traffic. the free download had a large watermark saying postermywall.com. That ended up being very valuable at the early, you know, at the early stage in bringing like direct word of mouth traffic to the site.
  34. He said the company's first full-time employee joined in 2014. the first full-time employee came in in 2014.
  35. He said PosterMyWall was entirely bootstrapped. since this was entirely bootstrapped, there was that sense of commitment
  36. He said PosterMyWall never spent heavily on paid ads. So whereas abhi aaj kal it's it's typical to you know, pump in a few hundred thousand dollars into paid ads, we never did that.
  37. He said PosterMyWall built a community where anyone could sign up as an artist and sell templates. We built a community that let anyone in the world sign up as an artist or a creator on PosterMyWall and make templates and put them up for sale.
  38. He said template artists earn royalties on each download or sale. there was this whole royalty wala model around that where you know, for each download or each sale, the artist would get some royalty as well.
  39. He chose not to take VC money to keep control of the product, their lifestyle and the team's direction. Um it was about, you know, controlling the product and controlling our lifestyle and, you know, where we wanted to, you know, take the team as well.
  40. He said PosterMyWall never took VC money because it was profitable and had a clear vision. We never took them because we were um happy with the profitability, happy with the growth and and we had a clear vision for where to take the product
  41. He said 3 to 4 million users actively use PosterMyWall in a given month. There is like on a given, you know, month, 3 to 4 million users actively using the site.
  42. He said over 130 million designs have been made on the site. Uh over 130 million designs have been uh you know, made on the site.
  43. He said more than 18 million emails have been sent through PosterMyWall's system. more than I think 18 million emails have been sent out through our system
  44. He said the design community has made over 2 million templates. the design community has made over 2 million, you know, templates for everything from a poster to an Instagram post
  45. He said PosterMyWall started with pay-as-you-go downloads and added subscriptions later. So for the first four, five years, it was mainly that. And then we added a subscription model on top of that as well.
  46. He said PosterMyWall has two monthly subscription tiers, the higher one including marketing tools. we have a monthly subscription like two tiers hain, ek is a basic one and then another one, more pricier one for uh you know, marketing tools as well.
  47. He said PosterMyWall is not currently interested in selling or an acquisition. at the moment we aren't interested in in selling or, you know, an acquisition.
  48. He named Canva as the biggest household-name competitor. the biggest household name that we compete with is Canva
  49. He said PosterMyWall competes with Buffer, Hootsuite and Sprout Social in social media. on the social media side, we compete with tools like Buffer and Hootsuite and Sprout Social.
  50. He said PosterMyWall competes with Constant Contact and Mailchimp in email marketing. on the email marketing side, again, we have competitors, Constant Contact and Mailchimp.
  51. He said a small team can move faster than bigger rivals and offer more value under one roof. We can move in certain spaces much faster and, you know, given the diverse offering that we have inside one, you know, product, we can create a lot more value under one roof
  52. He said user acquisition is mostly driven by SEO. The incoming traffic, yes, the the user acquisition is mostly driven uh by SEO.
  53. He said PosterMyWall can never be independent of Google. You can never be independent of Google.
  54. He said PosterMyWall is training its own AI model on its millions of designs. we have millions of designs in our system and we are working on, you know, like training our own model
  55. He said AI is heavily hyped and few useful products exist yet. Kafi zyada hype hai aur you know um and if you look at the actual like useful like number of useful products that you can use today, that set is actually, you know, much smaller.
  56. He said a fair share of PosterMyWall users are small shops, not professional designers. we've actually seen the opposite happen in the sense ke on our marketplaces or even as our users, a fair bit of our users are actually small shops that make designs on PosterMyWall.
  57. He said PosterMyWall could be offered as a first-class option inside ChatGPT. So you can offer for example PosterMyWall as a first class, you know, option inside of ChatGPT.
  58. He said PosterMyWall has launched on Android. because of the small size of the team, we have been able to launch um on Android.
  59. He said an iOS app is long overdue and will come. but yeah, iOS is is long overdue. We, yeah, we'll be getting to that.
  60. He said PosterMyWall has supported mobile web use from day one. from day one, we have supported mobile in the sense ke you can go to postermywall.com on Chrome in your browser or on Safari on your iPhone and everything will work.
  61. He said most paying users in developed markets still use laptops. In our top selling uh you know markets like you know like developed countries, the majority of paying users are still on laptops.
  62. He said he hires fresh graduates because they can be trained in the working style a product company needs. historically I've hired fresh grads because unmein uh you know, you can instill that work culture or the style that a product company needs.
  63. He said PosterMyWall's engineering interviews do not require a particular programming language. our interviews and tests for engineering, we don't require any particular programming language.
  64. He wishes more Pakistani product companies served international users rather than only the local market. I wish there were a lot more, you know, product companies that were focused on international clients or international users than, you know, focusing on the Pakistani market because I feel that's a lost opportunity.
  65. He said a developing country like Pakistan lacks the margins and fiscal space for local-market startups. largely because Pakistan, being a developing country, um, you don't have the margins required, you don't have the uh fiscal space required
  66. He said digital services need only a laptop, internet and people, with no raw material. You don't need raw material, all you need is a laptop, internet, and people.
  67. He defines atoms as physical products and electrons as digital services. So atoms are physical products that you can sell. So, uh and electrons are digital services that you can sell.
  68. He said Pakistan's main gap is a lack of product thinking. where we are lacking right now, I think it's it's it's a very good point is is a lack of product thinking.
  69. He said three or four years ago PosterMyWall competed with candidates going abroad for master's programmes. so three, four years ago, we used to compete with people going for a masters.
  70. He said some candidates are now hired directly by companies, mostly in Europe, while staying in Pakistan. people getting hired directly while sitting here, you know, from companies, mostly in Europe, uh and a little bit in the US as well.
  71. He said many people told the company they had received offers from a German company. a lot of people have just, you know, told us, oh, I got an offer from a German company
  72. He said before COVID he was never open to remote team members. COVID se pehle main bhi, I was never opened to having people work remotely on their team.
  73. He said PosterMyWall now runs a hybrid model with three office days a week. we ourselves are, you know, like following a hybrid model where people are only required to come in three days in the office
  74. At Carnegie Mellon, Google and other companies had offices on campus working with business schools. there were actually offices of Google and other companies on the campus working on projects with their business schools
  75. He said scaling a product forces shortcuts he would not normally take if focused on users. a product you know if you really have to scale it, you have to take a lot of like shortcuts or or decisions that you wouldn't normally make if you were very focused on the user.
  76. He said he does not have time to do everything himself. I can't do everything myself. I don't have the time to be very honest
  77. He said he could potentially invest in or partner with other teams to help them scale. I can potentially um begin to invest or partner or something or the other with other teams where I can help them um again reach the scale
  78. He said a community of local founders building global product businesses does not yet exist. I feel like that community doesn't exist.
  79. He said Indian firms moving up-market have left a vacuum for Pakistani firms to fill. a lot of the Indian companies have moved to the enterprise level or have moved up market and have sort of left a vacuum you know for us to fill.
  80. He said he is cautiously optimistic about Pakistan in 2050. I'd be cautiously optimistic about about 2050.
  81. He said geopolitics and leadership are the main multiplier on Pakistan's future. the great multiplier in all of this is geopolitics and leadership.
  82. He said Pakistan's passport has not improved. our passport is still you know is still the same.
  83. He said the startup ecosystem is showing some vibrancy. the startup ecosystem is there and is is showing some vibrancy.
  84. He said government policy on the sector was far less regulated in 2010 than it is now. It was not regulated in 2010 to the extent jo ke ab hai in terms of support and and all of that.
  85. His two children take online Scratch courses. So, both of them are taking online Scratch courses.
  86. His older child, aged 10, started learning HTML at school. Uh, the older one is 10. He's he started doing HTML in school as well.
  87. He said coding teaches children to break complex problems into smaller chunks. One is the ability to break down a complex problem into smaller chunks and really understand, you know, the basics or or the core thing.
  88. He said Pakistan badly needs the logical thinking discipline that coding builds. Toh ek woh discipline milta hai like sochne ka jo ke I feel Pakistan mein waise hi bahut zaroori hai.
  89. He said Pakistani engineers and marketers can compete globally with the right culture and focus. given the right um uh you know, culture, given the right guidance and given the right focus, we can, you know, like be as good as engineers from any other country or marketers.
  90. He said there were dark moments and much uncertainty at the start. of course, uh you know, there were dark moments and and there was a lot of uncertainty at the start.
  91. He said the team kept going in six-month stages to see whether the risk would pay off. ek bet li hai toh let's at least you know, see it through for, you know, like six more months and and six more months.
  92. He said the risk paid off. And um and and yeah, it it paid off.
  93. In the early years he paused product work for a few months to take services projects. we even like stopped working on the product for a few months and and started picking up services wale products uh like services wale projects for, you know, some sort of revenue stream.
  94. He said he has been building PosterMyWall for 13 to 14 years. Yes, yes. 13, 14 years on. Uh, this is what we're still doing.
  95. He returned to Pakistan in 2010. So 2010 mein main wapas aaya.
  96. He spent about six months building the first version of PosterMyWall. Um and it took me around six months to build, you know, the first version of of the product
  97. He met his PosterMyWall co-founder while working at Techlogics. I didn't know he was my future co-founder, but I, you know, met him at Techlogics.
  98. Before he graduated from CMU, his co-founder contacted him about the idea that became PosterMyWall. And before I was graduating from CMU, uh he contacted me about an idea that he had Right. which is now called PosterMyWall.
  99. Fulbright master's students in his batch had to return to Pakistan afterwards. in our batch or either in the, you know, batch before us, yeh addendum hua tha ke I think it was lax for PhD students, but for master's students you had to come back.
  100. After Techlogics he joined a small Islamabad startup building collaborative web document-editing software. a small startup in Islamabad. Uh, like they were building um a web collaborative editing document, um, you know, software.
  101. Before PosterMyWall he ran a small startup building a social web plug-in. I had a small startup, a social like web, like plug-in type thing. I think it was called Bumpin.
  102. He ran a blog about programming and the craft, which brought job offers. on the side I used to run a blog uh about programming, about the craft and about other things as well. And that blog actually was a nice source of job offers.
  103. He had about a year and a half at Techlogix before his Fulbright was accepted. A year and a half, us time pe Fulbright accept ho gayi thi.
  104. He said he did not need a core corporate career and would do something interesting with his life for now. So, I had that, you know, like thing ke I like mujhe core corporate career ki requirement nahi hai. I'll go do something interesting with my life for now.
  105. Jaffer Haider is the founder of PosterMyWall. Jaffer Haider is the Founder of PosterMyWall.
  106. He worked at Techlogix. 15:20 Joining Techlogix