Laeeq Ahmed

Career

Ahmed has said he started his IT company with zero money. He has said that after an Australian visa came through, he felt able to take the risk of a startup, which worked. According to Ahmed, the company began by delivering skills training in open source technologies, and telecom and financial firms are among its customers. [2]

He left his job at Teradata to start his own startup called ABC Data. Ahmed has said he moved to the UK and worked there. He has described his model as a global delivery centre that enables Pakistanis based abroad, and has said his organisation cannot place its own staff in the US or Australia. [2][5]

Ahmed has said he first reached out to VCs, and none of them responded. He has said his way of approaching VCs was not right, and that his focus was on solving problems, with money a secondary need. He has said he sees a trend of founders focusing on raising money rather than on their idea. He has also said his goal was to educate people through infotainment. [2]

Sarmaaya

Ahmed is the founder and CEO of Sarmaaya. He has said his IT company, ABC Data, bailed out Sarmaaya when Sarmaaya needed investment. Ahmed has said Sarmaaya Financials is primarily focused on investment, and that it provides no loans and has no interest in microfinance. [1][2]

He has said he put data up front, made it free and built impactful analytics on it. Ahmed has said he delivers finance trainings through Sarmaaya, and that Sarmaaya built an LMS system, with his team integrating a full training module. He has said he wants to offer investment training as a service to educate people, and that friends mocked him for offering the training to raise money. [2][4]

Investment platform

Ahmed has said his platform began from the question of which mutual fund returned most last year. He has said it now rates mutual funds on returns from one day to 10 years, shows peer comparisons and fund manager reports, and also shows fund expense ratios and holdings. He has said the platform aims to show investors information so they can decide. [4]

He says the team built a platform to track investments across several asset types, and that everything is integrated within Sarmaaya.pk. He says the team has invested in mutual funds, stocks and forex. According to Ahmed, the platform runs an automated analysis of each investor's monthly investment and return, shows investors their return next to the market's return, and lets users track investments through a demo account without putting in money. He says it also shows company fundamentals such as price to earnings ratio, earnings per share and book value, and that it also aims to educate investors. [5]

Investing background

Ahmed has said he invested before COVID and witnessed the market crash that followed. His first investment was made through mutual funds. He moved 100,000 rupees out of a mutual fund and put it directly into stocks. He says his 100,000 rupee mutual fund investment was cashed out at about 126,000 rupees, and that he earned a 26 percent return within two to three months. He says he booked capital losses for two to three years after he started investing, and that he studied single companies while the country's macroeconomy went in a different direction. [1][5]

He put his investment into a restaurant with three or four friends. He says the restaurant had sales of about 1.2 million in its first month, and that sales fell as economic indicators worsened and the dollar rose. He says he closed the restaurant and that 90 percent of his cash in it was lost. [5]

He first studied technical analysis, saying fundamentals were unclear to him. He took an online technical analysis course from an instructor, and says he found that online course through Facebook. He also took a course from Ammar Yaseen, and says that course really helped him design this platform. [5]

He says that when technology was falling he did not sell and kept buying near the bottom. He says he bought good companies at low prices when the market fell, and that he never bought a company that was not fundamentally sound. [5]

Views on investing

Ahmed has said investment is the only way for people to protect themselves. He advises people to invest for the long term, not the short term, and says any surplus money should be invested for the long term. He says money needed for short-term costs should sit in low-risk mutual funds. He also says uncertainty pushes the stock market down and creates opportunities. [1]

He says investors should invest in businesses they understand, should not put all their eggs in one basket and should build a risk profile. He says investors should take only the risk they can bear, and should invest only what they can afford and avoid leverage. He is not in favour of putting all savings into the stock exchange, which he calls a very risky market. He says starting to invest carries a learning cost, which may show up as early losses, and that investing also educates the investor over time. He advises against small stocks that lack strong fundamentals. [5]

He says the second best time to invest is now, and that the stock exchange gave strong returns over 20 years despite many shocks. He says investors should set goals, such as a college fund or a retirement home. He says investors do not need to check the price every time, but should understand the logic behind an investment. Ahmed has said an investor only needs to check financial statements once a quarter. [4][5]

Ahmed has said an ETF is a good bucket for long-term investing and is just like a mutual fund, and that mutual funds cost more to maintain than ETFs. He has said he would still recommend the Meezan ETF to direct stock investors, calling it a good bucket to hold. He has said the ETF is Shariah-compliant, which answers a common concern. [4][5]

He has said a brokerage is not the right platform to make money, and that brokers are not the right people to guide investors. He has said investors should not put more than 5% into crypto, which can move 25% within an hour. He has said investment is the only way to get out of poverty. He has said there is no point in building a gamified trading product, and that he would rather educate users. He has also said Pakistan needs a change of mindset rather than a Robinhood-style platform. [2][4]

Views on the economy

Ahmed has said there is no reason Pakistan cannot earn at least 15 to 20 billion dollars from the global market, and that he sees no better sector than IT to help Pakistan at this time. He has said Pakistan has suffered a knowledge drain, and that a job never gives the independence that business does. He tells overseas Pakistanis that the country needs business, not remittances. He has said overseas Pakistanis should not see Pakistan as ruined right now. [2]

He has said much activity in Pakistan focuses on buying and selling plots, with productivity next to none. He has said plot prices in Pakistan are too high for the demand, and that holding land for price rises takes housing away from people who want to build homes. He has said saving money in Pakistan is very hard right now, and that people should plan for bad times while times are good. [2]

He said the removal of subsidies shows that the government is getting stronger. He said stock market performance rose once the macro fundamentals improved. He said Pakistan is already a consumption-oriented economy, that it must produce locally and sell abroad to earn more dollars, and that it should leverage this moment to industrialize. He expects heavy short-term stress on Pakistan's foreign reserves. He said a stronger dollar is not negative for the market because 60% of companies earn in dollars, and he believes the battery domain is the next big thing in Pakistan. [1]

Ahmed has said the core problem is that Pakistan lacks market information, and that data accessibility is one of Pakistan's biggest investing problems. He has said Pakistan has 500 to 600 listed companies, against more than 5,000 in India. He has also said Pakistan's investment to GDP ratio is 15%, against more than 75% in India. [4][5]

Personal life

Ahmed's personal goal is to be financially independent by age 45, which he says means not having to rely fully on a job. He says he is building an asset for future generations. He says he keeps shares in a bank as an asset for his children rather than cash, and that he will not sell a particular bank's shares unless the company has a fundamental problem. He describes investing in himself as his biggest investment. [5]

Timeline

2016

Says he began investing, a period he describes as 2016 and 2017[5]

Appearances

Frequently asked questions

References

1. The dollar at 350 is not the end of the market . Thought Behind Things , 2026-04-06.
2. Why Pakistan needs dollars, not remittances . Thought Behind Things , 2023-03-13.
3. Stock market is not a casino. Treat it like a business . Thought Behind Things , 2021-12-31.
4. Why Pakistan's debt cycle quietly blocks you from investing . Thought Behind Things , 2021-07-30.
5. Stock market beats inflation over decades through compound returns . Thought Behind Things , 2021-02-24.