Zayaan Bawany

co-founder and CEO of TicketWala

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

Zayaan Bawany is the co-founder and CEO of Ticketwala. At university Bawany sold tickets to his own birthday party. He ran a graduation ball at his university that later became the official one, and he ran a university networking disco night that sold out.

Early life and background

Bawany grew up in a privileged family. His family has long been in business. He has had a passion for events and marketing his whole life. [1]

He sold brownies at school and bakra on Eid. He also helped organise events at school, including the prom. [1]

Education

Bawany attended Bay View Academy and then the Karachi American School, moving for high school. He has described Bay View as a great school. He says his grades were not the best. [1]

He studied marketing at Lancaster University, which he describes as the number one marketing school in the UK. He says university gave him personal growth more than hard skills. He says he wishes he had studied computer science or data instead of marketing. [1]

His father died at the end of his second year of university. He is also a certified personal trainer. [1]

Career

At university Bawany sold tickets to his own birthday party. He ran a graduation ball at his university that later became the official one, and he ran a university networking disco night that sold out. He says he was very social and knew how to bring a crowd. [1]

He returned to Pakistan after university because he could not stay on a visa and his family was here. He chose not to join the family business and started his own venture. He brought drying machinery back with him from the UK. He received a job offer from a firm that does brand activations for events, and he also interviewed for and received offers from other employers. [1]

TicketWala

A co-founder brought Bawany the idea for TicketWala. He has two co-founders. The company first built its product as if it would be used in the UK. [1]

Bawany says TicketWala had to localize its product for Pakistan, which hurt it in its first one to two years. He says personal assistance is the standard expectation for ticketing in Pakistan. He says TicketWala no longer has event-creation functionality on its site but plans to bring it back. He says an earlier project that was doing better than TicketWala at the time was put on pause because TicketWala was always the end goal. [1]

According to Bawany, TicketWala has done close to 4,000 events in the last couple of years. The company has launched another brand and grown its artist roster from one or two artists to eight in recent months. It has managed artists, including brand deals and record deals, and has brought on a legal team trained in entertainment law. It is holding off on new artists to keep quality high. [1]

Bawany says TicketWala has bootstrapped so far and can keep doing so. He says raising early funding was the biggest problem the company faced. He says it is expanding its team now that it has money, and that people are already interested in acquiring the company. He says any new capital must be strategic and open doors. [1]

He says TicketWala's own events raised the quality of events in Pakistan. He says the company used its data on who runs the best events in terms of event management when it worked on a tour. He says TicketWala is working to export its artists and have them tour globally, and plans international expansion for Desi events. [1]

Views

Bawany advises founders to build something they would use themselves. He agrees that ticketing is a byproduct. He says TicketWala aims to grow the whole ecosystem, not just ticketing, and that ticketing would still be far behind without the wider ecosystem. [1]

He says every single metric has been going up exponentially over the last six years and expects that growth to get stronger over the next 15 to 25 years. He argues events will grow because Pakistan has no club scene. He says funds and record labels have started coming into Pakistan in recent years, and that the entertainment market in Pakistan has barely been tapped. [1]

He says Pakistan and India shows need to be curated, and that TicketWala aims for a different experience for each artist it works with. He cites city shutdowns, last-second NOC cancellations and venues that cannot cope or are not good enough. He says all TicketWala artists have more listeners in India than in Pakistan, and that an 80% drop followed India's ban on Pakistani artist streaming. [1]

Timeline

2019
TicketWala begins as a blog.[1]

Appearances

DateTitleWhere
2025-10-15 Ticketing is the byproduct, the ecosystem is the product Thought Behind Things

Frequently asked questions

Who is Zayaan Bawany?

Zayaan Bawany is the co-founder and CEO of TicketWala. He was born in Karachi and studied marketing at Lancaster University. He personally manages TicketWala's events and ticketing side.[1]

What does Zayaan Bawany do?

Zayaan Bawany is the co-founder and CEO of TicketWala, and he personally manages its events and ticketing side. According to Bawany, TicketWala has done close to 4,000 events in the last couple of years.[1]

Where did Zayaan Bawany study?

Zayaan Bawany attended Bay View Academy and then the Karachi American School. He later studied marketing at Lancaster University.[1]

Where is Zayaan Bawany from?

Zayaan Bawany was born in Karachi. After university he returned to Pakistan because he could not stay on a visa and his family was here.[1]

What company did Zayaan Bawany found?

Zayaan Bawany co-founded TicketWala. It began in 2019 as a blog and launched its ticketing product about three months before COVID. He has two co-founders.[1]

Is TicketWala funded by investors?

Zayaan Bawany says TicketWala has bootstrapped so far and can keep doing so. He says raising early funding was the biggest problem the company faced.[1]

References

  1. Ticketing is the byproduct, the ecosystem is the product . Thought Behind Things , 2025-10-15.
Show the source passages (64 statements)
  1. Zayaan Bawany is the Co-Founder and CEO of TicketWala. Zayaan Bawany, the Co-Founder & CEO of TicketWala
  2. Zayaan Bawany was born in Karachi. Born in Karachi, raised in Karachi.
  3. He grew up in a privileged family. We grew up quite privileged in that sense, Alhamdulillah.
  4. His family has long been in business. Business was always a big part of my family.
  5. He chose not to join the family business and started his own venture. I didn't go into that for numerous reasons, and decided to start my own thing
  6. He has had a passion for events and marketing his whole life. I had a passion for events my entire life, events and marketing.
  7. He sold brownies at school and bakra on Eid. I sold brownies in school, I sold bakra on Eid.
  8. He helped organise events at school, including the prom. So, the school, like the prom, and this and that, you know, I was helping with the organization of all of that.
  9. At university he sold tickets to his own birthday party. When I went to university, I was doing my own events. I sold tickets, literally, to my own birthday.
  10. He ran a graduation ball at his university that later became the official one. did the graduation ball for the university, opposed the official graduation ball, ours became the official one eventually
  11. He attended Bay View Academy and then the Karachi American School. I went to Bay View Academy, and then I went to the Karachi American School.
  12. He says Bay View is a great school. Yeah, so Bay View is a great school, it always has been.
  13. He moved from Bay View to Karachi American School for high school. being in Bay View up until, let's say, O Levels and switching to KAS for high school
  14. He says his grades were not the best. My grades were probably not the best, to be honest, I mean I wasn't a bad student, but I wasn't like the best student.
  15. He studied marketing at Lancaster University. I went to Lancaster University for marketing.
  16. He describes Lancaster as the number one marketing school in the UK. It was the number one marketing school in the UK.
  17. He says he wishes he had studied computer science or data instead of marketing. So, I wish I went for something else, maybe Computer Science or Data, or something of that sort.
  18. He says university gave him personal growth more than hard skills. I grew a lot as an individual. I didn't learn much of a hard skill.
  19. His father died at the end of his second year of university. because my father had passed away in the end of my second year
  20. He returned to Pakistan after university because he could not stay on a visa and his family was here. but I couldn't because of the visa, and then my family was here as well, so I came back.
  21. He is a certified personal trainer. I'm a certified personal trainer
  22. He brought drying machinery back with him from the UK. I actually brought the machinery back with me from the UK, so I could actually dry
  23. He received a job offer from a firm that does brand activations for events. a place I really wanted to work at, Impact Activation Services, they do brand activations for events, and I got an offer from there
  24. He also interviewed for and received offers from other employers. I got I interviewed and got offers from, let's say, HBL
  25. A co-founder brought him the idea for TicketWala. But when Ticketwala's idea came, the other Zayan, he brought the idea to me
  26. TicketWala began in 2019 as a blog and launched its ticketing product about three months before COVID. Yeah, 2019 and we were a blog for the first year, and then we launched our MVP 3 months before COVID with ticketing.
  27. He has two co-founders. And my two co-founders, Zayan and Rehan, the other one is also Zayan.
  28. He says he was very social and knew how to bring a crowd. I knew a lot of people, I was very, very social and so I knew I could pull a crowd
  29. He ran a university networking disco night that sold out. networking slash disco night that we had at university, that was sold out
  30. He advises founders to build something they would use themselves. when you're identifying a business, it needs to be something that you yourself would use.
  31. TicketWala first built its product as if it would be used in the UK. So, we built out our product like it should have been used in the UK.
  32. He says TicketWala had to localize its product for Pakistan, which hurt it in its first one to two years. so you have to localize, and so that really screwed us in the first year to two years, and then we changed it.
  33. He says personal assistance is the standard expectation for ticketing in Pakistan. Over here, personal assistance and someone doing it for you is the standard
  34. He says TicketWala no longer has event-creation functionality on its site but plans to bring it back. Now we don't even have that create event functionality on our site, but we're bringing it back
  35. He says TicketWala has done close to 4,000 events in the last couple of years. we've done, you know, close to 4,000 events in the last couple of years
  36. He says an earlier project that was doing better than TicketWala at the time was put on pause because TicketWala was always the end goal. Eventually we put a pause on that, even though it was doing better than Ticketwala at the time, Ticketwala was always the end goal.
  37. He says TicketWala has launched another brand. we've launched another brand called Source Talent
  38. He says TicketWala grew its artist roster from one or two artists to eight in recent months. we've suddenly now expanded also over the last, you know, couple of months from your one, two artists to eight artists
  39. He says TicketWala is holding off on new artists to keep quality high. we're kind of holding off on bringing new artists because it's about maintaining the quality with those artists
  40. He says TicketWala has brought on a legal team trained in entertainment law. we've actually got a legal team on board, right? That's specifically trained on it, entertainment law.
  41. He says TicketWala has managed artists, including brand deals and record deals. We were actually managing the artists, doing the brand deals, record deals, all that stuff.
  42. He says TicketWala is expanding its team now that it has money. So before we didn't have the funding, and so now that we actually have money, what we're doing is we're expanding the team.
  43. He personally manages TicketWala's events and ticketing side. I personally manage the entire events and ticketing side.
  44. He says TicketWala has bootstrapped so far and can keep doing so. we've bootstrapped this entire time and we can continue to do that.
  45. He says people are already interested in acquiring the company. We know that people are already interested in acquisition.
  46. He says any new capital must be strategic and open doors. But whatever capital comes in needs to be strategic. It needs to open doors for us.
  47. He says raising early funding was the biggest problem TicketWala faced. And this is actually the biggest problem we faced when we were trying to initially raise funding.
  48. He agrees that ticketing is a byproduct. Ticketing is the byproduct as you mentioned.
  49. He says TicketWala aims to grow the whole ecosystem, not just ticketing. we're not just trying to do the ticketing and the marketing or just work with artists, we're trying to grow the ecosystem as a whole.
  50. He says ticketing would still be far behind without the wider ecosystem. Without that, I guarantee ticket, you know, ticketing would still be way, way behind where we are right now.
  51. He says every single metric has been going up exponentially over the last six years. Every single metric is going up exponentially and has been over the last six years.
  52. He expects that growth to get stronger over the next 15 to 25 years. We see that growth to only get stronger over the next 15, 20, 25 years.
  53. He argues events will grow because Pakistan has no club scene. So there's no club scenes and culture over here. But that is exactly why events will grow exponentially.
  54. He says funds and record labels have started coming into Pakistan in recent years. we've seen funds coming into Pakistan, record labels coming into Pakistan
  55. He says the entertainment market in Pakistan has barely been tapped. I don't think you've even scratched the surface of entertainment in Pakistan right now.
  56. He says TicketWala plans international expansion for Desi events. there is also an element definitely of international expansion that we want to do that is for Desi events
  57. He says Pakistan and India shows need to be curated. you need to curate these Pakistan and India shows as well.
  58. He says TicketWala aims for a different experience for each artist it works with. trying to not replicate, but create these different unique experiences for different artists based on them.
  59. He cites city shutdowns, last-second NOC cancellations and venues that cannot cope or are not good enough. city shuts down, you know, last second pe NOCs cancel ho jaate hain, and venues just can't handle it or they're just not good enough.
  60. He says TicketWala's own events raised the quality of events in Pakistan. we've even tried to do our own events to up the quality, and it did, it worked
  61. He says TicketWala used its data on who runs the best events in terms of event management when it worked on a tour. when we worked with the Nautanki Tour, we again leveraged the fact that we had the data on who does the best events in terms of event management
  62. He says TicketWala is working to export its artists and have them tour globally. So we're working on exporting our artists, having them do tours all over the world, having them work with different labels
  63. He says all TicketWala artists have more listeners in India than in Pakistan. all of our artists have more listeners in India than they do in Pakistan
  64. He says an 80% drop followed India's ban on Pakistani artist streaming. India banned Pakistani artist streaming. And overnight you saw an 80% dip.