Small city creators build a 50-million-view platform

From iPhone 4 to National Scale

Muzamil opens by framing DablewTee not as yet another creator group, but as operators of “one of the biggest platforms in Pakistan.” Waleed Vakar and Taha Ijaz run multiple pages and channels pulling 40 to 50 million views per month across all platforms combined. “Can you imagine,” Muzamil asks, “40 to 50 million, you are talking about all the platforms mixed?”

The two started seven years earlier on Vine, not YouTube (banned at the time in Pakistan). They had no budget for editing software. Waleed recalls buying iMovie with borrowed money from his cousin because he had no credit card. The first videos came from an iPhone 4.

The Viral Breakthrough

Every creator needs a breakout moment. Theirs came by accident and satire. A Samsung data leak rumor circulated (the NFC chip story), and Waleed decided to make a satirical explainer filmed incorrectly on purpose. When his co-creator was out of town, Waleed shot and edited it himself. The next day: 30,000 shares on Facebook.

Muzamil notes with awe that the comments exploded with viewers arguing the video was wrong. “We were enjoying it,” Waleed says, “because the views were so many. And we said, yeah, let’s go.”

The Three-Month Crisis That Built Resilience

Scale came quickly, but fragility came with it. At one point, their iPhone screen broke. They could not afford to repair it. For three months, they could not make videos.

What they learned changed everything. Waleed describes the realization: that forced pause revealed how much their audience depended on consistency. Missing three months cost them nothing in the long run, but it showed them how to think about the business. Their parents, initially skeptical about the work, shifted their perspective only after seeing their sons on camera. When the family finally upgraded them to a new iPhone as a gift, Waleed and Taha made a decision: never depend on a single device again.

They invested in a Sony A6300 camera, 16mm and 50mm lenses, and a proper editing workstation (i7 7700K, 32GB RAM, 1070 GPU). The lesson was clear. Redundancy is infrastructure.

Gujranwala’s Hidden Wealth

Muzamil steers the conversation toward Gujranwala itself. The city is rarely mentioned in national media, yet it contributes more than three percent of Pakistan’s GDP. Master Tiles, ceramics, motors, sanitary fittings. “We export all things from here,” Taha says.

Yet the city lacks a university, lacks a dedicated children’s hospital, lacks the infrastructure cities of comparable wealth usually have. Waleed describes discovering that one of his university friends quietly owned a major export company with four factories. Nobody knew. Gujranwala’s culture, he suggests, runs on humility over display. The elite build and stay quiet. The middle class remains invisible to the outside world.

The Content Weapon

Muzamil points out something remarkable. A single one of their satirical videos about Gujranwala reached 25 to 30 million views. Before COVID, they made a video about political banners covering the city streets during election season. The video went viral across WhatsApp and Facebook in a way YouTube videos do not. Within weeks, the banners disappeared from the streets.

“The power of content,” Muzamil observes, “you have added a content piece but it is happening in WhatsApp. And the people who are relevant are coming to it.” Waleed nods. That experience showed them that their platform had crossed from entertainment into civic conversation.

Why They Stayed

Most creators from regional cities migrate to Lahore or Karachi once they have an audience. Waleed and Taha considered leaving. A few years ago, they had reason to. But they stopped.

Now brands are coming to Gujranwala. Vaskin Robbins, Al Fattah, shopping malls. Suddenly, opportunity appeared at home. Waleed explains their calculus: “If we are the first one, they are going to consider us when we are going to approach them.” By staying when others left, they became the only large media platform in a city of manufacturing wealth awakening to consumer spending. They chose to build the future locally rather than chase established power in the metros.

Advice Without Excuses

Muzamil asks how the next generation should approach this work. Taha’s answer is direct: “It’s just excuses. If you don’t do anything, then you will get everything.” They started on iPhone 4. No formal training. Borrowed money. Today, aspiring creators cite lack of equipment as a reason not to start. “Many people have learned from us,” Waleed says. “They were better than their things. And they still after 2-3 months were like, ‘it’s a lot of difficult work.’”

The difference, he suggests, is not equipment. “I feel like you did not do that for money. In the first place you were enjoying it. We still don’t do that for money.”

Muzamil wraps by noting that Waleed and Taha are examples of what happens when someone starts with an idea, zero resources, and refuses to stop. That refusal matters more than gear.