Ziyad Parekh: RAAST Will Change Every Online Payment in Pakistan

नमस्कार, नमस्कार. Welcome back to another episode of thought behind things. जैसा कि आपको पता है हमारी आज को series चल रही है with Endeavor Pakistan जहां पर हम 50 of the most exciting startups slash businesses in Pakistan को explore और discover कर रहे हैं. Endeavor Pakistan for those of you who don't know, it's a incredible global community of entrepreneurs and startup founders and VCs जो कि emerging markets में particularly different startup founders को help और support करते हैं without taking any money or equity in becoming global, in becoming unicorns. Essentially, पाक़िस्तान में भी बहुत सारी companies हैं जो endeavor entrepreneurs हैं और उनको उनकी industries में different पूरी दुनिया के different, you know, unicorn founders से और बड़े बड़े businessman से connect करना endeavor जो है वह बहुत actively कर रहा होता है. If you're a startup or a big business or a fast growing business, you should definitely check these guys out. नीचे link description में है. साथ ही जो आज की हमारी conversation है, this is being recorded in kick start in लोहौर. So shout out to those guys, you know, हमेशा हमें support करते हैं and providing us the location. साथ ही, you know, if you guys haven't subscribed yet, I would urge you कि आप ज़रूर इस series को subscribe करें. This is low viewership, high quality content. तो जितने ज़्यादा subscribers होते हैं उतना ज़्यादा हमें फ़ायदा होता है इसको बनाने में. And साथ ही अगर आपको ये conversations पसंद आती हैं तो like और एक comment ज़रूर छोड़ दिया करें because that helps exports, about getting dollars into Pakistan और उसमें काफ़ी दफ़ा एक debate भी आती है कि हमें services से हटकर products की site पर जाना चाहिए. हमें you know global जो market है उसको service करना चाहिए लेकिन ज़्यादा ज़्यादा nuance के साथ सिर्फ़ brain dead गोरा कुछ बना बनाएगा बताएगा और हम उसके लिए बनाकर के सस्ते में करके उसको भेज देंगे, which is fine, which is again I'm a big proponent of that industry and that work as well. But अगर आपको high value काम पर जाना है तो उसमें products play a huge role. ज़ाहिर है कि यह बात तो करना बड़ा आसान है लेकिन Pakistan में आपको बड़ा ढूंढना पड़ता है कि यार कौन सी कैसी company है जो कि products के ऊपर focused है और actual में successfully global market को service कर रही है. Recently I think एक या दो episodes पहले आप लोगों ने viral से सुना होगा कि कैसे एक छोटी सी, you know, स्लाहाबाद में couple of guys get together and create an incredible huge AI first company. इसी तरह की एक और कहानी आज मैं लेकर आ रहा हूं जो कि basically it's a the company is called software finder. जो लोग शायद, you know, काम के industry में हैं, software's वग़ैरह ढूंढते हैं, HR वगैरह में उनको शायद इनके बारे में पता भी होगा. Unfortunately, मुझे बड़ा दोख है कि मुझे नहीं पता था because they're doing incredible work. Essentially, काम उनका यह है कि वह आपको जाकर अगर आपको किसी के संघ का भी software ढूंढना है तो आप उनकी product के ऊपर जा सकते हैं और आप जाकर के ढूंढकर, you know, reviewed और verified आप उससे निकाल सकते हैं. बड़ा simple sound करता है, लेकिन उसके पीछे एक बहुत बड़ा engine है जो कि उन्होंने पिछले आठ साल में बनाया है. आज हमारे साथ मौजूद हैं शान और अदनान who are the chief operating officer and the chief executive officer and also the cofounders of software found, Software Finder. The company is now, you know, it's it's pretty huge at this point in time. पृथ्वी आसन बोज़ार grow किया है. इस सबको हम समझेंगे, but this is TBT season five, लाहौर studio. This episode of Thought Behind Things is presented in partnership with Endeavor Pakistan. अद्नान भाई, शान भाई, thank you so much for taking the time out and joining us. Thank you, अंबिल. Thank you for having us. Thank you, Miss अंबिल. Pleasure to be here. मैं मैं थोड़ा सा conversation start करूंगा. अब सबसे पहले तो I want to give the viewer some context, right? So tell me about Software Finder. मैंने थोड़ा सा आपने हिसाबें summarize करने की कोशिश की, but I know I would definitely be very off. So, I would like to directly hear from you. What is Software Finder? What is the scale that you're operating at right now? और थोड़ा सा इसके बारे में मुझे expand out करें.

जी, Software Finder basically is a it's a marketplace where we connect buyers and sellers in the B2B software space. So Mhmm. In a simple words, if a company is looking for a software, so they will, probably Google the top software or, you know, the top HR software. They're looking for a HR software or project management software. And then, eventually, we will, get them from Google to our website. And the platform or the website helps them like any marketplace do in order to compare different software, in order to give them the reviews, which is basically the experience for other similar users, and basically help them narrow down options, from, let's say, a thousand different option to top five or top 10 that they should look at. From the buyer side, that's the biggest value that we are providing. From the seller side, obviously every software vendor if you have a product you are looking for leads primarily to sell to and on the on so on the vendor side the value addition is that we provide them with these prospective buyers जिनको you know they can call and then convert them into paying customers. So basically we are a bridge between software buyers and software sellers which is not very common. Mean if you think of if you need to buy a car, आप आपके में park wheels आएगा, if you need to buy a house आपके ज़ेहन में ज़मीन.com आएगा but if you need to buy a software there are not many brands that you can think of or you will go to and that's the space which we are filling in by building Software Finder.

Makes sense and the second part of the question के इस वक्त क्या scale है?

So currently, we are at three fifty plus employees, मार्चला in four different countries. 90% of the workforce is in Pakistan. We have offices in Dubai, US and Canada, and the 10% of workforce is outside of Pakistan as well. Almost 100% of the customer base is The States, US. We have the option to scale to Europe and MENA region as well, but the scale in US is such vast and with the existing AI landscape and the fact that the industry is booming and there's a lot of ambiguity around what will happen in the software's aspects in general. So we are unable to meet the demand that we have currently for the services that we provide. So US is a target market. To give you an idea of the scale, Marshalla, from 2024 to 2025, we have increased from roughly around 200 employees to three fifty employees. So माशिला, we are standing in October. I think we've hired approximately 120 people,

majority of them being in Pakistan. Yeah. और यह Pakistan में I mean, guys are based out of लाहौर exclusively or is it like hybrid remote? No. We

would love to. That's where we've, you know, trying to work to expand. But अदनान and myself, we've been born and raised in लोहौर. So the affinity from लोहौर is so strong that we are trying our best to venture into other cities. But the scale at which we are operating, I think it's a given that we have to do it. We have to expand to कराची and इस्लामा to tap that talent base as well. And that's a big agenda for 2026, इंशाला.

Makes sense. Before I go forward, again, पता लगे. मेरे पास बड़े सवाल हैं इसको further expand करने के लिए कि यार किस किस्म का है, क्या है? But I wanna sort of understand both of you first and because you mentioned कि यार we were born and raised in लोहौर and we have a particular affinity. I'd love to. And I'll start with अदनान, but just give me a quick summary of where were you born? Early life आपने कहां पर गुज़ारी? And and and, you know, early experiences आपके क्या थे education के और professional before you started Software Finder?

Yeah. So I'm just wanna correct here. I was born in कराची.

बड़े emotional हो गया ना यह लाहौर कराची वाले बड़े emotional होते हैं मामलात.

I was born and raised in कराची. My schooling I moved to लाहौर. लाहौर में I went to government college लाहौर And then after my government college experience, I've decided to go to London for Bachelor's in Computer Science. So from North London I was there for about four years to do my graduation.

What year was this? This was 2001

to 2005. Nice. और फिर Pakistan after my degree, my patriotism was there that you know I have to do something in Pakistan. From February में Pakistan was booming as well. So we decided to go back and then you know I was in Lahore since then after that you know spending fifteen years in लाहौर about ten fifteen years in लाहौर then I have decided to move to Australia and then we actually you know building this business while I was in Australia and now recently because travel was getting too much going to US and going to Lahore from Australia was becoming too much and then last year decided to move to Dubai. So now I am based out of Dubai and but I am in लाहौर office almost every month which is why we move to Dubai which is really helping.

Makes sense. शान what about you? Great. First of all, sorry I forgot totally. Yeah, अद्नान was born in कराची because I have known अद्नान for the past thirteen years and लाहौर has made such a strong presence कि मेरे लिए is a through and through लाहौरी of sorts. So लाहौर ग्राची can work together. So लाहौर ग्राची can work together. You know it's just a matter of names, different names. So, yeah, I was born in लोहौर, stayed here for a good thirty years of my life. So, you know, did my schooling from Beacon House, graduated from Lums in 2011. I am... Have a hardcore finance degree. Did corporate sales in one of the companies, in petrochemicals for a good two years. That's where I got a good idea of how to close sales in in on a on a scale, you know, millions of dollars worth of petrochemical trades and everything. Then went to another company. That's where the digital marketing bug hit me and that's where I met Adanaan as well. Because Adanaan is also my former boss. We were report, I was reporting to him back in the company that we were working for, a US based company. Adnan was setting up the digital marketing department and I was the first or the second person hired in that department. And a good trivia is that the first person I was hired in that department is the third co founder who handles the marketing side as well. So that shows the the how the company and that's pretty solid info for how we got together back in 2018. But yeah, did that for three years and that's where we realized even in its nascent stage back in 2013, West, when West was adopting digital marketing and the software landscape and all of that bit. I think that was an extremely crucial part where the idea was, you know, subconsciously developing in our brains and in our minds. And did that for three years, मानसिला. The company reached to a great level. The digital marketing team was set up. We were doing inbound, outbound back in 2016. And that's where I moved to Karachi, stayed in Karachi for five years. I was doing investments... Investment strategy for a conglomerate. Did that for five years. Went to Canada to explore my luck. Stayed there for five years. Luckily, I moved to Canada in 2020 and February we moved. March COVID hit and we were lucky enough that we were already working on Software Finder. So we didn't, I didn't have to work or look for another job and did that for a good five years. And then obviously this year in January, we realized कि even as a head of operations, it is not easy when 90% of the workforce is in Pakistan and there's a twelve hour का time difference and then you're operating in the in The US as well. So we had to move to Dubai as the base for the company and yeah, that's that's where we stand.

Makes sense. जो आप लोगों का commonality है वह my understanding is that's QRMD, right? So very well known. मैं ख़ुद computer science का graduate हूं Pakistan से तो आपको ना जो आप graduate कर रहे ना QRMD का एक बड़ा नाम होता One है of the bigger companies जहां पर people aspire to go to. I'd be curious how much of a role did that play because particularly अगर मैं शान भाई आपका देखूं तो आपका बड़ा divers किस्म का experience है. Yeah. Right? So एक point के ऊपर you know you got hardcore sort of दाऊद Hercules I believe. जो कि एक बड़ा family office group Pakistan का जिसके अंदर आप different किस्म के investments कर रहे हैं. उससे पहले petrochemical का है. दरमियान में एक छोटा सा moment आता है of of of hardcore enterprise software sales. And उनका जो दूसरा अद्नान भाई है उनकी तो मुझे समझ आती है क्योंकि वह तो computer science के हैं. उनके लिए मेरी लिए curiosity होगी कि जो computer scientist होते ना ख़ास का दो हज़ार एक से दो हज़ार पांच का. One of my brothers has graduated around the same time computer science के अंदर. उस time का जो computer scientist था, उसका बड़ा वह बड़ा नवाब था. उसका होता था, यार मैं engineer हूं ना, तो engineering ही चक्करता था. वह जो है, वह थोड़ा सा to go from that and evolve into sort of their digital marketing and the sort of enterprise sales side is an interesting shift. So I'm curious कि because you guys off camera also mentioned कि जो software finder का core concept था वह भी तभी बना था जब हम साथ बैठकर काम कर रहे थे even though eventually later वह हुआ. I'm curious कि when you guys were together during that sort of two, three years of CuemD, so what clicked? And what do you think enabled this eventual idea? And again, मैं context इसमें quickly अगर add कर सकूं. Sorry, थोड़ा सा लंबा हो रहा है. But context यह है कि जो एक चीज़ मुझे बड़ी solid आपकी लगती है ना वह यह लगती है कि आप लोग industry में पूरा घूम घुमा कर आए and then my understanding is कि जब आप इसके ऊपर finally घुसे एक एक ऐसी space में जिसमें बहुत random लोग exist ज़रूर करते हैं. आपने कहा ना कि platform exist नहीं करते हैं तो मैं आज भी अगर डालता हूं HR software तो मुझे you know software helper, come see software.com type बहुत सारे random लोग हैं जिन्होंने WordPress पर कुछ बनाया हुआ है वह AdSense की game खेल रहे हैं. आप उस game को बहुत आगे तक ले जा सके because you had that insight that I feel like was generated because you spend all of that time in the industry and were able to really understand how that customer works. So so run me through that that cure MD time and and and what was that that sort of built the foundations for this idea?

Sorry, I think you wanted शांत to go first. Yeah, I'll go first. So, yeah, like you mentioned मुज़मिल, I would like to have a story. It was all pre planned but unfortunately that's not the case. It just happened by luck. First company that I joined, I had a good friend that also happens to be the co founder of दफ्तर ग्वां similar co working space for Kickstart. He was my bachelorette. He was working in the international petrochemical setup and I was looking for a job. He just gave me a call and I delved into that. I had a finance का background. I didn't go for MNCs, Unilever, PNG and all of that bit. That's a different story. But I went into that, did that for a good two years and that was a bubble burst after, you know, moving from lumps कि सही business, sales, hardcore reality business की क्या है? How much effort does it take for one sale to materialize? क्योंकि किसी से पैसा निकलवाना और उसको कुछ offer करना is, is the key when it comes to a business run, when you are running a business. So that was extremely crucial. Then again I, we had some sort of, you know, bits where I wasn't seeing eye to eye with the way the work was being done there. So I resigned and I was looking for a job and I saw an opportunity on maybe रोज़ी.pk I guess for QRMD. It wasn't pre planned. I think one week after taking out my time and, you know, understanding कि what has happened, where do you want to go. The first job that I applied and I still remember अदनान interviewing me as well and answering me and asking me कि finance का background है, sales का background है, digital marketing में क्या गन्या रहे हो? And I don't know what, what, what answer I gave him but I had no clue and I was lucky to be a part of that. तो जो तीन साल का जो experience था ना तो it happened by, by, by chance. And then obviously twenty three years coming to the point कि QRMD ने हमें कितना help किया है. I generally feel कि अगर QRMD ना होता, वो तीन साल का experience ना होता. उस time digital marketing, उस time marketing automation tool, Pardot, Marketo, जो उस time पर चार पांच हज़ार dollar per month पर हम लोग use कर रहे थे. Landing page create करना, email templates खुद से hard code करके sequencing and everything. अगर वह तीन साल में ना आती तो वह exposure ही ना develop करता था. QRMD gave us a lot of exposure and, you know, so that was, that was great as well. And I think that's when I would love to tell you कि हमने वहीं plan कर लिया था कि हम company करेंगे, then nothing of that sort happened. We went on separate ways. उस दिनान went to Australia. I was in Karachi, and I think 2018 is where we reconnected and we started discussing this idea. And that's where it all began. But yes, coming to the point where you've asked कि मेरा इतना diverse background है. अद्रान has been in a single straight line considering वह. Think it happened by chance but it has helped me evolve into a well rounded individual where I believe कि मैं कुछ business और ops की side पर देख सकता हूं, उसको scale कर सकता हूं. तो ultimately it happened for the best as far as I see it. जीवन. Right,

so yeah I mean it sounds कि you know being after software engineering why I shifted there. So मेरे से it's I by the way 2005 when I I I did my majors in AI which was the world didn't really know about AI so maybe Pakistan का पहला software graduate home में जिसने AI में matches किया था back in 2005 where the the hardware didn't exist to run any query. So I think after graduation जब मैं Pakistan आया तो I was working for TRG in their IT for for about a year and then it was not very exciting and then I was looking for different opportunities and then I joined CureMD I believe in 02/2007 and then I was there for about nine ten years. So when I joined the company was maybe 70 employees. So it was a very early times. QRMD इतनी को I think growth नहीं देखी थी. And then when I left QRMD was touching about eight nine hundred employees. So I was part of the, you know, the major journey. But I think since the start I was not very much into tech. मेरा ज़्यादा जो interest था वह business side of things था, interacting with people, interacting with customers rather than. I was not a kind where I can you know sit behind laptop and do coding all day long and then because QRMD was growing I got a lot of opportunities there to learn different aspect of businesses you know customer service कैसे होती है, software implementations कैसे होती हैं, customers के क्या issues आते हैं when they implement technology. And then in QRMD I think 2010 I started you know digital marketing and you know helping them out in sales and that's where I realized that there is a lot of gap in software product companies focus a lot on product and they don't focus on marketing or sales that much especially product companies in Pakistan क्योंकि marketing और sales कितना exposure नहीं है यहां पर. So I think that's where we started building the team. Sean and Mariam our co founder was the first few employees. तो हमने वहां से शुरू किया कुछ बहुत ज़्यादा knowledge नहीं थी and then we kept on learning how things are going. This is back in 2012 जब इतने कुछ बहुत ज़्यादा marketing automation के tools भी नहीं थे sophisticated. Sophisticated. SEO भी ज़्यादा लोगों को नहीं पता था, digital marketing का बहुत ज़्यादा idea नहीं था. Social media was not that you know old back then too. So, उसमें I think we did really well तीन चार साल hardcore marketing में काम किया, figured out what are the issues customer side पर when they are looking for tools and specially during that time obviously being part of marketing and sales we were looking for leads and you know prospects and how to really find them. वहां पर यह idea click होना शुरू हुआ कि you know there is there are not many places जहां पर prospect can go and find out some sort of a help कि कौन से tool उनके लिए बेहतर है या किसी ने यह research की हो उनके लिए. For someone to look for a B2B software easily you can spend two three months just researching कि कौन सा best tool है. आप आप within a week भी find out नहीं कर सकते you know what is the best tool and even after spending two three months आपको तब भी पता नहीं होता कि is this the best tool in the world that I am purchasing क्योंकि आप उस दो तीन महीने में भी कितने पांच दस tools evaluate कर लेंगे out of hundreds और the second biggest dilemma is that when people are looking for technology या software most of those you know people are non tech. They don't even understand technology like अगर कोई HR का software ढूंढ रहा है तो वह IT में से कोई नहीं होगा, वह HR manager होगा. कोई अगर let's say marketing automation का tool ढूंढ रहा है तो वह marketer है. वह वह उसका कुछ बहुत ज़्यादा IT की उस तरह core knowledge नहीं होगी कि वह systems को evaluate कर सके, integrations को evaluate कर सके. इस तरह आप जितने भी accountant अगर accounting का tool ढूंढ रहा है तो वह he is not an IT person जो कि software को सही तरह evaluate कर सके कौन से software उसके organization के लिए best fit है? क्या वह software बाकी departments के साथ integrate हो सकेगा? इस तरह के बहुत ज़्यादा questions हैं. Usability perspective से क्या यह best है? मेरे users का usability level क्या है? So there are so many questions that used to arise and that's where I think that the idea started to come in into twenty fourteen and fifteen but then as शान mentioned we हम अपनी अपनी ज़िंदगियों में busy हो गए और मैं Australia चला गया, शान went to गिराची and then 2018 I you know we were like ok यार यह idea अच्छा था इस इस पर अभी भी कोई बहुत ज़्यादा काम नहीं हुआ, people still struggle and I think we can make a business model out of this and then 2018 शाम was in Karachi, I was in Australia and then on the phone we started brainstorming this idea और फिर वह furnish होते होते आज software finder की shape में वह it's going places.

Makes sense. Yeah, so that's that's the journey. In very beginning, yeah, in the very beginning धैर्य, was a fresh idea and you guys were mid career, right? So, एक early career वाला बंदा जो है ना वह risks वगैरह आराम से ले लेता है. Mid career में आपकी baby बच्चे भी हो जाते हैं, costs are just crazy and to add to that, you were in Australia. I'm not sure when शान went to Canada. But Pakistan की एक certain privilege होती है कि आपको ना वहां पर आप बहुत सस्ते में भी रह सकते हो अगर आप रहना चाहो. I generally have your own home, paternal or otherwise. Cost of living, if you want to cut it down, you can really cut it down, right? But the moment you go to a developed society, there is a very expensive baseline that you have to cover irrespective. And so एक एक एक founder या एक, you know, startup founder जो भी वह Pakistan से अगर कुछ कर रहा होता उसका नुक़सान यह होता है कि उसको proximity नहीं होती to actual global clientele and global conversations. More often than out, in fact, वह the anxiety of कि यार मेरे पास इतना पैसा है और मैंने success ढूंढनी है within let's say four months five months क्योंकि मैं अपनी savings आ रही हूं उसमें और आ रहा और वह जब ख़त्म हो जाएगा तो मैं अपने बीवी बच्चों को क्या बोलूंगा कि भाई अब बैठो और you know we're we're out of all cash. So I'm curious. जो early days थे, did were you guys already working somewhere and you decided कि ok, let's build something and let's first get the first set of clients on board and then we'll switch? Yeah. Did you guys think कि यार अब यह है, करना है, किश्तियां जलाओ, savings को use करो और let's go all in? I'm curious about the initial. Or did you guys get seed, like, pre seed or seed capital? What happened there?

Yes, so I'll take that. Great question क्योंकि जो the the thing that you have mentioned that once you go abroad, life hits, hits you कि भाई this is how tough That it happened to me when I moved from लोहार to कराची, twenty sixteen में. क्राची में भी छोटे scale पर मुझे वह hit कर गई थी कि you are on your own. There is no dad, चाचा, मामा, दाया. There is no fallback plan. You're you're going. I had I had a kid as well. My wife was working. Are on your own. There is rent due, बिजली का bill due and all of that. I am pretty sure for the non Australian things would have been, you know, different as well on that bit. So the entire decision at that point in time was extremely crucial for us twenty eighteen में. From my side, what we did was I think what worked out in our favor. A, we knew we have limited funds. It's all bootstrapped. There is no funding. अभी तक we haven't raised a single dime. Marshalla, the company is debt free. We don't have any loan. We don't even have a credit line. We would love to get a credit line but अगर Pakistan में कहीं से मिल जाए. There is no credit line, three fifty plus employees. We are still struggling on that. But these are different things that we can, you know, dwell into when it comes to running a business. The thing that worked out in our favor was the fact that all three of us, we didn't, you know, resign from our, from our jobs. So the core base was there because we knew कि the money is restricted. It is, it is a high risk bet as well. So it can't happen कि हम लोग अपनी नौकरियां छोड़ दें and we go deep into this And if it doesn't work out, how will we survive and all of, all of that bit. So I think we were very smart when it came to the first six, six months to one year bit where all three of us worked eighteen, twenty hours shift and we had good jobs. Even in कराची, मारियम was working at Zabez teaching the master's level. I was working with दादा अखलीस. It's a, you know, big conglomerate, engrossed parent company. So these were high high stress and I was a senior manager there as well looking after portfolio of billions of rupees. You know, it was invested in the stock market, equities market as well. So it wasn't कि वहां पर भी तीन चार पांच घंटे का काम, आप भी नौ, दस यारा घंटे का काम. उसके बाद आकर we have to started working on that bit as well. So we did that for a good one year. I still remember the first person who we we convinced to leave the job was मार्यम. She left the job. She was the first person and she came at a salary cut. The second person to do that was अदनान. After six months, seven months when we had the website rolling as well, I was the last person that left the job when I moved to Canada in 2020. So 2018 से I think डेढ़ साल का period था where I wasn't getting anything out of it. या तीन सौ, चार सौ, पांच सौ dollar just as a token of appreciation. It's a psychological play as well. You're putting so much into it. It's your company as well. But that play goes a long way. So that crucial period was extremely important and I want the viewers to learn to know this as well कि these are very harsh decisions that you have to make because you have to know your realities as well. If you have a good solid fall back plan, if you know you can survive on it, things would have been different. हम जाते खुल के काम करते साल, we didn't have that luxury. So we created that luxury and that was created by working eighteen, twenty hours, you know, sacrificing our personal personal lives as well. So that worked in our favor and that's where it all started and the good thing that happened was we are, pretty old school when it comes to how a business is run. Even when there was no website, we were making money. It took us three months to develop the website. We were making money because we were partnering with a third party selling them leads and they were they were selling leads to the vendor themselves. We were generating leads from them because we didn't have a face. But we weren't burning through cash which is already limited.

I think what I, जो जो इसमें मैं एक particular learning निकालूंगा ना वह यह है कि more often than not people tend to want to create software products because, oh, you know, I'll sit down. I'll create a software product, and it's gonna go viral, and I'm I'm gonna get millions of dollars. But वह उनको उस industry का नहीं पता था. जो आपने अभी बात बोली है, वह powerful इस वजह से because आप उस problem को solve करने गए थे which was lead generation for enterprise. उससे फ़र्क़ डेढ़ रुपए का नहीं पड़ता कि उसके ऊपर एक software है, नहीं है, website है, नहीं है. As long as you understand the customer, as long as you understand the problem, you can theoretically solve it. Now the only thing is कि आप उसको शायद scale भी नहीं कर सकते and and the software allowed for that scale. But जब आपने आपने बैठकर पूरा software बना दिया, दो साल लगाकर के एक भी customer नहीं आया. True. आपने sale ही generate नहीं किया तो फिर आपको छह रुपए का पता ही नहीं industry किस तरह काम करती है. And I think that's, for me that would be one of the major component of your success because you really knew what you were trying to do. The software really sort of complemented that. I think I think that that worked really well for us and I have so many

close friends who've spent a lot of time, raised a lot of capital but they were so fixated on getting the dev and the tech side to the tea 100%, spent so much money on it, didn't focus on the business. The money dried up and unfortunately they had to close the shop, the business as well. We did the complete opposite where we made sure that we start getting the money. The burn stays to a minimum, where we are not, you know, because the company couldn't afford even a single employee. Any either of the three couldn't come at the salary that we were taking at that point in time. So we took a good 50%, 60% का pay cut and we did it in tranches as well. यह भी नहीं हुआ कि एक साथ ही तीन आ गए. I think that's, that's something that really worked and the fact that we had so much confidence and I don't know why we had it because we knew कि this would work. We knew this works. We knew there is a demand for it. We knew, had a fair bit of idea कि how much would we charge. We didn't spend, there was no a deck, no deck was created. There was a three, तीन चार बंदों का meeting room in a, in a co working space like this where we met in लाहौर for a, for a two three weeks. That's where the company was born and that's where we decided कि हम यही करके देखेंगे. इतना approximate आएगा, इतना cash burn होगा और उसको छह महीने में हमने यही करना है. That's how it all started. I think one big thing that I want to, I think that help us a lot is the fact that all three of us knew each other from earlier. This model wouldn't have worked had we known each other for, for let's say, a few few months or something. We had worked with each other closely, built something from scratch. The the camaraderie and knowing each other's strengths were extremely critical as well. So when we got on a call in 2018 or 2017 and अदनान initiated that call, it was his idea कि we can, we can do it considering that he he is a, he was our ex manager, ex boss and he is senior to us as well. एक तो वह भी था कि if he is getting into it, he knows the business side of, of, of the things. And then we knew each other as well. केदनार is good in BD sales, dev, I can do upside. मरीम can do marketing as well. So वो सारी की सारी चीज़ें हैं, it fell into place, I think ultimately with time and that's how I think it happened in the in the first first first year of the operation that were extremely critical.

अदान भाई मुझे एक बात बताएं. Again, you were at a very senior position at QRMD and I'm assuming when you were in Australia, you were still at QRMD,

Right? No. No. I was not.

So when the the moment you moved, you basically

Yeah. I quit and then moved. Yeah.

Interesting. But both of you before the the the positions that you held before this were fairly lucrative. You had a good career trajectory. अगर आप की ओर से हटकर, आप Australia में जाते और जाकर वहां पर कोई भी opportunity ढूंढते तो आप बहुत easily, you know, you can project कि यार, मैं यह यह करूंगा, मैं VP level पर होंगा, x y z level पर होंगा. Majority of the people would do that. They'd be like, यार, you know what? Like, क्या मैं इस ख़प्मे क्यों घुस रहा हूं? मैं अपना career करता हूं and I can again, मैं उसी तरह से कहूंगा. मैंने अपने भाइयों को देखा हुआ है. They're much older than I am. They're all coming to science, you know, '98, '99 and then o one batch के वह graduates हैं. And I've seen उनके इर्द गिर्द के जितने भी उनके दोस्त यार हैं ना, पिछले दिनों in fact हमारी discussion भी हो रही थी तो मैं उनसे अभी पिछले दिनों एक you know, why don't you think big? Like, why don't you take that risk? तो उन्होंने कहा कि they were intrigued as well and they said कि ok, maybe, you know, that's just how the the institution built us. But if you take, like, a 100 people in Pakistan and उसमें से आप 99 ऐसे ही होंगे जिनका अगर वह Pakistan से निकल गए ना और वह किसी brand name company में काम करना शुरू हो गए, तो उनका biggest batch of order वही है. And I'm not saying that's I mean, it's a it's a great achievement. But it's an achievement for a year. You know, the first time you go and you brag with your friends and your your family कि यार बेटा मेरा जो है वह Meta में काम करता है या Google में काम करता बहुत अच्छी बात है. After a couple of years, midlife में आप जाते हैं, progression slow हो जाती है. Did you have that anxiety कि यार, ok, I'm gonna do something completely random. The return probably the first few years would not even have come close to what you would have gotten as a comp package at a at a and I am quite certain कि in the early days that sort of money was not what you probably were extracting.

तो तो run me through the feelings at the time. Yeah, so इसमें मेरा हाल से एक चीज़ miss है. So, when I went to Australia तो I joined probably one of the biggest health care implementation क्योंकि मेरा QRMD का background health IT का था. So, one of the biggest you know hospital implementation in So, I was I was working there because I moved in 2016, 2017 तो about a year and a half I was I was working there maybe for about good two years and I was doing you know pretty well, decent, really good salary, leading you know maybe 20,000 employee implementation there. Wow, crazy. It was the biggest healthcare network in Melbourne, about 10,000 bed hospitals, total seven hospitals. तो मतलब दो साल की implementation थी. दो साल बाद live जाना था. इतना बड़ा project. Right. So, I was leading that but then after year, year and a half I mean I always wanted to do something and then off of her own and you know become an entrepreneur and build something. तो वह back of the mind which is चल रही थी and then 2018 I think that has gotten mature and then when we started तो it was not कि मैंने job छोड़ दी और मैंने you know जैसे कहा सब कुछ quit and I started doing this. Obviously as you mentioned you need 12,000, $13,000 just to sustain your lifestyle there. Yeah. So, I was literally working like like शाम mentioned sixteen hours, seventeen hours a day. I remember I used to सुबह पांच बजे उठना और पांच से नौ बजे software finder चल रहा है और नौ से six you know going to work और तब तब remote job भी नहीं थी. Then there was a traveler involved as well we used to go there और फिर then again coming back and then seven to ten or seven to eleven again software funder चल रहा था. I used to, I used to sleep like five hours literally four five hours और पांच बजे सुबह उठना इसलिए पड़ता था क्योंकि Australia में US के timing भी बहुत ही, अजीब से थे you know रात के बारह मुझे US के नौ बजते थे. तो that was another challenge that I had to face through from Australia and the entire concept was कि हमने US में इसको build करना है. तो first I think I did this for eight months literally sixteen seventeen hours of work. But then what was the why? Like I am curious what was your why for this? Why was very simple that you know we wanted to do something, the idea was we completely sold on and you know we knew कि हम नहीं करेंगे तो कोई और कर देगा अगले दो तीन सालों में. The way things are moving and then we will lose this idea और फिर वह motivation पकड़नी दुबारा बड़ी मुश्किल होती है when you see कि यार किसी कौन है यह resolve कर दिए issue. So, twenty fourteen में यह 15 में यह idea click किया था. Twenty eighteen में जब हमने दुबारा revisit किया तो वह अभी तक कोई उस तरह formally उस तरह नहीं implement हुआ था जिस तरह हम चाह रहे थे. जिसमें you know all leads are phone qualified और बड़ी अच्छी proper nurtureओं के lead जा रही है vendors को. So that's why we did you know what we did. We were completely sold. This is something that we have done previously. I think having Sean and Mariam as part of their team and co founders and partners और मेरे ख्याल से जब मैंने शान and मारियम को call की थी and then when they bought in with the idea other than I got further motivation कि यार चले now we have a good team because I strongly believe कि आप अकेले एक हद तक जा सकते हैं with partners you get to levels. क्योंकि initial days में कभी आप down होंगे you know there will be other person जो आपको pick करेगा. कभी वह down होगा आप उसको pick करेंगे. पहले एक दो साल कभी भी business में easy नहीं होता and I think that actually happened कि you know sometime चाहन is down तो you know I am picking him up, sometime I am down या मरीमी is down, we are each other bucking it up यार नहीं हो जाएगा. This is the problem that we will solve together and then it continue happening for about a year or two or 2019 I think then we formally started the company. Yeah. Twenty eighteen में the end में the planning हो रही थी and then we've लेकिन twenty nineteen के mid तक भी we kept on doing what we were doing along along with Software Finder. पहले six months to one year we were doing both things but yes again 2019 में भी इतने पैसे नहीं आ गए थे कि मुझे $13,000 per month pay करना शुरू करती थी company. So took a huge salary cut because again we were so sore कि एक दो customer आ गए तो further motivation आ गई कि अरे चलो this idea is working and we can actually make money out of this. And then मेरे ख्याल से within the next year or two we started doing really well and then things started changing and

we never looked back from there. Yeah, I generally feel the the call and the initial push that worked in our favor because like you mentioned I I feel that I would have been that person who might have been working for, let's say, a big brand name till now, had we not received the call from अद्रान at that point in time. I think he, the conviction that he had and then my realization कि if he is getting into it, he must have thought it through and the fact कि all three of us then started realizing कि अच्छा यह कर सकते हैं हम लोग. I think that kept it going and फिर इतनी हमारे में वह concerns नहीं थे कि यह होगा तो क्या होगा? And you need to understand one major factor जो आप मेरे मेरे case में. The third co founder is my wife as well. We met at work. Interesting. You know, तो हम दोनों भी उसी कराची में हमारे लिए as a family unit was pretty difficult as well and but we we met at work QRMD में ही. Yeah. And it was, maybe it was meant to happen And initially the first, and like अद्नान said, it's all about the three people understanding without even saying some stuff because we have lost family members throughout throughout the journey as well for the first two years. COVID के अंदर, being in Canada नया नया February में we we landed in Canada, one bedroom apartment. March में the entire country closed down. सात महीने वह करते जा रहे हैं and we we weren't earning as much. अब $1,012,000 dollars उस time पर अगर कोई दे देता हमें और उसका आप आजकल पच्चीस तीस percent भी शायद कमा रहे होंगे उसके ऊपर चल रहे थे. It wasn't कि we were financially stable और COVID आगे and things were going really well. Yeah.

शान भाई अगर मैं इसमें आपसे पुछ सकूं sorry मैंने ना quickly जाना था अब actually business के ऊपर. But आपने एक मेरी दुख्ती रख पर ना पर. पावन रख दिया है तो मैं उसके ऊपर ज़रूर उसको explore करूंगा. जी. It's a it's a working with your wife on a on a passion project is an incredible thing because, you know, there's someone that you trust really closely, and then you can build things. But it can be very complicated as well because, you know, you have multiple roles as a couple. Yeah. And I'm sure you had kids as well at the time when you went to Canada? We had one kid at that time. He was five, six years old and we had another one while we were in Canada. Were in were in Kids are tough. Yes, we were in Vancouver. Train you. वह एक ऐसी चीज़ है जो कि इंसान की comfort-शंफर सब left right हो जाती है and I'm going through that, right? So, अभी वह अदनान भाई बोल रहे थे ना तो मैं सोच रहा था मैं भी आजकल you know I'm working on a bunch of things and तो मैं सोच रहा मैंने कहा यार मैं I wanna be that millennial father who's available. I wanna be you know, that person जो कि who shows up for for for the kids, for the wife and I've मेरी जो media company है वह मैंने अपनी बेघु के साथ हमेशा चलाई है. But it gets really tough, right? Because when you're the personal role of husband, wife, father, mother and then you have to then professionally also show up because वहां पर personal नहीं हो सकता. वहां पर यह नहीं हो सकता कि यार हमारा you know हमारे आपस के baggage के क्या मसाले वहां पर आपने अपना role नहींभाना है. That's it's great but it's also very very tough. काफ़ी दफ़ा मुझे होता है यार यह जो मेरा जो दूसरा बंदा है ना यह मेरा partner ना होता है कोई random होता तो मैं उसको जो है ना I can I can give them more critical feedback but because it's my wife I have to also make sure कि मैं तरीके से उस चीज़ को वह करूं? How did you manage those multiple roles and इस पर दुनिया क्या

एक separate podcast बनती है. अद्नान has been witness to what we've gone through तो अद्नान can can tell you from a third personal perspective. It's tough मुज़मिल, especially when you are living abroad. You know, if you are living abroad as well. With no help, no no family. दूर दूर तक Vancouver में कोई नहीं. शायद एक दोस्त. No social circle. Now you're working from home as well. There's no outlet. Both both of you are working from home. So it was tough. I I don't want to sugar quotes कीजिए हंकी डोरी चलता रहा और हम सब सारे थे. It it is such a big sacrifice कि I genuinely feel कि हमारे culture में भी अभी तक उसकी importance इन लोगों के पास नहीं है. They genuinely feel कि they they got lucky both of them. But they don't understand the sacrifice, the toll it took on the relationship of a husband and wife. It's not, it's not जी जी आपने यह कर लिया और यह कर लें आज ही हो गया फलां. There, there have been days when, you know, you can hardly stand each other. Know? And and but it, and that is what life is. It teaches you with maturity and with time. Communication has to be extremely critical and you need to be communicating because it's all about, उसमें पर gender roles जो आपके ना, वह जो society ने आपको teach किए हुए ना, they don't work. You have to create your own rose where you at some point in time you might be picking 80% of the household stuff and she is busy with a certain project, उसने बीस percent करना है. Then there are times कि आपने 70% कर दिया, उन्होंने 30 कर दिया, उन्होंने 60 कर दिया. वह communication without getting into a fight and argument, I think वह that is that is critical.

Let let me ask you a question and and this is gonna be the last one on the personal side and then I'm gonna move to move to the software hinder. But जो आपने बड़ी अच्छी बात बोली आपने कहा sacrifices, right? Sacrifices are entail a lot of things. Sacrifices include कि यार young couples इर्द गिर्द आपके Instagram पर travel कर रहे आप नहीं travel कर रहे. लोग जो हैं वह socialize कर रहे हैं, आप नहीं socialize कर रहे. लोग जो हैं वह Yep. You know, आप बाहर होते हैं आप बाहर जाते हैं तो that's all what couples are doing. Jobs कर रहे हैं साथ वह अपना जो भी time मिलता है तो वह you know Mexico जा रहे हैं वह film देखने जा रहे हैं. But I can guarantee आप वह कुछ भी नहीं कर रहे होंगे because you would be very nifty with your money and you would be very nifty with your time. Right? जब आप उसके उस दौड़ में होते हैं ना तो आपको and again context going through it. Mhmm. आपको उस time के ऊपर यह ख़याल ज़रूर आता है कि you know what? Like, I'm wasting the prime of my life chasing something and betting, going all in. Right? So you're not just all in as the individual where your wife is working elsewhere. You are as a couple going all in. Mhmm. And you are sacrificing all of that time in your prime. And you do sometimes think, is it worth it? Like, why can I not be normal and do a normal job and figure out a normal career and spend game nights with my friends

and so on and so forth? And we have had that conversation. We have had that conversation and you know the sacrifice की आपने बात की ना it took us two years COVID के अंदर मैंने अपने बहन I am the eldest मैंने अपने दोनों बहन भाइयों की शादी attend नहीं की the, they, the, या तो शादी attend कर लेते हैं या उनकी शादी अच्छी तरीके से करा लेते हैं because Canada से, Pakistan का जो air ticket भी है with पूरी family के साथ, it's not easy. तो यह यह this is one of very very few things

और अब वह तो भूल ही जाएं. आप लोग traveling तो भूल ही जाएं. Sir question मेरा यह है. Does it get easier? Is there light at the end of the tunnel? I'll tell you how. I or someone like me doubles down and goes on it. If you are successful, do you look back and say listen, it's worth it. What I have realized is that that's my motto.

Anything without sacrifice, nothing good comes out from being in a comfortable position. If you are pushing yourself individually and as a couple, ठीक है? It has to give and you have, if you want extraordinary results, if you want extraordinary growth, success, something has to give. ठीक है? And you need to be extremely convinced about it. And it's all about perspective. जब आप देख रहे हैं, आपकी podcast grow करते हुए. आपके पास लोग आ रहे हैं, हम बैठे हुए आपके सामने. ठीक है? You see the number of viewership and everything. That is the motivation fuel that that you get it. When I see the revenue numbers की company year on year growth कितनी है? Quarter to quarter growth कितनी है? When she sees her traffic growing on that bit as well. It is all about perspective. यहां तो मैं I fixate on the stuff कि भाई we are not travelling. हमारा आपस में यह क्या करते जा रहे हैं? बच्चों को time नहीं दे रहे. एक दूसरे से चीज़ें होती जा रही हैं. या we look at the positive as well. And it is all about कि आपको drive क्या कर रहा है? Because us, we, all three of us have, are extremely driven individuals. काम के अलावा there is nothing much to it. Life is good but work is, is the anchor, family and work is the anchor around which we have built this life. वहां पर काम ही निकल गया अगर तो काम के अलावा क्या करेंगे? Because living in Vancouver जहां पर दो बजे की छुट्टी पर both parents कम और मैं कहता था यार हम तो work from home कर रहे हैं, वहां अभी time भी start नहीं हुआ. How are they making money? And going on a beach, hitting a beach, वहां जाकर surfing करने जा रहे हैं every day. दो ढाई हज़ार dollar में, तीन हज़ार dollar में भी survive कर रहे हैं उनके मां बाप ने घर छोड़ दिए हुए उनके लिए. It, it starts getting to you but it's all about you know being, being in the right head space but you will

inshallah get through this as well. This shall pass too. There is light at the end of the tunnel. मुज़मिल शान और मरहीम को मैंने option भी नहीं दी थी. When I call I was like either you are both in or you know this is not happening because I knew कि team complete ही जब यह तीन pillars are important to run, run this business because we have done this before in QRMD times. तो मेरा ख्याल से option भी नहीं थी कि you know they can choose कि कौन इस venture में जाए और कौन ना जाए and and you know the good thing is कि after seeing their success कि you know husband wife can work together. My wife started decided to work for Software Finder as well. Yes. Three years ago or four years ago and now she is heading our her name is सरि she is heading our learning and development and that's going well too. So you know me and my wife we are now working together for last three-four years and it works together. Yeah, there are challenges, there are days where, you know, it's hard to see कि personal और professional side को कितना manage करना है but it it works out. So, you know, all the other couples out there, you guys, you can you can do this. This is not that hard. It's more of a Instagram thing that husband and wife cannot work together.

Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. So now I'll come to Software Finder. Back to I'd love to know इस वक़्त so ढांचा जो मुझे समझ आ रहा है वही आ रहा है कि यार आपका एक एक front है जो कि I boss generate कर रहा है और वह QD generate कर रहा है और वह identify कर रहा कि customer की requirement क्या है? और फिर उसके पीछे एक पूरा engine है. That's basically the bulk of the business जो कि उसको लेता है, process करता है, target करता है और फिर target करके वह connect करके convert या lead generation के ऊपर वह customers से या आपके vendors से जो है वह पैसे लेता है. मुझे यह बताएं कि अभी मैंने चार queries run की for example, right? HR software this that. Is it coming in from data buying के यार market में जो already होते ना ऐसा कि vendors होते हैं जो कि बिल्कुल ही cold leads के data उन्होंने रखा हुआ होता है या उन्होंने रखा हुआ होता है कि ये different companies हैं, उनका ये है. तो are you cold calling them and then converting them into qualified leads? Run me through that process of how of the user journey from start to end जो आपका चल रहा है. Right. So the obviously

the whole concept starts from Google and you know your search engines because that's where a will go to generally. Know if if you are looking for software the first thing you will do is open up Google or a search engine or these days ChatGPT to search कि you know top software कौन से हैं? It can be HR or whatever you are looking for. So, a lot of what we do is SEO. We now have about 120 people in SEO. We probably have the probably the biggest team in Pakistan of SEO and content marketers. We have about 60 to 70 content marketing individuals who write excellent content for us. So the entire project obviously is an SEO play and and Google play and ranking on top to these terms. Like in it is it is not only inbound or SEO. I mean you will be surprised that 70% of our business come maybe 60% of business comes from non SEO channels as well. So we do a lot of advertisement. What

do they look like? Also advertisement. We do a lot of advertisement which is again involve Google

but then on top of that we also do a lot of email marketing, even SMS marketing, doing webinars, you know, a lot of content based marketing. So entire, I would say digital marketing whatever you can think of we do internally. Think out of the 350 people that we now have in the company उसमें से कोई 220 या 240 digital marketing के लोग हैं. So it's a very heavy digital marketing company. So Google is as I said Google is not the only play. There are so many other plays that falls in to get that traffic on our website, get those leads and get them going.

Yeah, if if if you want me to elaborate on it, ज़मिल. So the entire structure, the way I see it is the product is softwarefinder.com. That's the domain, you know, an affiliate size that we have. अब उस product को establish करने के लिए कि उसकी brand create हो, backend पर there are two fifty people working. जिसमें से आधे content और SEO, content marketing as you know it सारे करते हैं कि search engines में, LLMs में अब कि आप search कर रहे हैं और वो software finder का उस पर आता जाए. And that is where a lot of competitors have taken a hit as well with the AI coming in because they were relying 80%, 90% on that business जो कि traditional business है, वो एकदम से जब 50% decrease हुई है तो उनका 50% business, lead flow, traffic, everything, you know, decrease. Because we didn't have the time to develop organic and SEO rapidly, we started off the company by creating the structure where we are generating leads through outbound marketing. It's not outbound has been a very strong suit for us and that is where we, things that we control. For example, all the email marketing, we are doing it at a scale जो I don't know, even even international standards पर भी लोग नहीं करे. It's a pretty technical business to do it. It's not about कि आप भेज के हैं, it's about landing in your inbox that is becoming extremely difficult. So we are doing it at that scale. You know, you have to abide by anti spam laws and each and everything. उससे पहले there is a proper database का set कि जो कि आपने random उठा नहीं लिया. We have collaborations with companies like Apollo, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, four one one. You name it. We have we have tried and tested कि कौन सा data क्या काम करता है, उसके touch points क्या हैं? So there is a database. Database के through there is an email marketing that is being run at a scale, you know, that is producing leads on on on on masses. Then we are doing webinar and white paper marketing, content syndication bit through those email marketing. Then there is a proper SMS का channel. SMS marketing in US is also pretty technical as well. We have developed that bit as well and video marketing से लेकर तो it's an end to end digital marketing का play where half of the thing is done being inbound and the rest is aardman and the idea is to find more revenues like these with with changing times to expand on it because we have to scale it further. Demand बढ़ती जा रही है. There's a limit to everything there is. Google AdWords को भी चलाना at a scale where a company is bootstrapped और हमारे पास millions और dollars का budget तो नहीं है कि हम फेंके Google AdWords पर PPC के ऊपर और उस तरह generate करते रहे. That is where I think the team has worked really well. The bright minds of Pakistan where we are scaling, we are doing it at a scale but the cost per lead and cost per acquisition is so low कि हम अपने competitors who are, who are, who have lots of funding उनको compete कर सकते हैं. So backend पर BOA and everything that these 250 people generate that is where the client facing side of the people come in. क्योंकि उससे leads आती हैं, traffic आती हैं and that's where you'd start nurturing them and calling them and qualifying them कि यार are they in the market for a particular software and everything. तो सौ बंदों की वह team है. That is how the entire structure works for us.

Makes sense because that answers my, I had a separate question right after this कि जो आपके SEO based businesses हैं ना, there's a there's a lot of products in Pakistan. There was a poster my wall. These guys came in. उनका भी यही था कि they were principally focused on कि यार Google के ऊपर जो भी leads आ रही हैं उसको आपने कोई product around बेच दी. वह dollar की, $2 की, this and that. But उससे वह आगे नहीं जा पा रहे थे. उस तरह के businesses का भी मसला यह आ रहा है कि there are a lot of people are saying कि जो ranking का not to say that search has dropped, but ranking has radically changed in recent times and therefore the traffic has dropped जो कि बिल्कुल random traffic आ रही थी. And so my question would have been कि, you how do you prepare for for that eventuality where a lot of people as they're projecting कि यार search engine UI जो इस वक़्त है of you going and searching something and then 100 things come out, वही completely change हो जाएगा and you'll just be interacting with this sort of one chatbot agent जो कि आपको optimized answers दे रहा है. और उसमें मैं क्योंकि मैंने chatbot को try किया before starting this conversation. तो मैंने मैं उस पर गया in that eventuality अगर आपका total reliance is on Google search तो वहां पर तो आपकी distribution सारी मर जाती है. Distribution in my opinion is key here, right? Because distribution आती है तो eventually आप उसको convert करते हैं. तो उसका आपने यह कहा कि यार हम outbound के ऊपर बहुत ज़्यादा focused हैं. हम basically वह actual, you know, identifying

कि हमारा customer की तरह बैठा हुआ है उसको ख़ुद से ढूंढकर data sets बनाकर के उसको reach out करना. That's where your UC के principle grow करेगा. Sorry, जो आपने नाम भी लेना मुज़मिल यह पंद्रह बीस साल से market में है. Gartner और यह million multi million billion dollar businesses हैं. तो इनसे compete करना organic और यह LLMs के ऊपर is not that easy and even after that, माशिला if you see the rankings that we have, we are at a very respectful position without any funding and without it. That's a big achievement for the content and the SEO side of things as well. तो it will take us time LLMs के ऊपर because we started and this is right up मारीमज़ अली as well because he he deals with it. We have started the SEO bit for the LLMs. अब there is a team that's being developed. उस पर काम भी शुरू हो रहा Inshallah hopefully within the next few months जब आप search करेंगे बैठकर उस पर, उस पर सबसे पहले Software Finder भी hopefully आएगा.

Makes sense. But इसके अंदर मेरा follow up question probably यह है कि again मैं post of my wall की exam बता दूंगा not to say that it's a bad business. I'm sorry I'm these guys are huge, right? So these guys have done, 250,000,000 app downloads. They're doing $25,000,000 revenue per annum. They're growing rapidly AI space के अंदर. उन्होंने इस चीज़ को बड़ा ख़याल realize कर लिया early days के अंदर. पहले तीन चार, दो तीन साल उनका यह था कि बस random Google पर search query आ रही है, उस पर कोई app निकाल दी, उसको dollar के ऊपर बंदे को भेज दिया और एक basic सी चीज़ दे दी. They quickly realized कि यार हमें अपने आप को इस तरह से one time conversion के बजाय subscription पर लेकर आना और हमें brand identity के ऊपर focus करना है. Feel like कि Pakistan has incredible talent and incredible insight on digital marketing in in terms of कि यार bulk of लोगों को लेकर आओ, उसमें से qualify करो और उनको आगे ले जाओ and then move on to the next one, right? But Pakistan where we really struggle as a and therefore our businesses as well is creating long term sustainable brands जिसकी अपनी recall और एक loyalty और एक influence factor हो. जो अभी भी मुझे नज़र आ रहा है, मुझे जो जो मुझे probably मेरे लिए question होगा कि इस वक़्त जो product बनी हुई है पूरी की पूरी, it's a great product कि आज मुझे कोई requirement है. मैं कहीं ना कहीं SEO कटता कराता मैं पहुंच गया या कोई क्योंकि वह experience ऐसा delivery नहीं हुआ होगा. जब वह experience सारा SEO based है, तो you want very quick in, very quick out, conversion done, money out and then move on. Whereas जो brand building experience सबसे बड़ा फ़र्क़ होता उसके touch points बड़े फ़र्क़ होते हैं, उसके interaction बड़ी फ़र्क़ होती है. तो I'm curious कि क्योंकि अब यह इस चीज़ का मैं अकाल हूं कि we're now going to a point where the generic SEO based business is going to be so vastly democratized कि वह इतना competitive हो जाएगा कि उसके अंदर जो लोग brands build build कर सकेंगे उनकी suddenly बहुत ज़्यादा value हो जाएगी. Same thing happened with cold calling as cold call emails as well. Right? एक जमाने में आप cold call emails जिसने figure out कर लिया था उसका scene on था. आज जो है वह हर बच्चा ChatGPT से email रखवा करके फ़ेंक रहा है. Inbox इतना flood हो चुका है कि एक अच्छा आदमी और एक random आदमी में आप differentiate कर ही नहीं सकते. You cannot identify कि कौन सा serious genuine player है, कौन सा नहीं है. तो same चीज़ is gonna happen in all mediums because, you know, how do you convert? How do you take what you have and how do you convert it into a product which is much more,

which has much more loyalty and much more influence? Have you guys thought about it? What's the road map there? Yeah. I I think there there are obviously two side of business. One is the buyer and one is the seller. And the strategy with this model is totally different from buyer to seller. मैंने जहां तक brand की बात है ना we want to establish ourself as a brand in front of vendors. Ok अगर एक software company है और उसको leads चाहिए और उसको qualified traffic चाहिए या qualified prospects चाहिए तो they should think of software finder. Right. And we are doing quite well there in terms of establishing ourselves as a brand. When it comes to buyers जिसके आप example दे रहे हैं, buyer B2B software journey में software हर महीने change नहीं करेगा. हर साल भी शायद change ना करे. मतलब अगर आप let's say doctor हैं और आपको medical का software चाहिए तो आप शायद आज ढूंढेंगे और उसके बाद शायद चार साल बाद ढूंढेंगे. यह query कर रही है कि मुझे it's time to change कि मेरी company grow करके यह now I need a better software. So जहां पर brand building का तालुक है the brand needs to be build in front of the vendors कि when they think of कि जी हमें leads चाहिए और हमें हमें sales की pipeline बढ़ानी है, where should we go? तो they should think of software finder. उनको brand visibility चाहिए कि कहाँ पर हम list हों और हमारे reviews आ रहे हों तो they should think of software finder. लोग कहां पर आ रहे हैं और उन listing में हमने top पर आना है तो they should think of software finder and I think we have done very well in that space. हमने क्योंकि हमारा background health IT का था तो the first category we ventured was medical and helping doctors finding their ITMR software and now in six years हम medical में 80% of the vendors in medical space we are supplying leads to them. So we have established ourselves as a huge brand when it comes to so anyone who you know any MR company now think of Software Finder when they are looking for leads. Similarly HR software is our second biggest and almost 70% of HR companies like big HR companies in US they are buying leads from us and they think of Software Finder when it comes to branding and they want to list themselves on the top of our listing. So the brand is getting established obviously we are still six year old company it takes time for brand to establish and there are so many categories I mean like if you go to our website we have I don't know maybe fifty-sixty major categories and if you count subcategories we already have 850 subcategories and almost every month we are adding forty-fifty categories. So it's a huge space B2B software market. We already have about forty-fifty thousand vendors listed on our software and we are we are our monthly website traffic where buyers are coming to look for software is touching about 250,000 per month.

That's an amazing So, 150,000 people are coming to our website looking for software. Right? So, Yeah. This not just random बंदा जो कि flood कर रहा है. वह actually बड़ा एक targeted user है जो कि ढूंढ ढान के एक specific चीज़ के लिए आ रहा है. Yeah. मुझे यह बताएं कि again, the reason why I keep on asking about the future is because we're at a very interesting moment. मैं नहीं कह रहा पूरी market is like इसी zone में. दुनिया इसी zone में actually हर aspect of दुनिया is changing चाहे वह geopolitics हो, चाहे financial you know backbone हो, चाहे technology हो. And and you know there's a lot of chatter about the fifth industrial revolution, there's a lot of chatter about everybody's going to be jobless, AJI is going to come in and robots are going to do all of our jobs. In many ways, obviously, मैं यहां पर disclaimer दे देता हूं because viewer जो है वह हर किस्म का होता है. मेरा personal opinion यह है कि we are in a huge AI bubble and similar to the .com bubble and it's going to correct itself and, you know, the timeline is gonna fix itself over time. But having said that, dotcom से अगर हमने कुछ सीखा हो तो वही है कि while the bubble was there in the financial markets and the narrative space, separately, yes, Internet was the biggest value generator over the coming decades. And therefore, I do believe यह timeline के ऊपर फ़र्क़ हो सकता है. But AI is going to be the biggest disruptor and the biggest value generator for, you know, the world at large. And therefore, it's very important to sort of begin to imagine कि यार, okay, we are where we are and it's incredible where we are and we're finally there to be comfortable. I'm not saying, oh my god, the world is going to blow up and how do we survive. I think it's a bit overblown right now. But I also do believe कि it's about time when we begin to imagine, okay, what does this new economy that's beginning to rise look like? And how do we pivot and, ensure that we are as successful in this next cycle as we were early on, right? So you leveraged the boom cycle of the last twenty years, was digital marketing, which was completely fresh. It was aided by the app stores and the smartphones and this and that. अब वह चीज़ फिर से बदलने लगी है और हम अगले दस पंद्रह साल के अंदर देख रहे बहुत सारी technologies आ रही हैं, right? So you got ARVR आ रही है. That's hoping to change the way that humans interact with technology. जो आपकी software layer है, वह change होकर के अब AI की तरफ जा रही है. आपका even बहुत सारे लोग यह कह रहे कि यार जो आपका even Windows है या iOS है for a vast majority of consumers ten years from now, AI is going to be your operating system and then apps are gonna be on top of that, right? And जहां पर वह हो रहा है तो उसमें even the way that the entire businesses and business modeling work is changing in a way कि आज के enterprise मुझे याद है मैं क्योंकि tech का हूं, तो पिछले पंद्रह साल ना वह जो जो आपकी validation होती थी of success वह यह होती थी worked with Fortune 500 companies. You worked with this, right? So you would basically take out the biggest enterprises of the world and you'd be like you know, Pakistan में एक अच्छी software company है तो कहती थी आपने Walmart के project पर काम किया हुआ है, हमने x y z पर किया हुआ है. अब जो AI के साथ होता potentially मैं होता हुआ देख रहा हूं वह यह है कि there is a lot of new space that is going to be built in the SMEs area जहां पर बहुत सारे क्योंकि software इतना सस्ता हो जाएगा कि एक बहुत बड़ी फौज आएगी of new customer जो कि technology को अपने businesses में integrate करके value generation करना चाहेगी. And I do believe that you are at the right point because, yes, you've captured the enterprise space. But how do you take it? And how do you utilize your digital marketing sort of DNA and democratize this this entire thing for, for a wider audience, but also gulping the smaller margins that come with that, right? Because business modeling अगर जो है वह enterprise b to b है तो उसके margins भी अच्छे होते हैं. इसमें margins फ़र्क़ हैं लेकिन scale फ़र्क़ है. I'm curious कि सारी जो मैंने आपको एक picture paint की, you know, लहिए ना वह एक generic picture है, वह up and down हो सकती है. पर इस तरह की picture के लिए how are you preparing yourself and how are you integrating AI into your own sort of product road map in the long run? Yes. So,

it's a great question. What we have done is, you know, in the past two, three months, this is something that was tackled with the senior leadership कि क्या हो रहा है? With AI, everything, you know, where do we see ourselves in 2026? We have these, you know, quarterly refreshes where we take the senior management out, have these sort of discussions about the future and all the issues as well. So first thing that you've mentioned कि there's no doubt अगर आप पूरे दो साल की history निकाल के देख लें and this is where we made a presentation as well कि दो साल की history निकाल के देखें. There have been seven to eight major disrupting events or phenomenons that took place that changed the course of the history. You know, right from the industrial revolution to the electrification and the internet का boom, उसके बाद आप आप यह biotechnology को डालने, अब उसको AI वाला bit भी कर लें. So what we did was we realized and we researched what happens during these disrupting events. उससे pre, pre, during and post क्या होता है? What happened in the digital जब आपका internet वाला bit, the internet, the .com bubble and the .com bubble burst pre, post and during that time and then we made, developed a plan कि यार this is what's happening. This is what you've learned from the past. AI में भी pre यहां पर आ रहा है. This is where we stand और post क्यों होने वाला So we have gone through that bit internally as well. It's a big big thing that we are trying to target. जो आपने बात की AI bubble की, की जो formulate हो रहा है, there is a lot of, you know, chatter even in The States as well कि is is the next .com bubble burst about to happen with the stock market being an all time high, with with valuations or the, you know, S and P 500 trailing at 38 का price to earning ratio, average three twenty five की. What we are seeing right now is the quarterly results that Google, Nvidia, Meta, these these top seven companies are presenting, they are growing at a scale that is unheard of. So what happened in the .com bubble burst was there was a lot of hype not backed by the earnings. Today, the bubble might be formulating, but the top key players who are into this AI space are the disruptors. Their earnings are not showing any way or any signs of slowing down. So bubble तो उस level का है नहीं जो आप उसको create सकते हैं. तो that is my personal opinion on where do we stand. Yes, one year down the road there will be an event where all of these clitter clatter people who have, you know, taken a lot of money, developed bad, worst quality products in the farce of AI, उसको list कर दिए तो वो सब कुछ clear होगा but that happens when such a disrupting event takes place. Now where does Sofy Finder come into the picture? What I believe and Adnan can add to this as well. For us, the business model that we have, like you have mentioned के the scale at which a new software will be developed is much higher now with the advent of AI. Don't have to spend 100 or $200,000 worth of development cost. Right now, you have tools that can do the coding and each and everything. So एक, the number of softwares, what we know is the number of softwares are increasing across across the across the bit which basically means कि हमारे पास there will be a lot more options to list more softwares out there. जब वह softwares list होंगे उनको अपनी sales के लिए lead generation और digital marketing चाहिए होगी. हर company के पास even SMEs के पास यह पूरे का पूरा wing नहीं है. Everything is such a vast operation के वह develop कर सके. तो that's one. Secondly, जब आपके already इतनी saturated market में आप supply को ज़्यादा कर देंगे, Every SaaS vendor and company will have to work extra hard to differentiate जहां पर brand loyalty की बात की, to differentiate themselves from from the lot and they will have to rely on companies like us to to get to the next level. You know, because it will be extremely crucial जिसमें आप LLM पर search करते तो अभी आपके पास पंद्रह companies आ जाती हैं. How do you, you know, differentiate yourself from gazillion of other companies out there? So what we feel is that we are perfectly poised to to cater to the demand. हमारा जो business model है या जो service हम provide कर रहे हैं वह it will become a rarity across the board और उसका one thing that I like to disagree with you on is कि हमारे margin शिन्क्रियां होंगे. We, I believe we are in the position to you know charge extra dollar for the for the qualified leads that we give with with all of this noise and clutter coming in into the future. So I see the margin expanding as well apart from the demand. अद्वान?

Yeah, think शान has covered this point really well. What I will just add is कि देखिए marketplaces software space में B2B software space में पहले भी exist करती थी या अभी भी exist करती हैं. The major difference जो कि software finder लेकर आया है वह the human element in that buying process. Most of the websites आपकी traffic route कर देंगी, आपको advertisement opportunities दे देंगी लेकिन वह आपको guaranteed lead नहीं देंगी कि जी हमारी तरफ से आपको lead आ रही है तो हम guarantee करते हैं कि यह बंदा आपका software देखने में interested है and and that's the you know that's in our contract. That's the promise that we sell कि you know whenever software finder sends you a lead to the vendor that lead will be looking for your software. They are in the market. If they are not, you don't pay anything और उसकी एक बहुत बहुत बड़ी value है और enterprise selling में there is you know it's not a easy decision कि आप online गए आपने तीन चार चीज़ें देखी और आपने subscribe कर लिया जाकर जितना B to C में होता है. B to B में there is a lot of legalities, there is a lot of things that you know one needs to do before making a decision because the decision is impacting most of the time the entire organization. आप कोई भी tool impact लेते हैं तो वह खाली एक department के लिए होता है वह किसी ना किसी तरह पूरे पूरे organization को impact कर रहा होता है. तो उसका एक life cycle है जो it's not easy कि वह AI आएगी और वह उसको पूरे life cycle को replace कर देगी. And I think that's where the human element is getting valued और last six years में why Software Finder has been so successful is कि we are the only company जो vendors को phone qualified leads देती हैं with this promise that they are looking for your software and they are ready, they are ready to purchase. और as शाम mentioned उसकी उसकी जो value है at all times will will remain very high in in the B2B space. B2C is totally different. So you know don't get me wrong like B2C software space I think the entire sales cycle can be taken over by AI and it it is happening on the B2C side. But B2B side में there is such a complex space, so many things like for example किसी organization ने ERP का software implement करना है. You know, you cannot really rely on AI avatar to really do the whole purchase for you when it comes to ERP software. Know, it impacts accounting, impacts HR, impacts manufacturing, impacts inventory. So, इस तरह के जो complex software buying and selling के nuances हैं उसमें human element plays a big role and I would I don't see it getting replaced by AI in the next five years at least.

Makes sense. जो आपने margin की बात की ना I just मैं उसमें clarify करना यह चाह रहा था कि the way that I want I see the evolution is I'm not necessarily saying कि हम B2C की तरफ़ जा रहे हैं. What I essentially mean is कि B2B की शक्ल शायद मुख़्तलिफ़ होना शुरू हो जाएगी जहां पर अभी इस वक़्त B2B is large enterprises looking for large software that जो software themselves हैं they're normally priced very high, right? So उनकी या तो जो हमने पिछले दस साल में एक evolution भी देखी कि जहां पर एक license होता था $2,000,000 का, अब वह convert होकर SaaS में चला मैं SaaS में दे रहा हूं और मैं पच्चीस employees का काम करवा रहा हूं उससे. I'm curious कि is that a space that you're also a working in, b hoping to expand on? Because I feel like there's a lot of growth in that particular area. Are you just focused on कि यार नहीं मुझे large scale enterprise को deal करना है क्योंकि यह वाला जो है इसमें margins companies के कम है. यह नहीं है कि आप पांच हज़ार dollar का बेच रहे हैं, आप बीस dollar का एक solution बेच रहे जो कि recurring के ऊपर जा रहा है. Obviously उसका payout फिर आपके लिए भी different होगा. That's my understanding.

Right, so rightly said मेरे हाल से यह I think the other thing I need to clarify with software finder is कि हमारी जो 60% of the buyers जो कि हमारे पास आते हैं वह small to mid size companies है. They are not enterprise companies. So, you know, you buyers like a small flower shop or tire shop or you know small restaurant owner, construction companies you know small construction owners as you said software as we are getting into the AI age and more and more awareness are coming even small companies are looking for tools to better manage their operations, to cut down on human cost, better manage resources. So there is I mean in the last three years what we have seen कि there is an influx of small companies जो कि पहले first three years में इतनी ज़्यादा हमारे पास नहीं आती इतनी अब बहुत ज़्यादा small companies आती हैं and they are looking for tools and the other thing is क्योंकि पहले enterprise software were very expensive and now they are much more affordable तो small companies can now afford to deploy those tools. So hence हमारा बहुत ज़्यादा focus आजकल smaller mid sized companies में है क्योंकि it's a volume play we get a lot of those customers और vendor scan पर भी उनको sales cycle is smaller, easy to implement and then they want to grab them while they are small and then as those companies grow software switch करना इतना आसान नहीं होता. मतलब एक दफा आपने let's say कोई HR का software ले लिया या doctor ने medical का software ले लिया तो it's not easy कि वह दो साल बाद उसको switch करेगा. You get so much used to the software, integrations हो जाती हैं and then the cost is becomes too high to switch. So, a lot of what we do is small to mid size और हमारा पूरा एक you know एक different side of business है जिस पर हम focus करते हैं small to medium size. किस तरह उनको track करना है, किस तरह उनको software finder पर लेकर आना है, उनको किस तरह convert करना है. So, it's it's already becoming a big play small to mid size organization और AI के बाद वह is getting even even more I would say advancer in order to you know people are getting you know AI की hype QA से small companies are realizing कि भाई कोई AI का software होना चाहिए. हर बंदा cost cutting का सोच रहा है. हर बंदा सोच रहा है कि यार अच्छा उसने पांच दस employee कम कर लिए हैं and they are able to increase their profits. मैं उसको कितना कर सकता हूं? तो a lot of people come to us and they ask these questions and that's where Software Finder I think plays a big role to give them a consultative approach rather than you know a sales pushy approach कि you know you you are this sort of an organization, आपके यह goals हैं, यह चार या पांच software हैं that you know you should look at that can help you at this stage as well as as you are growing it will also support you in your growth.

Yeah and from a user standpoint as well मुस्मिल जैसा आपने mention किया कि you are using 10 tools. We were also a small small to mid sized company now master we are trying to you know we are in the transition of being a mid sized company three fifty plus employees. We have around 100 plus tools as well. So for example, for a calling tool, अगर जो चीज़ मैं 60, $70 per user दे रहे थे, अब वही चीज़ क्योंकि उसका scale बढ़ गया, quantum बढ़ गया, वह हज़ार dollar से per month is $5,000. In a, in a matter of one year, you know, when as a finance, you look after the expenses. You want, you realize कि HubSpot पर if you started off with $1,500 because you were working with 150,000 के marketing contacts पर, then you, you need HubSpot to connect with AirCall, the calling tool as well. फिर आपको हर चीज़ HubSpot में चाहिए. उसकी integration के separate पैसे. वह करते करते भी we are spending 7 to $8,000 per month on HubSpot. One tool. So we have experienced that from a consumer perspective as well. And I think that has helped us, you know, translate into the business side as well.

Makes sense. अगर मैं इसको थोड़े को पूरी situation को flip करता हूं. मैं कहता हूं कि यार आप इसको यह कर रहे हैं कि जिसका already एक software exist करता है, उसको मैं consumer लाकर के दे रहा हूं. Makes sense. But जहां पर आप consumer लाकर दे रहे हैं, वहां पर आपके पास एक alternate पूरी की पूरी एक different किस्म का data set पूरा वन रहा है. ढाई लाख बंदा हर महीने आता है. वह आता है कुछ search queries करता है, वह जाता है उसमें से go through करता है. Technically, you can generate a lot of insight from that. क्या exactly consumer की requirement क्या है? अच्छा, उससे further जाते हैं. हम कहते हैं यार आपके उसके बाद पर calls आ रही हैं, calls से वह feedback generate कर रहे हैं customer का. अब I and I don't know how much of that you've already expanded into but एक aspect तो यह है ना कि यार मैंने उस बंदे के सारा data identify किया उससे मैंने certain identify किया कि यार यह किस तरह के software पर convert हो सकता है, probabilities define की या फिर मैंने lead बनाकर के फ़ेंक दिया कि customer को. Mhmm. और customer या vendor को और vendor ने उसके मुझे पैसे दे दी. Mhmm. लेकिन यहां पर जब आप इस level of market, in a way market research कर रहे हैं, तो यहां पर एक potential feedback loop आ सकता है और यह सवाल मेरा इस वजह से because I was thinking कि यार मेरे पास जो आपका viewer है इस वक़्त, वह आपसे क्या value निकाल सकता है सबसे ज़्यादा, right? So vendor तो बहुत सारे होंगे जो कि vendors होंगे. जिनके tools होंगे

हमें किसी से focus Great. करते So we have a perfect solution for you on on that bit. Yeah. What you've mentioned is creating an industry report. The name that you mentioned earlier, Gartner, यह सारा का सारा model ही इनका इस पर है. So what they do is, apart from, rather than sending phone qualified leads, they send this data. Industry reports निकालते हैं, उसको बेचते हैं कि market में HR की industries इतना shift हो गई. AI calling के ऊपर यह वाला बिटा गया. So we have all of these reports which we don't sell but they are available online on our LinkedIn platform as well. HR industry report. How has AI impacted using the quantum of data that we have? हमारे पास अगर let's say दस हज़ार बंदा आया है तो वह switch small to medium size में कितना switch कर रहा है? ठीक है, for example what we do is there are lots of these industry reports. They are online. If you want to tap into the HR industry, the medical industry, the ERP industry. So what we do is we generate reports that gives you a complete holistic overview from a macro level and the data that we have, data set. We recently and that's what the content marketing and SEO team के अंदर, they are proper analysis की team that does it and there is a branding place that happening. So you can access that online as well and all of that bit and that helps us creating the strategy for let's say Q1, Q2 next year as well कि अगर HR की मेरी industry is the second biggest revenue generator for me, that is where I have to capitalize next year as well.

Right और यह but यह reports free of cost available है? जी, online on our social media, LinkedIn profile के ऊपर and you go to a resort This is great content basically कि potential vendors को ढूंढने के लिए आप वह उस content के through आते हैं. मेरा जो question है वही है कि is there a क्योंकि एक again persona एक लड़का है वह services का काम कर रहा है. ढाई सौ बंदे की उसके पास company वन चुकी हुई है और बड़ी हर हिस्सा के हीरे बैठे हुए हैं जो कि जन्म बहुत interesting interesting काम कर रहे हैं. अब वह कह रहे कि यार AI की दुनिया के अंदर I wanna do product marketing something something. आपको product build करनी है मैंने. अब वह या तो reports आपकी पढ़ सकता उससे वह insight generate कर सकता है. But I would argue कि उस report में भी tears होंगे of insight, right? So एक base insight है कितने लोग किधर convert हो रहे हैं, क्या हो रहे किस तरह से हो रहे हैं. कहीं ना कहीं analysts voids, vacuums भी बता सकते हैं, analysts आपको depth भी देते Bloomberg जो करते हैं, right? Bloomberg का एक basic भी है, Bloomberg terminal भी है, Bloomberg core बहुत कुछ भी है. I would argue कि there is actually a possibility of a subscription model where I can subscribe to you for a $100 a month and I can gather more. एक है, let's say, data, एक है real time data. सार्चे सब सदा कहां पर हैं, किस चीज़ के ऊपर हैं, कौन सी वह हैं. And for that, I would argue कि because there are tens of thousands of agencies who are hoping to rapidly create products in SaaS and this and that, they can actually leverage a lot of that data and insight and utilize that to create the right relevant product, right? Did you ever think about मैं समझना ही चाह रहा कि in terms of new business, expansion of your potential product revenues, have you defined any new areas that you'd like to go through? Because I feel like now you've done the base. There's a lot that you can do. I'm curious if there is any area that you're pursuing.

I think there are obviously just आपने present किया that we were not thinking on those lines to start, you know, subscription services where we can provide these insights. But obviously there are many areas that we are working on in order to expand. For example branding is one play that we were not providing before to vendors so that is so let's say if you are a small company in Pakistan and you want to be listed and shown and you know get some attraction because buyers are coming to software finder when they are looking. It's same as you know LinkedIn पर आप ads लगाते हैं because you know people are relevant, people are there to you know on LinkedIn trying. They are not trying to find something but just for yourself to appear there लेकिन I think software finder तो बहुत बड़ा advantage देता है कि buyers are coming to software finder. उस उस aspect से वह Software Finder पर आ रहे हैं कि you know I will be I am looking for something just show me products. Yeah. So, for small midsize companies based around Pakistan I think Software Finder can give them we already have this play that you can come in we can list you on top there is a subscription service where they can pay and be on the top top of the listing मतलब हर listing में there are about seven eight hundred vendors अगर आप उसमें list हो भी जाए तो you will not really get a lot of visibility. So we have sponsored listing where they can get visibility. On top of that we are also doing mid funnel leads as well for smaller organization जहां पर हम phone qualified promised buyer leads नहीं दे रहे but you know there's some intent that people have shown those leads that are much more affordable for small size vendors because obviously everyone don't have the budget to pay thousands of dollar to buy leads. They need like a $500, $600, thousand dollar service where they can get some some sort of value. So we have also introduced that and I we we have actually recently gotten few vendors out of Pakistan, you know, इन्होंने वह services avail करना शुरू भी कर दी. And the third thing is that we have also now about to launch next year जिसमें हम traffic भी route करना शुरू कर रहे हैं from software finder to the vendors. So, will not only give you visibility अगर एक buyer हमारी site पर है और आपकी profile पर देख रहा है तो we will also give you a link where you can take that traffic on your website and you know try to convert and better present your brand because now they are on your website. So that's another play that is coming next year. उसके अलावा there is there are quite a few other ideas as you mentioned you know the base वन गई हुई है now we need to extend that base. The other thing is that there are so many categories you know every category को tap करना उसके अंदर जाना it's it's it's not easy play. We are now looking into tapping into other B2B categories. AI has created so many new categories in the market जिसको मतलब इतनी speed से हम categories भी नहीं जा रहा है जितनी speed से AI की categories मशहूम हो रही है. So, is obviously a lot of upside to where we are standing and where we will be next year with our offerings. And these categories are mostly around software as well like within the software space within the software space. I think the other thing we have done which is very useful for Pakistan market is that we are we are also getting into services categories, software related services categories. For example, you are a vendor जो कि ERP की services provide करता है, consulting provide करता है, CRM की करता है, Salesforce की implementations, HubSpot की implementation. Pakistan में there are so many software houses that provide that services and they are always looking for leads. So now if you're on our website you will see that there's in in software categories at the bottom we have now listed software service categories as well. Just where we have now started getting a lot of attraction. We're also providing leads to software development companies. So we have a software development category where, you know buyers come to us, they want to build an app rather than purchase an app. हम उसकी भी lead generation कर रहे हैं और we are supplying leads to software development companies as well.

So, Yeah. I'd be curious कि अगर आपके पास अगर आपको यह पता लग रहा है कि यार मेरा I don't आपको पता लग रहा है या नहीं लग रहा because आप तो qualified leads भेज रहे हैं but आपको conversion का data मिल रहा है या नहीं मिल रहा? But अगर मुझे पता लगता कि यार HubSpot का conversion होती है तो technically that person, that that company is is ripe for someone जो consultant को आप फेंके कि यार यह बंदे ने अभी software ख़रीदा है इसको reach out करो और reach out करके कहो क्या हूं आपकी implementation कर देते there is a higher chance that that conversion will happen. Yes. तो is that the way that you're sort of being able to generate better leads? Yes, that is correct. The other thing is कि

a lot of these services vendor they are also reseller for these companies as well. So, it's not only कि वह direct HubSpot से खरीदेंगे और तब उनको services company can pitch their services. A lot of these times they are reseller of those technologies as well like for Pakistan में बहुत सारे HubSpot के resellers हैं. So those leads are also useful when they are in the software buying stage. So, वहीं से वह उस lead को capture करें, HubSpot को sell करें और फिर after service भी वही ना so that everything is managed under one umbrella. जिस तरह Microsoft के you know CRM है, ERP solutions हैं जो कि most of these companies are resellers as well. Makes

sense. I am gonna move towards the last and we are at the one hour thirty minute mark as well so I gonna wrap this up as well but again, मैंने जब यार जो आपकी जो एक तो हम कह रहे हैं ना कि AI की दुनिया में आप क्या करेंगे? So, एक एक आपका software like tool है जो कि बाहर सब कुछ AI की changes हो रही हैं. उसके अंदर आप अपने आप किस तरह integrate करेंगे. एक दूसरी तरफ़ दौड़ यह लगी हुई है कि हर company कह रही है कि यार मैंने भी AI बनना है, AI first company बनना है, right? And more often than not अब क्या हो रहा है कि हर website पर आप जा रहे हैं और एक chatbots आए और आप वहां पर that's your primary touch point. Rather than going through like all of the, you know, browsing and this and that, तो वह बस एक singular setup पर लेकर आ रहे हैं और वहां से वह एक sort of natural language processing के through वह आपको जो भी आपके solutions provide कर रहे हैं. And again, आपके case में because it's a, it's going in browsing or it's getting certain data, Creating AI workflows make it makes it much more personalized, and I feel like there's more value that can be generated through that. I'm curious how much of AI are you currently integrating in your processes from the start touch point of of, let's say, website पर land करना to that aspect of cold calling and and and, you know, outbound lead generation and so on? Yes.

Yeah, that's a great question. So firstly, the idea is not to implement something that's, you know fancy and doesn't create any value. No, novelty value के लिए. Novelty value के लिए कोई फ़ायदा नहीं है. ठीक है, if you go to our website, it is such an easy thing for us to have an AI search bar और वहां पर. एक रात की implementation है या एक रात की implementation का बेटा. है. And that how will that differentiate our side with the LLM, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok के साथ? पहले तो वह चीज़ कहता है आप कर भी दोगे कि AI first पर. So what the key value that we see is operations के अंदर हम AI को किस तरह implement करें? जो जो that is the integral part because the quantum is as such. For example content की अगर हम बात करें, मुझे समझ I think I don't have the numbers. हम सात आठ नौ लाख words या एक million words महीने का churn out कर रहे हैं and these are not ChatGPT words. These are SEO पर जो ranking भी अब नज़र आ रही है. यह proper साठ सत्तर बंदा है. उस पर ChatGPT वगैरह को involved नहीं है. उनके अंदर अब उनकी publishing का जो पूरे का पूरा ops है उसको AI के through implement करना है या एक आप if you are an HR expert आपने एक किसी article के ऊपर लिखना है. उसमें AI element क्या करना कि आप सिर्फ keywords डाल दें और rather than you typing everything वह हमारा जो AI generated tool है वही आपको सारे के सारे articles दे दें या touch base दे दें कि भाई आपने जो इस topic पर लिख रहे हैं यह आठ से दस relevant articles हैं या यह इसका crux है and that gives you a head start. So as little a detail as this we are trying to implement that. When it comes to the outbound side we have millions of email addresses that we have acquired over the past seven years. Subscription based models, you know, you are talking about big giants out there in The States जहां से acquire किया बैठ के through proper channel. उसकी data enrichment because the database has to be enriched. अगर आपने दो साल पहले मुज़मिल की details ली है, मुज़मिल has is somewhere else तो वह उसको enrich करना is is a big and massive scale. So what we are trying to do and that is we are trying to implement that this this quarter as well to enrich let's say five millions of email, phone number, database enriching it through AI. But online scout करके.

Interesting. तो अगर आपने

उसको backtrack किया, LinkedIn पर देखा है. How do you, yeah obviously how do enrich how do that bit as well? The most important bit that we are doing is on the prospecting end and on the calling end. For example, finding the right people के x y z individuals can, might be in the market for a particular software using AI for the prospecting bit और उस बंदे को पहले तो हम अपना persona create करें. उस बंदे की information लें कि यार ये ये thousand बंदे हैं based on the persona that you have developed automatically through AI. ये they might be in the market. उनको first touch point क्या होगा? Email के through होगा? Call के through होगा? किस तरीके से होगा? वही सारा AI bit करें and once we have positive interactions with them, it goes directly to the caller which is also an agentic AI bit that we are trying to deploy. So the entire closing that we are trying to achieve right from talking to the getting all the information, the purchasing time frame, the budget, implementation time and availability for a demo next month, next week, whatever that is. The idea is to have an AI agent do that in 2026 and getting a good chunk of the ops handed over to the AI. That does not mean we are trying to cut down the existing people that we have. That means that if we need 200 people in 2026, we would want कि पचास साठ बंदों का काम AI bit से आ जाए. बाकी we will have to rely on on on hiring more people as well. So that is basically nutshell कि how it's disrupting our ops or how we trying to, you know, stay ahead of the curve.

Talent आपको मिल रहा है एक काम का? Yeah, अब आपका वह bottle neck reach होना शुरू होकर यह कि यार ज़्यादा talent शायद लोहौर में available नहीं है. Think

इसका answer मैं दो उसमें कहूंगा. I think what Software Finder has bought to specially लाहौर market is कि पहले अगर कोई बंदा tech में degree करता था तो वह यही होता था कि मैं कोई software development की job ले लूंगा, analyst वन जाऊंगा या QA में चला जाऊंगा. I think what software finder has bought is this another angle of careers or another sort of opportunities. I mean for business students yes but also for the tech students or people who are in tech that while you are doing degrees in tech you also have a huge digital marketing space in the world that you know you can route towards. तो we have a lot of digital marketing people right now जिनका background you know they are software engineers and they are doing really well in digital marketing because they understand tech, we are teaching them marketing and it's turning out to be a perfect combo. Now to answer your questions yes, this is not easy क्योंकि Pakistan में बहुत ज़्यादा digital marketing की degrees नहीं है अभी तक जिसमें digital marketing इस level पर universities offer कर रही हैं. I think it has started recently लेकिन अभी भी आपको कोई graduate नहीं मिलेगा जिसने SEO, A to Z में कोई कोई 10 modules cover किए हों अपने अपने marketing की degree में even. So, I think I am always emphasizing universities to introduce digital marketing as much as possible because their entire dynamic is shifting towards digital marketing. Basic दो तीन courses हो जाते हैं लेकिन in depth digital marketing की उस तरह अभी वह नहीं है. So yes it is very hard to find talent but I think we have we are doing a lot of training, lot of development in order to teach people how to become good at SEO, content marketing, digital marketing overall, how to manage advertisement at a larger scale. We also teach them US culture how people really think and respond to ads in US which is very different to how people do it in Pakistan. So I think we have opened a digital marketing institute in a way that you know we are producing a lot of good digital marketing people out of Pakistan and obviously it's something that we struggle with but we are doing our best to keep on finding talent and keep on training them to get to that level. The idea is to find

someone who can be nurtured. क्योंकि Pakistan के अंदर भी I think people if you've been talking to a lot of people in the tech space उनका यही होगा कि बने बनाए talent तो exist बहुत मुश्किल है. यह छह महीने से साल का play है क्योंकि जिस हज़ार dollar के ads चला दिए. You are talking about $500,000 per month. उस scale के ऊपर किसके पास exposure है? SMS marketing is a new phenomenon altogether. उसके US के loss क्या है? You know European EU के laws किस तरीके से हैं? आपने उसको उसको acquire कैसे करना है start में? So there is one thing like globalization of that talent is supremely important and I think वहां पर that's the missing link. That is a big missing link but the good thing is we have people जिनके पास the initial you know framework is there. It's not कि these are dynamic individuals जिनको हम polish और nurture करके

we are trying our best with whatever we have and these are the we and I don't know if you you guys have the number कि यार ठीक है मेरी leads इतनी है मैंने आगे टोड़ दी customers को अब वह उसका मैंने एक amount revenue के तौर पर ले लिया है और वह convert होती है नहीं होती मुझे नहीं पता. अगर आपके पास insight है तो do you have a number कि यार we been able to drive conversions of let's say $100,000,000 or so on?

We don't have the exact number but during there is a proper customer advocacy का department. Because if you are working with clients of all sort of nature, even if they are paying thousand, $2,000 per month. There is a monthly meeting कि भाई आपने हमने भी sent you 100 leads. How many demos were you able to set up? हमारा average industry का rate इतना है? What's the closing percentage? You know, that is the kind of information that Yes. But अगर मैं आपको जितना if you ask me कि आपके internal revenue numbers बता दें उसी तरीके से customer के भी not everyone is open कि भाई we have closed $100,000 worth of sale or 200,000 worth of sale but we know कि भाई यह किस तरीके से चल रहा है and it's such a you know it's a two s ward. It's such a ruthless business as well क्योंकि once if you are spending thousand dollars आप मेरे साथ पांच साल से भी हैं अगर आपको लग रहा है कि मैं यहां से दो सौ dollar बचा सकता हूं ना तो पांच साल की and a lot of cases we need to make sure कि वह engagement बढ़ती रही because they are not tied up in a यह long contract. It's a month to month basis. आपने मुझे thirty day का notice देना है if the quality is not there. So that is basically a survival necessity for us as well of gauging on that bit. I think I can share some percentages. So let's say हमारी जो conversion percentages हैं if most

of the time customers see from lead to opportunities about 30 to 40%. So let's say अगर हमने उनको 100 leads दी तो वह 40% उनकी qualified opportunities वन जाती हैं जिस पर वह demos दे रहे and you they get into sales cycle and out of that 3040% of opportunities they convert most of the time 15 to 20% into sales. So what that means is if I if if software finder is supplying them 100 leads 30 to 40 उनकी convert to you and out of that thirty forty अगर हम 15 to 20% का ratio लोग आए तो they are converting seven eight customers into paying customers. So out of 100 almost six, seven they get paying customers.

Right, makes sense. And that's a lot if you add the monthly और कि वह उस customer कम तीन से चार साल रहना है बैठ के. And these are sales sales, SaaS sales so yeah. Was that a lifetime value निकालना उससे? वह तो subscription पर है जिसे भी तो that's obviously an entirely different वह as well. Guys, I'm gonna wrap this up. We're at the one hour thirty ish minute mark. I'm gonna ask you one question. Generally ask all of my guests, and I'm curious about your insight on that particularly because you guys, you know, for one reason or the other, you made sure कि पहले आप particularly अद्नान भागी जब बात की जाए तो वह मेरे लिए थोड़ा शौक्र यह है कि वह UK से पढ़कर Pakistan हा गए उस time के ऊपर जब boom market चल रही थी. फिर उन्होंने Pakistan में time गुज़दार के then, you know, eventually I think वह एक normal curve है कि हम अपना global experience भी ले लें. हम अपना जो है वह I think passports वगैरह भी ok कर लें और companies वगैरह भी setup कर लें. But eventually you did, you know, expand out in Pakistan. There's a bulk of your workforce is in Pakistan. You're creating a lot of jobs here. Pakistan के बड़े मसले हैं. You know, political instability भी है. तो आपके बिजली internet, अभी internet के हमारे podcast में बड़े मसले हुए. I am curious as you have sort of gone out then come back again now you are somewhere in the middle and actively working around Pakistan. How do you see Pakistan of twenty fifty, twenty five years from now if you were to sort of extrapolate whatever you know and see now without any ifs and buts कि अगर हम यह कर लें, अगर government यह कर लें, forget about all of that. Just sort of extrapolate whatever is happening and tell me a vision for what twenty five years from now looks like for Pakistan.

Think, I mean मैं Pakistan से बाहर जाता रहा हूं और वापस आता रहा हूं और उसकी वजह यही है कि Pakistan is such a big talent pool. There is so many bright minds here. I mean हम हम भी यहीं से निकले हैं और it's just कि हमें थोड़ा बेहतर exposure मिल गया तो we were able to do what we are doing today. Few people are not able to get that exposure लेकिन I think companies like us and there are so many other companies out there जो कि अब वह exposure दे रही हैं. लोगों को Pakistan में बैठे हुए हैं कि वह US में काम कर रहे हैं, UK में काम कर रहे हैं, Australia में काम कर रहे हैं. तो I mean passively they are getting that exposure. Yes, आपने सही कहा कि Pakistan में मसले हैं लेकिन मसले कहां नहीं होते अभी आप US उठा लें, वहां पर भी किसी आम आदमी से पूछें तो वह आपको सौ मसले बताएगा कि you know government के यह मसले हैं, मेरे tax इतना बढ़ गया है, inflation बहुत ज़्यादा है और you know a lot of people you will meet on the street even in first world countries they are crying about something. So, मेरा ख्याल से Pakistan में जो आपको street smartness सिखाते हैं Pakistan, जो आपका talent इस जो Pakistan में develop होता है it's develop in a very different way and that's that's something that you cannot really see in foreign world. Having said that all we need to do is polish that talent and you know take them to places. Twenty five years में मैं Pakistan को एक बहुत solid space में देख रहा हूं. I think वह exposure जो पंद्रह बीस साल पहले नहीं मिल पाता था क्योंकि tech exist नहीं करती थी. I think tech has changed things tremendously. Pakistan में बैठे बहुत सारे लोग हैं जो कि अब बहुत कुछ कर रहे हैं using internet tech and now AI and I think this will grow at a very fast pace in the next five ten years. Twenty five thirty तो आप बहुत लंबा सा कह रहे हैं मैं पांच दस साल में Pakistan को बहुत speed से change होते हुए देख रहा हूं for for the good. Though we have issues लेकिन उन issues को by the help of tech people will be able to overcome. जैसे जैसे tech का talent बढ़ रहा है और people are getting more techy and using smartphones and getting on to the internet. I think this is already changing rapidly. For example पहले communication के लोगों को मसले होते थे now I meet people जिनका कोई बहुत बड़ी university से exposure भी नहीं है and they they talk so well because just because you know they they been exposed through technology to western world. Now they understand a lot of western things that you know बीस साल पहले हमें नहीं पता थी जब when we were growing up क्योंकि हमारे पास वह exposure ही नहीं था. So, things are changing rapidly for for the good और चीज़ें चाहे नहीं है, people will find ways as humans always do. मतलब हज़ार साल पहले क्या था? कुछ भी नहीं था. तो humans find their ways and I think with with specially with tech enabled Pakistan, I see Pakistan at at at a very different space in the next five to ten years.

Makes sense. Guys, thank you so much for taking the time out and sharing all that insight. I'm excited to see. आपने दो सौ से साढ़े तीन सौ एक साल में गए. I wanna see next year and year after that क्या होता है? And maybe, hopefully, we'll see a digital marketing first company cross a thousand soon. Thank you so much for coming in and sharing all that insight. Thank you. Thank you for having us. And for all of you guys, let me know in the comment section below. Have you been have you used Software Finder? Did you know about these guys इससे पहले? What are your thoughts on the software industry, AI? AI किस तरह से सारी चीज़ को disrupt कर रही है? आगे opportunities क्या? I would love to know your insight and feedback. But nonetheless, this was सैमित ज़मीन संजय ही for watching ThoughtBank Things. Thank you so much and I'll see you in the next one.