Blogs

The education sector of Pakistan has gone under major transformation over past few years but not a lot of attention is paid to education of PWD (Person with Disabilities). Majority of visually impaired individuals are unable to continue their education due to lack of proper material available for them and most of them stayed unemployed and are dependent on others for survival even in this era.

Recently, Bookme.pk, one of Plan9’s alumni startups from the third cycle raised a Series A investment worth $7.5 million. This round was co-led by Zayn Capital, Lakson VC and Dubai based Hayaat Global. Founded back in 2012, Bookme.pk is the pioneer e-ticketing platform of Pakistan and by far the largest.

“I am a foodie and to be honest, I never thought that I will be selling desserts in my life, until I came to Pakistan from UK and found an opportunity to fill the gap in dessert industry. I shared my travel experiences and started documenting my dessert adventures in the form of a scrapbook and share them with my family and friends over social media. My circle appreciated my work and encouraged me to take the plunge and start my own home-based business.

“Before Dawaai, I was a senior director, head of emerging market derivatives trading and one of the youngest Vice Presidents at 24. I had moved to the UK as a teenager and spent the next 15 years there pursuing my academics and early career. Even back then, I felt that with my level of education and exposure, I should one day give back to my country, solve a critical problem for people, in an economically viable way – even though I wasn’t quite sure of what or how.

“Growing up, I loved playing sports and it has played a major role in how I look at the world. Plan, play hard and win is my strategy in life and this is what I have learned from playing sports. Coming from a educationally privileged background, my parents were always focused on giving us a quality education. We did not inherit a lot of money and nothing was handed over to us. We had to work for everything which made the importance of hard work very clear in my mind.

“Being an average student I have faced failures, pressures, despair, rejection and anger that made me shy and unconfident and I avoided gatherings because I felt uncomfortable and had the fear of being judged or ridiculed. I am a true believer of hard work and knowledge and it can change your destiny. Culturally we are brought up in a way that we need acknowledgement and we very easily get influence by what other thinks of us.

"With Find My Doctor, I have come to the truth of knowing a lot of things which I used to think are myths. First one is ‘Relevance is the key to success’, many people think that only successful business plan will work wonders for them. When Covid-19 hit Pakistan, I knew it in my heart that it’s time to gear up the game and start helping people. The last 5-6 months were the game changer for us, we have tested more than 20,000 people in Karachi, Hyderabad and Islamabad.

elo formerly known as Export Leftovers was founded by sheer chance, when one day my father called to tell me that one of his clients in Canada has filed for bankruptcy, this left us with a huge amount of sweat shirts. I had no time to think or plan, so I winged it. Firstly, I made a shopify website and a facebook page, then I took photographs and wrote detailed product specifications along with size guides. Miraculously, we managed to sell 10,000 sweat shirts in three months time. Those first few months were a hell of a ride which made me realize that entrepreneurship is in my blood.

“When I was in college, I knew that after graduation I would be finding a nice job for myself. The idea of starting a business in apparel and fashion stemmed as a class project from university where we both studied together and later on graduated while harbouring our startup along with full time day jobs to gain the experience needed for certain roles to be executed.

“The thing with entrepreneurships is that it's a risky business which is why most people are afraid to get into it. However, in my case, my friend who was in the concrete business inspired me and his trustworthiness made me start this business. Eventually, I realized that there is no such thing like fear if your idea is unique and smartly executed. Sana and I started with basic R&D about the types of concrete, durability and what will make a plant last longer.