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General
Team at Qurtaba have added another front to their impressive Urdu language based apps, they have launched their Alif Bay Pay app for Amazon Kindle, as well. Earlier it was released on iTunes.
I love what Qurtaba are doing in a niche area of Urdu Language. Although their start was from Nan-Map for which they now have an iPhone App.There love for Urdu language related apps has been flourishing in recent months. Most of their apps are doing very well on app store, some impressive numbers for their popular Urdu apps are as follows.
Urdu Writer: 10K downloads in 3 months – average 200 downloads…
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Featured Startup General
I happened to be in Quetta on a business trip last month with no idea of where to dine alone. Being a typical Lahoriite, a die-hard food lover, it matters to me that I try the best food of the place I visit. So this is where FCPakistan came to my rescue. I simply logged in, typed in my desired specifications and got atleast 5 suggestions.
The listing included their opening times, specific facilities like ease for physically disabled customers, credit card acceptance, smoking areas, take away facility, whether valet parking was available or not, and even directions to get there! What more could you want.
Although that was the…
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Featured Startup General
If you have any thing to do with entrepreneurship, its impossible you have not come across Jawwad Farid either in person or in virtual world of his blogs and judging different events realting to startups in Pakistan. He is also the author of Reboot which we reviewed a while back.
Jawwad has been writing on Finance, Risk and Treasury for some time now on learning corporate finance.
I guess that has lead to FourQuants.com. FourQuants helps people understand concepts related to finance. Following topics are mentioned in about us section of the website
- Risk management
- Derivatives products
- Option pricing models
- Basel and capital adequacy regulation
- Financial modeling
- Treasury
…
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Coffee Session General Marketing/Adv
OLX is a global online retailer and auction site. They have an impressive footprint in a little less than 100 countries, each with their own specific domain (like .pk for Pakistan and .in for India).
In Pakistan they have been operating under olx.com.pk for some time with people using it to sell things online.
Recently they have started advertising heavily on Television, a medium seldom used by online businesses previously. The ads (two of which have appeared ) are witty and fun to watch.
The most important factor of these adds is that they are being advertised on media which previously none of our online businesses have used.
Most of…
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General
Round 1 of TiE is about to reach its completion on 22nd of Jan, 2012 at Marriott, Islamabad in which ten teams will participate. Four teams will be shortlisted for the level 2. I also had the opportunity to participate in TiE All Asia Business Plan Competition 2012 along with my team members in the first few stages of level 1. Although we didn’t have the chance to go beyond stage1 but just participating helped us understand our own idea better and to polish our proposed technique along with development of a solid business plan. TiE all Asia Business Plan Competition provides a platform for generation and development of new…
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Announcements General Mobile Apps Software & I.T.
TenPearls has announced the successful delivery of mobile apps for Dawn.com on multiple platforms, including Apple iOS (iPad and iPhone), Android and Symbian (Nokia). The mobile apps have received great feedback from the users from around the world. It may be worth mentioning here that DAWN.COM is the #1 English News website from Pakistan averaging over 16 million page views a month, and 3.1 million unique visitors from around the world.
More details can be accessed at mobile apps for Dawn Media Group by TenPearls.
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General
CIO Pakistan started blog awards last year. Its is a good sign when some one takes initiative and starts some thing new. However its also difficult to introduce this into an already budding field of new media in Pakistan. Last years (or two years back now since its 2012) Awards were initiated so as it is expected it faced initial growing up pains. It always takes time for such thing to wins the trust of the community. And bloggers are one of the most hard people to win over, most of these are rebels in their own rights people who have started blogging to show the world their opinion…
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Featured Startup General
Pakreport.org a tool which was instrumental in gathering statistics during the massive flooding in Pakistan, has created another study/stats gathering tool for our electoral activities. Interestingly its called do we vote
With political scene in Pakistan heating up it provides very valuable information to party supporters and their leaders. A quick look at it shows the all known facts that people in rural areas take their voting more seriously than all of us supposedly educated and enlightened urban population.
Pakreport.org was an initiative launched by Faisal Chohan of BrightSpyre during the floods, the effort enabled people on the ground to send sms (the most spread out communication medium in country)…
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Featured Startup General
This is a revelation that came to me when I recently quit my comfy corporate job for the second time. If you are below 40 and some one asks you about how is your job going and your answer is not in tune of “I like my job because I love the work”.
You need to pause and asses your career, last time I answered this question my answer was “I like the job, because the benefits are good”, and that made me think (offcourse there were other factors as well). But if you are doing a job in which to satisfy your own self you have to look at…
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5:54 pm
I had planned to come in early to see things right from the start after hearing about the turnover in Islambad but due to weekend and clients weekly updates due, etc i came almost at the end of the coffee break.
Only after hearing a few questions after the break i was able to visualize what kind of questions must have been asked earlier (Fahad Akhtar btw gave me a little overview of the questions before the break as well) and it seemed like everybody wanted to know the recipe of a good product, recipe of becoming hit over night, recipe of becoming a Million Dollar company, etc.
Please don’t take me wrong some of the questions asked there were really good but most of the questions were really not up to the par of the people you had called.
After the end i was left with one big question what was achieved by all of this. Did the young entrepreneur learn something or did they just got to see the CEOs they always wanted to see in person?
There were a number of other questions in my mind as well but i rather not delve into it, its a long list.
Following are some of things i wanted to share in particular:
1. I was under the impression that the focus of the meeting was Young Entrepreneurs but all the guests invited didn’t really start young or in recent times. If you wana give everybody the real taste you should have called in Raza from Confiz and Yasir from Netrasoft, etc. These are people to whom the crowd can really associate coz they are around 25 – 26 of age and doing very very well.
2. I believe answering questions the way they were coming can’t be really helpful. If i were to really learn from these CEOs then there should be a case study on these CEOs and their companies telling what kinda conditions the went through, what were their experiences in different things, etc rather than firing questions at them.
The last question asked “The mistakes made by these companies” i think was the most pertinent question. Telling how one became successful is something that wouldn’t help much but knowing what things to avoid, what problems to foresee, what pitfalls to be careful of are far more important.
3. If you still wana keep the same Questions and Answer session then maybe it would be more feasible if you do some prior homework on the CEOs and their companies and prepare a list of very pertinent questions yourself that you ask them so everybody could benefit from it, you can always have a small open question time if some got missed.
4. As Ali pointed out in one of his earlier posts that meetings / gatherings like these are not meant to fire questions at the panel but rather they acts as a platform where Young Entrepreneurs give a brief presentation of their idea / product and then get feedback from the panel on their ideas. Maybe a few pointers on how to position, recommendation on changes, or even better VC funding.
I guess thats about it for now. Overall i am happy with the initiative but the direction need to be corrected.
Ahsan.
7:25 pm
Ahsan,
Maybe you aren’t clear about the format – you’re supposed to ask the questions, we’re supposed to bring the CEOs.
It seems like you had some decent questions but why didnt you ask them there?
10:10 pm
Osama,
We are waiting for a coverage of Startup Insiders Lahore event. Is it coming?
11:46 pm
So, how many showed up at the Lahore event?
10:15 am
@ Usama,
I think you didn’t understand what i was trying to say. I don’t have any questions. I think the current format that you are following is much helpful and the above points where my suggestions.
4:56 pm
Hi How does one organise the startup workshop?
Who is key contact ?..email ?
Thank you ian
7:38 pm
P@SHA and G&W have been organizing the Startup Insiders workshop together. We have had 3 so far – one each in Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore. We can be contacted at: president@pasha.org.pk OR osama@coreframeworks.com OR jawwad@avicena.com
4:11 pm
Anxiously waiting for the coverage of the Lahore event. I wonder what took u so long …
9:05 pm
Hi Jehan,
Thank you for the info..i am very interested in the initiative and wonder if it will be progressed to include workshops…
and ultimately semi annual conventions ?
9:41 pm
Hi Ian,
That is in the planning stage right now. It has grown beyond what Osama, Jawwad, Zia and I had ever thought possible. We are taking input from participants and evolving the sessions so that the young people who keep coming back continue to find value.
6:10 am
Ian
If you are based in Singapore, I am in Singapore for the next few days. Let’s connect and chat. You can reach me at jawwad@avicena.com
Jawwad