For many of Pakistan’s farmers, long at the mercy of ruthless intermediaries, an app enabling them to sell directly to customers could mean more money in their pockets.
Omar Majid Warraich knew that his idea could help thousands earn more from their crops, but the problem was he did not know how to execute it.
“As a start-up, you tend to need advice about the do’s and don’ts, when to pitch an idea, what to pitch to investors, apply for grants, get the loans,” he told reporters.
Today, the cofounder of Agrim@art is one of Pakistan’s start-up success stories — his platform has more than 700 registered and verified farmers and a US$100,000 grant from Karandaaz, an investment platform sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Officially launched in August last year, Agrim@art reported sales of 5.5 million rupees (US$35,610) in its first three months of operations and predicted that it would have 2,000 farmers working with it by next month.
Like other tech entrepreneurs worldwide, Warraich turned to a start-up incubator for help getting his idea off the ground — the National Incubation Center, a public-private partnership in Lahore.
The challenges he faced are not uncommon in Pakistan, where the education system is weak and the economy is faltering.
About 64 percent of Pakistanis are younger than 30 and youth unemployment was 6 percent last year, a report commissioned by the UN found.
Incubators fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in the tech sector are “the solution,” center program director Faisal Sherjan said.
Its hub, with its colorful walls, state-of-the-art labs and quirky furniture, is far removed from the daily grind of the heaving, traffic-choked, polluted city of 11 million.
Teams there have six months to set up their businesses while utilizing its facilities, which include Facebook Inc’s newly installed virtual-reality lab to a host of business workshops. There are supervisors and mentors to help entrepreneurs navigate Pakistan’s daunting business environment.
There have been some homegrown tech hits: Bykea, a motorbike-hailing app, last year raised more than US$7 million and is expected to raise another US$15 million in the first quarter of this year.
The country has both a huge talent pool and a huge market, offering the “right mix” for investors, said Khurram Zafar, director of 47 ventures and Karandaaz, which only invests in Pakistan.
However, there are concerns about how tech start-ups can successfully navigate a messy business environment.
Pakistan was still ranked a dismal 122 out of 137 on the Global Entrepreneurship Index in 2018 and 108th on the World Bank’s ease-of-doing-business list.
Kalsoom Lakhani, founder and CEO of the Invest2Innovate fund, said that the key issues are “bureaucratic headaches,” “the difficulty of bringing money into the country and the impossibility of getting it out” and “very debilitating” taxation.
Bribery and corruption are widespread, while government efforts to tackle graft have resulted in an unfriendly regulatory environment “towards investors and entrepreneurs alike,” Invest2Innovate said last year in a report on Pakistan’s start-up ecosystem.
The government is enthusiastic about start-ups and has launched incubators in dozens of universities and tech schools, which it hopes will help develop the sector. Global tech giants are also taking interest.
Uber Technologies Inc has partnered with a government fund to bring its #UberPitch to Pakistan, through which budding businesses are given a chance to present their ideas, while Google and Facebook have awarded grants to start-ups featured on Pakistani reality show Idea Croron Ka (Million Dollar Idea).
However, compared with countries such as neighboring India, investment has been slow, making it hard for start-ups to grow beyond their incubation period.
Many tech entrepreneurs are out of touch with the realities of Pakistan and the unique needs of consumers there, said Maryam Mohiddin Ahmed, coauthor of a report on Pakistani start-ups entitled Beyond the Buzz.
“We don’t need people to get our e-mails to arrive faster, but our crops to grow better. If a large chunk of the population is not being served by innovations, then what is the point of innovating?” she said.
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