There is a useful discussion going on the yahoo mailing list, Pakgrid. People are sharing their concerns about entrepreneurship in Pakistan.In particular, there is an email by Mr. Zeeshan Ul Hassan Usmani, which says:
Dear All
Thank you so much for all of your advice, emails, and suggestions. I’ve received a ton of responses through Pakgrid, privately to my inbox, and even couple of calls to say “hi”. It feels really “good” when you see a lot of people like you who are either facing the same problems, or are available to help you out, or provide guidance.
We have all the talent we need; we are performing on the fraction of our potential. We are even afraid to think big!
With the recommendation of my advisor “Get good education and Move to a bad neighborhood”, I returned back home a year ago. My dean (originally from Iran) at Florida Tech also used to tell me that “Zeeshan I would rather love to see you working in Pakistan as an above-average Pakistani, than a brilliant scientist in the middle east.”
I wrote my experiences of reverse-cultural-shock in an article “Florida to Topi” and got a handful of criticism http://www.nextstepforward.net/general-pakistan/from-florida-to-topi/
I am currently working in one of the best institutes in Pakistan, students are really good, but there is something inside me that keeps pushing me to compete against myself. I like to teach, like to write proposals and do research, but I don’t want to do research for the sake of it, if my work is not going to see the light of the day, and if the so-called “impact factor” journal publications is not going to “impact” the life of the people around me, or in my country, I find it hard to convince myself to write one.
Why I should surrender my vision to someone else’s money-making priorities? And to teach 2 classes a week, produce 4 “Impact Factor” publications a year, and work on a dozen committees is all that I can or should do? And then live my life waiting for small promotions, ridiculous increments, and self-propaganda?
Soon after joining academia, I started part-time consulting and wrote an article Patriotism Vs Free Labor, and got a “heavy” response as usual. http://www.nextstepforward.net/research-pakistan/patriotism-or-free-labor/
Then, I joined two other professors from FAST to start a company called HikmahTech – Technologies for Change (http://www.hikmahtech.com/hickmahtech/). We call ourselves the “Accidental Entrepreneurs”. We wanted to commercialize our research and the FYPs of our brightest students. We learned a lot from this “experiment”. We tone-down the “company” to “Association of Persons (AoP)” since the tax on the company is somewhere between 25 to 35% on whatever we sell, and it takes quite a time and resources to register one. I wish we could have some program like “Start-Up Chile” from the HEC or government with a seed-money for young entrepreneurs http://startupchile.wordpress.com/about-apply/ , http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/oct2010/sb20101020_639629.htm
We wanted to start some garage-like venture with low risk and cost. We made wonderful, and a lot of connections, and have given dozens of presentations (to home ministry, ARMY, Police, NGOs – you name it), but unfortunately were not able to engage some serious buyers. Government officials learned from us and then directed their “buddies” to produce the replica of the products that we are marketing. We have been funding this start-up from our own pockets to meet the operational and travelling costs. Now, we are thinking of closing it down on a required stamp paper of 2800 Rs. To “sell” is something I learned that I don’t know. With the culture of “Sifarish”, “Daak Khana”, bribe and kick-backs, I had to challenge my belief-set several times a week
And to my utmost surprise, I do not find myself frustrated at all. I will keep venturing, keep trying, keep losing, and someday I might find what it takes to “serve the people” and `feel satisfied”. I know I am not the brightest, not graduated from Ivy League, have a humble background, but that “something” that keep me awake in the night is going to force me to the right path.
In general (min-Hai-sul-Kaum) we are doing “Guzara” for everything, and when we do “Guzara” we do not strive for excellence, and I don’t want to compromise on anything less than “excellence”. I am new in the lot, have to learn a lot, and I hope with your emails, suggestions, and guidance I would be able to call myself “a contributing citizen” one day.
Let’s reverse the cycle, let’s push private/public sector to open small R&D labs, to give “Research” at least one slide in their power-point presentations, and let’s convince them to talk about endowment. I would love to see a day when we have NADRA Research Labs, Textile R&D Consortium, P@SHA Research, and PSEB/SMEDA Entrepreneurs Grants.
With advance apologize for anything that you may not like
Zeeshan Usmani
Here is my response to above email.
Dear Zeeshan,
I really appreciate your feelings.
I believe the market you are trying to capture is the problem. Try selling to those who really want to get the most of the product. i.e: private firms. Try selling something to Telecom companies. If your product is worthy, it will get sold one day. Try selling the same to NGOs, Army etc & you will end writing blogs & blogs but never get Sales.
The billion dollar question is “if your product is worthy….”. In the capitalist world, the customer is the king. & when one is trying to build ‘enterprise software’ the problem is even more complicated.
I myself dont have a definite answer to this. But here is my suggestion, assuming you are trying to build enterprise software.
1. Instead of ‘assuming’ that someone wants your product, ‘ensure’ that someone wants your product. The decision to build a ‘niche’ software is very tough. When we are talking about vertical markets, the actual question is ‘if anyone anywhere really cares about the product’. This is not the case in horizontal products.
2. So, how can we know if some one really wants our product? One way is to blog, discuss the idea, get the feedback. No matter how small the feedback is, its invaluable. ( check out http://wp.me/p14hjY-2d)
3. Next, instead of making the product completely, try diving the product into small pieces, make web applications & make it free to use. At this stage, your purpose is not to make money. The purpose is to gather user data, create impression in your target market, get feedback. The most important point is that, if users come back to use it, it means your product indeed appeal to them. It also builds customer confidence into your results. Everybody wants to buy ‘authentic’ softwares.
3. Start charging for these tiny web applications. The purpose is still not to earn…rather to check if some one somewhere really cares about your product. Keep price low. Like US$10 every 100 times of usage. Gather user data, create impression, get feedback. Calculate attrition rate, predict Life Time Value of Customer etc.
4. If no one ever pays for my tiny applications at that low price, my product is worthless.
5. If they are willing to pay, integrate ( remake) into enterprise software. Go sell it to Vodafone, MTN, China Mobile. Keep the price high, but give options like deferred payments, reduced prices for additional licenses, free trainings, remarkable customer services etc . The customer has already heard about you, half of his team already uses it in the form of web applications.
Give me ‘some’ share of the profit 😉
If you want to work upon this business plan, can wait for so long for first payment with patience, want to generate wealth using knowledge, have the skills & manpower, want to create jobs for Pakistanis; write to me. I have ideas that will surely, definitely, really sell.
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