ProPakistani.pk, My Article And The Incubation Mafia. #MirMak

ProPakistani.pk, My Article And The Incubation Mafia. #MirMak

3 years, thousands of positive articles, hundreds of speeches around Pakistan, thousands of meetings with the students and the young entrepreneurs from across Pakistan, encouraging them, guiding them, being involved personally in their lives and one article i write pointing out the ills of the incubation process in Pakistan, and crap hits the ceiling.

Poor Dr. Umar Saif gets dragged by people implicating him as the target of my article. How pathetic could this get ? I have immense respect for Dr. Saif. He is doing a great job. I have visited Plan9 and have met him personally. I visit Plan9 whenever i get a chance. They are doing a good job. But for every Dr. Saif, there are 99 Dr. Unsafe in the incubation business. Yes it has become a business and that is what i was pointing out in my article. Of course i must have hit a cord in the right place that 90% of the people agreed and it was shared over 3500 times on ProPakistani.Pk and another 2800 times collectively on other platforms. 

It would be absolute ignorance to say that "All" incubation centers are producing nothing. But we are not at a stage where we can take the hit or miss approach when it comes to the Startups. One: because the youngsters need clear direction to fulfill their business dreams. Two: Quality is needed instead of quantity. Yes 7 out of 10 startups fail but we can not take that approach in Pakistan because even after 7 out 10 fail in the west there is still "Risk Capital" available that chases after the 11th deal. We do not have that risk capital in Pakistan. Here we are a culture where gold, real estate and fixed deposits are the mantra for investments. Three: Not every company is going to be bought out like Whatsapp for $18 billion. It does not even happen in America. We need to create businesses that generate EMPLOYMENT and REVENUES not just silly VALUATIONS that no investment banker or the VC will attest to.

Pakistan is a land of opportunities. Pakistan eCommerce landscape has ample room to grow but eCommerce and "Technological Innovations" are absolutely two different things. We are hardly producing technologically innovative companies that can scale up. We are mostly producing eCommerce websites. We need to do both and not just one. We need to do more. The world is watching us. Due Diligence, R&D, Legal Help, Risk Capital, Road Shows, Bridging The Gap Between The Technology Industry And The Capital Markets, a lot needs to be done and i shall write an article with my humble views as to what needs to be done in a suggestive manner in the coming days, Insha Allah