An overview of Pakistan’s start-up landscape

Pakistan’s start-up landscape is nascent with most progress occurring in the last five to eight years. In 2012, only two major business incubators and accelerators were in operation with no funding sources or investors. By 2019, 24 incubators and accelerators and 20 formal investors (high-net worth individuals, family offices, and institutional investors) were operating in this space. Roughly, 47 deals took place in 2018-19 alone, compared to 54 from 2015 to 18. The amount raised over 2015-19 was $165 million. Of the 82 companies were funded in this period mostly in e-commerce (25pc), health and health tech (12pc), edtech (11pc) and fintech (11pc). Angel investors, who are vital for early stage investments, funded 60pc of the deals while venture capitalists were responsible for 25pc. As of 2019, there were 20 formal investors in the start-up ecosystem in Pakistan that provide pre-seed (up to $250,000) and seed stage funding ($250,000 to $500,000).

(Adapted from “Legal Framework For Startups in Pakistan,” published by Karandaaz in October 2020)

Be more realistic about the time you have

Do you overload your workday, assuming you can take on a huge list of tasks in a small amount of time — only to find that, on most days, the work remains unfinished? This practice is common but you can break free of the habit by recognizing the traps. Realise that your workload is likely not temporary. Before agreeing to take on something new, review past projects to identify what took up most of your time. Stop believing next time will be easier. Instead, plan more time for your work, not less. Think about the end product and what you can reasonably do before agreeing to take on a big project. Saying “yes” might feel good in the moment — especially if it pleases your boss. But think about how it will feel to submit subpar work and force delays on team members. Don’t assume you’re indispensable. Let go of your monopoly on work and build capacity in others instead — others can be successful if trained.

(Adapted from “Be More Realistic About the Time You Have,” by Sabina Nawaz, published on March 23, 2021 by Harvard Business Review)

The new must-have luxury car?

If Apple is going to make a success of its car project, it has to target the $230bn luxury automobile market. But displacing 125-year-old incumbents like Mercedes-Benz won’t be straightforward. The iPhone maker has reignited efforts to build its own vehicle, though it’s at least five years away from production. Since the project started in 2014, Apple has undergone numerous false starts, laying off hundreds of staff in both 2016 and 2019, as costs ballooned and the focus shifted from electric vehicles to self-driving technology and back again. If Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook proceeds, he faces tough choices on how to enter a market with famously meagre profitability. Price is the obvious way to bridge the gap. Apple is not going to make a mass market car. It has to be a luxury vehicle and likely needs to be priced north of $100,000, particularly if it has self-driving capabilities that use sophisticated lidar technology.

(Adapted from “Here’s How Apple Can Tackle the $230 Billion Luxury Car Market,” by Alex Web, published on Jan 8, 2021, by Bloomberg Opinion)

The thing about global depopulation

Global depopulation is a thing: some East Asian countries have fertility rates near or even below one, while much of the core population of Europe is shrinking. In the US, fertility rates have fallen below replacement rates, hitting a historic low of 1.7 in 2019, and will likely fall even further in 2020 in part due to Covid-19. Many of the world’s poorer countries are seeing their birth rates plunge at unprecedented rates. By the year 2100, according to one projection, world population growth will be practically zero. If you think the world is overpopulated and has serious environmental problems, you might welcome this news, but it has its own concerns. Dwindling population creates its own inexorable logic. If the Japanese population shrinks by half, to 65 million or so, what’s to stop it from declining to 30 million? Or 20 million?

(Adapted from “What Does the World Need? More Humans,” by Tyler Cowen, published on Mar 29, 2021, by Bloomberg Opinion)

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, April 19th, 2021