Q and As on Entrepreneurship by Muhammad Nasrullah

Muhammad Nasrullah, founder of Pringit.com shares his views on entrepreneurship. Muhammad Nasrullah hails from Lahore, the second most populous city in Pakistan.

Q:  What is the environment in Pakistan like for entrepreneurs?

A:  The environment has key impact on how people perceive risks, innovation and business.

In poor countries, the majority of people are more concerned with surviving the month, the week or the day, essentially living hand-to-mouth.

Most innovation occurs when your baseline needs are met. That is why most innovation happens in the developed world where political instability, poverty, power cuts are not hindering innovators. Ironically, the more troubled a place is, the more opportunity for the entrepreneur to capitalize by solving those problems.

Q:  What should the role of government be?

A:  As a general rule of thumb, you do not rely on the government for help in entrepreneurship but in recent years more help has been coming from academia by the opening of their resources for entrepreneurs: free housing, lab usage, internet, computers, consulting. Private organizations have also started in this area but generally because there is almost no funding for startups in terms of Venture Funding, this sector remains generally neglected.

Q:  What obstacles do entrepreneurs face when trying to turn their ideas into products and services?

A:  Many, but most common issues are:

• Finding enough resources to reach proof-of-concept of the idea

• Monetizing the idea

• Lack of trust for small companies by potential clients

• High turnover of employees

• Low quality talent due to brain drain (talented people leaving Pakistan)

• Lack of liquidity in the market

Q:  How do entrepreneurs foster new ways of acting and thinking. Has this led to any mindset changes? Have you seen any official thinking changes as a result of entrepreneurs?

A:  Entrepreneurship essentially is about challenging the status quo by doing things that have not been done before. It is always challenging conventional thinking. Most great ideas always sound dumb at the start. But once successful, everyone thinks it was obvious. Eventually, this will cause mindset shifting but this critical mass has not been reached in Pakistan as it has in India. In India, there are enough middle-class entrepreneurial success stories to now have created a sizable innovation industry with companies like FlipKart raising $100M in funding.

Q: What supporting institutions/initiatives help innovators to succeed – private and public sector, big and small?

A: In Pakistan in particular: IT tax holidays, academic institutions generating quality candidates, banking loans (though they barely are available to startups) help.

Q: What challenges are faced when entrepreneurs are trying to expand their business?

A:  The answer depends upon the business. But the current biggest common problem is lack of an easy payment platform like credit cards in Pakistan.

Q: What are the best success stories?

A:  One is the story of Convo.com, a Pakistan-based company competing with giants like Salesforce.com all from Islamabad with funding from abroad (Adobe). Another is TRG, a Pakistani company acquiring US and other international companies.

Q: What tools or institutions do entrepreneurs need to grow small businesses into larger companies?

A: Entrepreneurs should be self-reliant but eventually, the following are very useful:

1. Incubators
2. Academic Institutes
3. Venture Firms
4. Investors (private, friends)