Buy from the startups

Startups from Pakistan are thriving locally as well as in international markets; and tech startups are leading the charge. The million dollar question for startups used to be; where will the funds come from? But global experts immersed in the country's startup scene contend thats not the challenge.
"The big shortage is entrepreneurs, not money" says Kenneth Morse, the chairman of Entrepreneurship Ventures. Morse who is also the former MD of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center insists that when it comes to capital, "most small firms die of indigestion, not starvation".
The search for "people to take ideas from the lab to the crude crucible of the market place" has brought him to Pakistan, for many years now; as part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and USAID-backed program which has taken a number of Pakistani startups to market with a combined top line of more than $70 million.
This year, the startups competing for a place in the accelerator program included a diverse mix including QUEB Technologies which has developed a physical CRM to improve customers experience in retail outlets; AmSearch which markets a cloud-based app that enables deep category searches on Amazon, for third-party sellers; and Fotothumb, a self-styled Uber for photographers. The winners are afforded road shows in the United States which include interactions with prospective investors such as the Organization of Pakistani Entrepreneurs of North America (OPEN).
There are other domestic champions of the nascent culture of tech startups in the country; Plan 9, the largest tech incubator of the country and Nest I/O by Pakistan Software Houses Association are most notable among them. They are working to help aspiring entrepreneurs turn business ideas into reality through domain specific mentoring and access to finance.
Some local startups complain of low valuations as compared to companies from other countries. However the experts say that is a function of their relatively limited ability to display successful commercialization. Consequently, the real fix for startups, is more customers. If more Pakistani companies start to buy from startups and small enterprises, they will enable a culture of startups.