I'm Tim Draper and I invest in big ideas before they become the next big thing. I invested in Tesla, SpaceX, Twitch, all when they were just a sparkle in that entrepreneur's eye. This season, I'm traveling the globe to find game-changing entrepreneurs with world-transforming ideas. I'll bring these visionary innovators to Hero City in the heart of Silicon Valley, where they'll compete for a million-dollar investment. Here is the twist: you, the viewers, can vote for your favorite entrepreneurs and help them secure a spot in the finale. Who will rise to the challenge and secure the funding to turn their dreams into reality? Let's find out together on season 7 of Meet the Drapers.
Here we are in Silicon Valley, where Pack Launch has brought together a hundred of the greatest Pakistani entrepreneurs. We are so excited that Pack Launch has done such an outstanding job, and the top four of those entrepreneurs are going to compete for Meet the Drapers here in the Silicon Valley, the center of all entrepreneurial activity. These incredible entrepreneurs will spread the good word of entrepreneurship back to Pakistan when they fly home. But while they're here, four of them are going to have a shot at going to the semifinals and maybe a chance at the million-dollar investment.
A million dollar investment for my company right now would be huge.
A million dollar from Tim Draper is a big thing for me.
So by getting this investment, we would really go out and delight our consumers all across the world.
A million dollars for us means a million more people that we can help in Pakistan.
So we're currently collecting over a million plastic bottles every month.
We need the right strategic partners on the cap table who truly believe in decentralization.
And for us, delighting those consumers means that we want to deliver them outstanding product as early as possible.
And with every dollar that we get, there's multiple additional users who we can solve for on a daily basis.
Welcome everybody to Meet the Drapers. We are so excited today. This is really an amazing opportunity. We have had hundreds of Pakistanis come into Silicon Valley and we found so many incredible opportunities. To my immediate left we have Lynn Eisenhard. Lynn is a global fintech investor at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Lynn, what are you going to be looking for here? What kind of entrepreneur strikes your interest?
I think companies that are doing positive things in the world that can really create positive change, whether that's sustainability or creating jobs for people. Those are the things that I'm going to be looking for.
And now we have Azra Nem. Azra runs Draper University and Draper University Ventures, and she has done an outstanding job making connections with people all over the world, bringing more extraordinary entrepreneurs to Draper University.
Thank you. I'm also your best investment in Pakistan so far.
That is true, and she's Pakistani.
We're always looking for extraordinary humans who are heroes solving problems where the price of service is really high and the quality of service is really low, and there's a huge gap in the market. Things that give people that opportunity to create more jobs and more financial freedom in the markets they come from, because there's no lack of talent in the world.
Tell us a little bit about some of the numbers at Draper University.
We are now at over 45,000 alumni from 104 countries, so we're almost everywhere in the world. One number that we are very proud of is that on average, one Draper University alumni creates eight new jobs.
All right, so Atif Swan. He is founder and managing partner at Indis Valley Capital, one of the largest VCs focused on startups from Pakistan. Welcome to the show, Atif.
Thanks Tim. I used to be based here, leading growth and international for LinkedIn. I left LinkedIn, took a year off not knowing what to do next. I spent most of that year in Pakistan and that's when I realized that this was such an enormous opportunity. Exceptional talent everywhere that's come here and done really well, but back home there are amazing incredible companies to be built. In the last five years, Pakistan has gone from raising just $10 million a year in venture capital for the entire country to now almost $800 million in three years.
Are they all Indis Valley Capital?
No, they're not. Otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here.
Let's bring on our first entrepreneur. But before we do, let's see what's going on behind the scenes.
I'm Maha Shahzad. I'm the founder of Buscaro. Buscaro is a mobility startup in Pakistan. I've grown up between the US and Pakistan. Life has been split between the two continents. I think when you see a problem, you either solve it or you learn to live with it, and I didn't want to learn to live with it. I spent time in Pakistan previously and had a really tough time commuting. It would be unreliable, unsafe, extremely expensive. There are challenges around accessibility and safety, particularly for women. There is nothing I could have done that would have created more impact and made me happier as an individual than what I've chosen to do. There are all these women who are a third of our user base today who suddenly have the opportunities to get to work, the comfort in knowing they feel safe. We've now done over 10 million bookings, and we haven't had an incident. There was a system that was extremely inefficient that we've sort of eradicated. We have literally the bus mafia in Pakistan that I've gotten up against. Those are not very happy people. They are too afraid to change the things that they know are wrong and they know shouldn't be the way things are. For me, there's always a choice: either you keep complaining about something and you nag, or you just get up and fix it. That comes from the way my dad raised me. He always says in Urdu, which if you translate means 'the person who is afraid, that person is dead.' I remember when I was working for Swivel and that company shut down. I was crying and my dad called me. It was the first time he heard me cry in my entire life. He said, 'What the hell is wrong with you?' I said it's over. He asked me, 'Why if you could run these buses then, why can't you run them now? If you want to help people, then why can't you just get up and do it?' That stuck. We had one bus on the road that day. We have about a thousand of them now, and we have these women who are driving with us. There's a lot of change coming from this that we're very proud of.
That younger woman living in New York seeing now what you're doing, what would that person think?
I think there'd be no surprises. That young girl in New York functioned on no sleep, worked round the clock, was very angry, and had a lot she wanted to fix in the world. I think she'd be proud of what we've accomplished.
We are at a place called TDF Afghar. TDF Afghar was an actual house built in the 1930s which has been a museum ever since. That is what we call the Quaid-e-Azam Mazar, the founder of Pakistan. That's where he was buried, as was his sister. Karachi has some of the best food in the world, certainly the best in Pakistan. That's something we all take great pride in. It's where all the action is, where all the work gets done. We have a beach about 30 minutes from where we're standing called French Beach. That's usually my weekend getaway spot. Karachi people are very different than in other cities. Karachi is a lot more fast-paced. For anyone looking for action, this is where they come to in Pakistan.
I've always been on the other side of this. I've judged a lot of competitions. I think that's a much easier job to do. When the tables were turned today, I was absolutely nervous. I'll start by telling you guys about me. I moved to Pakistan in 2017. That's the first time a company was trying to do something about mobility. That was Careem. I moved for them. Then went to a company called Swivel and went on to head their business in Pakistan. That became one of their most remarkable stories. Unfortunately, in 2022 they had to shut down their operations. When that happened, I made the decision that day to continue to solve the same problem. I did that for a couple of reasons: one, because it hadn't been fixed and I didn't think that means it can't be fixed. Two, we thought we were the best team to solve for this. Three, I had thousands of customers reaching out to me who didn't know how they would get around the next day. Two minutes is not a lot of time, so I had to try and pick the bits and pieces we wanted to cover. Buscaro was launched and it is addressing a problem that millions of Pakistanis and people all over the world face, both from an affordability, safety, and reliability perspective. We are able to provide this on a price point that works out to be about 20% of ride-hailing, a quarter of what a rickshaw costs in Pakistan. Over 99% of the 9 million bookings we've done so far have been on time. We've managed to do this in a way that's safe. We started this company to solve primarily for women who have much fewer options than men do in Pakistan. In the last 18 months we've built this business with very little money. I have a team of experts that have been in this mobility space working on this issue that have all come together.
I've seen him on screen obviously prior to this, but I think experiencing that live is a whole different ballgame. We have two business models. There is B2B2C which is essentially B2C but without acquiring users directly. My nervousness and my posture—it's a very different ballgame when there aren't people judging you. Then there's B2B which theoretically you can run without tech, but it's not as efficient, not as safe.
So you said it's a quarter of a rickshaw. What does that really mean?
What we managed to do is because we have high capacity vehicles and we're putting 30 people in a bus as opposed to one person in a car. Fuel, being the biggest component, is suddenly reduced and split into multiple people. The average price each person pays becomes a lot lower.
Are you outright purchasing all of these vehicles and you have to maintain them? As you grow, those costs can grow significantly as well.
We don't purchase any of these vehicles. There are people on ground today who are running this as solo entrepreneurs, and we come in and work with them. That means they can earn more money, and we're able to charge the end consumer a lower amount for public transportation. There's just not enough of that. For women in particular, the hope is that this creates opportunities for them to be able to go and work.
What was the one thing you learned from Swivel not working out?
Our focus has been on unit economics, on sustainability. I've had very little capital to work with, so there's been no room for mistakes in our case.
Thank you, Maha, for being on Meet the Drapers.
Thank you very much.
Relieved, excited that we're all on this show and getting an opportunity to represent Pakistan here.
How about you guys? What do you think?
I'm very curious, Rahim, because you're very familiar with that market. I think it's very exciting. It's a hard problem though because there are startups that have tried to solve it and failed in the past. But Maha has the right experience and she's come from that world, so she's learned that, and so far the numbers are really impressive.
I think there's a very interesting opportunity in Pakistan because a whole generation of women who never went to school or college are now going to schools and colleges, and for them the biggest issue is getting back and forth from those places because public transport is either non-existent or not safe.
I've got a question on what a rickshaw is. Is it the hand-held one because that's the way I remember rickshaw, or is it like a tuk tuk?
Terrific. So for all of you who didn't know, a rickshaw is no longer the vehicle held by a man with two wheels on the back that runs like a wagon. So see, I'm way behind on my rickshaw terminology. Let's move on to our next entrepreneur. But before we do, we're going to do a little eyebrow exercises. Let's see what's going on behind the scenes.
My name is Arifbal. The company name is Lam, and our core mission is that we want to make South Asian fashion accessible to anyone anywhere in the world. I was born and raised in Lahore. I did my undergrad in computer science, got into AI, then got a chance to move to the US to work for Microsoft, Pinterest, Meta. It's easier to connect the dots going backward. My family got involved in fashion and the digitization of fashion was happening. I was the person they were talking to about technology. It was a big shift not only going towards a smaller startup space but also towards an area far from the world I was part of. I was getting to a phase in life where I wanted to have a bigger impact, especially on the community I was raised in. 80% of people thought I was crazy, 20% were supportive. The moment you get a single order from making this fashion accessible across the world, that one moment pushed me to go do this. Looking back four years ago to now, we have created more than 10,000 jobs, especially for creative people on the ground. What started to happen is they started their brands in their garage with one or two people, and in a year or a couple of years their workforces went from two to five to ten. I met one of them a quarter ago who had a workforce of 200 people.
What's the origin of the name?
That's a bit personal to me. When we were deciding on the name, my daughter, whose name is Lamia, was around four and a half years old, and we had nicknamed her Lam. Since her birth she keeps telling me that I need to take care of her name now as I have to take care of the brand. Every time we do something fun and exciting she's very pumped up, and she has already made up her mind that she wants to be an entrepreneur now.
What would the guy working at Microsoft or Meta running a big team at Meta think about what you're doing now?
I think that person probably had the inspiration to always go do that. I think he would be extremely happy that I took that leap of faith and left that extremely comfortable life of being in a big tech company. The only regret I would have is that I should have done that a bit sooner. The energy I get by doing this, the energy I get from seeing the impact on the ground, is incredible.
Pack Launch is one of the most fabulous communities which brings the best brains, especially Pakistani-origin brains, whether you're talking about venture investors, investors in general, entrepreneurs, or people who work in technology firms all across the world. Some of the best brains come together at Pack Launch and it's a fabulous community. I personally love the Pack Launch format because there's a limited number of founders that they always have from the ecosystem, and then a different group of investors depending on the location you meet with every time. Whereas generally for Pakistan conferences, you see the same people, but with Pack Launch there's always the opportunity to meet a completely new set of people, which is super exciting. The Palo Alto conference is one of the best that Pack Launch has done because there was such a diverse group of people that we all got to meet and make friends with. That's something I really enjoyed.
One of the great things Pack Launch has done is bring all the Pakistani entrepreneurs under one area. That's where the announcement came in, and then I spoke with a founder, Ali, who's been a great supporter of the startup ecosystem. He encouraged me that I should apply, and even all the investors thought this is a great show, so we should definitely do that.
We are at Prayer Hall in Karachi, in one of the most popular areas here where a lot of community gets together. A lot of people are playing cricket behind us. Cricket is one of the most popular games here in Pakistan. I played cricket all my childhood. Cricket is pretty much what 90% of kids growing up end up playing in one way or another. If someone is visiting Pakistan, I think it's the diversity of what you can get from where we are right now in Karachi, the south part, then going to the mid part in Lahore, and eventually to the north where there are great mountains as well. If someone has 8 to 10 days, I would expect them to go from one end to the other and explore the history and culture. Karachi is the economic capital of the country, so most of the hustle and bustle, banking, and a good chunk of startups happen here. That's also where the port and beaches are, which makes the city amazing for visitors, and a lot of economic activity happens here as well.
Yesterday when I was thinking about going on stage in front of Tim and the audience, I felt that I'm going to feel nervous, but when the moment happened and I was walking on the stage, I felt super comfortable. I'm Arifbal. We are trying to make South Asian fashion accessible to the world. I would love to see you in a Pakistani kurta. I know you gave it to me, but I'm a little bigger than what you thought I was going to be. On TV we all look the same size, but I'm shipping one. He brings a lot of enthusiasm, but when it comes down to business he has the ability to go deep. I found him super interesting because of that combo. Before I jump into the problem, I want to talk about our core team and how we got into this. We were living in Silicon Valley and Seattle, working for Microsoft, Facebook, Pinterest, and Amazon. Two of us were actually down in the Pakistani fashion and textile ecosystem, really trying to understand what's going on there. While living abroad, we realized that if you open our wardrobe, we have tons of ethnic clothing but they are not really accessible. So we built this single app and website where people can now browse over 150,000 products from all the amazing creative people from that community. We're currently serving about 3 million monthly active users. We have served half a million customers in 100 plus countries and 7500 plus cities. In less than three years we became the largest consumer shipment company out of Pakistan. Most people are either extremely creative or come from a manufacturing background, but they are not really good at digitizing their business and accessing the global market. So we built this entire infrastructure that allows them to be successful. As we grow, they grow with us, and this is how 10,000 jobs are created. Today we are doing $9 million AR revenue.
That's revenue directly to you?
Wow. And in terms of your pitch, you built a lot of excitement that I could see in the bodies when we went to the traction section. Maybe I could have done that a bit earlier. What is it that you're doing that all these other people who are doing fashion in Pakistan are not doing?
What we do is collect all the data. We have 400 million product views in a month. We collect tons of data and then give those analytics back in a very simplistic way. Consumers can get personalized recommendations and type in small queries and prompts that give them access to the entire catalog in a very simplistic way.
I think culturally Pakistan tends to be fast fashion. Every season you need new designs and these guys are helping that. So my question would be: now you are at a significant scale, it's not just the product that matters, it's how you build operations. What is your warehousing strategy, automation? How are you serving all these customers at scale?
