Transcript excerpt of a spoken interview (YouTube) with Maliha Malek Quadir about founding Shahos.com, an e-commerce ticketing and transportation startup in Bangladesh. She describes her background in digital/e-commerce (Nokia, Vistaprint), motivations to simplify life for working people, why she chose ticketing/transportation (large market, faster adoption than physical goods, need for digitization), and says Shahos has grown quickly and is among Bangladesh’s leading ticketing platforms though market penetration remains incomplete.
I want to actually go to Maliha Apa. Please tell me like how you came up with the idea with Shahos and like how you started Shahos.com?
I guess, amar khetre I was working in digital field, baire. I worked for Nokia, ekta entrepreneurial setup e. Plus, I worked for an e-commerce company called Vistaprint. Toh, aneg dinari icche chilo, jeta thake amade sabahi baire jara pori ba kach kori, je deshe ese, deshe kichu korbo. To amar jehe to line ta e digital area ta chilo, to shekhan tika I was looking at Bangladesh from a business perspective, what makes sense to start in e-commerce here. Amar kase ticketing ta khub, amar kase maja laglo, because the market itself is big and amar kase manolo je ta adaptation should be faster than physical goods, karani physical goods jero je parak kore dekhar probonata atsa hamader, ota tikete khete prajor jo na. But there are many other challenges in tickets. To abhabhe kore hi, because I am a working woman always with kids and all, life sahaj karan ekta innate ekta always abhadiye chilo je, how do you simplify life. To sebhabhe kore sahajen naam diye kach shuru kara. Ar ticket ta was mainly... from a business perspective, market size and konta. And you know, e-commerce is a very big market as well. Different things click with different people. Amar kacha ekta deni se bhalo lage transportation industry te kach korte jaye je. It's very challenging, very disorganized industry. To shekhane je digitization aana, at a very root and mass level, amara manaha je changes ta dekha jaye. To seta amara kache ku fulfilling lage. तो इफ़ाबे कोरे ही बेसिकली बांगलादेशे स्टार्ट-अप शुरू करा और टिकेटिंग और बास इंडस्रिते काछ.
शुरू करा And like how is Shahos doing right now? Like from the start to like how is the growth and how is it working? We.
Are growing very fast. Masha Allah, we are on track. Like Fahim bhai mentioned, I realize it's a marathon race. It will take time. But se dikhtikhe aamader adaptation is happening very fast. Amar jana mate in terms of number of transactions, we are one of the leading ones in Bangladesh. One of the leading ones ame bolche. Aro besh kichu successful start-ups aache. So ekhane nanan challenge thake Bangladeshe jikono deshe inoton kichu korte gele, to segular bitor diya mara jaachchi. But the investors are very happy with the growth and I am not satisfied. Ami ekhno moni kod aurre onek kichu karar aachche. Of course, onek market penetrate kara ekhono baki aachche. Sabahi ekhono online atota kene na, generally. To shekhane there is a long way to go, but we are in the right track. Thank.
