Her Startup Gives Millions of Women Safe Transportation | Meet The Drapers Global: Karachi

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 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, 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 100 of the greatest Pakistani entrepreneurs. And we are so excited that Pack Launch has done such an outstanding job. And the top 4 of those entrepreneurs are going to compete for Meet the Drapers We're here in Silicon Valley, 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, 4 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 dollars from Tim Draper is, is a big thing for my company.

By getting this investment, we would really go out and delight our consumers all across the world.

$1 million for us means, you know, 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.

With every dollar that we get, there's multiple additional users who we can solve for on a daily basis.

Okay.

Welcome everybody to Meet the Drapers. We are so excited today. This is really an amazing opportunity. We have had, I don't know, hundreds of Pakistanis come into Silicon Valley and we found So many incredible opportunities. To my immediate left, we have Lynn Eisenhardt. Lynn is the global fintech investor at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And 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 you know creating jobs for people. Those are the things that I'm going to be looking for.

And now we have Azra Needham. 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 for problems where price of service is really high and 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 of that financial freedom in markets that 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've had how many students come through?

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 8 new jobs.

All right. So Atif, this is Atif Swan. He is founder and managing partner at Indus Valley Capital. One of the largest VCs focused on startups from Pakistan. Welcome to the show, Atif.

Thanks, Tim. So I used to be based here. I was 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. Last 5 years, you know, Pakistan has gone from raising just $10 million a year in venture capital for the entire country— so basically nothing— to now almost $800 million in 3 years' time frame.

Are they all Indus Valley Capital?

No, they're not. Otherwise, I won't be sitting here. So we made sure.

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 2 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. And I'd spent time in Pakistan previously and had a really tough time commuting. And it would be unreliable, it would be unsafe, it would be extremely expensive. There's a lot of then challenges around accessibility and safety, and particularly when you talk about 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. I think there's all these women who are again a third of our user base today which suddenly have the opportunities to get to work. The comfort in knowing that people feel safe. We've now done over 10 million bookings. We haven't had an incident. There was a system, one that was extremely inefficient, that we've sort of eradicated. And as we've done that, you know, we have literally what is the bus mafia in Pakistan that I've gone up against. Those are not very happy people. People are too afraid to change the things that they know are wrong, and they know that shouldn't be the way things are. For me, there's always a choice, right? Either you keep complaining about something and you nag, or you just get up and fix it. I think that comes from just the way my dad's raised me. There's something he always says in our language, in Urdu, which if you translate basically means can't get anything done being afraid.

Can you say the phrase?

जो डर गया वो मर गया. which literally translates, the person who is afraid, that person is dead. And I remember, you know, when I was working for Swivel and that company shut down, I was crying. And my dad had called me and it was the first time he heard me cry in my entire life. And he was in shock. And he said, what the hell is wrong with you? And I was like, it's over. And I think he asked me at that time, why? If you could run these buses then, why can't you run them now? And if you want to help people, then why can't you just get up and do it? And I think that stuck. And we had one bus on the road that day. We have about 1,000 of them now. And now we have these women who are driving with us. And so I think there's a lot of change that's coming from this that we're just very proud of.

That younger woman living in New York, seeing it now, what we're doing.

What would that person think?

I think for her, there'd be no surprises. I think that young girl in New York functioned on no sleep, worked round the clock, was very angry, and had a lot she wanted to, you know, fix in the world. And I think that she'd be proud of what we've accomplished. We are at a place called TDF Ghar. So TDF Ghar 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, and so the founder of Pakistan, that's where he was buried, as was his sister. I think Karachi has some of the best food in the world, certainly the best food in Pakistan, and I think that's something we all take great pride in. It's where all the action is, it's where all the work gets done. We have a beach about 30 minutes from where we're currently standing called French Beach. That's usually my weekend getaway spot. So I think Karachi people are very different than they are in other cities. I think Karachi is a lot more fast-paced. Our other cities are a little bit different than that. So I think for anyone who's looking for action, this is where they come to. So 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, and I think when the tables were turned today, I was absolutely nervous. So I'll start by telling you guys about me. Moved to Pakistan in 2017. That's the first time a company was trying to do. Something about mobility. That was Careem. 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, and when that happened, I made the decision that day to continue to solve the same problem. Did that for a couple of reasons. One, because it hadn't been fixed, didn't think that means it can't be. 2, We thought we were the best team to solve for this. 3, I had thousands of customers reaching out to me that didn't know how they would get around the next day. So 2 minutes is not a lot of time, and I think that we had to sort of try and pick the bits and pieces that we wanted to cover. Buskoro was launched, and it is addressing a problem that millions of Pakistanis and people all over the world face, both from an affordability and safety and reliability perspective. We are We're 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, and we've managed to do this in a way that's safe. The reason we started this company is to solve primarily for women who have much fewer options than men do in Pakistan. And this is in the last 18 months that 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.

Tell me, is it software?

I've seen him on screen obviously prior to this, but I think experiencing that live is a whole different ballgame. We have 2 business models. There's 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, it's not as safe.

So you said it's a quarter of a rickshaw.

Yes, it is.

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 1 person in a car, fuel being the biggest component of that, The average price that each person is paying suddenly becomes a lot lower than it would be.

Are you outright purchasing all of these vehicles? And you have to maintain them, and as you grow, I mean, those costs can, can grow significantly as well.

So we don't purchase any of these vehicles. You have people on ground today who are running this as solo entrepreneurs, and we come in and work with them, which then means they can earn more money. and then we're able to charge the end consumer a lower amount. 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 unfortunately not working out?

Our focus has been on unit economics. It's been on sustainability. I've had very little capital to work with, and so there's been no room for mistakes in our case, right?

Thank you, Maha, for being on Meet the Drapers.

Thank you.

My pleasure.

Great.

Welcome to the show.

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 did 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 nonexistent or not safe.

I've got a question on what a rickshaw is. Is it the handheld one? Because that's the way I remember a rickshaw. Or is it like a tuk-tuk?

It's like a tuk-tuk.

Like a tuk-tuk. Okay, terrific. So for all of you who didn't know that out there, a rickshaw is no longer the vehicle that is held by a man and, and has 2 wheels on the back and runs like a wagon. So see, I'm way behind on my rickshaw terminology. So let's move on to our next entrepreneur. But before we do, we're going to do a little eyebrow exercise. Let's see what's going on behind the scenes.

My name is Arif Iqbal. The company name is Laam, and our core mission is that we want to make South Asian fashion accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world. So I was born and raised in Lahore. I did my undergrad in computer science, got into AI, then got a chance to move to US, work for Microsoft, Pinterest, Meta. It's easier to connect the dots going backward, right? So essentially, like, my family got involved in fashion and that digitization of fashion was happening. So essentially, I was the person that they were talking to in terms of like, oh, this needs to happen in technology, that needs to happen. So it was a big shift, not only going towards the, like, less small startup space, but also going towards like an area which is far away from the world that I was, that I was a part of. I was getting to a phase in life where I wanted to have a bigger impact. Especially on the community that I was raised in and I was a part of. 80% of the people thought I'm crazy. 20% of my social and colleague circle were supportive. The moment you get a single order, especially from making this fashion accessible across the world, I think that one moment just pushed me and be like, okay, I want to go do this. And to be honest, like, looking back 4 years ago to now, like, we have created more than 10,000 jobs, especially for creative people on the ground. Essentially what started to happen is that they started out their brands in kind of like their garage with 1 or 2 people, and in a year or a couple of years, essentially their workforce went from 2 to 5 to 10. And I think I met one of them a quarter ago where they had a workforce of 200 people.

What's the origin of the name?

Yeah, that's a bit personal to me. So, uh, When we were deciding on the name, my daughter whose name is Lamia, she was like I think around four, four and a half years old, and we had nicknamed her Lam. So since her birth, she keeps telling me that you need to take care of my name now, as you have to take care of the brand. So every time like we are doing 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.

But just what would the gap Working at Microsoft or Meta, running a big team at Meta, what would he think about what you're doing now?

Um, I think that person probably had the inspiration to always go do that, so 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. And, but I think when I— the only regret that I would have is probably I should have done that a bit sooner. And the amount of energy that I get by doing this, the amount of energy I get by seeing the impact on the ground, is that I think, yeah, would be very, very happy.

So, Pak Launch is, I think it's one of the most fabulous communities which brings the best brains, you know, especially Pakistani-origin brains, you know, whether you're talking about venture investors, investors in general, or entrepreneurs, or people who work in technology firms all across the world. I think some of the best brains, they come together at Pak Launch, and it's a fabulous community.

So, I personally love the Pak Launch format because I think there's a limited number of founders that they always have from the ecosystem, and then I think it's a different group of investors depending on the location that you meet with every time, right? Whereas generally I think for Pakistan conferences, you're here, you see the same people. I think with Baklaunch there's always the opportunity to meet a completely new set of people, which I think is super exciting. The Palo Alto conference I think is one of the best that Baklaunch has done because I think I think there was just such a diverse group of people that we all got to meet with and make friends with, and I think that's something that I really enjoyed.

So essentially, like, I think one of the great things ParkLounge has done is that they have put together all the— especially the Pakistani entrepreneurs under one area, and I think that's where the announcement came in. And then I spoke with the founder, Ali, who's been a great supporter of all the startup ecosystem. I spoke with him and he encouraged that, okay, this is what you should apply. And even all the investors that we have, everybody thought this is a great show, so we should definitely do that. We are at Frere Hall in Karachi, in one of the, one of the most popular areas here where a lot of community gets together. I think a lot of people are playing cricket behind us. It is one of the most popular games here, here in Pakistan. I played cricket all my childhood, similar to the way we are seeing around. So cricket is like pretty much Every, like 90% of the of the of the kids growing up would end up playing cricket one way or the other. If someone is visiting Pakistan, it's like I think it's the diversity of what you can get from where we are right now in Karachi, the south part, and then going to the mid part in Lahore, and then eventually to the north where there is a lot of great mountains as well. So if somebody has like eight to ten days, I would expect them to go like from one end to the other end and explore this like history and culture. Karachi is like economical capital of the So most of the hustle and bustle, all the banking, all the— a good chunk of the startups happen here. That's also where I think the port is, the beach is. So that makes this city like amazing for visitors and a lot of economical activity happens here as well. Yesterday when I was thinking about going on stage in front of Tim audience, I felt that I'm gonna feel nervous. But when the moment happened, I was walking on the stage. I felt super comfortable. I'm Arif. We are trying to make South Asian fashion accessible to the world. I would love to see you in a Pakistani kurta, sir.

I know you gave it to me, but I'm a little bigger than what you thought I was gonna be.

On TV, we all look the same size, but you know, I'm shipping one to you. This is big. He brings in a lot of enthusiasm, but then when it comes down to business, has the ability to go deep there. I found him to be super interesting because of that combo. Before I jump into the problem, I want to talk about a question. core team and how we got into, into this. We were living in Silicon Valley and Seattle and working for Microsoft, Facebook, Pinterest, and Amazon. And 2 of us were actually down in the Pakistani fashion and textile ecosystem and really trying to understand what's going on there. So while living abroad, we realized that if you open up our wardrobes, I mean, we have tons of ethnic clothing, but they are not really accessible. So we built this like single app or a single website as well where people can now browse over 150,000 products coming from all the amazing creative people from that community. So we have been— we're currently serving like 3 million monthly active users. We have served half a million customers in 100+ countries, 7,500+ cities. In less than 3 years, we became the largest consumer shipping company out of Pakistan. So I think we realized like most people are extremely either creative or coming in from the manufacturing background, but they are not really good in terms of like digitizing their business. And they're also not very good in terms of like accessing the global market. So what we did was like we built this entire infrastructure that allows them to be successful in this space. And essentially, like as we grow, I think they grow with us. And this is how 10,000 jobs were created. So today we are doing like $9 million ARR revenue. So this is our revenue.

That's revenue directly to you.

That's that's correct. Wow. And in terms of our big business, you've built a lot of like excitement that I could see in the in the bodies that when we went to the traction section. Maybe I could have done that a bit earlier.

What is it that's that you're doing that all these other people who are doing fashion in Pakistan are not doing?

What we do is that we collect all the data. We have 400 million product views in a month. So as a result, we collect tons and tons of data, and then we give them those analytics in a very simplistic way so consumers can get personalized recommendation, and they can like type in like. such small queries, and those prompts that give them the 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. Now 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?

So in 2022, we invested lot on the infrastructure. We ended up building one of the largest warehouses in the history of Pakistan. Even the order that needs to be packed, there is route optimization of how do we go so that we can ship an order within 10 minutes.

The process of getting clothing created in South Asia is a highly customized process which involves a lot of back and forth between the tailor and the customer. I don't understand how this is all digitized when the tailor is, you know, thousands of miles away.

Her concerns are very valid, but I think things have changed. Changed from the time that she looked at Pakistan to where it is today. So we have tried to digitize that process as much as we can, but today it's only 5% of the business.

Thank you, Areef. Thanks so much for coming on Meet the Drapers.

Great questions. So really, really enjoyed. I don't know how it's going to go in terms of us moving on or not, but I loved the experience.

Either you're buying clothes online in size small, medium, or large, and I think that's easy to replicate. So I just wonder, you know, how much this will actually grow among a customer base.

I think it's also, to your point, customization. So as somebody who's lived outside of Pakistan for like over a decade now, customization for like my clothes from Pakistan has become less and less and less unless it's like something very specific like festive wear that I'm paying a lot of money for. I would love to better understand how this scales because that's where we've seen most of these break down.

So I really like what they've been able to accomplish because it's a very difficult marketplace to scale. These brands have a lot of bargaining power. It's not as fragmented, and somehow they've been able to tap into the international demand, which they did not have access to, to get those brands to play the game and be on there. And now the cycle is going and they're seeing really, really good scale.

2 great entrepreneurs so far. Let's bring on our next entrepreneur. Before we do, let's see what's going on behind the scenes.

Hey, I'm Umer Masoom and I'm the founder of Myco. Myco is a Web3 video streaming platform. I started my career here in Karachi in media, so I worked for some of the largest television networks. I lived, you know, media life, but I always believed that media can be disrupted. With decentralization, as a consumer of content, you've always been treated as a commodity. When was the last time you actually heard or realized that you can actually monetize your consumption?

What was that leap into entrepreneurship for you?

I never wanted to be an entrepreneur. So, and this is this is the funny thing because people ask me, you know, did you want to be an entrepreneur? I was like, no, I didn't want to be an entrepreneur. entrepreneur. I actually wanted to continue my job. I was doing really well. So I was a nerd, and, you know, as a nerd, naturally you want to do well in career. You don't want to build like a company, or you don't want to become an entrepreneur. You just want to, you know, have great jobs and then grow on them. I've got a wife, I've got 2 boys, and my dad is no more. You know, he passed away like 7, 8 years ago. So I have my mom. You know, she's very close to me, and she lives with me as well. My mom and my wife were like really against it because they were like, you know, especially my wife because she had obviously settled down in Dubai and you don't want to take any risks, right? Because a risk would mean that if it doesn't work, you might have to go back. For my wife or even for my mom, because, you know, they really do care about me, so for them, they still miss that guy who would come back from office and then he'd shut down, right? He shut off. When you're building your own company, it's like it's always 24/7 on your head, right? The things that are important to them, they feel— they still feel that I would get those things better on a normal life, a normal job, and not this journey of entrepreneurship. One of the really funny stories also about Myco is that, you know, it started with one founder, which was me, and after a year and a half, I actually pitched to the board. And no one does this usually down the road once the company had already raised capital. We We were already successful. We went to the board and we said that we're going to create like five co-founders. We'll give them equity in the company and this title. Now there were like six people who were building a company like it was their own. Earlier it was only one person, right? People go on X and you know do these posts about them being able to pay their electricity bills just by watching a cricket game on Myco. You know, and these are like fabulous stories because we're living in a world where everyone. Wants to take from the consumer, you know, and we've created a brand which is actually giving back to the consumer. I think my sons are really excited about it. They tend to, you know, talk to their friends and, you know, they seem to be really proud about it and they're also hooked into it. So they usually go and speak with their friends and, you know, they're trying to sell this idea already of a decentralized video streaming platform and, you know, how it's Gonna change the world when everyone starts making money just by watching content, and I think within their age group it's something that everyone is excited about. So, yeah.

All right, great.

We're done.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Rabil Waraj, the founder and CEO of Sarmayaka, which is Pakistan's first venture capital.

Fund.

We started investing in Pakistan back in 2017 at a time when the ecosystem was very nascent under the thesis of our consumption patterns in the country moving to digital-first avenues. This initiative between PakLaunch and Meet the Drapers is very encouraging for startups out of Pakistan. Obviously, I'm biased in thinking every Pakistani startup is great, but I really wish to The best of luck to Lam, Michael, Reupcycle, and of course Buscaro, and hoping to go all the way and winning the million dollars.

So we are at the National Aerospace Science and Technology Park right now, which is commonly known as NASTAB Karachi. There's a lot of big companies here at NASTAB. They're also opening up NASTAB two now right across the road. Right now there's Daraz. There is ability, there is kinu. I think there's a lot of history in certain parts of Karachi. So for example, you have to go to places like Prayer Hall, Sindh Club, and even Sadr, you know, because that's where Karachi started from. There's a lot of architecture, you know, which you're gonna get a feel of the city, how old it was. I've got a lot of foreign friends who come to Pakistan and get surprised by the fact that Pakistan you know, and Pakistani people, we are amazing hosts. As a country, we are very welcoming, and especially when someone comes from outside, we open our hearts and our arms towards those people, and we are the best hosts that you can ever find. I've done a lot of pitching in front of a live audience. I'm actually the streaming partner for one of the largest reality show formats. I would say I'm kind of used to the TV element. So I'm Umer, I'm the founder of Myco. Myco is the world's fastest fastest growing Web3 video streaming platform today. As a consumer of content, I've always felt that it is unfair that as a consumer, every content creator, every publisher, every platform is making money against my consumption, whereas I'm just a commodity. This is exactly what Myco is trying to resolve because we have a vision of bringing true power to the viewers of content. We do this by creating 35% of our advertising revenues— they are reattributed as consumption rewards to the users on the platform. And this results in very high conversion metrics. This results in some amazing numbers. For example, our average engagement time per session on the platform is 33 minutes. When you compare this to a Web2 streaming platform, they're standing at 9 minutes with the same content. Today we have around 13 million users from 190+ countries. You know, we've all read about him since we had dreams about becoming an entrepreneur. Tim has this persona which, which kind of makes you slightly nervous. We are the 2nd largest video streaming platform in Pakistan today. Just in the past 3 months, we've delivered a billion-plus impressions on the content that we delivered. We have paid out 20 million-plus micropayment rewards to users for consumption. We've streamed some of the most popular sporting events from the ICC Cricket World Cup to the PSL to the English Premier League to a lot of squash. We've got content channels, streaming partnerships with some of the largest TV channels like Willow TV, Colors, ASTV, and a lot more. And we've got 100+ advertising brands that trust the platform, that have seen conversion metrics which are better than the other platforms they advertise on. Just recently, we've signed expansion partnership in 2 markets, which is Myco Egypt we've launched, and we've started Myco APEC as well. We've done $7.5 million in revenue just this year, which we concluded in June 2024.

You paid out to your users $20 million something?

$20 million plus transactions. So this is like on an average ₹50 to a 500 rupee transaction, but people are actually making money for engaging with the content that they consume, which is the key disruption that we offer. But that's a lot of money for someone consuming a cricket game or a football game in Pakistan.

You're allowing the creator to control that content, and you are paying them a piece of the advertising that you go and sell for that creator, right? Yes.

The energy that I saw from Tim was that he was totally getting it. Now what YouTube will do is out of that $100, they will give $50 typically to you as the content owner, and they keep $50 ourselves. So our ideology is that there's only 2 stakeholders in that transaction. One is the person publishing the content, which is you, and the other is him. So we give 65% to the creator and we give 35% to the person watching.

Well, what do you take?

So we are the largest creator on our platform because all the cricket rights that you see, all the football rights that we have, All of the content that we produce, syndicate, license, the TV shows that we have, that is all our content. So we're the largest creator on our platform, which means that we make the 65% on 80% of the content on the platform.

So the rest of that you do as a public service?

It's not public service. It's basically empowerment of the consumer. It's a new way of looking at it because we believe that the consumer is actually a stakeholder within this entire economy. It's him who's bringing that eyeball. It's him who's bringing that impression.

Without him, that ad wouldn't We should put Meet the Drapers on your platform. Sounds like it's free.

Obviously, love to have Meet the Drapers on the Microp platform. There's only one authority in the entire world which has the capacity to fund everyone, and that is the viewer. So our pitch to all of these advertisers that you saw is that we are giving you a more captive audience. Would you pay us a higher CPM? 99% of the advertisers have said, yes, we'll give you a higher CPM. So the money that we are actually paying out to the consumers Pakistan, those 20 million rewards, that's not from my gross margin. That's why we believe this model can be scaled up into any market, into any region of the world.

And is the— do you have exclusivity on that content?

Sometimes exclusive, sometimes non-exclusive. Other than Tim, I believe all the 3 judges are not coming from a media background. That probably went into my disadvantage.

And you mentioned that you are the 2nd largest platform currently. Who's the largest platform? How are you differentiating yourself? Differentiating yourself?

So the largest platform is called Tamasha. It's owned by Jaz, which is the largest telco in the country. They've got hundreds of millions of dollars behind them, and they also have a data play. We, on the other hand, have a crypto play because we are about to launch our native utility token next month, which is on the Aptos blockchain. The reason why we are empowering the consumer today by giving them financial power— we believe tomorrow that power will be passed back to the creators, because filmmakers, sports professionals, athletes in Pakistan They're not getting the funding that they need. You know, there are athletes in MMA and football and women's football and squash that we have sponsored because we built a community of consumers that now has an interest, and that community wants to give back. An empowerment-driven model is going to bring out stories which otherwise will always be untold. I believe that it is time for a viewer economy.

Terrific, Umar. Great to have you on Meet the Drapers. Thanks for joining us.

I think Tim has this amazing personality, you know, he's got this aura. Yeah, looking forward to the results.

And what did you 3 think?

First thing I'd say is Pakistan is a market where there's a lot of content consumption. You know, if you look at the time spent on Android, they're like the 6th largest country or something. So people love this stuff. And there is a need to earn for sure. And it seems like they're getting traction.

Like, I understand how this scales because because you're paying people to watch content. So I would love to see how that plays out.

It could lead to interesting behavior change.

Let's bring on our next entrepreneur. How are the eyebrows? Everybody getting good at this?

Yeah, very good.

But before we do, let's see what's going on behind the scenes.

So I am Hashim Akbar. I am the founder at Reupcycle App, and the core problem that we're trying to solve is that we want to reduce plastic pollution in the environment and save the world. I joined big tobacco, so I was with this company called Philip Morris all across Pakistan, then spent some time in Switzerland, came back, and then I think that's where I realized this is something that I need to do. Going from the most beautiful country in the world and then coming back to Pakistan, understanding how waste is ruining our world and causing climate change. We generate 4 million tons of waste plastic every year, and more than 70% goes back into the environment. I've always been very passionate about entrepreneurship. In school, grad school, I learned this concept called the triple bottom line. So it's other than profit, it's people and planet. And this is what I wanted to do. I wanted to have a good impact on the world, and I think the best way possible was through impact entrepreneurship, where I'm not only making profit, but I'm doing something for the people and planet. And the people around me supported me in that cause. There's a lot of people, the first thing they ask me, do you make money? How do you make money from collecting plastic? So then I explained to them how we make it. We convert it back into raw material and give it to industries utilizing it as a raw material. So we pay people for their waste. And when we pay people, they're like, okay, we're getting money for free for something we were never getting money for. Younger version of yourself working for Philip Morris, no judgment, but probably not trying to save the world.

What do you think that guy would think about what you're doing now?

I think that that person would think that this person is very brave, that leaving the comfort of a regular paycheck and going into something which he doesn't know when he's exactly going to start making money from, but actually impacting the world In a positive way. When I was being employed, it was one salary coming in. Now me not being employed, okay, if I don't draw a salary, there's still 40 other people getting a salary every month. So that's the kind of impact I've created, and that younger self of mine should be proud of where, where I am now. We used to find plastic bottles on the road. Now we don't find them on the road. That It means people are getting more and more responsible. They understand that there's something we can make money from. Why do you want it lying around on the road? So if someone's even walking by, they find an empty plastic bottle, they're going to pick it up and then keep it at home.

Cool.

That's it, man.

Thank you.

Hi, this is Abu Bakr. I'm the Chief Executive Officer for Pakistan Software Export Board under Ministry of IT and Telecom. What Pakistan offers today is an amazing visit with a population of over 250 million people, with 100 million people of youth under 30. You are in the heart of Pakistan and you are in Karachi right now, but if you go out into the other cities in Lahore, in Islamabad, you will find abundance of talent. We have about close to 25,000 IT companies in this. We have the second largest freelancing economy in the world. We are having amazing talent. of about a million freelancers out there. There's amazing talent of thousands and thousands of startup ecosystem that is developing. We welcome you to join us. We welcome you to join and see the hospitality and the culture of Pakistan. We welcome you all. Thank you.

We're at Clifton Beach in Karachi. This is the sea view. This is the main tourist attraction. I think the Pakistan ecosystem is really developing. Me, for example, I was in that building, the top floor, so that's the best view you can get from off the beach in Karachi. And I left that to end up cleaning the beaches to make sure that Pakistan is a clean, plastic-free country. I'm very proud about being from Pakistan. What I love about the country is that the community environment, the camaraderie, the warmth of the people, the Kindness, hospitality—all of that I love about Pakistan. I think when when everyone comes together, they can actually bring change. Meeting my friends over a cup of chai at one of the chaiwalas, just having those cups of teas, talking to your friends—the best way to blow off steam in Karachi. This was the first time I went and pitched to someone on stage. Doing it on an international stage in front of Tim Draper. I prepared, but I was still nervous.

You can do a little dance. There you go.

So our purpose at Reupcycle is to leave the world a better place than we found it. Because we're running out of time, we're already late. Every day, tons and tons of plastic is going into the environment, harming the ecosystem. And it's getting worse. Pakistan, along with the world, is drowning in plastics. Living in Pakistan, it's a very different problem. Some of these people don't really live in Pakistan to understand what's happening. Why that is so is because we don't have any formal recycling, and the invisible hand, which is the marginalized community that takes care of all the waste, they don't have a dignified work environment. And that's the problem that we're solving, because we want to democratize recycling in Pakistan. Through a decentralized collection platform, giving everyone money to give us their plastic, we convert it into a raw material and sell it back to industries. So what the industry basically does is they make recycled bottles out of it and polyester fiber. We have unlimited demand and the supply is limited. I've never been afraid of public speaking, but today on stage I was freaking out. The market is huge. It's a $4 billion market of plastic in Pakistan. Pakistan, that's only processing. So if we vertically integrate, this can potentially grow 10, 15, 20x. We have 30+ years of work experience in Fortune 500 companies, scaling and building startups, businesses, and products. We grew at 34%. We're collecting about 60 tons of waste plastic every month. And in the end, I want like everyone to close their eyes for 10 seconds, think about a world where there's no climate change, There is no waste, and the only things that we need to worry about is potentially what to watch, what to wear, and where to go.

I've seen many waste-to-energy, waste-to-product. Why is this going to work when all those other ones didn't?

So we're already making money, like we know it makes money. We want to go into other recyclables that are potentially also going to make money.

Anyone who's trying to make an effort to Incentivize, you know, mass populations to recycle plastic is doing good.

Plastic is a real problem, so I think Lynn did understand what the problem was.

But obviously the question is, you know, how is this a sustainable business for you? I'm curious, is there a big market in Pakistan for these recycled plastics?

In Pakistan, it's a huge market. Like I said, we have unlimited demand and limited supply, and Pakistan is also a textile producer for a lot of foreign entities. And all these companies, they've got a mandate to put recycled things in their product that they're making. And it says it's made from recycled plastic, but then I thought, I don't think Tim goes shopping for clothes. The demand for recycled materials is not being met by the supply. So it's a collection problem generally that we're solving. So tomorrow, the big players— so we're already talking to Nestlé, Coke, Pepsi. We're potential partners for them because all these countries All these companies and all these big players, they need people and they need that recycled items in their product.

To Tim's point, you know, like, this is a very commonly pitched idea. I have also seen, you know, a dozen plus of pitches just in Pakistan about this. What differentiates you?

We've got a B2B business, which is 98%, then we're going all the way to the household to collect plastic. No one's doing it, and we're paying people money for it.

Thank you so much for being on Meet the Drapers.

I've been preparing for a week because I knew I was the smallest startup compared to the other ones. If I win, yes, I think we're going to celebrate tonight. Let's see how that goes.

What did all of you think?

Very important problem to solve, like we all agree. And I think the household collection thing is really interesting.

Okay, so now we've seen 4 great entrepreneurs from Pakistan. And we would like to invite them all to come on up here and face the music. So, Lynn, what did you think?

I mean, I think all these founders are fantastic, and I wish we could back all of them.

Well, you actually can.

That's a longer conversation, but if you were to make me pick Tim. More people need to be funding female founders, smart women who are doing incredible things in the world, and I think that that is Maha.

Asra, who'd you think?

First of all, fabulous job. I know how hard it is to build in Pakistan. You guys are doing something great, so thank you so much for creating all these opportunities for people there. Lom's figured out something, like, that's what excites me, that it's like they figured out Something that all the other companies that I've looked at or invested in this space haven't.

So, Atif, kudos to all of you. Fantastic pitches. It was a tough one for me. If I have to pick one, I would go with Lum.

Okay, so here's my assessment. Buscaro seems like a pretty interesting business, and you've started to really take off. So really exciting getting all those people to travel. We've actually had another one from Africa on our show. That business seems to be doing quite well. So, Lam, you're allowing both the creativity and the commodity to kind of work together, and that may be something that could go global. And your business seems to be doing quite well, so way to go. You are rocking it. And social media is a very competitive space and could be a really tough place to be, but the fact that it's sort of, we pay you to watch, I thought that was very clever. We want Meet the Drapers to be on your program. I'm looking forward to getting those checks. Re-upcycle. I understand you were the TikTok winner. Congratulations. It shows that the younger generation really is thinking hard about getting garbage off the streets and onto our clothes. You know, I'd love to be able to make a decision here, but If we can get the whole audience to send all their energy to this very powerful crystal ball. You want a direct line of sight, although it does go through the spiritual plane. Is it a recycling thing, or is it social media, or does it have to do with how fashionable we all are, or is it transportation in Pakistan? Buscaro, you are the winner. Congratulations. You will move forward. Fantastic. And thank you all for being a part of the show. Great.

Great to win. And I think in this case, I'm now particularly excited. I know there hasn't been an episode for Pakistan before, and so happy to just be representing the country that I build in.

So I think my, my case Just to bring us back is that we have generated $70 million sales for this, like, 1,000+ creators on the ground, and that resulted in creating 10,000+ jobs. For us, if we can multiply that by 5, we have the ability to create 50,000+ jobs.

So yes, we should be voted back on by the viewers because again, the, the revolution that Myco is trying to bring in is for the viewers. We want to make sure that you are not a commodity anymore and you You are actually an active stakeholder within the content economy, within what you consume.

You should vote us back on because we're trying to save the world.

See you next time on Meet the Drapers!