Pakistan is experiencing a startup boom similar to the US

Startup culture saw a global boom during the later stages of the pandemic, and this isn’t simply because people had the time to watch one too many Ted Talks during lockdown.

Rather, it feels all too much like this aspect of beginning one’s own business is a modern form of rebellion against a social quo that no longer holds enough public trust. And when it comes to Pakistan, while the country purports itself through a collectivist lens, it seems to lack the guilds that create proper support systems.

This is where events like the Startup Coffee Circle come in. While it would be easy enough to call this a space for networking without having to pay exuberant coffee prices, the personalities and ambitions of its rotating roster of attendees lending an air of camaraderie that doesn’t usually fall in line with the connotations of a startup.

After all, when shows like Shark Tank and Dragon’s Den carry the torch, one tends to imagine a more cutthroat culture, where the successful are hoarding the secret to how to sausage gets made and the new entrepreneurs are trying to inch their way in. So where did this appearance of friendliness come from?

In a way, it came from the same place that many of these businessmen’s ideas came from: a point of necessity. Fouad Bajwa, Co-founder and CEO of Agriculture Republic, spoke about his company’s efforts to introduce connectivity and technology to Pakpattan farmers through ‘Digital Deras’.

The idea itself seems simple enough, going to areas with poor internet and mobile signals and creating the means to provide farmers with information on the latest weather conditions and agricultural research, along with training on improving crop cultivation and yields.But the existence of this company rests on the implicit shortcomings of the government, does it not?

Pakistan is a predominantly agriculture-based economy, and yet a study conducted by Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited in 2020 found that the country is far behind others as far as crop yield is concerned. This study emphasised the use of technology to improve crop yield.

With the tone of a jolly uncle and the words of a motivational speaker, Bajwa talked about how the space where these shortcomings arise is where he finds opportunity. It was like seeing a series of cars running over potholed roads, driving raging about the bumps, while one man stepped out with a bucket of cement and an invoice sheet. It’s clever perhaps only because it becomes so obvious when you think about it.

Of course, Bajwa did not organize this gathering simply to allow himself and others to talk about their past successes, but to find ways to attain new ones. Soon enough, a circle gathered, made up of all age groups of all ages and industries, where one CEO worked on making pehntenay wali (hand beaten) coffee while the lot discussed possible means of advertisement.

To the layman like myself, there was a certain material comfort in watching these ideas fly about. Even within the post-capitalistic society the world is trying to move towards, it holds true that start-ups are a key source of job growth, innovation and economic resiliency. Each person walking into this room, hoping to make something happen, might be the pushed needed to right this country’s fiscal sclerosis.

If this position of cultural and economic development is placed on spaces like start-circles, then it does seem to resemble the French salons of yore, does it not? As the hopeful leaders of industry sit in good humour and exchange ideas, would the same dissemination of manner, thought and progress occur?

While in the midst of those conversations, one would be wooed to say yes. It certainly seems like the intention of these circles is not only to allow people to become the lords of their own manner, and that is a sentiment that has been on the rise across the country.