Here’s Everything that Happened on Episode 6 of Idea Croron Ka

Idea Croron Ka has reached its mid-season recently. In the recent episode, there were 2 amazing pitches, a startup leaving with investment and the other taking away an investor as a board member.

Furthermore, the success story of Imran Ali Khan, the founder of Zameen.com was also featured in this episode.

Nabeel Qadeer, the lead and host of the show started the episode with a fact that highlights the forgotten potential of Pakistan. He shared that there are almost 4.5 million people in Pakistan who use social media and there are almost 30 million Facebook accounts. Hence, all those aspiring entrepreneurs who wish for their idea to be heard and gain recognition, social media can be the best start.

He then introduced the panel that included Abdul Rehman Talat, CEO BlueEast and Director Marketing and Sales at Orient, Sheharyar Ali, Director Treet Group and Rabeel Warraich, Founder Saramayacar.

First Pitch

The first startup to pitch was Journal Post, which fused both online news and ecommerce for its product. Their target market is people living abroad who are interested in watching news and wish to buy an item that a celebrity may be wearing. They provide a complete solution to where you may get that item from, what alternatives are available, the price, color, size etc.

The co-founders Hafsah Haq and Aavish Bilal asked for Rs. 5 crores against 10% equity to scale the startup. The investors asked questions like where they will spend Rs. 5 crore, how they were able to get such a large user base in just 1 month, how they are marketing, their total spending till now and how was it utilized.

Once the founders answered all the questions confidently, the investors had a discussion amongst themselves. They couldn’t grasp the numbers the founders were quoting. They thought it was too good to be true. The discussion continued till Nabeel asked for final comments.

Rabeel offered to invest Rs. 50 lac to start with and opened for other investors to chip in. Sheharyar thought their product is excellent but their customer acquisition is too high. He said he wants to see 6 months down the lane what is their trend.

Abdul Rehman appreciated them on their numbers however, he was concerned that they launched only a month ago and he can’t make a judgment based on that. He passed on the offer saying if he were to invest he’ll wait and see for another year or so.

Hence, their only discussion was left with Rabeel. Upon constant bargaining, the deal was finalized on 2.5% where Rabeel became their board member.

The Zameen Story

Next up Nabeel introduced Imran Ali Khan, CEO of Zameen.com as a superhero of Pakistan.

The Zameen.com story started with 3 brothers, with an engineering background. Zeeshan Ali Khan talked about those early days and said, “to be able to provide a solution to something, you should be a very good planner to begin with.”

He went on to add that now, Zameen.com has more than 1500 employees, offices in 30 different cities, 4-5 million people visit their website per month and have offices in UAE and Bangladesh too.

“At every step of the way you are bombarded with opportunities, however it is for you to decide which ones you shall take depending on your time and ability, since you are one person and you must accept that you cannot do it all.”

Imran Ali Khan appeared on the show and shared the journey of Zameen.com as well. He shared that currently approximately 13000 estate agencies work with them. To scale this business, they had to shut down other businesses they were working on to bring their entire focus on this.

Abdul Rehman Talat said it’s appreciable where Zameen.com has reached and it is because of them so many technology startups are now springing up.

Rabeel shared that they started Sarmayacar and invested in Pakistan after being convinced by the success story that Zameen.com was. Sheharyar congratulated Imran and said that all the young people should learn from this. It is hard work and that is all it takes to reach to a certain level.

Second Pitch

The last startup in this episode was GrocerApp; an online retail store. Ahmad, the founder of the startup shared that they have till now partnered with the top 6 outlets in Lahore and deliver any grocery item in just 90 minutes.

They are trying to make the existing 14000 retail outlets leverage their ecommerce platform so that people can buy goods from GrocerApp without the hassle of actually visiting the retail outlet.

Ahmad asked for Rs. 1 crore against 10% equity. Investors asked questions like for how long they have been working on this, what is the entire supply chain and delivery mechanism, what is the unique selling proposition, what is the average basket size, what is the commission they charge, which area are they operational in, how many riders they have, how much sales they have done and how much revenue did they earn and lastly what is the retention rate.

Upon getting satisfactory answers, Sheharyar and Abdul Rehman Talat showed interest in the startup and Rabeel passed the offer. The interesting twist was that Sheharyar and Abdul Rehman Talat gave the same counter offer i.e. Rs. 1 crore for 20% equity. With this situation, Sheharyar brought down the equity to 17% and also offered logistic help for riders by providing motorcycles at cost or installment.

Abdul Rehman stuck to his offer and said that he is bringing more to the table by providing millions of smart refrigerators. Ahmad Saeed decided to go with Sheharyar’s offer because he was of the view that cracking the logistics is a tough thing for them at this stage. Hence, the episode came to an end with the 2^nd investment of the season.

You can watch Idea Croron Ka | Season 2 | Episode 6 here:

Nabeel concluded the show by asking the viewers to share their feedback and thanking NEO and CMACED for being the biggest supporters of the show without whom this show could not have been possible.

Keep watching Idea Croron Ka every Saturday at 7:05 pm on NEO TV Network.