Plan 9

M Ihsan TayyabRoll No. 31

Plan 9

IntroductionOur vision is to instill the culture oftech entrepreneurshipand achieve sustainable growth for early stage product-based ideas by providing domain specificmentorshipand investment opportunities to create commercially viable technology startups from Pakistan. Plan9 has incubated over 102 startups. Plan9 was launched in August 2012 to give budding entrepreneurs the opportunity to change their business dreams into a reality using technology as the key component.

Top 5 companies MarkhorEyedeus LabsPanteraTransparent HandsPatari

Markhor Company

IntroductionIn 2010 story was begin.Owner Waqas & Sidra.Idea Of Selling Shoes online.Hussain (shoemaker) Also response on this idea.

ObstaclesLack of presence of owner.Luck had nothing to do their success.Interest of waqas greatly in physics.With all his boats or less burnt, waqas had to succeed.He realised he could not create a new business on his own.Nobody give him what he wanted.Sidra came on board, with challenges no less daunting than this.Sidra expected to teach at local school & eventually get married.Not any support by family of sidra.

6

Sidras input in the business began to open doors. Lack of funds, however, stifled new opportunities.

Theylearnt how to code a website and harness the tools of social media.Their brand, initially titled Hometown.Within five days, the website was approached by its first customer in France.Lack of funding returned like a recurring nightmare and the duo were pushed out of action.

DOWN BUT NOT OUTA competition for start-ups advertised a prize of $10,000 to four separate winners, Hometown won the prize money.

In August 2012, Google and the Punjab Government Innovation Policy featured Hometown along with other companies that had made an impact through business and technology.He had developed an online presence, started using an Android phone and a laptop and was happy to connect with his buyers.In 2014, Muhammad Hussain died from advanced bone cancer. Hometown had lost an invaluable friend and its lead craftsman.

Soon after, however, his son Junaid stepped in to fill the vacuum. The fruit of the partnership is evident from the impact their brand, which was renamed Markhor in May 2014, is making.

CULTURE CHANGING

Waqas and Sidra with the Acumen Fund team

Both cofounders have benefited immensely from fellowships at the Acumen fund.Sidra elaborated on other steps Markhor is taking to enhance social impact.Markhor offers 70% more pay to craftsmen compared to the market rate. Also, its first 25 employees will get the opportunity to gain equity in the business, depending on how they perform in the first eight months of their time at Markhor.

Markhor has challenged that culture with advance payments, titling more protection in the favor of the craftsmen as opposed to the retailer.Just to give Dawn some perspective on Pakistans potential alone, Sidra made a comparison: We export leather goods worth 100 million US dollars and that could easily be the net income of a single large leather goods manufacturer in India.

According to Sidra, in 2003, Lahore had 25 outlets of high-end, hand stitching units for leather goods. Today, less than 5 such units have survived due to dwindling international orders and the proliferation of cheaper, relatively easier to produce shoes with thermoplastic rubber (TPR) soles.

GoalTheir goal to establish Pakistan as a major exporter of fine quality leather products will demand a special effort in the days ahead and given what they have so rapidly achieved, it seems they are primed for the challenge.