The Sunday after

 I sit here today as I try to ponder on the inner workings of my mind on this silent afternoon, the Sunday after my escapades. It is something I often do after a long bout of extroverted-ness, my chronic condition of expanding more energy than I would care to on various musings of life. So much has happened in the past three weeks, but most of it too private to tell-tale on a public blog.  But know this: there's a bitter coffee to my right, just within reach, and then the ever pervasive sound of the ceiling fan running as my mind tries to count its rotations with accuracy. I sit donning a jade shalwar kameez, buttons of the sleeves in place, back straight as it soothes the pain, I am back in the confines of sunny equatorial Lahore, the city of gardens, home to guardrails of the Punjab.  I am reminded, suddenly and somberly of my grandfather, typing as I typed, with both hands on his keyboard, fingers pushing buttons, the learnings of his typewriter days being translated to the memo
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Clear Warnings

 Upon leaving my current job and having some free time, I dabbled with the idea of setting up a business in an untapped market in Pakistan that could be disrupted with the power of tech


To my 26 y/o self, the glaringly obvious choice seemed like the recycling industry

It has a negative social stigma attached to it, hence less competition, it is highly unregulated so we would be able to make the playbook as we go, and its all about the money, thats what investors want, right?

So I did the following to test my idea:

1. Made a simple FB page and started running adverts for my "Buying Service"
2. Set up "Valuation" appointments with sellers that reached out to me (surprisingly fast ROI from the adverts)
3. Acted as the middle man and tried to sell forward what I bought to a few "Kabaria" (Scrap Buyers) in my network

I was excited. I felt like I was on the right track, but recently during a conversation with one of my scrap buyers, I was strongly advised to not continue. I asked why, and the gist of his response was two fold:

"There is no honor in this profession" and "The mafia in our business wont let someone like you survive"

Below is a picture of his shop, where he works out of. Looking at it, all I see is potential. The potential to do better, but I agree with his concerns about the strong-arming that accompanies the recycling sector in Pakistan

My question the, is this, when should a plain warning be heeded and when should it be ignored

I have since pressed pause on this idea, because I feel it needs more research. But I now understand why this area is still untapped in 2022, and may remain so for some time

The inertia in our nation is sadly, extraordinary, and with the presence of mafias, innovation has become a legitimate threat. What can be done to change it?


#smallbusiness #entrepreneurship #pakistan #digitalpakistan #tech





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