StartUp Cup: Online music portal wins business model contest

ISLAMABAD:

An online music streaming platform, designed by a young entrepreneur, has won business model contest.

The winner and the runners up of the 2015 Pakistan StartUp Cup, an intensive nationwide business competition aimed at nurturing a culture of entrepreneurship in the country, were given awards at the grand finale organised by the Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and the US embassy on Wednesday.

State Minister for Capital Administration and Development Division Tariq Fazal Chaudhry and US Ambassador David Hale gave the awards to the winner and the runners-up.

The winning start-up ‘Patari’ received Rs1,000,000 as prize money, while the two runners-up ‘Wifigen’ and ‘MARO Tandoors’ received Rs750,000 and Rs500,000 respectively.

Through Patari, Pakistani music is available on desktops, tablets and phones. “We are planning to launch a premium subscription through which users will be able to download music and listen it ad-free by paying a small amount. We believe Patari will be a huge revenue source for artists,” said Patari founder Khalid Bajwa, while speaking to The Express Tribune.

He said the next two things on the agenda are to fund new music and make concerts happen in the country. “For this we are working with some corporate entities,” Bajwa added.

The first runner-up, Wifigen is a cloud-based WiFi hotspot system which enables the users to create a custom login interface for their visitors. It also provides the customers with a cloud-based dashboard where they can see demographical data of people visiting them and further interact with them through email.

MARO Tandoors, the second runner-up, is a food start-up which aims to open a chain of tandoors in Lahore and eventually all across the country, providing its customers with clean, hygienic and high-quality tandoori products at reasonable prices.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, TiE Islamabad Senior Programme Manager Zeeshan Shahid said young people are full of innovative ideas and energy to see those ideas through. Entrepreneurship is an excellent way to harness their energy, he added.

“With StartUp Cup, TiE Islamabad aims to increase the quality and quantity of entrepreneurs in Pakistan, especially among youth. There is immense entrepreneurial talent in the country and I am glad that through initiatives like StartUp Cup and with the help of US embassy we have been able to provide opportunities to budding entrepreneurs,” Shahid said.

Through the 2015 StartUp Cup, over 450 start-ups from across the country received coaching through multi-day ‘Build-a-Business’ workshops and regular mentoring and pitching sessions.

It has also introduced new partnerships with entrepreneurship centres across Pakistan, including world’s first Women’s Entrepreneurial Centre of Resources, Education, Access, and Training for Economic Empowerment in Islamabad sponsored by the US Department of State in collaboration with the US-Pakistan Women’s Council, Lahore University for Management Sciences (LUMS) Centre for Entrepreneurship, Plan 9 and Karachi-based technology incubator ‘The Nest I/O.’

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29^th, 2016.