The novel coronavirus pandemic has cost a lost of people their jobs around the world. For some, however, this jolt came with an opportunity instead. Turning to entrepreneurship, they began small businesses and enterprises to provide employment both for themselves and others, and in turn benefits for multiple other companies.
When it comes around each year, August 21 is marked as the World Entrepreneurs Day to raise awareness about the importance of and opportunity provided by entrepreneurship, innovation, and leadership. If we talk about why entrepreneurship is essential for a country, several reasons can be listed. From social change promotion to driving innovation, great entrepreneurs can change the way of living and work on local and national bases. Out of many successful ones, emerge innovations that can improve living standards and create wealth by empowering more entrepreneurial ventures. They can also create jobs opportunities and contribute to the rising economy.
The products and services that entrepreneurs create can produce a cascading effect. They can encourage related businesses or sectors that need to support their new venture, further impacting the economic development. Likewise, future development efforts in other countries require strong logistics support, a qualified workforce, and capital investments. A large part of the economy benefits from entrepreneurship, from a highly-skilled programmer to a construction worker.
According to the United States (US) Small Business Administration, 33.2 million small businesses in the US created 1.6 million net jobs in 2019.
Entrepreneurs are commonly thought of as national assets to be remunerated, motivated and cultivated to the greatest possible extent. Some of the most developed nations became world leaders in empowering their entrepreneurial individuals with research and forward-thinking innovation. This is why most countries and companies have developed incubation centres to build and enhance the skills of the entrepreneurs.
A female entrepreneur in Pakistan, Sadaf Mohyuddin, who initiated her startup in her kitchen by the name of Skin Deep International (SDI), was able to take her brand global with the support of an incubation programme called Standard Chartered Women in Tech (SCWomeninTech). The programme aims to support female entrepreneurs with mentoring, business management training, and seed funding. Considering the massive untapped potential for women in areas of tech based entrepreneurship this programme was launched in Pakistan along with some other countries.
Sadaf, a mother of two, believes that prevalent gender attitudes can prime women into feeling they are a step lower than their male counterparts. “I don’t think women are any less than their men. We just have to get the right guidance and support to execute our potential. It is just that sometimes we don’t realise what we are bringing to the table that has the probability to go big,” she said.
While sharing the story about her start-up Skin Deep, she said, “When my second child was born, I realised that after childbirth women don’t get time to take care of themselves because self care is not on their priority list. Also, if the children have skin issues, which is very common we end up using chemical-based products that harm the skin. My son after birth had dehydrated skin, and I had tried everything available to overcome this skin issue but nothing really helped which led me to explore this avenue.”
“In 2016, I took to the kitchen and started trying out different combinations to develop the perfect product. This was the beginning. After that, there was no looking back and I developed many natural products that are safe for both adults and children,” she said.
Sadaf soon launched her business on social media with the help of her husband, the co-founder of SDI. “I started selling what I was making to my friends and family. I made a Facebook page, and within months with only 200 likes, I got orders worth more than Rs200,000. There was no going back, I was so motivated to put in more effort and time and develop my range further.” she added.
After being in business for two-and-a-half years, Sadaf officially launched the brand Skip Deep International with the intention to expand her business. Sadaf and her husband were the only workforce SDI had, and as their children were growing and their demands were increasing, giving them adequate time along with the business was not turning out to be easy. It was then that she decided to slow down the pace of her business. “My husband also has his job, so we used to adjust timings. When I had a meeting, my husband took care of the kids, and when he has a meeting, I look after the kids.” she said.
In 2020, when the world struggled with the pandemic, Sadaf got the opportunity of a lifetime. She got to know about the SCWomeninTech, and applied for the programme. After the pitch and evaluation process, she was declared the winner of Cohort-2 and won Rs1.5 million as a seed grant. “This was the turning point for us. Not only was the financial support huge, but I got to uplift my skillset tremendously.” Sadaf, who holds a BSC degree in Economics and MPhil degree in International Relations further added, “During the mentoring period, we were able to enhance our skills, build self-confidence and got a thorough exposure to the potential our business had, not just in Pakistan but beyond as well.”
After winning the grant, Sadaf worked on the proper structuring of her company before deciding to go global. It took her one year to align things and then she start exporting her products from Pakistan. “As of now, wherever a courier service is available, we deliver our products. This programme has made us bigger, better and stronger. I would recommend all young women who want to become entrepreneurs to begin small, and then with the help of programs like SCWomeninTech, they can go beyond their dreams,” she said, adding that one should not hold back but go for whatever idea they have as you never know how big can it be.
Meanwhile, the Head of Corporate Affairs, Brand & Marketing Africa, Middle East Region and Country Head Pakistan at Standard Chartered Bank, Khadija Hashimi, talking about their programme for entrepreneurs, said, “Our aim is to create more opportunities for women to develop entrepreneurial and leadership expertise. The incubators have been designed to help address gender disparity in the technology sector and use technology to tackle social challenges faced by communities. They are an important part of our entrepreneurship offering within Futuremakers by Standard Chartered, our global initiative to tackle inequality and promote economic inclusion.”
She further shared that SCWomeninTech was first launched in October 2014 by Standard Chartered Americas as a local community project, and is today present in nine Standard Chartered markets, with the Pakistan programme being launched in 2019.
Talking about success of the programme in Pakistan, she said, “Nine out of ten new jobs worldwide are created by small businesses. Nearly 3.3 million new jobs are needed every month in emerging markets by 2030 to absorb the growing workforce. By focusing on women entrepreneurs in a market like Pakistan, we aim to increase participation of women to build a more gender and socially inclusive community.”
“Entrepreneurs often lack knowledge of basic financial management tools, relying on their past trial and error or their experience of family entrepreneurship. Improved financial knowledge can provide entrepreneurs with the skills they need to grow their businesses and contribute to local economic development. This is one of the basic pillars of our SCWomenInTech programme.”
The director of National Incubation Center Karachi, Omar Abedin talking about the opportunities for the startups in Pakistan told The Express Tribune that, “Only NIC Karachi in the last three year have supported 170 startups who have generate a revenue of three billion rupees along with more than 100,000 jobs. But this is mostly the foreign investment, the foreign Venture Capital (VC) investors have invested in the Pakistani startups, where the local investors are yet to understand the concept of VC funding.”
Giving the example of Bykea, which was part of NIC’s first Cohort and has become a $50 million company, he said, “These guys were here three years ago and now they claim to have 100,000 rides per day. Airlift is another startup which was launched two years ago and recently have secured $85 million in series B financing. These are the companies that are purely Pakistan made,” he said adding that the five centers of NIC have supported more than 500 startups.
Airlift - has secured $85 million series B financing led by investors around the world and is one of the largest financing in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region co-led by Josh Buckley (Buckley Ventures) and Harry Stebbings (20VC).
Omar informed that Pakistani startups have been able to secure $200 million investment foreign investment in the year 2021 till date. “They have a huge potential. Our local investor is more interested in investing in the construction and other investments, they don’t know the concept of VC. High-potential Startups need pre-seed funding of $100,000 to make their startup big. Whereas, the small grants will only help them in running the company on the same stage. They cannot bring changes or innovations with these small grants,” he said.
Talking about the impact of Entrepreneurs on a country he told that 80pc of the USA’s economy is being run by these Small and Mid-size Enterprises (SMEs). “Pakistan too have the potential but the drawback is that the local investors are not ready to invest in them. They either want the 90% of the equity or don’t want to invest,” he said.
Suggesting the solution to this he said there should be policies made on this where the big companies have to spend one per cent of their profits on the startups and the government should also provide tax exemption to the companies investing in the startups. “This will not only help Pakistan grow but will also create job opportunities for many and the money from these startups recycle to help economy grow. So the future of Pakistan are the entrepreneurs,” he added.