There isn’t a Pakistani equivalent of the American Dream. Does that mean people here are less capable or ambitious? We believe they simply aren’t given the right.


Take Syed Balkhi as an example. When he was 12, his family emigrated from Pakistan to the United States. "My family was going through a lot of financial hardship, like many immigrant families," he recalls. "As the oldest of four, I felt it was my responsibility to help my father, who was working 16-hour days."

This struggle fueled his drive, pushing him to start an online career in 2003. Now, two decades later, he owns multiple businesses and is a self-made billionaire. But if his family hadn’t immigrated, would he have reached his potential?

This isn’t just a one-off story. Studies show the same barriers. The "Lost Einsteins" study found that children from high-income families in the top 1% are ten times more likely to become inventors than those from low-income backgrounds, even though both groups perform equally well in early tests. In Pakistan, "lost Einsteins, Jobs, or Syeds" are talented individuals who, with the right support system, could have achieved great things.

Considering venture capital funding per capita, Pakistan is at 10 cents compared to $1.5 for Bangladesh, $20 for India, and a massive $808 for the United States. Combined with a global ease-of-doing-business rank above 100, entrepreneurship in Pakistan is challenging, and the concept of a "Pakistani Dream" remains just that—a dream.

Our thesis is simple: entrepreneurship can transform lives, families, and entire generations. Pakistan needs an institution accessible to young, middle-class, ambitious founders—something like a Y Combinator but for Pakistan.

An aspiration place or role models to become the catalyst to change the choices of our youth. Research from Stanford supports this vision, showing that role models increase motivation and effort in 72% of people and the impact of visible success is undeniable:

• Globally, in Ethiopia, a short video featuring a successful woman entrepreneur led to a 19% increase in entrepreneurial activity among female viewers. In Uganda, one agribusiness success story spurred the creation of 20 new businesses, boosting local economic growth by 15%.


• Pakistan has become the third-largest country for new sellers on Amazon, following the United States and China. Sunny Ali's Facebook group, "Extreme Commerce by Sunny Ali," might have been the catalyst where his visible projection of success made it one of the largest Amazon seller communities in the world with over 1.1 million members. 


• This can take a negative role as well, take Jamtara’s example, Indian Netflix show, the visibility of local "role models" in phishing scams fueled a rapid multiplication of fraud, with over 60% of youth in the area attempting similar schemes, transforming the small town into a nationwide hub for cyber fraud.

The Pakistani version of Jamtara is housing societies.

Imagine if a catalyst could channel our talent and investment toward building companies in technologies like AI and industries with export potential like agriculture instead of housing societies. This is our defintion of success — redirecting resources toward productive ventures that benefit both society and the country as a whole.

This became the problem we wanted to solve—a meaningful challenge to unlock potential.

At the beginning, we were idealistic. We had no clear roadmap for finding founders or building companies. We devoured PG essays, read books like Zero to One, and met hundreds of founders and business owners, trying to create a space that could make a difference. Slowly, we found like-minded people with ideas of their own. We focused on helping them succeed, making their vision our mission.

With each idea, person, and industry, we grew. We built this amazing, one-of-a-kind culture. Some of us came from top universities in the US and Pakistan; others were self-taught school dropouts. But no matter who we were or where we came from, everything we did, we did with all our heart. When it came to validating an idea, we didn’t just sit back—we’d physically go to our users with founders, and actually listen to what they were going through. And when it came to influencer campaigns, we didn’t stop at 50 or 100 influencers—we went all out, reaching over 10,000 in just a month. It was such a beautiful blend of people and passion.

We made many exciting side-quests, like politician deepfakes and voice cloning, shalwar kameez try-ons, and internal hackthons. At the same time we partnered with mission-driven founders focused on meaningful goals — bringing financial inclusion to small businesses, creating LinkedIn for local blue and grey collar workers, building automated savings tools for millennials and Gen Z, and much more. These companies reached millions of users, with 5 out of 8 securing around $1 million each within their first year. Altogether, these ventures raised over $20 million, capturing 5% of all venture funding in Pakistan in 2022. They even attracted global investors, like Tiger Global, to the country for the first time—all while being a scrappy, bootstrapped accelerator.

We pivoted again and again, always chasing what would make the founder experience better, what would make them more successful. We did some wild things in pursuit of this mission, even putting in millions of rupees of our own money to fund ventures at the idea stage—before any outside or even founder’s capital. We were too focused on enabling the Pakistani dream to worry about sustainability, believing that if our founders succeeded, everything else would fall into place. The exits never came and aren’t in close proximity.

Could we have chosen more cash flow-friendly businesses? Structured our deals differently? Looking back, there are things we’d definitely do differently—build it more sustainably, share our story more widely, and rally even more people behind the mission. But hindsight, as always, makes things seem simpler than they are.

We haven’t given up on our mission or our people, but we’ve decided to shift our approach, stepping to the other side of the table to become founders ourselves. We’re focused on solving a specific, meaningful problem while optimizing for the outcomes of the team building it. One thing is certain: whatever we build has to be a net positive for society and the country.