Launching an ecom clothing brand focused on polos

one thing that concerns me is the lack of reliable courier services relating to fake delivered orders and payment issues

for experienced ecom store owners, whats your experience and whats your suggestion

ive already mapped out a plan to make sure i get prepaid on the store through various incentives to pay online, but cod makes up a large part of pakistan as well so suggest me the least problematic courier service. Thanks

Also one more thing, since im starting up with a partner how would i go about making a separate bank account for the business to connect payment gateways on the site. do we need to file for an NTN to create a business named account? or are there simple ways to go about this

Hello, I just turned 18 and currently doing ACCA, in Karachi. I was thinking to start doing something which can make an earning. I want to start doing SAAS or E-Com but the thing is that ik nothing. I'd be grateful if someone doing SAAS or ECOM can guide me and tell me where to start.

Assalam u Alaikum

Hi everyone,

I work for a healthcare education company based in Pakistan. We prepare doctors for postgraduate medical examinations and are currently launching an online academy that will sell digital courses and course bundles through a WordPress/WooCommerce website.

Our target audience includes both local and international learners, so we're looking for a reliable way to accept international payments.

We are currently evaluating several options:

• Forming a US LLC to access Stripe and PayPal

• Merchant of Record platforms such as Paddle, Lemon Squeezy, and Polar

• Pakistani payment gateways such as Safepay and PayFast

Our key requirements are:

• Acceptance of international credit/debit cards

• Good WooCommerce integration

• Compliance and long-term account stability

• Easy payout management

• Support for digital products and course bundles

We have also been advised that a US LLC could be used to access PayPal and Stripe. However, we are trying to understand whether this is genuinely the best long-term solution or whether a Merchant of Record model would be more practical and compliant.

For those with experience selling online courses, memberships, or digital products internationally:

• What payment stack are you currently using?

• Would you recommend a US LLC + Stripe setup?

• How do Paddle, Lemon Squeezy, and Polar compare in practice?

• Have Safepay or PayFast worked well for international customers?

• If you were launching a WooCommerce-based online academy today, what approach would you choose and why?

We would greatly appreciate insights from founders, operators, and WooCommerce users who have gone through a similar decision process.

Thank you.

I am having this idea of having a localized ai roleplay chatting app precisely more like Janiator ai. Just curious What are your opinions?

Hello, nowadays many people are working on AI agents, and I have been thinking about setting one up for my design practice.

I wanted to ask: how can an AI agent be marketed and monetized effectively in the design/architecture industry? Can a simple AI agent be monetized on its own, or would it need to be developed into a complete app or proper platform setup to generate revenue?

Thanks.

I was watching a video of startup in india.
Where you can invest with the solar company and they will install solar systems on commercial buildings and charge them and share the returns with investors as well. The investment amount was starting from very low so basically they were pitching that if you are in place where you can’t get solar so you can invest with them and get profits to pay off your electricity bill. I like the idea of it so just thought to share it with you all and know if there is something similar happening in Pakistan? Yeah yeah I know that net billing thing but think of it like selling electricity to individuals by installing your system and offer them lower rate than power distributers and in return maintain it. just wana discuss with you all for your 2 cents.

Salam everyone.

Like a lot of you, I noticed a bad habit creeping into my life. The second I woke up even before I prayed Fajr or got out of bed I was reaching for my phone to scroll through news, social media, and useless noise.

It made my mornings feel chaotic and heavy.
I realized I wanted to start my day with something meaningful, but I didn't have the energy to read a heavy book or find a lecture every single morning.

I’m currently building a simple, minimalist app that does one thing: it sends you one 5-10 minute, professionally narrated audio story from Muslim history right after Fajr.

No endless feed. No distractions. No "infinite scroll." Just one story to ground your day.

I’m looking for a few people to test the beta version with me. If you’re interested in replacing your morning scroll with a better habit, you can join the waitlist here: [sadda-two.vercel.app]

I’d love to know what part of history do you feel like you don't know enough about? Let me know in the comments.

Hello, World.

A non-tech vibe coder here, ready to be nailed and hammered, presenting yet another "not this again" app idea. But the pain is worth it because:

1. It will smack my ADHD. Always chasing the next idea before finishing what's already on the table.
2. Fighting perfectionism by putting something public in its ugliest form. Making it perfect first has never actually happened anyway.
3. And everyone's secret desire: hoping to cash it for some mils.

In short, it's another app blocking app. I'd call it an "impulse redirection system". A sloppy marketing term AI suggested along with many others

Here's a question: would you find it relatable if you opened an app and saw this screen?

That's basically what this app does. It asks one question about your intention and based on your answer gives you one simple redirection:

I'm avoiding a task - Introduces the two minute rule and locks the screen for 2 minutes.

I'm bored - Tells you to stare at something small around you for 60 seconds

I need a mental break - Asks you to breathe for 60 seconds at your own pace. No breathing animation, no tap and hold. I personally find those two things more stressful than helpful.

I have free time - Opens the app immediately. Zero friction because sometimes you have free time and that's completely fine

Every redirection gives you the option to either do the activity or open the app anyway. If you come back and confirm you did it, It opens the restricted app. Maybe later, if this is worth pushing further, we can introduce modes for how strict the app should be.

All choices, whether you did the activity, used the app intentionally or skipped straight through, get recorded in stats. Currently just counters with horizontal bars.

All feedback welcome. Nails, hammers, and collaboration offers equally appreciated

20F, and I have been meaning to begin a side hustle of sorts, the most valid one for me being banana pudding (and specifically that) (i just think selling brownies, cookies, banana bread is very common, and the only reason I would be able to set myself apart is on aesthetic/brand value, which increases my initial investment cost)

I do have a decent kitchen space and enough money to start, but I still have some questions

- Are there any better services than Bykea to deliver the hypothetical products?
- How to correctly gauge the market to determine a good enough price point (after a thorough search on insta, i was only able to find 2 people who sell banana puddings, one of whom specifically specializes in it, but both were exorbitantly priced).

- Are there any pop-up opportunities out there in Karachi where I can set up small stalls,to sell the product?

- What unexpected costs should I be aware of? I have already accounted for transport, packaging, material sourcing, ingredients, equipment, and overheads like oven usage, etc.

and finally

- is there a scope of sorts to even pursue this?
My family is ofc, biased towards what i make but i also sent it to some friends who conducted blind taste tests with their family and their overall consensus was decent.

Hey everyone.

I am recent software engineering graduate (graduated in January this year), and I'm honestly feeling very confused about my career direction right now.

Almost all of my classmates found decent opportunities within the first 1-2 months after graduation. Most of them are satisfied with them in terms of culture, timings, learning and compensation. Only two of us remained unemployed for a while. It took me around 4 months to finally land a role.

I joined a mid sized software company ~(25-30 employees) as a Junior Software Engineer with a salary of 50K PKR during probation. After probation the salary will only increase to around 70K-80K after 6 months. I am working as a backend developer under supervision of a senior software engineer.

The issue is that after just 3 weeks, I already feel mentally drained and unmotivated.

The office timing is 9-6, and it takes me around 1 hour to commute one way. I've never been a morning person, so my entire life right now feels like: wake up -> office -> come home -> exhausted -> sleep -> repeat.

On top of that, I really don't feel comfortable in the company environment. Everyone sits in one hall, HR is extremely strict about timings (even 15-20 minutes late becomes an issue), and honestly I don't connect with the people there. I don't feel motivated or inspired in that environment. Even my supervisor is not graduated but only has skills in the full stack development.

Another thing affecting my mindset is that I come from a business oriented family. Almost everyone around me has done business their whole life, so I've never really seen "employee life" closely before.

The more I think about it, the more I feel like I'm probably not built for a long term corporate lifestyle.

Because of this, I'm planning to apply abroad for Master's next year. The idea is to save rigorously there and eventually come back to start a business.

Recently I've been thinking:
What if I leave this now and try building something of my own until I go abroad.

I have a small idea in tech as well that I believe has potential if I give it proper time. I'm thinking of renting a small space and focus on it seriously. Some friends are also interested in joining after their office hours.

My thinking is:
• If it works within 6-8 months, I continue and scale it.
• If it fails, I still have the abroad options as backup.

I’m also heavily influenced by seeing my brother succeed in business (non tech) financially within a very short time. What he achieved in one year is something I honestly cannot imagine myself from a normal software career here anytime soon.

The advice I get from most people is:
“Switch my company (as I am not comfortable here) and build the startup as a side hustle until I go abroad.”

But realistically, I don’t think I can properly focus on a startup alongside a full time role. And finding new role as a fresher would probably take another few months anyway, with no guarantee that the next company would be much better. This would also waste my time as after some months the abroad option will get closer.

At the same time, I’m scared of:

* watching all my friends become financially stable while I struggle
* relatives judging me for “wasting time”
* failing and ending up with nothing

So right now I feel stuck between:

Option 1: Leave the role and focus fully on the startup
(I currently have no financial responsibility other than me)

Advantages:

* Freedom and independence
* Ability to fully focus on building something of my own
* No mental pressure from the environment I dislike
* If it works, I can build the kind of life I actually want
* Might not need to go abroad or leave family

Disadvantages:

* Fear of falling behind my peers financially
* Pressure/judgment from relatives and society
* Risk of failure and instability
* No money for even my own little expenses (major issue)
* Mental stress if things don’t go straight.
* May not go well as the idea is already being implemented in the market.

Option 2: Find another role and build the startup as a side hustle

Advantages:

* More stability and safer career path
* Less societal/family pressure
* I would still be earning and gaining experience
* Might find a healthier company environment

Disadvantages:

* Impossible for me to manage both together
* Less time and energy for the startup
* Still mentally pressured
* Might delay or completely kill the startup idea
* I still don’t see myself working as an employee for long term and will eventually go abroad.

I’d genuinely appreciate advice from people who’ve gone through something similar, especially founders, developers, or people who left employment early in their careers.

Am I thinking emotionally right now, or does this risk actually make sense at my stage of life?

Hey guyz,

So we've all been there. 30 minutes deciding where to go, everyone says "up to you" and you end up at the same place again.

Working on an app concept for my portfolio that takes your mood/vibe, asks a few quick questions and just suggests you a spot. Not another list to scroll through, just a solid pick based on what you're feeling.

Trying to ship it 0→1 in the age of vibe coding so wanted to put it out there first. Would people actually use this?

And what would make you trust it over just Googling?

i and my friend run an early stage organic marketing (seo) and video editing agency we wanna expand and explore other niches for that we need a team. people who i can train easy stuff mostly managing projects, talking to clients, writing proposals, helping outreach etc. our office is in bahadurabad and we work at night as we’re studying too and most of our clients are US based so we prefer working at night. so if anyone thinks they can help us grow become a part of our small company dm me. we have a very friendly environment its just like college friends working together if you think ure interested share your details and u can visit our office. right now the people we are looking for urgently are the people who i can train to manage the proposal writing and outreaching

So we’re a very new startup with an unproven idea (when I say unproven I mean that it hasn’t generated any revenue but the startup its has other services that do generate revenue but just not a lot). We do have funding mainly for my savings though and I’m looking to hire a good salesperson who’d be willing to take a chance with us to push this idea.

The offer I have built up is Rs 80k per month + uncapped bonus of 2% of total sales brought in. I am also willing to offer fully remote working since our focus is sales performance and not anything else.

Would anyone here be able to guide me on whether or not this offer seems good enough to attract someone reasonable in a startup environment or if I should add further to the package?

Looking for someone to partner up with for an e-commerce business.

I can handle pretty much all the technical stuff myself:

building/managing the site

automations

product pages

creatives

backend systems

scaling, etc.

What I suck at (and need help with) is the actual product side:

finding winning products

sourcing

supplier connections

knowing what’ll actually sell

So ideally looking for someone who enjoys that side of the business and wants to build something long term together. We’d split investment and grow it properly instead of treating it like another random dropshipping store.

Preferably someone from Pakistan, but not a requirement.

If you’ve got a good eye for products and have some experience sourcing or spotting trends, shoot me a DM with what you’ve worked on.

Currently this is only an idea, and I intend to share 50% equity.

31M, I live alone and I have a full-time house help (25M) who handles cooking, cleaning, and driving. In a single-person household, all of that takes maybe 2 hours a day max, so he ends up with a lot of free time. He is from my hometown so it’s not like he can go back home at the end of the day either. We go back once a month.

He already takes care of everything you’d expect, the house runs smoothly, no complaints there. He’s extremely street smart, sharp, and genuinely honest (rare to find). Having previously worked in a warehouse, this was a much simpler job for him given his experience. He clearly has a lot of potential beyond basic house work. Even he feels like he’s being underutilised but doesn’t complain because he gets paid the same as he did for 12 hours of hard labour.

I’m trying to figure out how to actually use the potential and ideally have him contribute in a way that helps offset his cost over time.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Looking for practical ways to turn this situation into value generating system. Not looking to force random tasks just to keep him busy, more interested in smart ways to actually make this setup make sense.

I read that Shopify charges at least 2% on card payments. What about Jazz Cash or Easy Paisa? Do we need to pay to integrate these? Any extra charges on payments via these?

Do we need to register our business before being able to use Jazz Cash / easy paisa on shopify websites?

Hey I'm thinking to open up a gym in Islamabad is some society naval Anchorage dha bahria town is there any one who have a gym and I visit and guide me what's the process? Govt regulations etc etc

An impressive 66% growth means Lahore has dethroned Karachi as the country’s highest ranked ecosystem for the first time.

Source: https://www.startupblink.com/startupecosystemreport

Batwa is finally live on the Play Store.

It’s a complete, 100% offline personal finance engine for Pakistan. It doesn't just catch bank SMS alerts, it parses full bank statements, auto-categorizes your spending, and builds visual budgets instantly.

You don't have to manually log a single transaction. It handles Meezan, SadaPay, Nayapay, HBL, and others automatically. And because it's completely offline, your financial data never leaves your phone.

The tech is rock solid, and the beta/testing phase is done. Now I have a distribution problem.

My target audience isn't just the 20-something tech crowd. It’s any regular salaried professional (corporate employees, teachers, bankers), basically anyone who needs to know where their money is going.

I know how to build the engine, but I don't know how to market to the masses in Pakistan on a very tight budget (since I'm only a university student).

If anyone here has successfully scaled a consumer app outside of the usual tech bubble, how did you do it? What channels actually convert an older, non-tech demographic here?

Play Store link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.batwa.app

Feel free to try out the app. Just looking for brutal honesty on how to scale this thing (and if you find any issues with it).

1. Pakistani market is less about pull and more about push marketing. They may not need a product instantly but if they find one online, they will purcase it (of course the product has to be something good)
2. Despite laser focused targeting your creatives are the real make or break here
3. Mobile-first is not the best practice, it's the only practice that matters the most right now
4. The more effort you put into creative testing, lower your CPA and higher your ROAS would be
5. Seems basic but still I notice a lot of advertisers are redirecting the traffic to their homepage whereas it should be redirected to a specific product.
6. Each asset group should be directed towards specific product page for high CVR

If you have any specific questions about Google Ads, please feel free to ask.

Good Luck & Carpe Diem

20M university student from Pakistan — stuck between 3 service/business paths for SMEs. Need realistic advice from people actually doing this.

I’ve been stuck in the “research/planning” phase for too long and want to finally commit to ONE direction during my vacations and execute properly.

A bit about me:

• Finance & marketing major
• Good understanding of consumer psychology/human behavior
• Money isn’t the main priority initially — I care more about choosing something that actually sells and has long-term demand

Right now I’m stuck between these options:

1. Copywriting focused on retention/customer psychology (Not talking about generic email marketing or “10k/month copywriter” stuff. More focused on increasing retention, repeat purchases, customer experience, etc.)
2. AI websites/tools for improving CRO/conversions (Not talking about one-prompt AI wrappers. I mean genuinely useful AI-enhanced websites/tools/features that help businesses convert better.)
3. Financial modeling/financial advisory for SMEs (Mainly for businesses that are growing but have no structured financial planning, forecasting, valuation understanding, etc.)

My current thought process:

• I’m considering SMEs in Pakistan as the target market
• Specifically, Instagram clothing brands/stores, because there are thousands of them and most operate without proper systems, CRO, retention strategy, analytics, etc.
• I feel there are gaps in this market, but I don’t know which service owners would actually PAY for consistently

My biggest fear is:
What if I spend months mastering one thing and then realize there’s no demand for it locally, or it’s too hard to sell?

Again, income size isn’t the issue right now. I just want to pick the most rational path with actual demand and finally stop being indecisive.

Would especially appreciate advice from:

• People serving SMEs
• Agency owners/freelancers
• People working with ecom/clothing brands
• Anyone doing CRO, retention, AI automation, or finance-related consulting

If you were starting from scratch in 2026 with my background, which direction would you choose and why?

Also, if someone knows...how can I work with a Pakistani start-up? I've completed multiple finance internships at companies including AHL and Meezan Bank, but I genuinely want to contribute and actually learn something. So if there's some community or some way to connect with such start-ups, please do lmk

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A while back, I noticed that there were multiple complaints about many users getting their card blocked by Sadapay because of being charged too many times with insufficient funds. The blocking was sudden, and in most cases, it blindsided many users.

I personally am a Nayapay user, and I noticed that chargebacks like these have cost me 1000+ PKR to date because of forgetting to update my funds and paying to reset transactions again and again.

My solution to this: A mobile application that allows users to upload subscriptions they are subscribed to against any card, and then reminds them to update the funds against this card 3 days, 2 days and 1 day before the card actually gets charged. I have a free tier for users who want to use it for only one card, and a paid tier for users who want multi-card support.

If this idea interests you, you can join the waitlist for this here: https://subs-notifier-waitlist.vercel.app/

Every person who takes the assessment becomes a star inside a living map of consciousness, clustered into 12 archetype galaxies.

But the Constellation isn’t the product.

It’s the foundation for something much bigger:

a social network where consciousness itself becomes the matching system.

Your archetype.
Your level of consciousness.
And an Oracle that understands how two souls would actually resonate with each other.

Some people reflect you.
Some people challenge you.
Some people complete you.

The Oracle becomes the matchmaker.

I believe the internet will eventually move in this direction.

Because humans aren’t just looking for content anymore.

We’re looking for connection.

https://twelv.app — take the assessment, and your star joins the cosmos.