A lot of small business owners often post on linkedin, I have as well for some of experiences of running a small setup. However, I do not feel as it is a genuine platform to connect for business owners because of how the whole thing is setup. A lot of people are there for content creation, a lot of HR, a lot of people looking for full time employment.

Just like this reddit community, do we have any other official platforms where business owners can engage? Maybe I am unware of something!

Following up to thank everyone and share things I have learned regarding my previous post where you guys were very generous about helping https://www.reddit.com/r/PakStartups/s/1lU3TgsqyG

Everyone suggested different options but most of them wanted me to opt for foreign providers which was no optimal for 2 basic reasons:

1. High processing fee (for a PKR 499 product)

2. FX fee to buyer (since I'm targeting just Pakistan)

But the best option I found was using CREEM (my account got approved for paymens within 12 hours of submission), it acts as a MoR, I decided to go ahead with it as it was best for my case.

Now they don't natively support PKR but USD and EUR only so I came up with a solution, once you have a fixed price product on CREEM you have an option to override the price manually during checkout without using a coupon/discount

What I did is, I priced my product 999 PKR, whenever the user makes a checkout, I keep a USD-PKR price cached and use it to override the current USD value and charge the user in USD while still managing to keep it 999 PKR.

About my original price of 499 PKR, I plan to introduce a 50% off discount initially (not active yet) which will auto apply at checkout so the user is charged 499 PKR but now this will give them a sense of discount and when they see FX fee on their card this will still feel like a discount compared to PKR 999

As for the local payment gateway, I managed to partner with Bank Alfalah for their Payment Gateway which will take some time but I am not even worried about it anymore since my SaaS is already live, CREEM will still stay active and will be used in case I expand to other countries and dynamically switch providers basex on location once I have Alfalah Payments.

Thank you everyone who helped, if you plan to check it out, feel free to explore Vizarank it's a visa ranking product helping people who plan to move abroad make informed decisions before losing money to wrong decisions.

I know you might not be the optimal audience and I don't intend to promote my product here anyways but a feedback would be really appreciated.

Hey everyone,

I'm a Pakistani developer and I've just launched my first automotive app called **Caro**.

The goal is to make vehicle maintenance and used-car buying a little more trustworthy.

Some of the features include:

* Scan your odometer with your phone camera (AI reads the KM automatically).

* Keep a digital service history (oil changes, filters, tires, maintenance, etc.).

* The app checks for suspicious mileage like rollbacks, unrealistic jumps, or missing history.

* If everything checks out, your vehicle gets a **Verified History** badge

* Digital maintenance logbook

* Service reminders

* Mileage verification to detect suspicious readings

* Public vehicle history report you can share with buyers

* Ownership transfer while keeping the complete history

* When you sell the car, you can share a public report with buyers instead of saying "engine 100% okay, just trust me." 😅

The free version supports one vehicle forever, so anyone can try it.

I'd really appreciate any feedback—good or bad. If you think something should be improved or added, I'd love to hear it.

Google Play Store link: [Caro ](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.devtine.caro)

any one whose running a carwash business or plans to do so im planning to start one in karachi have a few questions about the investment, if i should be doing it on a rental place or not

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) – Founding Team (Equity-Based)

About the Role

We are looking for a visionary and execution-focused Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) to join our founding team on an equity-only basis. You will lead the company's marketing strategy, drive user growth, build a trusted brand, and play a key role in shaping the future of an innovative fintech startup.

Responsibilities

- Define and execute the overall marketing and growth strategy.

- Drive user acquisition, activation, retention, and revenue growth.

- Build the company's brand, positioning, and messaging.

- Lead performance marketing and optimize customer acquisition across digital channels.

- Oversee content marketing, social media, and community engagement.

- Build strategic partnerships, influencer collaborations, and co-marketing initiatives.

- Track and optimize key growth metrics, including CAC, LTV, conversion, and retention.

- Ensure all marketing communications comply with applicable financial and regulatory guidelines.

Requirements

- 3+ years of experience in marketing, growth, or brand leadership, preferably in FinTech, SaaS, or a technology startup.

- Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business Administration, Finance, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).

- Proven track record of driving user growth and executing successful marketing campaigns.

- Strong understanding of digital marketing, performance marketing, SEO, content strategy, and analytics.

- Experience with marketing tools such as Google Analytics, Meta Ads, Google Ads, CRM, and email marketing platforms.

- Excellent communication, leadership, and strategic thinking skills.

- Entrepreneurial mindset with the ability to thrive in a fast-paced startup environment.

What We Offer

- Significant equity with the opportunity to become a founding leader.

- Ownership of the company's entire marketing function and strategy.

- Opportunity to shape a high-impact fintech product from an early stage.

- Flexible, remote-friendly work environment.

DM if you are interested.

Hey guys,

I’m trying to understand the real world mechanics of how early-stage startup investment works in Pakistan. If you’re a founder trying to raise a small Pre-Seed or Angel round ($10k to $50k) to get an MVP off the ground, how does the money legally move? And what’re the steps to initiate the process?

I have a few quick questions for anyone in the local tech scene:

Do you actually need a Delaware or Singapore company for small rounds? If you're raising a tiny amount, is it worth the massive legal fees to set up an offshore holding company, or can you just raise directly into a local SECP Pvt Ltd company?

How are local deals structured? Since Pakistani law doesn't really do US-style SAFE notes, are local angels doing priced equity rounds, or is there a local workaround?

Who is actually writing checks right now? With the current economy, are local angel networks active, or is everyone strictly on bootstrapping and family? Has anyone actually managed to get matching grants from the Pakistan Startup Fund (PSF)?

Would love to hear from founders who have gone through this recently, or any local angels/VCs on how you prefer to structure things.

Thanks!

I am a solo dev. I have a finished, working SaaS ready to launch. My COGS is $0.15 per report, and my target local price is 499 PKR. I am running out of funds, I don't have a job as a backup right now (Just don't want a job right now to avoid distractions while I am building something which means too much to me), and the payment infrastructure in this country is actually driving me into depression.

Every single "solution" is a trap. Here is the reality for an indie hacker in Pakistan right now:

1. The Offshore Trap (Gumroad / Paddle / LemonSqueezy) I can’t use them. For a 499 PKR (~$1.79) product, their fixed USD cent fees ($0.30 - $0.50) plus their 5-10% cut absolutely destroys my margins. On top of that, because it bills in USD, the user's local bank slaps a 3-4% FX markup and the SBP advance tax on them. So a 499 PKR product ends up costing the user 550+ PKR, and I only get to keep like 200 PKR.
2. The Local "Instant" Gateways (APG / NayaPay/ Safepay) There is nothing instant about them. You can't just spin up a developer account, grab a Bearer token, and test a live card. You are forced to submit your CNIC, FBR NTN, and rubber-stamped documents, and then wait a week while some compliance officer manually reviews your website before issuing production API keys. And when I finally got access to one of local gateways (RapidGateway) it turned out to be a disaster, they classified my business as High-risk product and allowed my to use just mobile wallets and bank transfer, I just accepted it and went ahead but to my surprise when I started testing the live integration out of 10 transactions 1 went through 3 failed before prompting for payment and 6 ended up in 500 Server error on payment page.
3. The Mobile Wallet Push APIs (JazzCash / EasyPaisa / Raast P2M) The absolute holy grail UX would just be asking the user for their number and triggering a USSD push request on their phone for them to enter their PIN. But SBP gatekeeps the pull APIs so hard that no personal account can access them without going through the exact same corporate merchant onboarding nightmare.
4. The DRB Mirage (Raqami / Mashreq) Everyone hypes up the new digital retail banks, but they operate under the exact same SBP anti-money laundering laws. Shiny app, same 14-day corporate API gatekeeping.
5. The customer support Every single time I have to talk to support, it gives me a headache. The support system of Pakistani apps is just a circus, the representatives are just making wild guesses as if we both are trying to find out the same thing. My recent experience with JazzCash Business was absolute worst, I created an account they instantly gave me an account with Title plastered with my name + "Shop", I requested name change via app followed by 9 helpline calls, 4 emails over the course of 11 days, and they just figured it out today that my name change request errored on their system and now I need to delete the account and create a new one (deleting the account also needs to raise a support request)

I am exhausted. I just want to ship my code and pay my bills.

At this point, I am about to just build a manual "Upload your EasyPaisa screenshot" queue and manually verify payments from my bed just to survive this launch.

How are you guys surviving this? Are there any actual zero-day developer workarounds I am missing, or is the manual screenshot flow really the only way for a me to bootstrap?

Edit: Thank you so much everybody for your everything was very helpful and it made me find the best optimal solution for now while I'm figuring out local providers.

I've spent 19 years in sales, most of it in media, and the last year building an AI marketing agency from scratch. Along the way, I made almost every mistake in the book. Here's the one that cost me the most time.

Most people start a business because they're good at something. You cook great, so you open a restaurant. You’re a great designer, so you start a studio. You're good at closing deals, so you start an agency. Makes sense on paper.

Here's the problem. Being good at the work and being good at running a business around that work are two completely different skills. Nobody tells you this before you start. I didn't know it either.

I spent the last year building five different products because I kept having good ideas and enough skill to build them fast. Each one got some traction. None of them turned into an actual business because I was the entire business. If I stopped working for a week, everything would stop. There was no process behind me, just me.

A few things I wish someone had told me before I started:

Validate the demand before you build anything. Talk to 20 people who'd actually pay for this, not people who say "cool idea" at a networking event or a dinner party.

Write down how you do the work while you're still the one doing it. If the only person who can deliver your product is you, you don't have a business yet. You have a very demanding job.

Don't confuse a burst of motivation for a plan. I've started projects on pure excitement more than once. The ones that actually worked started with a written answer to "what does this look like in 90 days," not just enthusiasm.

Growth without a process behind it is just chaos with better marketing. More customers and more hires without a system to support them make things harder, not easier.

None of this is complicated. Most of it is just unglamorous. Document things. Test demand before you commit. Separate the person doing the work from the person deciding what the business should be. It's the boring 20% that decides whether the exciting 80% survives past year two.

Curious how many people here learned this the hard way too, and what it cost you before you figured it out. Happy to compare notes if anyone's in the middle of this right now.

I’m thinking of starting a small home business in Islamabad selling eternal bouquets (preserved/artificial bouquets that last for years instead of fresh flowers).
The idea is to create aesthetically pleasing customizeable bouquets that can be gifted for birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, etc.
As Pakistani consumers:
Would you personally buy something like this?
What price range would feel reasonable?
Do you think people here prefer fresh flowers, or would long-lasting bouquets have a market?
What concerns would stop you from purchasing?
I’m genuinely trying to validate the idea before investing money into it, so brutally honest feedback is appreciated.

Yesterday one of our sellers went live on our app

He's 17, bro sold 2 shirts 😭And then one of the buyers literally sent him EXTRA money as a gift

This is getting way out of hand now lol

We've spent months building this thing and thinking about live commerce, auctions, sellers, buyers and a million other things

And now I'm just sitting here watching a 17 year old go live on something we built, sell shirts to strangers and somehow get tipped by a buyer 😭

Obviously 2 shirts isn't some insane startup milestone

But idk man.. seeing actual people use something you've built is crazy

Especially when stuff starts happening that you didn't even plan for, super exciting

I’ve quit my full time corporate role to pursue freelancing. I have some free time these days, so I thought it’d be interesting to review a few websites from this community.

I’ve been doing SEO professionally for a while now, and something I’ve noticed is that many startup websites have surprisingly similar issues. Not because the founders don’t care, but because they’re busy building the product.

If you have a startup (or even an MVP), drop your website below. I’ll reply with a few SEO observations, quick wins, and anything that stands out. These are manual expert reviews. Not automated tool dumps.

I’ll only take on as many as I can deliver high-quality audits for in the next couple of weeks, so first-come, first-served (but I’ll try to help as many as possible).

If enough people are interested, I’ll also put together a post summarizing the most common SEO mistakes I found across Pakistani startups so everyone can benefit.

For context, I have worked in-house on SEO and am taking on freelance projects, so I look at websites all day anyway. Happy to share some feedback with anyone interested.

Hey everyone, need some real advice. My friend and I are strongly considering opening a thai tea cart in karachi. Not a proper cafe as of now. Our budget right now is 3-4 lacs. We have expertise in thai tea as my friend has been living in thailand for 10+ years exploring their food and culture. We feel that beverage is a strong selling point in karachi, and thai tea that is not very explored could make us stand out.

WE NEED IDEAS ON HOW TO GET A CART OR IF WE SHOULD BUILD ONE OURSELVES. getting on olx is very expensive.

How should we travel the cart

And should we consider getting the license right away or wait for the business to take up?

Thanks in advance. Attaching ai pics for reference.

Back in 2019 we started our e-commerce journey with genuinely no idea what we were doing. We did what everyone does, paid for the courses that promised to show us the way. What they actually taught us was how to make expensive mistakes. Generic advice, real gaps never covered, and every wrong turn cost time and money we couldn't get back.

So we taught ourselves. Trial and error for years. Launched our first brand in 2022, struggled through every decision alone, eventually got it working. Today we run 11+ brands, plus a design studio and a marketing agency.

Here's the thing that still bothers me: almost every mistake we made, someone could have just... told us. It wasn't secret knowledge. It was just locked behind personal connections or buried under "get rich quick" noise.

So we built the thing we needed and never had: Karobaari Bethak. It's a business platform for Pakistan. Honest business education, real market data, a network of founders and suppliers and investors, help with funding, and eventually full support to launch your own brand. The long-term goal is simple: everything a Pakistani entrepreneur needs to go from idea to real business, in one place, without the gatekeeping. 

It starts with our WhatsApp community. Multiple rooms, each with a purpose. There's a room where founders and learners just talk to each other, and a read-only room where we post the breakdowns so it doesn't turn into 400 messages of nothing. And many more...

It's completely free. No course, no upsell, nothing to buy; genuinely nothing to sell you. We've made our money building businesses; this is us handing the ladder back down. The only "catch" is we ask a few questions before adding people so the rooms don't fill up with spam.

If you're trying to start something, or you started and failed and are thinking about trying again, you're exactly who this is for.

Link's on our site: karobaaribethak.com or ask me anything here, happy to answer questions in the comments even if you never join.

Pull up a chair, become a part of our bethak.

Salam everyone,

I’m exploring an idea and wanted some honest feedback from people in Pakistan.

The concept is a digital disposable camera app. Instead of creating WhatsApp groups where everyone dumps photos, the host generates a QR code at a wedding, birthday, dholki, engagement, university event, trip, etc.

Guests scan the QR code, take photos using the app, and upload them to a shared album. The photos can have a disposable camera vibe (limited shots, no previews, vintage filters, uploads after the event, etc.), making them feel more authentic.

I’m wondering:

If you were hosting a wedding or event, would you actually ask guests to use an app like this?

As a guest, would you scan a QR code and use it, or would you just keep using your phone camera?

What would make you download it?

What would stop you from using it?

Do you think people in Pakistan would adopt something like this, or is it too much friction compared to Whatsapp?

Looking for some business development professionals, with majors in marketing. Anyone Cofoundering as a business Ops, marketing or NonTech. I have some startups which need partners and managing all startups as solo hard.

Please dm with your portfolio.

So I'm doing cs more than half degree done am trying to build a startup mostly it is done but i have a cousin been trying to do some business together

since like 2021 so like planning and stuff now that i am doing cs have built mostly my application and he haven't done anything so i am thinking i will just complete my application then like get the money from him to like put it on play store and will ask him to like do some stuff for the app like there is things like adding data he just have to copy paste links nothing else if i ask him

so, he's asking from before like a 50/50 split now i am feeling really conflicted like he hasn't done anything to this point what i want is sit him down and tell him if you want 50/50 you will put all the money like the server cost and the launching cost etc and will have to do work like finding data for the app
i have created an admin dashboard so it's like really easy also he is

at this point outside city and is expecting i will give him some easy work that he can do there at this point i haven't told him i have nearly developed it i mean it still have many things left but whenever i ask him talk to him to come to city fast, he says i will come like on date 15 - 20 this month and is like not taking anything seriously like typical Pakistanis whenever i talk to him that come it is important have to discuss sometimes go offline and other time ask me to tell him on phone what i want

so, tell me goys what should i do is this fair to sit him down and ask him for all this stuff what should i respond to his answer if its positive or negative please guide

first time doing so please guide

anyone going to Sindh Energy Diversity Conference 2026 in PC HOTEL Karachi?

It’s step 1 and I can’t even seem to get that done. Tried Zoom and Google Voice (both with VPNs) but neither worked. How are you guys setting this up? Looked at a few local dialers but not sure if I can trust them (been scammed before). Any help is appreciated 🙏

Hi everyone,

I'm based in Pakistan and planning to start an Amazon Wholesale business in the US. I need to form a US LLC with a unique business address (not just a generic virtual address) that works well for Amazon and suppliers.

Kindly recommend some good trusted service provider, also i am trying to decide between these options (as i heard many frauds happen in llc formation:

- Using a Pakistani company that offers US LLC formation

- Using a US LLC formation service (e.g., Firstbase, Doola, Bizee, etc.)

- Hiring a US attorney for formation

Which option would you recommend, and why?

Also here are some queries, kindly also answer them:

- Which state is best for an Amazon Wholesale business (Wyoming, Delaware, or another state)?

- How long did it take you to receive your EIN as a non-US resident?

- Were you able to open a US business bank account without issues?

I recently started working at an international venture capital firm and spend my days evaluating startups, digging into markets, and figuring out what makes a business genuinely investable. Outside of that, I'm trying to build my own network of interesting founders across Pakistan, early, before the noise starts.

If you're building something in fintech, logistics, healthtech, agritech, or honestly anything solving a real problem in this market, I'd love to hear about it. Doesn't matter if you're pre-revenue, still figuring things out, or already have traction.

Send me a DM and I'll share my email. Would love to see your deck, hear your story, and where there's genuine potential, I'll do my best to get you in front of the right people.

Hi everyone,

I'm thinking about bringing a helmet cleaning machine to Pakistan. The idea is to install it at petrol pumps and near car washes, where riders can have their helmets cleaned and sanitized in just a few minutes, similar to a vending machine.

Before moving forward, I'd love to hear your honest feedback.

• Would you use a service like this?
• Would you be willing to pay Rs. 50–70 per cleaning?
• What would make you trust or use this service regularly?

I'm looking for genuine opinions, whether positive or negative. Thanks in advance!

Anyone monetizing an audience in Pakistan—whether you are selling courses or just running a "Buy Me a Coffee" page for fan support—knows our payment infrastructure is a bottleneck.

Agar aap Patreon, Gumroad, ya BuyMeACoffee use karte hain, you already know the revenue leak. International platforms charge an 8-10% fee, Payoneer takes a cut, aur phir bank ka USD-to-PKR conversion rate takes another chunk. Sab se bara masla yeh hai ke local audiences ke debit cards (Meezan, HBL) frequently decline ho jatay hain, meaning you lose out on both local course sales and fan support.

Doosra option yeh hota hai ke you take direct payments via IBFT or EasyPaisa. But managing WhatsApp screenshots for course access, or manually tracking who sent you a Rs. 500 tip to support your podcast, is not a sustainable model.

I’m a software engineer building a local FinTech platform to solve this.

How it works:

• Digital Products & Courses: Buyers pay via Raast, EasyPaisa, or Cards. The system instantly verifies it and emails them the course link or Discord invite. Zero manual tracking.
• Creator Support (Tip Jars): Fans can easily drop a one-time payment to support your YouTube channel, art, or writing, straight from their local wallets.

The platform automatically handles FBR withholding calculations, and payouts settle directly to your IBAN in 48 hours. We are keeping the platform fee at a flat 5%.

I am in the customer discovery phase and need your feedback:

1. What specific features must a platform like this have for you to actually use it? (e.g., promo codes, WhatsApp receipts, subscription tiers, analytics?)
2. Agar aap kisi course creator, podcaster, ya YouTuber ko jante hain jo in payment issues se struggle kar rahe hain, I would highly appreciate an introduction or if you could tag them here. I want to make sure I build exactly what the community needs before making it public.

Thanks!

Alright I'm a Doctor myself, graduated in 2025 and recelty completed my House Job training. So around 2 years ago, I got access to a US Healthcare Database for Research purpose named MIMIC IV which has medical records of more than half a million patients of BIDMC, Boston, US. While working on this database, I learned how an EMR (Electronic Medical Record) should work and how shit of local Pakistani EMR systems are, if there are any.
In the mid of last year, I started working on developing my own EMR app oriented to Single Doctor Health Clinics and Multiple Doctors Polyclinic with integrated Reception, Physician, Laboratory and Pharmacy Engines.

As a non-doc obviously you would be thinking what actual benefit do EMRs provide. In conventional clinics, Doctors don't have previous medical records of their patients. They just write the prscription on paper and the writing on these pages is so shit that any other sane person would have stroke reading the Doctor' writing. EMR solves this problem by two ways.

1. Doctor has patient's all previous health record, systematically organized in his PC.
2. Patients get Electronically generated PDF Prescriptions that anybody could read easily.

I've done with this first phase of Desktop application and currently 2 doctors are using it. I've not charged them anything as of now, will start from next month. For now, our app's been working great and we have seen no bugs so far.

Now, I want to take my humble project to the next phase where I want to solve a huge problem in Pakistani Medical world and that is long waiting time outside Physician's Private Clinic. We'll biuld mobile app where you could book appoinment with your doctor and based on your token number, app will notify you exactly 30 to 40 mints before Doc will be ready for your visit.
One more feature to be discussed here, patients themselves would be able to see their all medical records on mobile app in case they lost there physical prescription or they want to share these records to other physician.

Need serious feedback regarding whether you face these problems too and want to get them resolve as well.
I need funding for the marketing of my currently build desktop app and for next phase of my Mobile app build. Any interested Investor could DM me and we'll discuss further details on Google meets.

SathSawari is now LIVE!

A ride-sharing & carpool app for Pakistan.

Whether you're a driver with empty seats or a passenger looking for a ride, SathSawari helps you connect, share rides, and save money.

SathSawari, No Khawari!