I Met The Founders Running a 20-Million-Person City (it's wild!)
And why investors avoid one of the world’s largest cities...
This episode is all about what building in a 20-million-person city in Pakistan teaches us about scaling businesses when markets are massive, capital is scarce, and failure isn’t an option.
I met Maha Shahzad, who built BusCaro after 1,000+ rejections, now a $7M+ revenue company moving millions across the city.
Muneeb Maayr, co-founder of Daraz (acquired by Alibaba) and founder of Bykea, who’s raised $15M+ to build everyday infrastructure for Pakistan.
Rabeel Warraich, founder of Sarmayacar and Shark Tank Pakistan judge, backing founders most global investors won’t touch.
Fariel Salahuddin, who built a $2.5M bootstrapped business most people would mistakenly label “social.”
And Saim Siddiqui, founder of ProCheck, exporting a “Fitbit for factories” to manufacturers worldwide while taking on the funding drought head on.
All of them are building in a market most capital has written off and solving the boring, expensive, unglamorous problems that keep a megacity running.
The Karachi episode of In Plain Sight is now live on YouTube.
In Plain Sight is a show uncovering the business lessons, tech shifts, and global playbooks traditional media often misses.
Each episode explores overlooked companies, untapped markets, and bold ideas shaping the future of nations through business and tech.
You can watch it here.
Compelling look at how real constraints breed real innovation. The BusCaro story after 1000+ rejections is wild, that level of persistance in an environment where capital is scarce totally reframes what "validation" means. Saw something similar when I was working on aproject in emerging markets where founders couldn't afford to pivot endlessly like Silicon Valley startups do. Forces you to actually solve the problem instead of chasing the next shiny fundraising round.