Why am I creating Productistan? An effort to help Pakistani product makers succeed.
TL;DR: I am creating Productistan to help Pakistani product makers (both physical and digital products) through community-driven feedback, validation and acquiring early customers. Through my anecdotal evidence, I describe why this would increase your chances of success. I welcome you to join me at https://productistan.pk
Hi, my name is Zeeshan and I am an entrepreneur. Even though I have four degrees in computer science and engineering including a PhD, what describes me better is that I have been making apps and products for generating value for its users since 2001. I have a deep affection for well-made products that improve users’ lives, make it more enjoyable and make them more productive in their work. I distinctly remember going through installer CDs (a phenomenon only old geeks like me would appreciate) and checking out every software available on it. The first product that ever I discovered and fell in love with was WinAmp (it really whips the llama’s ass, P.S. animal cruelty not endorsed).
I spent countless hours making custom skins for WinAmp since at that time all I knew was how to use MS Paint. After learning how to code, I jumped with my both feet into making programs for sometimes hypothetical and other times actual users. It gave me immense pleasure to watch real people use these programs and (sometimes) be in awe. I have been chasing this feeling both in the capacity of being a full-time founder of startups as well as being an employee of multinationals and running my side-hustles.
In my hustle to make it as an entrepreneur, I have launched several products including some opensource. My earliest success came from a project called SMSBot (circa 2004) which was later revamped and renamed to SMSLive (circa 2009). It was a modified SOCKS proxy that allowed using your MSN Messenger to send and receive SMS to mobiles over GSM. SMSLive was able to connect our users with their loved ones, friends, and families. One of our users was a woman living in Pakistan wanting to be in touch with her husband in Malaysia. Another was a niece trying to stay in touch with her aunts living in a different city. I saw countless such examples and felt proud of the impact I was able to have on their lives. This was way before Viber and WhatsApp became available and mobile internet was common. I ended up having around 15000 users with 10% daily active users. We were burning through SMS credit like crazy and even started earning early revenue. I eventually had to shut down this project since it was operating in a legal grey-area and telecommunication laws were becoming strict in Pakistan. Curious minded people can check the following link on the wayback machine https://web.archive.org/web/20100717234720/http://smslive.pk/
Lessons learnt from my hustle: The biggest lesson I have learnt in my hustle is to not ignore your local community in aim to go global quickly. The last four hustles I have been part of had a direct correlation of early success with focusing on the local community. While this may seem like a coincidence to untrained eyes, there is a good reason for this. Recall Peter Thiel’s advice for the early-stage startups, (i) be close to your customers and (ii) make a small group of users love your product. This advice is really hard to follow for cash-poor early-stage startups unless you just happen to focus on users that are already close to you i.e., your local community. While your early customer won’t look anything like your later stage customers, early feedback is mandatory for having any chance at getting product-market fit. This closeness to your customers can be interpreted both literally in the geographical sense and metaphorically in the cultural sense. Either way, your local community is the best fit for your scrappy startup.
Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves — Steve Jobs
Globalization makes it easier to target the international consumer too early too fast. Local factors in Pakistan e.g., lack of digital payment options and low availability of funding, also incentivizes founders and product makers to target international customers with higher purchase power and budget. While there is nothing objectively wrong with that approach, if done too early, it can have adverse effects on taking too long to achieve product-market fit. This consequence primarily shoots off of having a lower contact surface with customers and having a shotgun approach for customer acquisition strategy rather than narrowly defining customer personas. In short, start building your product with feedback from Pakistani community, make them love your product, sell to them (on a considerate price), and then go global.
I think that the tide on globalization is just going out — Peter Thiel https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/08/thiel-globalization-is-over.html
This brings us to Productistan. My aim to launch Productistan is to build a launching pad for fellow Pakistani product makers to get early feedback and validation and also early customers. My recent survey on the facebook Pakistani startup community showed how big and famous international product makers are ignoring under-developed communities.
Even though the majority of people participating in the survey report that they are looking for free alternatives, it’s not that they do not wish to pay or can’t afford to pay anything. It’s just that the freemium model is broken when it assumes that the globalization works. It encourages people to signup and start using the product, only to become a roadblock with its inconsiderate pricing.
Between Hootsuite, SEMRush, Hubspot and a host of others, it seems like these apps are an additional employee whom I have to keep earning for lest my business go under. Free plans work for about a year, then they’re useless. — Adi Abdurab, Pakistani Entrepreneur, Peabody award winner.
Productistan features: As a principle, I am going to build Productistan using community feedback and be open about my journey. Following the lean methodology, Productistan at this stage is no more than a list of proposed features. To begin with, Productistan shall allow people to list their products in an effort to seek market validation / market-fit. Every product listing shall act as a call for feedback and showcase the motivating achievements for their fellow product makers. Having a community of motivated positive-minded people will help us achieve success together. I have already witnessed and benefited from the eagerness of the community to come together and help each other. Productistan is just another canvas for your creative collaborative thinking.
Allow me to be your host. Join me on https://productistan.pk
Yours Truly,
Zeeshan
