Reboot goes on sale online, gets featured at CIO, the Standard, Network World or the Ides of March
What a week it has been.
Last night was the first night in 7 days that I slept for 7 hours. My average naptime for the week was an astonishing 4 hours, excluding the time I spent power napping waiting for the red traffic light to change to green, on hold waiting for customers to [...]
March 13, 2010
Tags: Book, CIO, Entrepreneurhsip training, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, Network World, Pakistan, Reboot, Startup, The Standard Posted in: Blue Screen, Columbia Business School, Desi Startup, Education, Failure, Pressing words, Startup, Startup Insiders, entrepreneurs, new ventures, small business 
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Shaukat Tarin Quits
Shaukat Tarin, the Banker behind Union Bank and its successful sale to Standard Chartered Bank for about 500 million dollars in 2006, quit this morning as Pakistan’s Finance Minister. Post Union Bank, Shaukat along with a consortium of multination investors acquired Saudi Pak Commercial Bank from SAPICO for a second Union run. The [...]
February 23, 2010
Tags: Finance, Ministry of Finance, Pakistan, Shaukat, Tarin Posted in: Alchemy stuff No Comments
Pakistan Risk Review, one year later…
In the beginning it was just risk.
Two years ago when we first started working on the concept paper that later became Pakistan Risk Review, we felt that covering prices, volatilities and limits in secondary markets would be a full time job and would certainly be sufficient for a number of customers. After all what [...]
February 15, 2010
Tags: Pakistan, PRR, Review, Risk Posted in: Alchemy stuff One Comment
Heading back home
After 5 days of 4 hours of sleep and 18 hour days finally heading back home to Karachi. Good trip. Details later.
February 12, 2010
Tags: Home, Karachi, Pakistan Posted in: Alchemy stuff No Comments
Get help early for your child
NYT article on speech delays and child development. Getting Taha to Anika Shah a year before he started school has made a world of difference in his life and ours and it made it possible for him to focus on settling down at CAS without worrying about academics. Don’t ignore the signs, don’t [...]
February 10, 2010
Tags: ADHD, Karachi, Ma Ayesha Memorial Center, Pakistan, Special Needs, Speech Therapy in Pakistan Posted in: Alchemy stuff No Comments
Pakistan Macro Economic Update – January 2010
The figures for July- December 2009 are guardedly encouraging as there are some signs that the economy is on the road to recovery. Trade deficit has narrowed due to a decline in imports (because of reduced oil and commodity prices in this period as well as the slowdown in economic activity) which have outweighed [...]
January 31, 2010
Tags: Inflation, Interest Rates, Macro Update, Monetary Policy announcement, Pakistan Posted in: Karachi, Liquidity Risk, PASHA, Pakistan, the economy stupid No Comments
The Reboot presentation at TIECON, Karachi – Revisited
The TIECON 2009, Karachi, 4th November 2009, Reboot presentation was the first time I was able to shrink the story in under 20 minutes. Spent three days putting the presentation together but it will be a while before I am able to get to an editor that will run the presentation and the video [...]
November 27, 2009
Tags: Failure, Jawwad Farid, Karachi, Pakistan, Reboot, Startup, TIE, TIECON Posted in: Columbia Business School, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Education, Failure, Pakistan, Startup, TIE, computer science, entrepreneurs, new ventures, small business No Comments
Ken Morse is in town
Ken Morse was in town the last two nights on his signature whirlwind trip to Karachi. Luckily enough we were able to catch up with him at the Pre-BAP dinner at Farrokh Captain’s home and then again yesterday at the MIT CEF Innovation Confernece.
During his Keynote at the conference Ken reinforced the points [...]
November 14, 2009
Tags: entrepreneurship, Ken Morse, MIT CEF BAP, Pakistan, Presenting, Selling Posted in: Alchemy stuff No Comments
The presentation cheat sheet – Three – The Problem Statement
The presentation that I am most proud of however is the one that we made together as a team for the first MIT BAP competition in Karachi. The judges panel included Ken Morse, Bill Aulet and Imran Saeed, all three from MIT E-Labs. Despite earlier failed attempts to impress Ken, this time we managed [...]
November 9, 2009
Tags: Cheat sheets, entrepreneurship, Ken Morse, MIT CEF BAP, Pakistan, Presentations, Presenting, Sales Posted in: Alchemy stuff, Sales guys, Sales guys in suits 2 Comments
The Presentation cheat sheet – two – impact
Ultimately audiences and judges will vote for you if you
Connect with them emotionally
Answer all their questions – spoken and otherwise
Save and respect their time and intelligence by only making credible claims
Backstopping and supporting your claims by solid believable evidence
The first presentation on my slideshare deck is about the SMB Fatimah Jinnah School project undertaken [...]
November 9, 2009
Tags: Cheat sheets, entrepreneurship, Ken Morse, MIT CEF BAP, Pakistan, Presentation, Presenting, Selling Posted in: Alchemy stuff No Comments
The Presentation cheat sheet – one
Pitching Perfect
November 9, 2009
Tags: Cheat sheet, entrepreneurship, Ken Morse, MIT CEF BAP, Pakistan, Presentation, Presenting, Selling Posted in: Alchemy stuff, Desi Startup, Ken Morse, MIT BAP, entrepreneurs No Comments
Glenn Hubbard, Reboot and me
I was a brash and ambitious desi with a business plan at Columbia. Glenn was part of the entrepreneurial faculty at the school. We met and exchanged notes on the sidelines of Amar Bhide’s chat about his upcoming book, “The origin and evolution of new businesses”. A few months later when I lost [...]
October 27, 2009
Tags: BSOD, Columbia Business School, Columbia University, entrepreneurship, Glenn Hubbard, Pakistan, Reboot Posted in: Alchemy stuff No Comments
Steve Jobs in Karachi or why I feel old or welcome to the future
Yesterday for the first time in many years I actually felt old and irrelevant. As part of the pre-PASHA Award event we took a sneak peak at the 10 odd companies that were competing at the PASHA TECH CRUNCH GONG show on 14th October.
Two of participants were very good. The first pitched their [...]
October 14, 2009
Tags: entrepreneurship, Hope, Pakistan, PASHA Tech Crunch Gong Award 2009, Technology Companies Posted in: Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Karachi, PASHA, PASHA ICT Awards, Pakistan, Startup Insiders, entrepreneurs, small business One Comment
Springfield/Vimble/Umair Khan Jadoon
How to break into social media when you are underpaid, under appreciated over worked blogger.
The return of Lassi as a key presentation theme
October 14, 2009
Tags: entrepreneurship, Hope, Pakistan, PASHA Tech Crunch Gong Award 2009 Posted in: Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Failure, PASHA, PASHA ICT Awards, Pakistan, entrepreneurs No Comments
Pakistan Maps
NED student, puts CDGK information on Google Maps. Pilot launched with Gulshan Iqbal Town dataset.
October 14, 2009
Tags: entrepreneurship, Hope, Pakistan, PASHA Tech Crunch Gong Award 2009, Technology Companies Posted in: Alchemy stuff No Comments
