AsadMemon
Are There Enough Tech Founders in Pakistan?
TL;DR: Apparently, yes. Read on!
Pakistan’s startup ecosystem seems to be growing. It’s absolutely essential that we have enough technical founders to support this growth.
Why Tech Founders?
Startups scale by employing technology to enable disruptive change to markets. Startups are so hard by nature that they are default dead unless the founders do something extraordinary to keep them alive.
Since tech is involved at the core, having a technical co-founder is extremely important. Outsourcing core product to someone who is not equally passionate is a recipe for disaster.
YCombinator’s portfolio of startups is a good proxy of what works and what the industry trends are in the Valley.
90% of all YC startups have at least one technical founder. Out of those, 72% have a CS degree. [1]
Other top accelerators like Alchemist and Techstars also have a somewhat similar bias towards technical founders. So it’s apparent that startups with tech founders have higher chances of success.
How do local startups compare?
I did a survey of about 50 Pakistani startups[2] and found that more than 70% of startups have one or more founders with technical background!
That number is impressive.
What does that mean?
While our technical founders may be slightly less skilled than the ones from Stanford and likes, getting to the edge of any technology should be easier for them.
As Pakistan’s potential is just starting to be realized, at least finding good founders is not something startups have to worry about.
Resources
[2] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/163mbe6SNLiy45Zr1wf24Rzp9tvqOfNgkLLpzXYj3zbI/edit?usp=sharing