If you're based in Pakistan, what the best way to raise local funding? With over 7 years of experience in running startups, Nash explains the best way forward.

1. Fundraising in Pakistan
Muhammad Nasrullah
Founder and BDFL at Pring
Twitter & Pring: @nash
Facebook fb.com/nasrullah

2. Talking About Local Fundraising
• Raised in excess of $2M to date
• Summary of my experience

3. Caution
• Fundraising sucks
• It’s a necessary evil in most cases
• Best advice to you: Avoid Fund Raising (if you
can)

4. The Early Days of Entrepreneurship
• Think US in the 50s or 60s

5. Capital is Expensive in Pakistan
• Less equity for more money

6. Before you start fundraising
• Use money from family, friends and fools
• Bulid a working prototype
• Get user traction and demand
• Once you have the traction figured out,
fundraise for scale

7. The ultimate goal of a startup?
• To become a profitable business with a
repeatable, scalable business model

8. Think Revenues
• People, Products and Profits
• If you plan on staying in Pakistan, reach
breakeven as soon as possible

9. Why Breakeven?
• If you’re working on funding, there is always
an end-date to that funding
• Once it ends you’ll have to raise more again.
You’ll be at the mercy of investors and worse,
you will be desperate
• If you are breaking even or profitable you can
fundraise at your time at your benefit

10. Who do you fundraise from?
• Look at successful people in your field
• Self-made entrepreneurs will understand your
pain the most and will empathize with you the
most

11. Look for SmartMoney
• Dumb money: is just money
• Better: money from someone who can be a
great mentor
• Even better: someone who has the
connections to make your startup successful
• Even better-er: Connections, know-how, self-
made entrepreneur, well respected in the
market and has money

12. Actually: Avoid Dumb Money. Keep as
Last Resort
• Do you really want to ‘owe’ the seth 5+ million
rupees?

13. Go breadth-first rather than depth first
• Ie: talk to everyone at the same time
• Do not do approach one-by-one, you will
never build up momentum
• The best way to speed any negotiation is to
introduce competition
• It’s fine to be talking to upto 30 parties. I did
40 at one time.

14. Fundraising dirty little secret: It’s
heard mentality
• The toughest part is getting the first yes
• Once you have one popular person saying yes,
the other investors will be keen and more
interested
• This works well if the first funder is well-
known
• No, not a verbal yes, a check is great

15. How Much?
• Capital in Pakistan is expensive
• After the FFF round, the next is a larger round but
you will probably will have to raise more money
later.
• But do not give away more than 50%, do not lose
control.
• Corollary: avoid investors who ask for too much
equity and control. It’s a huge warning sign.
• What’s your exit strategy? How many rounds of
funding will it take to get there? Keep atleast
>20% when you reach there

16. How?
• Get a good intro before meeting the investor
• Go in for an informal talk and leave with a
one-pager executive summary
• Some investors will require a slide deck, keep
it handy

17. What should I talk about?
• Elevator Pitch
• The Problem
• Solution (Demo)
• Business Model and Market Size
• Secret Sauce (aka competitive advantage)
• Competition, marketing
• Team
• Deal Terms (Money, equity etc)

18. Great Deck Samples & Guides
• Sequoia:
http://www.sequoiacap.com/grove/posts/6bz
x/writing-a-business-plan
• Dave McClure:
http://www.slideshare.net/slidesthatrock/ho
w-to-pitch-a-vc-redesigned
• Pitch decks of popular companies:
http://PitchEnvy.com

19. Parting Thoughts
• The number one job of the entrepreneur is
problem solving
• Fundraising is a problem and a unique one in
Pakistan
• Your company’s success relies upon you hacking
fundraising
• You will get constantly rejected. Don’t take it
personally. Build emotional resilience.
• Very few say ‘no’, most give the long silence

20. Good Luck!
Questions?