The CEO of Ikonami, Kubair Shirazee, has a compelling chat with Jehan Ara, President of P@SHA in this episode of In The Line Of Wire about his company, ideology and the Pakistani ecosystem. Be sure and watch this!
ITLOW: Ep37 – Kubair Shirazee, CEO Ikonami
- Posted on 06.26.09
- Featured, In The Line of Wire
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15 Responses to “ITLOW: Ep37 – Kubair Shirazee, CEO Ikonami”
Jehan and Rabia have hit quite a few nails on their heads… I shall now conveniently use ctrl C and ctrl V and a bit of inline edits to add to the above:
Competition:
Assume they are ahead, always. R&D them relentlessly.
Innovate on top of the ‘wheel’ the competition may have just reinvented: your innovation could be with the competitions knowledge/blessing, use their installed market position… its about standing on their shoulders and not trying to take them out of the equation.
With Rabia on not everything bigger, is better.
Investment:
with Jehan on the need to ‘Bootstrap’ and prove your concept and that it can and does make money.. before anyone serious will give you any serious time.
Perhaps make it open source, enlist an online army of developers, you may not be able to capitalise on it but you sure wont be surprised by the next Google Wave!
and lastly:
Girte hain shahsawar hi, Maidan-e-jung mein.
Vo tifl kya giren, Jo ghutno ke bal chale.
and Good Luck.
Thanx Talha! Appreciation of you people is what which always motivates and drives me!
Hey Awais,
You have taken a brave step and you are now one step closer to your dream now. Just keep your head cool and calm and be patient. Its not going to be easy and you will be facing alot of criticism from so many people. You just have to believe in yourself and trying hard to prove everyone wrong.
All the very best to you.
Inshallah!
All the best Awais! InshAllah u’ll achieve what u’ve been dreaming of
@Jehan @RG Thanx a lot! I am proud to have such mentors!
What nonsense, This EVONY ad displayed on your website is so vulgar,
It says “Play Now My Lord” and that charachter is exposing her breasts in such a manner which is objectionable. Y do u guys have to subscribe to google ads for the sake of few dollars and in return to promote this on your website
We wish you all the luck in the world Awais.
Yeah! I am like that! I work crazily on whatever I believe in! Then rest and food don’t matter for me! I work day and night and achieve!
Now I have to put this effort into the startup! First of all I am confident enough to face the world! All of my friends and mates have gone to good jobs after graduation and I haven’t even applied for one because I know, I have to hire not to get hired!
Wish me luck!
@Awais, ever heard of bootstrapping? Most of the successful entrepreneurs that you can think of all started off with almost no money, in a garage or a room in their home, with a couple of friends and loose change. Their idea is what drove them, what kept them awake at night. It is their passion that kept them going. Some of them failed – not once but many times. There were days they didn’t know where the next dollar would come from, when they felt like giving up but they didn’t. They just kept going because they had faith in their idea. However, having said that, it is just as important to realize that an idea won’t work or is headed nowhere, and to move on. None of it is easy so if you are meant to be an entrepreneur, be ready for some dry spells and for hard times ahead. Is it all worth it in the end? Only you can decide that. If you don’t take the risk, there is no chance for success.
[...] my conversation with Kubair Shirazee on ITLoW, he talks about his interest in Talent Management, about the growth of Ikonami and about the need [...]
@Awais On the contrary, passion brings the ability and drive to be sustainable. Competition will always follow innovation but doesn’t necessarily bring sustainability. Big investment usually takes away the ‘personal’ touch to help lines and big code…. obviously it is crass of me to generalize but not everything bigger, is better.
@RG so true! I should have gone for the passion instead of money. In my last “failed” start-up I went for the services sector. Because, it always brings quick money. I had a thought that I would earn money from services and will invest in my real idea. But it failed because I didn’t have passion for it.
Now, I am very much confident that the idea, I have, is gonna be the next big thing among the web startups. What I am planning to do is to start to work on my own, and I may be able to go for its alpha-testing release in five years.
Now, again comes the point that someone may come up with the same idea and big investment. So I’ll be left behind in the race. But I’ll still be happy because I fufiled my passion!
@Awais – Oooh!! Wait a few weeks.. I just did an interview in the WebStudio with someone who has answered your exact question!! Having said that, I’m hoping Kubair and Jahanzeb, amongst the other entrepreneurs we have, will be able to assist you in finding the answer to your question. I WOULD like to emphasize a point that simply cannot be emphasized enough – Where you don’t have a lot of investment, you need a LOT of patience. Ideas take a long time to incubate and mature and the only way you will EVER be able to realize ANY returns is if you take the risk to put yourself out there…. on your own.
We have a lot of great examples, and Jehan Ara has highlighted many such success stories in her show and even more on her blog. It is not an easy task, but reaps unbelievable rewards. Case in point, Salaina and I didn’t have any “investment” to kickstart our ideas, so we put in our meager ‘lifesavings’ (read: earnings) and jumped… 11 years later, we’re still here. The most important lesson to learn is this: someone else will always launch the idea that was meant to be yours, just because you didn’t have the belief in yourself to give it a try. Believe me – if you take the leap of faith – there are a lot of us to help you out where we can.
Anyone else?
Now that’s awesome! I met the country director of iKonami and wanted to know more, so I got it!
BTW, I always have great ideas, which I know they rock but I don’t go for them because I don’t know how to find a VC. The “Project Natal” just launched by Microsoft – which has turned over the whole gaming world – is “exactly” what I planned to do in 8th class
The “Google Wave” which is also the huge big thing in the web-o-sphere is also something close to what I thought of!
Now, I have a couple of more ideas but don’t have much investment to go for any of them.