This article of Rozee.PK “Into The Fray” was published in Forbes US and Asia editions (both online and print) Into the Fray
In the game of can-you-top-this entrepreneurial hardship who slept the least, whose office was tiniest, who choked down the most Ramen noodles Monis Rahman holds some formidable trump cards. In the game of can-you-top-this entrepreneurial hardship who slept the least, whose office was tiniest, who choked down the most Ramen noodles Monis Rahman holds some formidable trump cards.
Four years ago Rahman, a serial entrepreneur, launched Rozee.pk, now Pakistan’s largest jobs website, with 500,000 unique visitors a month. While Rahman was raising money in 2007, terrorists bombed the homecoming procession of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The Pakistani government subsequently suspended its constitution and declared a state of emergency. (A gunman assassinated Bhutto the following month.)
When one of Rahman’s potential investors called to express his firm’s misgivings, Rahman e-mailed him a “Top Ten Reasons to Invest” list. Reason number nine was:
“‘We’re headquartered in Lahore, where there haven’t been any blasts,’” he recalls.“Then I pressed ‘send.’ The next day in Lahore, the high court was bombed. Welcome to the Wild East of Web prospecting. Over tea on a 102-degree morning in Lahore, Rahman explains why now is the time to invest in Pakistan, the world’s sixth-most-populous country, with 187 million people and plenty of inexpensive labor. Obstacles abound, starting with the fact that only 17% of Pakistanis have Internet access. The country also suffers from low literacy rates, massive corruption, frequent blackouts and a weak judicial system.
