http://greenwhite.org/2007/09/21/aboutusorg-dev-office-in-lahore-what-do-they-do/

AboutUs kept going ahead Ray King was a smart entrepreneur even at the height of economic crises AboutUs secured a 2.5 Million USD Funding, and recently went ahead and bought another startup Jyte in January.

How ever it seems all is not well,  they recently closed their Lahore office, here is the post from Ray’s own blog to confirm it. What could have gone wrong?

Let me be very clear here I don’t believe that closing of Lahore office had any thing to do with revenues or cost cutting, because just a couple of months back they acquired a company if it was for getting money for that, the closure would have come before the acquisition, and nothing suggests that their revenues have dwindled, for me the problem lies some where else.

I have been aware of AboutUs Lahore setup from start till very recently, AboutUs started with a lot of passion in Lahore I remember their first employees were paid huge premiums about 20~30k above market price for fresh grads which created a lot stir in the local IT startups, It was a dream company with high wages beautiful office location and brand new power full PCs, it was a startup environment with lots of money. Engineers got to work on their own projects which were both complex and cutting edge, and content writers were paid heavily for doing what they loved to do.

How ever until recently all was well, then there was a change, the management which setup the office here went away, as far as I know AboutUS tried to remotely manage the Lahore office and the people in middle management tried to grab the vacant top position and unfortunately some times it happens to us as a nation to get to the top the easiest way we know is to trample some one else. I am not sure and can’t confirm that this is the only reason but I am sure that some one sitting miles away if feels rift with in the team it does not bode well. Also if it means that their concentration is divided into solving internal office issues instead of growing the business they might do what Ray has done, it is unfortunate for us though.

Disclaimer : The speculations in this posts are based on first person info got from several people attached with aboutus.

Forgive me if i seem a little biased towards this game but my whole child has passed around a carom board as it was kind of a family game .

So back to the game, it is one of the things most of us have thought about why not take our local game on line, why don’t we have a version of ludo, but then a lot of us are just thinkers and few go ahead and do it. same is the case with these two gentle men Ata Krimani and  Shakil Awan, one of them is the developer other is the artist a killer combination for small app production.

Game playability is outstanding, the graphic do bring vivid memories of my childhood. Currently you can play against an AI Computer Characters but they do have plans for multiplayer capabilities in future, other things are similar to a typical facebook game in which your score is displayed on profile etc. The only thing i missed in this game was the delicate cutshot,  and boric powder filled hands. here is the link do give it a shot and don’t blame the wasted time on us

http://apps.facebook.com/carromchallenge/

Here is a short video/

The solution which was initially launched with the name of Mango Party Ufone earlier got it and launched it as SMS Buddies. Now recently Telenor has also gone ahead and is offering this service as Group SMS.

This is a healthy sign for other aspiring entrepreneurs who are focusing on VAS for telecoms, it seems that they are open for deploying VAS developed here in Pakistan which provides a very good chance for some one with limited access to western companies, previously Telenor also deployed picture sharing solution from PixSenxe as PicShare and was later also deployed for Telenor in Norway (their headquarter country) as Online Album.

Lots of congrats to the confiz team, I know personally that winning a deal from a telecom is a very hard task, it takes a lot of effort and time to get it through the door, hope they keep going like this, so if some one is keeping score they have 2 out of 5 in the bag 3 more to go which will make them the single platform for such service in Pakistan

Jehan Ara on her blog has covered this in detail here. There has always been talks about gaps the Industry faces when hiring new graduates and the time it takes to make that individual productive for any organization.  PITB with the help of Local industry and Universities is trying to fund an effort for bridging this gap, and to get a feel of what industry wants they had rightly invited Industry for a talk on Tuesday.

The good thing was that Industry did turn up the room was full of people from Organizations as big as Oracle, Netsol to startups, each one with different opinion and different requirements, but every one prepared to listen to others point of view and making an effort to get best out of this opportunity provided by PITB.

I would list here few of the Ideas discussed (Though I have to apologize as I had to leave after first session, some one who stayed there might fill us up on the details), We can take what was discussed in that room and maybe have ideas from more CEOs and stake holders over here online.

Here are some of the discussions

Do we need a boot camp at all, Most of the participants agreed there was a need for such a boot camp while there was a small group that also proposed that instead of getting students in a lecture based environment Industry should be allowed to hire them and PITB subsidizes some of their initial training cost and shares with the organizations. How ever majority also agreed that such boot camps were a stop gap solution and a wider more prevalent solution like enhancing the curriculum and Industry participating in building the right talent should start earlier during college as well.

What should be taught at the boot camp, There was a discussion about weather to have a generalized training (like team building, and doing a project and learning pains of early job) or streams focused on different areas for example mobile apps, web 2.0 etc. Again as I said I had to leave there was a session that was to be done on this alone, so if some one was there please let us know.

Who should be the target audience Who should this program be geared towards do we take the best students gear them up and launch them? if the best students already have job offers do we take others train them bring them upto mark and launch them? should this be open to non students?

These are some areas discussed and you are all encouraged to give your comments.

Over all it was a very refreshing experience, hats off to PITB Management for getting people involved in this. I don’t know at this point if the boot camp would be successful or not but I do know the spirit in which every one attended and tried to find a solution both all sides:the Industry, Academia and Government, good things will happen.

Or at least that what they make you believe with all their advertisement. First a disclaimer I have at times lied to my parents or at work while being late or hanging out with friends I have done that all. But I am uneasy with the fact that an organization bases a complete product and is spending millions of rupees to promote this unethical things,

Here is the video add

This one is still not as bad as the ones running on Radio they go some thing like this

First add

A person gets up in the morning and realizes he is late for work, he puts a traffic back ground music on his phone and tells his boss he is late because he is stuck in traffic

Second one (This is more disturbing)

A student is hanging out with his friends and calls his father home and tells him he is working in computer lab (his background music is some one typing on a pc) and gets away with the lie with the help of background music.

Ufone is spending a lot of amount on promoting this, sure it is a good service some thing that maybe many others are not yet offering but is lying the only proper use they could think off while planning the campaign? could no one think of any legitimate use of the service in the whole team of ufone and its add agency?

Did no one ever think what they would do to their brand, think of it for a second if I was a parent with a teenage son/daughter out there and listened to the second add when my child is out in college can you imagine the train of thought that would have crossed that parents mind and what they would have thought about the brand? I know Ufone might want to target their brand for the young generation but I though not a marketing or branding person also know you don’t do that while alienating another set of customers, and fortunately we still have a good family structure in Pakistan where parents have some control you don’t want them hating your brand and consequently not allowing their children on Ufone network.

Here is an all time favorite add of mine notice in the last 15 seconds (39 second onwards) where the cave man kicks a small dinosaur and is immediately crushed by a bigger one can you decipher the subtle message?

Web Sketchers a very young startup of Recently graduated Fast students have launched 3d Flash based game for Facebook named Fly By.

Ohh and I must take time to appreciate their website, its wonderful, flash based but really well thought out. I have liked a site (flash based) after a long time so do go over there too.

Back to the game Fly By is a simple 3d Game in which you are in control of an aircraft which has to dodge sky scrappers and hot air balloons while flying through the city, Game has a nice simplistic feeling to it, some people might argue that its too simple but I have seen some people spend hours on the flash based crazy taxi game just trying to make more score than their friends. And the game has that teasing element where you would want to play just for the heck of it, because as soon as you cross some of your friend a story is published on their profile (very nice touch) telling that you have surpassed them and if it takes few minutes for him to better you i think he will definitely spend that time.

Here is a video of the game play and its elements.

It seems this game is gaining traction right away they have a very impressive user base of 2700 people within a couple of weeks of launch, this shows the scale with which a new app can gain traction in facebook.

Few words about the organization, they are a group of 5 very young and recent graduates (Graduated in 2009) from same batch of Fast. So we can’t even say they jumped the ship for startup they never got on the cruise liner of a corporate straight from the frying pan of college to the fire of entrepreneurship . They started with service based organization but have quickly moved over to the dark side of product, which is a very healthy sign for our industry. But their site and their work does not in any way show signs of immaturity. I wish them best of luck and hope we have more like these coming out of our colleges.

You can play Fly By on Facebook at  http://apps.facebook.com/flybygame

You can view the official fan page of Fly By at

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=325631008274&ref=ts

Nokia is holding an Innovators Contest 2010, and best of all there only three countries get special allocation for generating local content. and Pakistan is one of them. So if you had a great idea you were itching to try out this is your chance and if you have an idea which caters to local needs it will get its own place. Top prize is a lucrative 1,000,000 and you can still be a winner in the global categories as well. So in it will be “Killing two birds with a stone” or in local language you can say “Aik teer sey do shikar ”. Make an application which caters to local needs and you have two chances to win one in the special Pakistan category and other in Global one. Deadline for submission is 18th May so that leaves you about 3 months, for trying out your idea, OVI Store is a newer playing field who knows if this click you get a head start and then there is no looking back. And even if you fail you can still go ahead and place your app in the OVI store so as i see it there is noting to lose and its never to late to have a fresh start.

Details are here for Pakistan

http://www.callingallinnovators.com/pakistan.aspx

And for Global Entries.

http://www.callingallinnovators.com/default.aspx

And if you do enter do let us know

The gameplay for feline frenzy is that you have to throw boots at birds in sky and cats falling from sky, the game is as crazy as it sound yet has a very addictive nature to it. And i loved the tag line.

“ Not all animals are lost, sad, different, suffering from chronic loneliness, ridiculously emo, or begging to be caged in your virtual zoo or barn or farm or island or sock drawer.
No, some animals are uber badass. Beware!”

The good thing about this game is that I did not find it copying or following the foot steps of Farmville and Petsociety (two of the famous games from Zynga and Playfish respectively) the game has a very cute and evil touch to it, I had intended to try is just for the sake of evaluating it but ended up playing it for about half an hour before i realized the time(oh and i reached level 3 ). It has that addictiveness to it, and i did not realize hitting cats with boots was so much fun and i hear there are radio active elephants in later levels.

Here is a small video

Why facebook is a big deal ? Here are few numbers just to see the market size, as of today Farmville (it’s a facebook game) has 81 Million Active Users face book has its own pretty lucrative statistics http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics with 400 million active users where in comparison iPhone will cross 50 million user mark somewhere in 2011.

The effort is led by Hassan Baig who is a LUMS and Duke Grad, with substantial experience on Wallstreet as an investment banker. He has written on TechLahore (his intro also comes from there) these two article really tell how deep his understanding for Social Games is and how he is willing to challenge the status quo here are the link to his two articles.

Social Gaming: A Primer for Pakistani Facebook App Developers

Startups in Pakistan: Getting the mindset right

Best of luck we really need positive thinkers who think beyond “We are in Pakistan so we can’t challenge them”.

here is the link to the fanpage of application

First develop business model from concept and then write your business plan. Before you model your business plan, first do brain storming, then develop financial model and embed this model in your business plan. Investors usually read financial ratios before they read body parts of business plan, so include investor analysis in your Business plan and executive summary. It is recommended to develop business model first, financial model second and business plan at end.

Second thing that Investors usually address are market risks. So we should accurately determine company’s strategic position in market and then write it in Business plan. If you fail to effectively communicate this part, Investors will not read other parts. This part is intensely scrutinized by VC firms.
Write your executive summary at end. Best sequence of paragraphs in executive summary is written below;

Company introduction(what value it offer),Market opportunity,Mission,Strategy to capture market opportunity, Financial forecasts of five years, amount and uses of funding required, Investor ratios( like Internal Rate of Return , Return on Assets ,Return on Equity),Exit strategy, Product strategy(how product will achieve desired results),Marketing strategy and Management profile.

Company Overview;
In this section, describe following;
How and when company was founded? What are its current status, activities, and assets, particularly technical assets?
What is its Business model? And how business will make money.

Objective;
Describe how you will achieve financial targets. Describe strategy that will help achieve claimed financial results within next five years. Include financial projections in that part of business plan.

Financial Requirement;
First think and do brainstorming, then write following;
Where money is required to spend?
Write all uses of money in a column.
Describe use of this investment precisely and briefly in a paragraph.
Describe: Which results are expected from investment?

Revenue;
Describe following in precise and coherent way;
Retained Earnings Stockholder Equity.
Total Liabilities & Equity.
Use of Proceeds that may include following;

1. Product Development
2. Production & Inventory
3. Marketing & Sales
4. Capital Equipment
5. Working Capital
6. Total Investment

Highlight Investment ratios like company valuation, investor’s return, performance ratios, summary of major parts of your business plan and expected results that you will achieve.
I am outlining some points to think about, before you write your business plan. You may need combination of two or more than two points.

Market opportunity:
Which opportunity you have identified? It could be unmet demands of customers, fear, tensions, confusion of customers etc. Describe this part in details. If some demands of customers are not fulfilled, then describe how these factors have affected customers. Describe your strategy to fulfill these demands. Describe attributes of your solution against each part of problem in a matrix form. Your technology or product should be correctly positioned to address this market opportunity. Reasons of its correct positioning could be cost-effectiveness, unique business model, superior document capabilities, enhanced appearance, powerful and unique technology and many more other things could fit here. Calculate market opportunity by calculating potential number of customers and revenue expected from these customers. Data must be supported by authentic resources like quarterly reports issued by consulting companies, economic and research reports published by well-recognized institutions, magazines.

Yesterday was another such day, I received this link to review a side project that Mr Ghulam Akbar had developed based on google tools and in his spare time. What this does I will quote from his blog here

Dynamic Language Tools lets you type Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, Farsi and many other languages on any web-page, plus it also converts any of the these roman languages words on any web page to the corresponding phonetic language words. With this tools you can type comments or write blogs in your native language. You can also convert any existing contents like poems, comments and stories on the web pages to the your language

How you use it is simple, add it as a bookmarklet and you are good to go.

Two features i loved about this was

1. Able to translate by selecting a text from the site and translate it on the fly

2. Able to type in generating Urdu font from your browser in any text input area. I some times want to express in Urdu on blog posts of where the audience is inclined towards Urdu or content is around Urdu Adab I guess would make it easy.

Here is the video of how it works for web page translation

For start how about you use this to comment on this post ,

I did a small video to show how it works for input (I did not change any part of greenwhite comment system to make it work ) just used the bookmarklet to activate it ctrl+click on the comment box and wow.

Great job Akbar, keep it up who knows this hobby project becomes your main area of focus.