- Duration: 22 min
- Platform: meet
- Source: Read.ai 01K11JBQNZ9JD884WSD6DD1DD6 (https://app.read.ai/analytics/meetings/01K11JBQNZ9JD884WSD6DD1DD6)
Transcript
[MD. Shafiul Alam Biplob]: One, one minute. Okay. Hi, hi, hi, hi. How are you? Good, man. How you doing? Sorry, I was on another tip. So that’s why I was hearing your voice, but, uh, okay. So hi, Michael. So everything is good on your side. Yeah. Yeah. Going good. [Michael Houck]: Um, what time is it for you? It looks like It’s dark outside. [MD. Shafiul Alam Biplob]: It’s midnight on my time, but you know, for the developers, it’s the best time, right? [Michael Houck]: That’s the truth, man. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Cool. [Michael Houck]: Well, look, I’m excited to chat. I don’t know what context you have on us, but I’m happy to provide whatever, you know, whatever could help. [MD. Shafiul Alam Biplob]: Oh, I think we got a lag. You’re frozen on my end. Yeah, I can’t hear you. [Michael Houck]: I’m going to try to get video off. [MD. Shafiul Alam Biplob]: Maybe that’ll help. No, it doesn’t seem to be. Can you hear me? Maybe try leaving and coming back. [MD. Shafiul Alam Biplob]: Sorry, I really can’t hear anything you’re saying at all. [MD. Shafiul Alam Biplob]: I hear like a half a syllable every now and then and that’s it. [Michael Houck]: But I think you said that you can hear me, but I can’t hear you at all. Your video is totally frozen and no audio is coming through except for like randomly a little spurt here or there. [MD. Shafiul Alam Biplob]: So, yeah, not totally sure what to do. Hello, Michael. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Sorry. [Michael Houck]: I’m sorry for the discontinuation. [MD. Shafiul Alam Biplob]: Okay, you can now turn on video because I am on better internet now. Okay, cool. [Michael Houck]: I can see you now and I can hear you too, so I think we’re good. Yeah. [MD. Shafiul Alam Biplob]: Okay, I just read the internet, so that’s why I’m getting it now. Okay. Cool. So yeah, I don’t know what context you have. [Michael Houck]: I’m happy to provide it, but also just curious like sort of where content falls on the priority list for you and sort of where you think we could add value and all that too. So it would be good to get some context on your goals and then maybe we can go from there. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Okay. [MD. Shafiul Alam Biplob]: And I also read your profile and that I found that you work with a lot of startups in your area and some of them are actually bigger. And I’m really interested to work with you. And another thing, let me introduce myself. I’m from Dhaka, Bangladesh. I’m not sure if you heard about Bangladesh. Of India, because it’s a very small country, and people don’t know about it, but the market is huge. You know, there are 180 million people here, right, in the very small areas, so the market is huge. And one of the biggest venture, like, what’s the pension name of Peter Thiel in USA, they also invested in Bangladesh. Even not in India, even not in South Asia, they in another company called the shop up because it’s a lot of market in the fintech industry. So I’m also an entrepreneur, but before I had to agency for software development from 2010. So it’s almost 15 years, right? And we were to, I am also graduated from computer science. So the technical things is my core. I love to do the coding now using the AI actually. To speed it up but by born code or whatever you can say right so I can build product and we I we made almost 400 applications from Bangladesh for the global class right from 2010 to 2020 10 years almost right only freelancing through Upwork freelance and blah blah blah. Then in 2020 I got a remote job from Maestro driver US-based company This is already running, doing good. And I was the remote developer from there. And at the same time, I also wanted to learn how startup works. Because in 2016, I created a startup called AppBudger. And I just failed because there was no knowledge regarding the startup things. And the industry was totally new in Bangladesh. There are no funding opportunities and blah, blah, blah. But it was for something like Google Play. For third world countries, where actually the dollar and other things are not accessible. So we wanted to make it for local people with the local currency. I also provided the biggest telecom here, telecom company, the Grameenphone, to enable the mobile payment options to buy the digital things. So it was really good. But unfortunately, I started before the time. I started at the time. I had a lot of awards, like Ambulance Award from India, a lot of international awards, a lot of press coverage, a lot of B2B partnerships, but no fun. So from that learning, I started the Shab-Avajar one. Whatever you already know, that you said that you have the Shab-Avajar and Fed Duniya. The Shab-Avajar one, I started from 2020. Initially the planning, but you know, after that time, the pandemic started, everything went down, right? So we only focused on the development and R&D. Talked with the people, talked with the drivers, talked with the service providers, but was not able to launch because the corona epidemic was there. And three years gone, 2023, when we are ready, then we got the product market fit, we pivoted it, we thought that okay, Uber and other parts are very large, then it’s really hard for us to compete with them, right? Then we converted it to the fintech type, right? We wanted to enable our service provider, like drivers, gig workers, and small retailers to get loan from us to buy the tools that actually need to start earning. Like, some retailers need a small a smartphone, a software to receive orders, to manage their accounts and everything, right? So you want to give them a mobile phone and the software together. Foodpanda is doing this, but Foodpanda is actually selling their own device and getting a lot of margin, like 25% commission from each order and 1000 taka or $10 per month just to rent the device. But we wanted to make the store owner to own the, whatever it's called, the tools actually, not to rent. At the same time, or in the same way, we wanted to enable our drivers to own the car. You know, Bangladesh industry is not like US and other parties, right? Here, car price is huge, right? And then to give every month $30,000, $300 to the car owner actually, just for the lease. But we wanted to make the car drivers owner of the car, right? If they pay that $300 to the bank, definitely bank will give them enough finance to own the car, right? Sure. Instead of giving the third party, because giving to the third party won’t make them owner of this car. So this is how we actually made the Chevrolet Equipped. And we got 6,000 drivers in that car. And was really doing good. But unfortunately, same problem, the funding issue. We are not able to raise any fund yet because the two big competitors are there, like Patau, the local startup. They are doing good. But not in the FinTech vertical. They are doing good in the ride-sharing, traditional verticals, actually, and the Uber. So that’s why the local investors or other investors think that, OK, they have the big competitors, so it will be really hard for them to survive, right? But I’m still trying to manage some money to keep up the bootstrapping so that we can generate some more traction and get some fun from outside. So this is my story here, and our shop owners, we converted the application to the SaaS, just $1 per month to use that product, and we are getting 100 to 200 registration per month, and 50 to 70 signups. I mean the subscription per month. So I know if I can accelerate the marketing things, things will work. Because I need to go at least 5 million people to get 1 million subscribers. If I go to them, otherwise, how can I get the subscription? So this is where the Shevabadar is. Sustained. But I know one entrepreneur shouldn’t tell about two products at the same time. So that’s why you get confused that what is the pet dunia and what is the subordinate position, right? But the pet dunia is totally different things. Now, you know, in last two years, things almost changed, right? Almost changed because the AI, the open API, the chat GPTN, a lot of things have come there. And we got a lot of options, whatever actually for those kind of works actually we are needed a lot of people a lot of team members right but now I can do everything literally saying I can do everything using some subscriptions right I am using base 44 for the prototyping the mvp1 and it just takes two days only to complete the full iweb and as I am aware architect, I know what did you do to get people, the UX and everything, the hosting. In the meantime, I also learned a lot of things like server-side things and everything. Now I am also AWS expert, Firebase expert, right? I look at the mobile app things. So I just did it two days only to create the MVP. Actually, I was testing this part before recording. And a lending base, it just two to three hours for myself to launch. Actually, in the 10 years ago, to launch a landing page, we actually needed two developers, five to 10 days, blah, blah, right? So a landing page took me only two to three days, two to three hours, and the MVP only took two days only. And I’m going to launch it very soon. And that’s what my challenge, can I make a unicorn by a solo founder or maximum three people like a CMO, CIO, the information officer, and the CEO plus CTO, right? So it’s a challenging side project that, okay, whatever we did before, whatever we learned or whatever mistake we did, I just wanted to see if we can bypass those mistakes, can we make a better through the Pet Dunia. That’s what I wanted to imply in the Pet Dunia. So Pet Dunia is also unique. There’s no platform in the world like, I just want to call it Instagram and LinkedIn, as you said that, Instagram and LinkedIn, and a marketplace for your pet. Whatever you need, you will get it from a single platform, right? And no platform like this available in the world, I saw. I got the TV, I got a few other things, but all those are for one vertical. So I just wanted to add the three verticals into a single platform. And let’s see what happened. And other things is, okay, one minute. Another thing is just, I just wanted it, then definitely it’s a flow. Just another thing I got there, okay. In Bangladesh, in third world countries, if people find that, okay, it’s a US-based project, then it’s useful. But it’s a local project, okay, it’s bogus. So that’s why, and to get US market, I just want to start it from the US, from the very beginning, like company formation to everything, like US-formatted company, US-based company, I started from the US, first target the European US market, and then others. Thank you. [Michael Houck]: Well, look, unfortunately, we’re already at time, and we didn’t get to dig into any… [MD. Shafiul Alam Biplob]: Yeah, yeah, I saw that, okay. It’s already… Can we extend this five minutes for more? [Michael Houck]: I have, I have another call, unfortunately, but I’ll send over some information over email. [MD. Shafiul Alam Biplob]: We can go from there. Sure. Sure. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Okay. Sounds good, man. [MD. Shafiul Alam Biplob]: Good to meet. Okay.