Little did Faizan Aslam know when he took his young bride to a movie that the experience would lead him to his startup, BookMe.
Aslam lived in Sahiwal, a small town in Pakistan’s Punjab province. The nearest good cinema hall is in Lahore, a two-hour drive away, and it’s almost always crowded. So his wife and he set out well in advance to catch the movie on time. Alas, when they got there, all the seats were already taken. This happened twice, and Faizan, a software engineer, decided to do something about it.
The solution he came up with was BookMe, an online ticket booking portal for movies, events, and bus services. Accessible via a website, an Android app, or even SMS, BookMe was the first of its kind in Pakistan.
BookMe was founded in November 2013 and incubated in Plan9, Pakistan’s first and largest tech incubator. The site launched in March. Now in residence at the PlanX tech accelerator, BookMe gets around 350 orders during weekdays, and almost twice as many at the weekends.
Friction in the fledgling ecosystem
When Tech in Asia first wrote about BookMe, it was little more than a month old.
Then, the biggest challenge before the startup was to figure out how to collect the payments for tickets sold online.
Electronic ticketing is still new in Pakistan, as is ecommerce in general. Credit card penetration is low; internet connectivity is patchy; and net-banking is tough. “Most vendors were using zero or outdated software to manage their operations. So we had a tough time bringing them on board. With no online payment facilities, one has to collect cash against the e-ticket. That’s really hard. But that proved to be an opportunity in disguise. We solved that problem by bringing banks and telecom companies on board,” Aslam tells Tech in Asia.
Like any other startup, BookMe too made its share of mistakes. They bit off more than they could chew at the outset. The opportunity that Aslam had stumbled upon was huge. BookMyShow, a similar ticketing site in neighbouring India, for instance, raised US$25 million from investors, who valued the site at INR 10 billion (US$166 million). It started out with movie ticketing, and quickly expanded to cover sporting events and music concerts. The coup d’etat was becoming the ticketing portal for the Indian Premier League (IPL) – cricket is, after all, a religion in India.
Seeing what was happening across the border, Aslam piled his plate too high at the start. “We tried to jump into all possible ticketing opportunities, like events, plays, sports, and so on,” he recalls. But soon he realized it wasn’t a good idea to spread out so thin in the early phase. “If we were to focus on just movies and bus tickets, that would be more than enough.” So, BookMe trimmed itself to those two categories.
“We also thought our free ERP [enterprise resource planning] was the best out there and so every company would replace their system with ours. But soon we realized that it was not going to happen. So we came up with some really cool ways to integrate our system with theirs,” Aslam adds.
Currently, BookMe’s revenue model is a 10 percent cut of the ticket price.
The importance of failing
The most important thing that Aslam learned as an entrepreneur is how one should never be afraid of failure.
Yes, people used to laugh at me when I founded this startup. I learned a lot since I started up, and most of it was through the failures. They say the key to success is hard work, but what they don’t tell you is that the key is actually locked away in a chest and is resting at the bottom of the ocean. Success does come around, but only to those who don’t lose faith in themselves over time. It was hard, but I stayed focused.
Aslam started his entrepreneurial journey in 2009 while he was still a student of engineering. His first startup offered software services. “By the time I graduated, I had six employees and a small office in Islambad,” he recalls.
He ran it till 2013 when he decided to start BookMe.
Brazilian company ClickBus, which launched in Pakistan recently, is BookMe’s nearest competitor. But Aslam believes BookMe has an edge. “We have enabled so many sales channels that now other companies are selling tickets from our platform and even using us for marketing. So we don’t have to spend on marketing or advertising. We are giving ClickBus a tough time,” he says. “Finding foreign investment was considered impossible in Pakistan. BookMe was the first to get funding from foreign investors.”
Now the trend is changing. Car classifieds site Pakwheels recently bagged US$3.5 million in funding.
“Yes, we made a lot of mistakes and we are still making mistakes. But that makes you an entrepreneur – if you won’t make a mistake, you won’t learn,” Aslam says.
Are the Startup Arena judges thrilled about the idea?
Aslam is today on stage at our Startup Arena pitch battle in Jakarta, Indonesia, to tell the audience and the event’s judges how BookMe is going into uncharted territory in Pakistan.
Willson Cuaca, managing partner of East Ventures – one of our judges – wanted to know why BookMe came to battle at the StartupArena. Aslam replied that the same pain-point that he is solving in Pakistan exists in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries. So he is looking at new markets, as well as meet investors here.
Stefan Jung, partner of Monk’s Hill Ventures, wanted to know the cost of customer acquisition. “Two transactions from a customer is all that takes to break-even on that customer acquisition. Currently, we get a minimum of three transactions per customers,” Aslam said.
Jayesh Parekh, managing partner of Jungle Ventures, wanted to know what BookMe’s revenue plans were. “So far, just on word of mouth alone, we have earned US$130,000 revenue — this is the 10 percent we earned. For the companies selling tickets through us we earned US$1.3 million,” Aslam said. Khailee Ng, managing partner of 500 Startups, found this impressive.
*This is part of the coverage of Startup Asia Jakarta 2014, our event running on November 26 and 27. Check out all the Startup Arena pitches here.
This post People laughed when he started an e-ticketing startup in Pakistan. Now it’s the go-to place for movie, bus, and event tickets appeared first on Tech in Asia.
People laughed when he started an e-ticketing startup in Pakistan. Now it’s the go-to place for movie, bus, and event tickets
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