Founder and CTO of Pringit.com, Muhammad Nasrullah shares how he has kept his high tech start-up afloat and booming. Good ideas might seem to be the most challenging aspect of start-up success but getting it up and running and revving up to booming depends on attracting and building up the right talent. Muhammad Nasrullah has identified 7 challenges which he has an uphill task to overcome.
1. Talent Scout
Problems are talent related. Your process, your product, your success depends upon finding great people who believe in the idea. Technology problems are secondary but a good team can always solve them. There's no such thing as a bad team and good technology. Scouting for top talent is a top priority.
2. Reality Check
Contrary to popular belief there’s not enough good talent in the market. Pick any growing software shop, finding good software skills remains a challenge. This problem is further exacerbated for startups who need really, really great software practitioners to lay a strong foundation. Again securing top talent is imperative for maintaining high tech start-up success.
3. Raw Material
Related: Universities are churning out low quality graduates: In Muhammad Nasrullah’s experience: “Per university batch, you would be lucky to find three to four really good computer programmers who have worked on non-academic projects, who have contributed to open source and are in the field out of choice rather lack of choice.”
4. Off the Beaten Track
Also Related: Adaption to new technology by the local development community is slow: Trying to find experts in any field other than the mainstream technologies is challenging. You can find many people working on Java and PHP but not enough on things like Ruby, Erlang and Bootstrap. Nevertheless CTOs must target those who display abilities to adapt to new technology.
5. Steady Stability
Pakistanis are highly risk averse and very few will work for a startup. The most talented students and developers want stability rather than taking on the responsibility of changing the technology landscape.
6. Being One’s Own Role Model
There is very little industrial support. Unfortunately, you're all alone in this. There are very few people who can help you out. Almost no one has "made it." As a result, any local advice you get is untested and any foreign advice you get is un-adapted.
7. Making up for the Lack of Infrastructure
Local infrastructure is substandard. You can't rely on local power, internet or phones. You need to have a backup of a backup and even then it will break. It is near impossible to host locally within Pakistan because of the hosting costs.
Rough Road Ahead
“These problems are there because we are at a very early stage in the industry and maturity will take time for systems to evolve to support technical companies. Till then, the early entrepreneurs have a very tough road ahead,” concludes Muhammad Nasrullah.
I am an English specialist with I CAN READ. I have worked for major British institutions: British Council, British High Commission, British Railways Board and Linguaphone. I am a London-trained lawyer and have been the public affairs officer at the British High Commission, Singapore, as well as an editor in an international book publishing house and a national magazine. I am also co-author of two law books: English Legal System and Company Law, published by Blackstone, Oxford University Press. I am an Ambassador of Peace (Universal Peace Federation and Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace). Connect: Email susanmckenzie2003@yahoo.co.uk http://sg.linkedin.com/in/susanmckenzie https://twitter.com/#!/abetoday http://www.facebook.com/pages/Teacher-Su-McKenzie-English-Expert-Total-L...