This is a sponsored post, but I’ll still take this opportunity to share about my startup journey so far. Since I’ve got to write, why not write well?
I’m guilty of not being able to balance work hours yet. On average, I spend 12 hours working in the office with my cofounders. I’d never recommend this to my team or friends.
I’m lucky that my cofounders are university batch mates, and we have been together for over 12 years. Social Champ (Techstars ’22) is our 4th startup. Our previous three startups didn’t work out, and before you all think we’d be from wealthy families to afford such failures, we bootstrapped and ran a software consultancy firm for more than 9+ years till we got our first $100k cheque for Social Champ. Work doesn’t feel like work if you have good friends. Getting cofounders to complement your skills will move you faster, but it’ll be a disaster in the long run if you can’t have tough conversations. Trust is crucial if you want to run longer in the startup journey. No book will recommend having all cofounders with the same degree. But here we are!
My love for the ocean was transferred to me by my father when he took me on fishing trips in Qatar. I’ve faded memories of his friends having motion sickness, he catching big ones and having a big box of costly lures and hooks. We left everything in Qatar when I was in school when our family was going through a crisis. That’s what I call a reboot point in my life. There’s another reboot point in my life when I survived being shot a bullet – these two stories are for another day or maybe another sponsored post if they ever choose me again.
Back to the ocean, I love fishing, but then I wanted to experience more and got into spearfishing. I experienced this at Charna Island in Pakistan and shot my first fish, a Parrotfish -an endangered fish! Talk about luck! The locals told me that Karachi has abundant Parrotfish, so it’s okay to hunt a few, which I disagree with.
The only challenging part of this hobby is driving 50+ km from the city to “Sunhera Beach” to catch the boat to Charna Island and, after a day of 6+ hour dive, drive again for 50+ km to the city. The roads are messy; the drive is not comfortable at all. Indus Motor Company Ltd (Toyota Pakistan) was generous to send me their new car, the Toyota Yaris, launched with a new makeover and improved front look, stylish black interior, and cruise control so I could just hit the cruise and relax on the highway. The ground clearance is improved too, which is also a crucial for me because the roads in Karachi are not typical.
In the picture below, it’s me with the new Toyota Yaris, Salvimar long fins, Beuchat carbon speargun, and capturing my underwater adventures with DJI Action Cam! You can see all of that in action on my YT channel.
I’ve so much to post, with so much content saved, but hardly get time to edit!
As a startup founder, this is all I can do for now.
And I’m grateful for all of it!
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