Selling is not a pushy, winner-takes-all, macho act. It is an empathy-led, process-driven, and knowledge-intensive discipline. Because, in the end, people buy from people.” These words by Subroto Bagchi, Co-founder of Mindtree, defines the motivation and resolve of Sajid Shah and Naveed Shah, the founders of Eleven.Pk. It is the sheer motivation and commitment of the founders that within a brief span of 1 year, Eleven.Pk is moving from a social media based distribution company on to a production brand.
Eleven.Pk got incubated at NIC Peshawar when founders finally gave in after a struggle of one year and decided to shut it down for good. “We had decided to shut the operations in a month’s time when a friend of mine tagged me on Facebook on NIC Peshawar’s post of 1st Cohort inception, that tag literally proved to be revitalization of my business”, continued Sajid, “… on the very first orientation day, one of the mentor was telling his own story and all I was hearing was the story of our own struggle with Eleven.Pk. That was the day when I actually felt that Eleven.Pk is not a failure”.
Eleven.Pk started two years back when the founders started selling imported earphones through Facebook. They got such a huge response that they made a Facebook page and named it Earphones.Pk. In just a matter of couple of months they expanded their basket of goods and started selling other items like bags and wallets. It was this expansion that pushed the founder duo to finally build an online portal and shift on it from social media.
Eleven.Pk’s average sales before coming to NIC Peshawar were Rs. 1 million per month which rose up to Rs. 5 million at the closing of December 2018. Their coach and mentor Sayyed Ahmed Masud urged the founders to expand their marketing budget that they did and now they are among the top 50 E-commerce websites in Pakistan.
Now the founders have laid their eyes on becoming a production brand. “The best thing, out of many things we learned at NIC Peshawar, is to create something new that not only adds value to your business but also promotes indigenous craftmanship and industry. That is why we are working on our own brand of local leather wallets and bags and moving away from imported products.”
Eleven.Pk is one of the most successful startups at NIC Peshawar processing more than 2,500 orders a month. The fact that Eleven.Pk was among the first cohort startups at NIC Peshawar shows the commitment and hard work of mentors, coaches as well as the team of the Center toward these startups.
