New Business Idea

[Maea]

Intro:

I used to run a firm that helped SME in Europe and SEA to establish business in each others regions. Untill march 2020 my business was blooming, but as COVID19 appeared my company slowly started to loose clients, so in dec 2020 i decided to sell my company and discover new business oppurtunities myself. During my work i learned that in Pakistan there are not many, if any, large manufacturing plants. Basically everything wich requires some engineering effort is imported.

Question:

I would like to start my own business wich would offer a complete solution for manufacturing, like electrical resistance, cartridge heaters, molds, lathes, assembly lines... etc. etc......
I already own some land in Pakistan and know how to start a business, my question is, do you guys think it is a good idea? i mean from my personal experiance i know that the Pakistani industrial sector is pretty hard to convince to change and automate a process. Also it is very hard to research about the market demand.

I would like to start by manufacturing cartridge heaters, because they are cheap to make and in case my plan doesn't work i won't loose a lot of money. Are there important buyers of cartridge heaters in Pakistan?

Please let me know your opinions
Thanks

 

[Abdulrehman 2978]

Intro:

I used to run a firm that helped SME in Europe and SEA to establish business in each others regions. Untill march 2020 my business was blooming, but as COVID19 appeared my company slowly started to loose clients, so in dec 2020 i decided to sell my company and discover new business oppurtunities myself. During my work i learned that in Pakistan there are not many, if any, large manufacturing plants. Basically everything wich requires some engineering effort is imported.

Question:

I would like to start my own business wich would offer a complete solution for manufacturing, like electrical resistance, cartridge heaters, molds, lathes, assembly lines... etc. etc......
I already own some land in Pakistan and know how to start a business, my question is, do you guys think it is a good idea? i mean from my personal experiance i know that the Pakistani industrial sector is pretty hard to convince to change and automate a process. Also it is very hard to research about the market demand.

I would like to start by manufacturing cartridge heaters, because they are cheap to make and in case my plan doesn't work i won't loose a lot of money. Are there important buyers of cartridge heaters in Pakistan?

Please let me know your opinions
Thanks

It is a great time to invest in Pakistans construction sector and industries located with it. Due to Imran khan construction sector Package construction sector and related industries such as, cement, steel, Electrical wiring, furniture etc are showing amazing growth. So if you want to set up a buiseness that's concerned with Construction sector it is the perfect time. Most if cement industries in Pakistan have recently announced large expansion.

 

[TNT]

Intro:

I used to run a firm that helped SME in Europe and SEA to establish business in each others regions. Untill march 2020 my business was blooming, but as COVID19 appeared my company slowly started to loose clients, so in dec 2020 i decided to sell my company and discover new business oppurtunities myself. During my work i learned that in Pakistan there are not many, if any, large manufacturing plants. Basically everything wich requires some engineering effort is imported.

Question:

I would like to start my own business wich would offer a complete solution for manufacturing, like electrical resistance, cartridge heaters, molds, lathes, assembly lines... etc. etc......
I already own some land in Pakistan and know how to start a business, my question is, do you guys think it is a good idea? i mean from my personal experiance i know that the Pakistani industrial sector is pretty hard to convince to change and automate a process. Also it is very hard to research about the market demand.

I would like to start by manufacturing cartridge heaters, because they are cheap to make and in case my plan doesn't work i won't loose a lot of money. Are there important buyers of cartridge heaters in Pakistan?

Please let me know your opinions
Thanks

I appreciate a manufacturing based business as it helps the country, i would want an export oriented business though. There is an oilive oil boom happening in Pakistan and that is potential export oriented business currently.
Pakistan also produce one of best quality fruits, i did some research for export and the only hurdle was the lack of investment in modern cleaning and packaging techniques, like we coudnt export mangoes more because of lack of hot water treatment plants for it and that was requirement of every country. So investment in such technology for exporting fruits seems profitable in Pakistan.

 

[Ghost Hobbit]

Intro:

I used to run a firm that helped SME in Europe and SEA to establish business in each others regions. Untill march 2020 my business was blooming, but as COVID19 appeared my company slowly started to loose clients, so in dec 2020 i decided to sell my company and discover new business oppurtunities myself. During my work i learned that in Pakistan there are not many, if any, large manufacturing plants. Basically everything wich requires some engineering effort is imported.

Question:

I would like to start my own business wich would offer a complete solution for manufacturing, like electrical resistance, cartridge heaters, molds, lathes, assembly lines... etc. etc......
I already own some land in Pakistan and know how to start a business, my question is, do you guys think it is a good idea? i mean from my personal experiance i know that the Pakistani industrial sector is pretty hard to convince to change and automate a process. Also it is very hard to research about the market demand.

I would like to start by manufacturing cartridge heaters, because they are cheap to make and in case my plan doesn't work i won't loose a lot of money. Are there important buyers of cartridge heaters in Pakistan?

Please let me know your opinions
Thanks

I think you should do a need study. Do people want a complete solution to start with? Or are they keen on specific areas for starters/ You can talk to potential customers to understand.

 

[Paul2]

Intro:

I used to run a firm that helped SME in Europe and SEA to establish business in each others regions. Untill march 2020 my business was blooming, but as COVID19 appeared my company slowly started to loose clients, so in dec 2020 i decided to sell my company and discover new business oppurtunities myself. During my work i learned that in Pakistan there are not many, if any, large manufacturing plants. Basically everything wich requires some engineering effort is imported.

Question:

I would like to start my own business wich would offer a complete solution for manufacturing, like electrical resistance, cartridge heaters, molds, lathes, assembly lines... etc. etc......
I already own some land in Pakistan and know how to start a business, my question is, do you guys think it is a good idea? i mean from my personal experiance i know that the Pakistani industrial sector is pretty hard to convince to change and automate a process. Also it is very hard to research about the market demand.

I would like to start by manufacturing cartridge heaters, because they are cheap to make and in case my plan doesn't work i won't loose a lot of money. Are there important buyers of cartridge heaters in Pakistan?

Please let me know your opinions
Thanks

I commented already about something similar, and gave some feedback in private to some forum members.

I'm not Pakistani as you see, but been involved with a Pakistani entrepreneur who had grand plans for his vending machine business once (it went nowhere.)

First thing, for a person unfamiliar with the country, just getting set up is half of the business.

Investing half a million pounds in pakistan

Being a chemist I know how profitable is chemical manufacturing. There is no competition in this field. Generally, investors lack knowledge about chemicals. Pakistan imports $5-6 billion of chemicals every year. Get the list of chemicals that Pakistan imports. Contact a Chinese company that...

defence.pk

I'm the biggest industry proponent here, but as I stated, nothing fancy can be started even with $1m+ with massive local market.

Infinix, Tecno, Vivo, and others surely sank more than few millions USD into their assembly lines in the country, not to say they are receiving tax subsidies, and already have existing parts manufacturing in China.

Pakistani appliance assemblers surely too have spent quite some money, and they run in a rather low margins business as well.

You really need to think of $3-$4m for industry to become an option.

There is a huge gap in between a small, bootstrapped business, and where just putting capital in becomes an option.

But above that lots of things can be on the table. Cheapest fertilizer plants: 10-15 million USD. Knock down kit car assembly business $20-30m. Minimally viable petrochemical business $20-30. Turnkey cement plant $10-15m. Turnkey mini steel rolling mill $50-60m.

I spent big part of my career working on custom made electronics for somewhat bigger scale projects, but am familiar with economics. Now doing simple EE, and whatever software development.

 

[Goritoes]

How much can you invest? also in Pakistan be prepared to pay lots of bribes to Govt for NoC's.

 

[Maea]

How much can you invest? also in Pakistan be prepared to pay lots of bribes to Govt for NoC's.

My investment capital is around 4 milion.
I have decent experience in setting up businesses( not mine) in Pakistan especially near lahore-gujrat corridor.
P.S. i used to have a local "agent" that managed the bribes part.

 

[Paul2]

My investment capital is around 4 milion.
I have decent experience in setting up businesses( not mine) in Pakistan especially near lahore-gujrat corridor.
P.S. i used to have a local "agent" that managed the bribes part.

Walton will be a great case to study for you.

They went a very long road, yet did everything correct.

After 1971 BD was indeed bombed into nothing, so they had to live off imports.

The guy behind Marcel, and Walton capitalised well doing that, running trade business.

Later he went into capital intensive commodities which he knew nobody in BD will be able to compete with him: petrochem, steel, cement, etc. He already had a handle on import distribution, so he just substituted foreign suppliers one by one.

Later he went into consumer goods with same strategies. Make a business on imports, replace suppliers few years down the line when the business is doing ok.

And only in the last 15 years, they went into even more capital intensive final integration, and assembly of more substantial goods: cars, bikes, electronics, bigger appliances, construction.

All of this is of course a wonderful success story, but it took the guy 50 years. My advice if you don't want to wait 50 years, pick a stage directly in the list above where you feel yourself most confident, an poor money directly into it.

 

[Goritoes]

My investment capital is around 4 milion.
I have decent experience in setting up businesses( not mine) in Pakistan especially near lahore-gujrat corridor.
P.S. i used to have a local "agent" that managed the bribes part.

Ok, well if you have a line of connection to take care of NOC's then you should be good, between i don't know much about Punjab but Sindh is extremely bad when it comes to any Govt permissions or any doc

 

[Enigma SIG]

I would like to start by manufacturing cartridge heaters, because they are cheap to make and in case my plan doesn't work i won't loose a lot of money. Are there important buyers of cartridge heaters in Pakistan?

You're willing to do a 4 million (USD/PKR?) investment without a market study?
I'd stop right there.

 

[Paul2]

My investment capital is around 4 milion.
I have decent experience in setting up businesses( not mine) in Pakistan especially near lahore-gujrat corridor.
P.S. i used to have a local "agent" that managed the bribes part.

Also, don't get tempted into investing into minimal scale projects. I've seen this happening over, and over in early developing markets.

The fact that an industrial plant makes money at the moment, and you have the money to build a minimally viable business, don't guarantee if the plant will make money in a few years, or even if you can break even before prices on commodity plunge.

Somebody bigger will always enter the market sooner, or later when country's economy takes off. You only chance to live through that stage is to grab a big chunk of market early, and you need a reasonably big plant for that.

I saw a lot of discussion on PDF of people contemplating buying some mini kilns for a $3m-4m, and making cement as a low effort, stable cash cow business. Now imagine, just how many of such mini kiln owners are there in Pakistan, who all had the same idea?

Small kilns are terribly inefficient, and the moment somebody big will enter Pakistan, and build a $500m megakiln they instantly go out of business without even an option to sell because nobody will buy them knowing that they can't produce at competing cost.

Think of a way to get a sizeable chunk of the market quickly so you have enough profits to invest into future growth. You have to grow big enough not to be swallowed easily once the competition kicks in.

Don't think of a way setting up business making money just today, think of a way to make business still making money 10 years down the road amid big changes any developing market experience.

 

[Maea]

You're willing to do a 4 million (USD/PKR?) investment without a market study?
I'd stop right there.

Hahah, im not that stupid.
I was just asking "common" people on PDF. In case i decide to go ahead, i will commision a proper reasearch/ feasibily study by professionals.

Btw, all of you are really helpfull.
Thank you

 

[Maea]

Ok, well if you have a line of connection to take care of NOC's then you should be good, between i don't know much about Punjab but Sindh is extremely bad when it comes to any Govt permissions or any doc

You're right.
I've worked in mostly in north Punjab, but i had to handle some clients who were interested in Karachi. Doing business in Sindh, particularly in Karachi is a nightmare. KPK is ok and Balochistan is not that bad, definetely above Sindh.

Paperwork/NOC's are not my main concerns, before i start anything( even a proper research) i want to know how the manufacturing situation is. Previously i used to help others setting up their businesses, now i need help, and it is really difficult.

 

[AverieJefferson]

Yes, I think it is a great idea! I have always wanted to start my own business, and this seems like the perfect opportunity. I know there is a lot of competition in the manufacturing industry, but I think I will succeed if I can offer a complete solution tailored to my client's needs. Moreover, a friend suggested I reach for help at guys from Belkins. They could deliver appointments to skyrocket your business. What do you think about that? Do you think it's worth it? I would highly appreciate any input! Cheers!

 

[AverieJefferson]

Yes, I think it is a great idea! I have always wanted to start my own business, and this seems like the perfect opportunity. I know there is a lot of competition in the manufacturing industry, but I think I will succeed if I can offer a complete solution tailored to my client's needs. Moreover, a friend suggested I reach for help at guys from Belkins. They could deliver appointments to skyrocket your business. What do you think about that? Do you think it's worth it? I would highly appreciate any input! Cheers!

Any one alive here?