Year and a half ago I left my job to start a company See’n'Report with co-founders Adil , Umar and Sharjeel. As per the cultural values and responsibilities (typical to our society) this kind of move was not really expected from me as I had just got engaged (a month before leaving job). The Job was with bright future prospects but the entrepreneur inside me was continuously making me uncomfortable and it needed that last push that was given to me by Adil and Sharjeel (who really convinced me to get rid of this outsourcing based industry job and come do something innovative with them).

So I shocked my family and friends (especially co-workers), left my job on the day i got promoted and started See’n'Report. For the next year and a half we developed the technology behind SeeNReport to empower people in Making News, Being Heard and Bringing Change. We witnessed the political change in country and empowered activists to reflect that change online. Got recognition from P@SHA as Pakistan’s best startup in e-inclusion and e-community category. Thrilled modern media by breaking important news through citizen journalism. Being the Social News platform for future See’n'Report attracted many Media organizations and personalities to take direct interest in how Pakistani Youth is taking activism to world wide web. 

I am happy to announce that we have signed a deal with one of country’s most innovative TV Channel ‘SAMAA TV’ to provide them the platform behind seenreport.com to their Citizen Journalism and Social 

publishing service called iSamaa. With iSamaa now people will directly be able to socially interact with a TV Channel and make their voices and perspectives heard and published on both their website and Tv Channel. We believe that it is time to let go conventional methods of doing the same and include a fully automated and interactive solution like See’n'Report for the mentioned purpose. Samaa TV is the first one to pick this trend up and its definite that other Media organizations will follow. The media is changing world wide and its great that Pakistani Media has started to catch up now.

There are many phases a startup has to go through: Initial Hardship, Recognition, Sales, Funding (preferably VC Funding), and the final stage i.e. get acquired or go Public. By the grace of God See’n'Report has passed the first 3 phases. We have been globally recognized, have our first sale and passed the initial hardships.

This was only possible by the passion that See’n'Report Squad brings to the work we do, prayers of our parents, encouragement of loved ones and friends and above all Almighty Allah. When we started, many came and told us that we are idiots and after few months we would end up on streets. Even these kind of statements were not good enough to shatter the confidence in what we are and what we do.
Thanks to,

• The support of my Parents / siblings (who continuously supported me).
• My wife (she sacrificed our honeymoon for this venture :))
• See’n'Report team (who continuously questioned the approach and gave it the best shot)
• Our Mentors and Board of Advisors (who advised us and assisted us in all possible ways)
• All the friends and users who gave us their valuable feedback.
• All the Friends and colleagues (from my previous job) who believed in me.

But I would dedicate our first Sales success to all those who never believed in us and always had the “expert opinion” that we will fail and to all those who never believed in our psychology of Value Creation.

Despite all the tough conditions a startup goes through and the bashing (from “experts”) entrepreneurs get, we still were able to pull it off. However there is still along way to go. Seenreport.com will still remain available to all those who want to make News on public platform independent of any certain organization. We hope that by empowering media we can help easing the transition of traditional media to Social Media of Future and will be able to provide a better mechanism of Social Feedback and resolution to the issues faced by common people.

PS: Adil’s post about our first sale

In reaction to Zong’s recent campaign about number portability in which they directly hit their competitors by mentioning their numbers and then announcing Zong as the network (Details here Zong’s new marketing campaign. Is it going a little too far), Ufone just launched a new ad (as expected). Its as direct as Zong did it. Eventhough it sounds funny when seen for the first time, i still wonder where this will take the advertisement battle between telcos. Indeed not to a creative future.

With rounded edges Gadgets, Tabs now in the left column instead of being on top, Google Talk directly integrated into iGoogle just like gmail instead of using a gadget to access chat and full page view directly available. Is it just me or iGoogle just changed its interface?

I have just chosen my name to be part of the short url of my Facebook account but I am still wondering whats all the fuss about shortening a url which is contained inside an environment and is not publically available to people. Facebook already has good enough search to find people (I am sure most of the users would still prefer to type someone’s name and select it through auto complete to goto someone’s profile rather than typing their url). Is it just another stunt to reiterate that Facebook is still popular?

Just saw new ads by Zong about number portability. In recent era there has been a lot of marketing indirectly hitting competitor products of marketing campaign. However direct mentioning of competitors is avoided. If thats pulled off intelligently there is nothing bad about poking some fun at your competition. However Zong recents campaign seems to go a little further by directly mentioning and hitting competitor products.

The commercials start by a character telling his/her number (my number is 0321 / my number is 0345 and my network is Zong). Is it crossing the line between doing it decently and totally screwing it up?

Every day I come across manay youngsters (context: people younger than me, mainly students), this post is mainly related to my interaction with them. Its is to share the frustration and poor guidance they come across and draw inspiration from. So guyz who mainly inspire them please read on.

1. There is a common behavior that when we are someone influential we tend to enforce our opinion based on our observations and experiences. Most of the time we skip the little desclaimer at the end that these are our experiences and you might keep them in your mind but never rely on these only.
2. We understand that you might have been dicthed, exploited and used by people but not everyone comes across same breed of people or have same kind of skill set when it comes to public dealing.
3. Never ever make promises or claims you can’t fullfil. Assist the people you come across in a manner that they end up doing their job themselves rather then waiting for you to do something for them.
4. Tell them straight ahead that Startups are tough, not everyone can do it but don’t try to become nostradamus and predict if they are the right kind of material.
5. If someone asks you for a shortcut to success; tell them there isn’t any. There is no formula to success, its always a mix and match and the combinations are different for different people. However there are some basic rules to it which are, Passion -  Passion & Passion. All other qualities are derivatives of this single attribute.
6. You might be a guru of what you do but don’t poke your nose in everyone’s business by giving your expert opinion on who is a success and who is not.
7. Never ever direct them to make lengthy business plans and prepare feasibility and costing of millions. This halts their progress. Tell them to invent new ways of crossing the hurdles they face.
8. There is no such things as VC funding an idea; don’t tell them to look for one.

Ever since the new User Interface came out everyone was complaining. Even though I was among those but there were still few things good about the then known new.facebook.com. Applications were sidelined but there was a lot more liberty in controlling feeds and playing around with over all platform. The recent changes in Facebook have however totally re-aligned how one would perceive Facebook. 

In last one month my time spent on Facebook has significantly decreased (even though i spend more time on it through mobile). The main activities in my friend’s feeds on facebook have now just reduced to posting videos, statuses , taking quizes, commenting on the mentioned stuff. With everything shaped as an update from your friends Facebook has started to shape itself totally like Twitter. Facebook was never twitter but had some small components that looked like twitter. With Twitter growing through third party ideas like applications for tweeting pic etc and Facebook taking too much of twitter into consideration while shaping up their outlook. Its all getting very boring specially when you are so glued to a social network but you start missing your friend’s birthdays (because facebook keeps on changing the place it appears). All i get is what kind of videos people are watching or laughing at. 

In the past Facebook was less organized but it was always meant to be something much more than just tweeting. I wonder whats going on with all this redesigning and realigning and where its going to lead the tremendous user experience associated to Facebook.

Today I went to a railway booking office to book a ticket for my grandfather who wanted to go on his regular quarterly trip from Lahore to Jhelum. The plan was to book a seat in Lower AC as usual. One of the staff there (I must appreciate their attitude as they are always kind and have smiles on there faces) told me that since 15th of April, 2009 all AC and lower AC coaches have been removed from the train and no booking options will be available in this an all economy class train.

I was shocked as there was no reason given for this move. One can consider that this was done keeping in mind profitability but still there is no need for shutting down Lower AC because its never empty like Upper AC. Besides, the fares for both coaches have almost doubled in the past 2 years. I wonder whats going on because this is the railway which had started giving booking options from smaller stations as well and had plans to extend it and has now withdrawn all booking options from not only this train but also from many others train routes as well. Only option available now is to travel in economy class without a booking.
Say bye bye to convenience and expect profitability…. dream on…

Well this seems to be the easiest possible way of thanking all those who came or wished us on our wedding.
Thanks a lot (specially those who participated in function)

Regards
Yaser n Aisha

Started writing this as a Facebook note but then decided to put it up here. Later realized it doesn’t have to be that short. so here I go again.

To all those who attended the wedding and wished us, Thanks a lot guyz.
Special Thanks to Tariq, Jareer and Adil S. Thanks for making all the lists. I can’t thank you enough.
To all those dear friends who simply “forgot”… you guyz are not forgiven :@ (This specially includes I Younus, SAM and others)
To those closer to me who didn’t show up and never bothered to tell why or had better things to do (includes Shabby, Moazam, both doctors, juni bhai, GC and others):@ .. dont have words….
Special thanks to AAM who had a flight the same night but he stilled showed up.
To Jigz Group, you guyz really disappointed me as none of you came except Gamer.
Thanks to all juniors who showed up, please blame Farrukh if anyone from Volley group was missed as he made the list.
To Systemers, Salute you guyz for always being on time and spreading happiness all over the place! (Special thanks to Asif M and Nauman Farooqi: sir you were on time per function bhi on time he khatam ho gaya tha)
To everyone in NEWT, thanks for showing up guyz and sharing the joyous moments with us.
To Muneeb, I would have wished that you didn’t goto Peshawar on that weekened. Your excuse has been accepted due to Bhaabi, werna teri khair nahi thi . Sorry for causing you and bhaabi so much trouble.
Special thanks to people who were abroad and participated through phone (includes Asad bhai, Moeen and Irfan Ilahi ). Moeen dont be so apologatic, you couldn’t do anything about actually attending the functions.
To Master for attending the function one day ahead of everyone lolz and not showing up on the right day :/
To Mobi for coming on last minute notice.
To JT, sorry if you came with same expectations as GC’s wedding.:P
Special thanks to Naveed bhai, TG, Rana, Adil I, Adil S, Sharjeel, Molz for attending Barat

I might have missed a lot of names, if you feel the same please email me to thank or take someone head on (for Thanks or for No Thanks, could be yours or anyone else’s name, Baysharam ho ker ;)). The post will be updated.

SOFTEC is the largest IT extravaganza of Pakistan comprising of SOFTware Exhibition and Competitions. People from all over Pakistan come and display their wildest dreams and breakthrough innovations through our exhibitions and big companies grab the opportunity to market their upcoming products to the masses. Competitions proudly host students from every nook and corner of Pakistan, competing to show their brilliance in their respective fields, be it school going children or the energetic strategy game player! SOFTEC 2009 is going to be held on 4^th and 5^th of April, 2009, and constitute the following:

Competitions:

Software Competition, Programming Competition, Engineering Project Competition, Microcontroller Interfacing Competition, G3n.X Gaming Competition and IdeasXtreme Competition!

Exhibitions:

Software House Enclosure, VOIP & Broadband Zone, TechNext, Educational Consultants, Book Fair, Food Court, Kidz Corner and Software industry Start-ups!

Come and Join us at FAST-NU Lahore Campus (B-Block, Faisal Town) on 4^th and 5^th April, 2009!

This message is being posted on behalf of current SOFTEC team.
For more details go here, Link1,The event will be covered live here by citizen journalists, attendees , students and common people Link2 (Current status and Live coverage)