While Southeast Asia remains one of the hottest markets in the region, South Asia is also catching up, especially with the likes of Bangladesh and Pakistan. The region is also home to some of the fastest-growing tech startups, and today, we venture down south to Bangladesh and talk to the co-founder and CEO of Pathao, Bangladesh's largest tech company which is valued at over $100 million. Pathao is the leading ride-sharing, on-demand logistics, and food delivery platform in Bangladesh. Today, its motorbike and car-hailing vertical alone serves five million riders across five cities in Bangladesh and Kathmandu in Nepal.
How did Pathao come into existence? For a market with typically no culture of motorcycle-taxis, how did you create the need in the market? How did they manage to stand out from the competition even against the likes of Uber? How has their journey been moving from an app to a super app? We talk about all these and more, in today’s episode.
Show Notes
02:20 Introduction to Hussain Elius
03:22 How Pathao came into existence
05:48 What the status quo was before Pathao
08:21 Inspiration behind founding Pathao
11:10 The competitive landscape for Pathao
13:50 The competition against Uber
17:20 Understanding why the “Uber-way” was not the way to go
22:37 Lessons learned from Gojek
25:30 Pathao’s expansion to Nepal
29:05 Evolution of Hussain’s role
32:43 Does mentorship matter?
36:03 Final thoughts
Many thanks to our guests Hussain Elius; host Oscar Ramos; producers Eva Shi and Sagar Chaudhary; editor David; organizer Chinaccelerator; and sponsor People Squared. Be sure to check out our website www.chinaccelerator.com
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