Three entrepreneurs featured at Mobilink’s Discover Business Plan 2014–15 event described different routes through the uncertainty of starting a business: Fahad Tiwana pursued ventures instead of a salaried job, Faisal Zahid found a co-founder whose skills complemented his own, and Salman ul Haq said he learned to validate demand before building. Their experiences, as reported by TechJuice, offer practical lessons—not guarantees of success—for people weighing how to start and finance a venture.
Fahad Tiwana: choosing a venture over a salary
TechJuice reported that Tiwana began pursuing businesses at 18 and created and sold two ventures. While studying civil engineering at NUST, he reportedly sold RealityPod to US Intermedia Group for $110,000. The article also said his team received 2 million rupees in funding for a prosthetic-limb project; both figures are historical claims reported by TechJuice, not independently verified here.
Afterward, he built WonderfulEngineering.com, which TechJuice said attracted 5.5 million readers in 18 months. The article reported that he turned down a job offer of 80,000 rupees per month to focus on business. That figure belongs to the period described in the article and should not be read as a current salary comparison.
Tiwana described pressure to earn a strong salary after graduation, uncertainty about finding an initial opportunity, and difficulty securing funding in Pakistan. His reported advice was to keep moving, consider family, friends, or a side business as possible funding sources, and look at incubation when it can reduce office costs and provide peer support or useful connections.
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What his story says about funding choices
His account frames the decision as a trade-off, not a rule that founders should always reject employment. A salary can provide income and stability; a venture may offer room to pursue an idea but brings uncertainty. Tiwana’s reported suggestions point to ways of bridging early resource gaps, but any funding arrangement with family or friends should be discussed clearly, including whether the money is a loan, investment, or gift.
Faisal Zahid: pairing skills and finding a customer need
TechJuice described Zahid as a designer and programmer who freelanced while studying at SEECS, NUST, and later launched Crafty Pixels. After a visit to Silicon Valley, he became interested in entrepreneurship and saw an opportunity in product sampling. His company, Swaggable, was described as using data analysis to connect brands’ samples with relevant customers.
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The article reported that Swaggable raised $1 million in seed funding and was expected to reach a $20 million valuation by November of that year. The year is not clear in the retrieved article, and these are historical reported figures—not confirmation of the company’s present status or value. TechJuice also said brands wasted $8 billion on samples sent to uninterested users, but named no underlying study or original source for that claim, so it should not be treated as an established statistic.
Why a complementary co-founder mattered
Zahid identified finding the right partner as a major challenge. TechJuice quoted him: “It is not possible for one person to handle a startup and I learned that a co-founder should be someone who fills the void for your weaknesses.” The lesson is not simply to add a co-founder; it is to look for complementary abilities and agree on responsibilities. A partnership can bring missing expertise, but it also requires alignment on decisions, ownership, and how disagreements will be handled.
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Salman ul Haq: validate the idea before building
TechJuice reported that Haq began closing e-store design deals as a teenager, took a year after graduation to try a venture, and founded TunaCode as a software-as-a-service company. He later described starting from the technology side rather than the marketing side as a mistake. His advice was to validate an idea and find product-market fit before execution.
Turn the lesson into a practical check
For a prospective founder, validation means testing whether a defined group of customers has a real problem and would choose the proposed solution. Before investing heavily in development, talk to likely customers, test a simple version of the offer, and look for evidence of meaningful interest. A technically polished product is not proof of demand.
Haq’s account also points to the personal cost of risk: the article cited family commitments and the consequences of failure as challenges for entrepreneurs in Pakistan. Those constraints make it useful to consider how long a founder can support the venture, what obligations must remain covered, and what a manageable first experiment would look like.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the three accounts have in common
The stories describe distinct choices rather than one formula. Tiwana’s account concerns income, persistence, and possible early funding routes; Zahid’s centers on a complementary co-founder and a customer-sampling problem; Haq’s emphasizes checking demand before committing to execution. Taken together, the reported advice suggests a grounded sequence: test a real customer need, identify skills or resources you lack, and choose a way to finance the experiment that fits your obligations.
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These profiles are based on Sarwat Fatima’s TechJuice account of the 2014–15 event. NUST’s alumni page separately identifies Fahad Tiwana with Tech Valley, and Tech Valley Pakistan’s current site describes a digital-learning social enterprise. Those sources establish current organizational positioning, but do not show that Tech Valley’s present work is identical to the consultancy described in the older article. The available sources do not establish the current operating status of Swaggable or TunaCode.
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