Asia Startup Pulse

Building Bangladesh's Biggest Tech Startup with Hussain Elius, Founder and CEO of Pathao

Episode Summary

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.

Episode Notes

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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