u/Suspicious_Store_137

For context, we’re building OnScene.pk, Pakistan’s first live shopping marketplace where sellers go live directly from their phones and sell to viewers in real time

We built the app, launched on Play Store & App Store, crossed 4M+ views across social media, reached around 10k users. Everything sounded amazing then reality hit:

FAKE ORDERS!!!

So we introduced advance payments from buyers. but here’s the funny part: The entire payment process was manual 😭

Every order meant personally DMing users, confirming payments, sending details manually, following up ourselves, literally becoming the payment gateway, completely unscalable, But that’s when I finally understood what “do things that don’t scale” actually means. At an early stage, perfection doesn’t matter as much as proving behavior. And today, during a 60-minute scene, we got 15 orders!!! manually handled, manually confirmed but real. That’s the part people don’t see when they talk about startups..

Before automation, comes survival
Before scale, comes validation

Now back to fixing the chaos 😭

3 orders!
All confirmed!!
Advance paid!!
Pickup confirmed!

Honestly, seeing people actually buy through livestreams in Pakistan still feels kinda surreal 😭

One interesting thing we learned:

People understand new commerce formats MUCH faster when they experience them live instead of having them explained

We spent months trying to explain “live shopping”

But the moment users actually joined streams, interacted, saw bidding happen in real time, etc… it instantly clicked

I think this applies to startups in general too:
sometimes showing > explaining

Still early for us
Still a lot to improve
But slowly starting to see signs of product-market fit

If you haven’t downloaded the app yet, search ‘OnScene’ on Play Store/App Store and make sure to tune in for the next scene 😎

Back to building.. 💪

One thing I’m slowly realizing is that life isn’t really won by the smartest people. It’s usually won by people who can stay focused and keep going consistently for a long time

That’s it….

Most people massively underestimate consistency because it looks boring
Going to the gym once is easy
Posting one good video is easy
Working hard for 3 days is easy
Doing it over and over again when nobody cares yet? That’s the hard part

I’ve noticed that momentum in life comes from stacking small actions for long enough that people suddenly think you “blew up overnight”

In reality, they just didn’t see the boring days

The days where:
- nothing worked
- views were low
- motivation disappeared
- progress felt invisible

But if you stay focused long enough, consistency starts compounding like crazy

People quit way too early

And honestly, I think that’s why average execution beats great ideas most of the time

Anyway, just a random thought while building stuff😭

Recently got accepted into the Sindh Accelerator Program Alhamdulillah, and while researching the ecosystem I realized a lot of founders in Pakistan genuinely don’t know how many incubators/accelerators actually exist here.
So I thought I’d make a small list for anyone building something:
• National Incubation Center Karachi — Karachi
• National Incubation Center Lahore — Lahore
• National Incubation Center Islamabad — Islamabad
• Plan9 — Lahore/PITB
• PlanX — growth-stage accelerator by PITB
• Invest2Innovate — probably one of the better-known accelerators for startups in Pakistan
• The Nest I/O — Karachi
• LUMS Center for Entrepreneurship — Lahore
• Sindh Enterprise Incubation Center — Sindh
• National Expansion Plan of NICs — multiple cities across Pakistan
• Hatch 8 at NUST/NSTP
• Sindh acceleration program (wait for the cohort 2) - sindh

A lot of these programs offer:
mentorship
office space
investor access
credits/perks
grants in some cases
founder network (which honestly matters a lot)

One thing I’ll say though:
Don’t apply expecting magic.

Most incubators won’t build your startup for you. The real value usually comes from:
connections
ecosystem access
accountability
founder community
credibility

The actual execution is still on you.
If you’re building something in Pakistan right now, definitely look into these programs. Even if you don’t get accepted immediately, the application process itself helps sharpen your thinking.

Would love if others here add more accelerators/incubators/resources in the comments for Pakistani founders. 🚀