Adil Najam
This is a somewhat old picture and you will find lots of references and copies of this picture on the internet, mostly about the innovative marketing done by this Taxi Cab driver in Pakistan, Asif Hussain Shah. The marketing is indeed innovative, but to me that is really not the part of this story that is truly inspiring. The story – certainly for him – is not that he wants you to search for him and his cab on Google, the story is that he wants you to read the book – For Hire – he wrote about his life as a Taxi-Cab driver in Pakistan.
To me, at least, writing a book always trumps being on Google! But Google can help you find more about this very interesting gentleman. And that is exactly what I set out to do.
Read Full Post
Darwaish
In one of my earlier posts on Lahore’s old books shops, Adil Najam raised an interesting point and suggested that Pakistan is ripe for an Amazon.com type service for selling and buying old books and young Pakistani entrepreneurs should think about it. I don’t know if anyone has started such book selling service in Pakistan but I did come across this wonderful online store, Al Rug , selling handmade carpets. Two young entrepreneurs from Islamabad, one of them is an old friend of mine Yasir Hussain, came up with the idea of marketing and selling Pakistani handmade carpets to Europe and Americas through an online store.
At that time, not many people believed that Europeans and Americans would buy such an expensive product from a Pakistani online store. But hard work and honesty does pay off and, now, its amazing to see the huge success of this unique online store after three years. Definitely a wonderful example to follow. Many of you probably know that the handmade carpets of Pakistan, and particularly of Lahore, are one of our major export items and earning us huge revenues each year.
Read Full Post
