A startup is basically a newly-established business based on an innovative and marketable idea. It needs time, commitment, mentoring and money injected at the right time to materialise. A startup can be conventional as well as technology-based and the strength of the latter is that it is highly cost-effective. A person having a laptop, an internet connection and a stream of innovative ideas can connect with the world quite easily.

This ease of doing business and showcasing it to the world has helped many Pakistani individuals with entrepreneurial skills to come up with amazing IT-based startups.

While not all startups have matured, there are still many that have been a roaring success. There were several that could not take off because they did not get the right direction and mentoring they needed.

"It was in order to overcome this gap that Plan9 was launched as Pakistan’s largest tech incubator in August 2012," says Uzair Shahid, Programme Manager at Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB). Since its inception, he says, it has incubated over 80 startups and given opportunity to budding entrepreneurs "to change their business dreams into a reality using technology as the key component".

Situated on the 9th floor of Arfa Software Technology Park (ASTP) in Lahore, Plan9 selects startups from all over the country through a competitive selection process. As per declared requirements, an applicant has to be a Pakistani citizen, must have a strong, self-motivated and skillful team of two members at least, must have a product-based business idea with a tech component; it could be e-commerce, computer vision technologies, or just about anything related to technology.

Sustainable and scalable business models that have the potential to survive after the initial incubation time are especially encouraged. The applicants are expected to spend working hours (10am to 6pm) from Monday to Friday at the incubator in case they are selected.

The Plan9 management, along with the alumni startup founders, conduct skype-based interviews of applicants for short-listing 20 startups from Lahore, 10 from Islamabad, and 10 from Karachi. Final selection is made by the panel of judges who rate and select startups for a 6-month incubation cycle at Plan9.

"The selected applicants are provided with fully-furnished office space free of cost, 24/7 electricity supply, handsome monthly stipend, mentoring and networking opportunities, access to investors, chances to travel and attend events within the country and abroad and so on," says Shahid.

Ali Rehan is founder of a startup named Eyedeus Lab that excels in computer vision technologies for smart phones and develops mobile phone applications. The company has developed an application Groopic that helps people take their group photos without seeking anybody else’s help. A person taking a group photo can get himself photographed later on and the application merges the two photos into one. The app was downloaded more than half a million times by the end of 2014.

Rehan gives credit to Plan9 team and says he and the three other members of his team were lucky to have joined its first cycle in 2012. "We would get stipend worth Rs20,000 each, stayed there all day and night and used the facilities. We were sent to an exhibition in Singapore to play our products," he adds. Mentoring by industry leaders and tech and marketing gurus was also on the menu.

Dr Umar Saif, Chairman Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) and Vice Chancellor Information Technology University (ITU), Lahore tells TNS that this concept is very close to his heart and he feels lucky to have a team that helped him materialise it. He says when he was studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the research scholars were asked to write only those research papers that at least 10,000 people could benefit from. "So, the real idea was that only that work should be done that had utility for the masses."

Saif says IT-based startups have to face problems all over the world and need support of the private sector as well as the state. Plan9, he says, provides this support and hopes such opportunities are available to startups all over Pakistan. "Even the billion-dollar giants, such as Google and Facebook were started in garages. I have myself worked in such circumstances. So, I want to see our entrepreneurs free of such worries and save bright ideas from dying a premature death," he vows.

The selected startups are placed at the ninth floor of ASTP where they are guided in product development, business development, financial planning, pitch training, marketing and public relationing, corporate communications, internal operations, and legal concerns.

Plan9 has also developed a pool of investors who provide angel funding to startups so that they can buy the required equipment, expand operations, set up offices, market their products through online and conventional means and attend international exhibitions, and so on. Such fundings are called angel fundings as they come as a blessing to startups mostly lacking the requisite financial resources. In words of Plan9 manager, "the objective of this initiative is to give startups a stress-free plug and play environment where minds focus only on creativity."

Nabeel Akmal Qadeer, Joint Director, Entrepreneurship at PITB, says entrepreneurs are doers and have the confidence to take risks. It is very difficult for them to stick to routine jobs, and not experiment with ideas. "Their potential shall be tapped to the full by providing them the support they need," he adds.

Qadeer tells TNS that plans are underway to launch phase two of Plan9 and set up incubators at five public sector universities in Multan, Bahawalpur, Sialkot, Faisalabad, and Rawalpindi. These universities will provide space and support to help more and more startups benefit from the offer.

On the revenue-earning model of startups, Shahid says they can sell their products directly to clients, their apps can be downloaded through appstore, play store, etc, the platforms can be acquired by bigger companies, and so on. For example, he says, global giant Food Panda has bought Pakistani EatOye -- a company with over 1,000 partner restaurants in 15 cities that offers table reservations as well as online food ordering.

He tells TNS that all the transactions have to be done through bank accounts and applicable taxes have to be paid. "That is why the first milestone that selected startups have to achieve is to get it registered with the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP). Besides, it is also important to establish at the very onset of the launch who owns the company and who has what role or share in the proceeds," he concludes.