Let's first understand "custody".

When you have cash in your wallet, physically with you, you really own the cash. No one else can take it from you - it is yours without a doubt. The cash is self-custodied.

When you have cash in your bank account, the money is custodied by the bank. The banks now own it, it is sitting with them at their vault, and they are giving you access to your money through a cheque book or a debit card.

While legally you own the money in the bank account, that is not technically always the case. The cash that is on the banks balance sheet is their asset, and they can do whatever they want with it - usually, but not limited to, lending it out or creating new money.

Bank failure is not new or uncommon. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been lost all over the world due to banks not being able to match their assets to liabilities. This happens everywhere from the US to Bangladesh.

Even more worrying, are undue control of private enterprises over your hard earned money.

PayPal in particular has had a long history of freezing people's fund, but nowadays are getting bolder and more judgemental:

Governments are no better, whether it is a "free" economy like Canada

or Pakistan

But the convenience of using digital money and banks has meant that there has not been any real alternatives. Everyone is trapped in this financial system - and it has been impossible to get out of it, without losing basic modern priviledges.

Until now.

A blockchain wallet is locked using a private key and a public key. A public key is something you can share with anyone - and anyone can send you assets to your wallet mapped to the public key. But only someone with the private key can actually access it.

The magic of cryptography means that anyone can generate a public/private key pair. It all takes place in the blockchain in a decentralized manner, and the keys are secured by the blockchain itself. No central authority (like a bank or a PayPal), will have access to your keys - only you do. Any asset that you have in your wallet, can only be accessed and used by you, the holder of the private key, and no one else.

Through blockchain tech, this means for the first time, you can now truly own (self-custody) your digital assets and currencies, while using them with the same convenience of custodial wallets.

The tech for this goes back all the way to 2008 when Bitcoin was released, promising global payments for everyone. Unfortunately, while the tech has always been there, the user convenience hasn't. Public/private keys are long and cryptic, bitcoin is a volatile asset, and fees are erratic (Lightning network fixes some of the challenges, but using it means you will be using a custodial service).

This has been my inspiration for Wind - an uncensorable Web3 native PayPal/Wise, that can used by anyone.

We are partnering with Web3Auth to make key management simple - where your key is broken down in multiple places and only reconstructed when used by the user. Making it simple and convenient for anyone to access your self-custody wallet without the complexity of managing a cryptographic private key.

Wind will provide the simplest way to use self-custody wallets in the market. Most DeFi wallets today are targeted towards crypto natives, Wind is the first wallet that will really be made for the rest of us - that you can use to send, spend, earn or invest, without the complexity of private/public keys and mnemonics, while fully owning your own keys.

Wind also uses smart contract wallets to do gasless transactions (a topic for another day), stablecoins, and efficient on/off ramps to provide a very web2 user interface on top of web3 tech to become an un-censorable wallet for everyone. No one should have to be at the mercy of private corporations or governments to use their own money. Because Wind is self-custodial, no one can block you from accessing your assets, not even Wind.

Self-custody is a core principle that got me excited about building Wind, and I can't wait to showcase the product we are building in the next couple of months.

Until then, you can sign up at our website to get notified of our updates, at https://wind.app/

A lot of our Bangladeshi startups are focused on building apps for the Bangladeshi market - as they should. Bangladesh is still at an early technology curve, and there are huge opportunities both in bringing in proven business models in the country, as well as finding local solutions to local problems.

But one place where I feel that we often miss, is the huge upside of creating SaaS softwares locally, for the international market.

There are many who are trying to build consumer subscription businesses in Bangladesh. But none are yet to take off. And that is simply because of two simple reasons:

• Payments are not easy - No ApplePay, GooglePay, low credit/debit card penetration. Local cards cannot automatically pull money out of cards, restricting automated subscriptions.

• We have been spoilt by free software. Growing up - I never had to pay for software or media. BitTorrent and Pirated CDs > going through the arduous process of licensing an actual software

I have strong belief that these are industry trends that will be changing over time, but I don’t see these barriers simply going away in the next couple years.

India has had huge success in building international pure-play SaaS startups. FreshWorks and Zoho comes to mind. There is an unfair advantage that they will have compared to any of their Silicon Valley peers;-

Labour Arbitrage.

Like India, Bangladesh has amazing and underpriced talent. Every line of code we have in Pathao, has been written in Bangladesh, by Bangladeshi engineers. Over the last 6 years, our technology has allowed us to continuously compete with multiple major international players and outperform them through execution. This gives me a lot of faith in the tech talent of this country.

The unfair advantage comes in play as soon as you are earning in dollars (revenue) and still pay for the talent in taka (salary). If we can even provide 80% of the quality of a keystone product, while charging 50% the price - I believe we will be surprised by the number of customers that it can attract.

In fact we are already doing the same when foreign companies set up a dev shop over here, or outsource their tech needs to Bangladesh. This proves the point that we have the talent. What we sometimes lack, however, is the vision and the courage. There are hundreds of dev teams scattered across the country doing outsourced work for foreign clients, but very few are building their own products. Either we are locked in a scarcity mindset, or are afraid of failure.

This needs to change. It has never been easier to build an MVP and get the first 100 customers. We do not need to artificially limit ourselves just by the geography of where we are born. Startups like Instant, Alice or Apploye are showing the path - and others will need to take their lessons to heart.

It’s time to look outwards.

Let’s build for the world.

In late 2014, early 2015 - Dhaka was going through a very strange political situation.

The opposition party would call hartal (a general strike) for 4-days a week (Sun through Wed), and then very late into Wed they would (sometimes) call for a strike on Thursday.

This - as you can imagine - was all very confusing. Everyone and their moms would look through any source of trying to find news of the hartal or people would ask on social media to random strangers - there just wasn't any reliable and timely information on it. It was imperative to know if there was hartal on that day so people could plan accordingly - most private universities and school were closed on hartals and people's commute plans could change significantly because of it. The lack of clear information would lead to many rumours and misinformation.

On one of these Wednesday's I decided to make a single page website.

It was a very simple site that took 30 minutes to make - but because of the need - it went viral almost immediately.

Pre-Pathao, this one website was a big deal for me. It got me in my first radio shows, I made a few tangible business contacts, and, made for some nice side-money for a struggling college student 👀

The reason today I write about a six year old website is because I wanted to share a few lessons I got even before I started Pathao:

• Before I made the site, I talked about making it with many others. All of them had the time (30 minutes) and resources ($10 domain name) to make this. No one else did.
  
  Lesson: If you have an idea, and can't find a team to execute it - try building the MVP yourself. There are enough tools in the internet for anyone to bring a simple idea to reality.
  
  Lesson: It doesn't take a lot of resources to build the first version. Don't make it complicated.
  

• When I talked about if I should make this - a lot of people were quick to point out different flaws in the model. "People can just go to a news site" "Is this too political?" "What would happen when the hartals are over?"
  
  Lesson: People don't know what they want. It's almost always better to build first and try to sell. The feedback can be used to improve the product.
  
  Lesson: People will pay for convenience even if there are other free alternatives.
  

• I made the website as a joke. Yet, after it did go viral - I was able to monetize it through small ads. Best of all, this was a catalyst for me to eventually partner with Fahim Saleh (who reached out to give an ad for hackhou.se in the site) and eventually led to the creation of Pathao.
  
  Lesson: Memes make money. (Basically how Elon Musk became the richest person in the world) Many good ideas started as a joke - it doesn't need to stay that way.
  
  Lesson: The value of creation is not just through monetization.
  
  Lesson: Be a creator.

The last 36 hours have been unreal.

Absolutely devastated to learn about the death of Fahim Saleh, a founding member of the Pathao team.

Who was Fahim?

Fahim was born in Saudi Arabia to Bengali parents. He grew up in the USA, and started working in tech while he was still a teenager. He was already successful before he even came to Dhaka - launching what is now known as Kickback Apps.

He came to Bangladesh to find his roots and contribute for the country. He established HackHouse, an incubator. He started networking. That’s when me and Adnan first met him. I had made a site back then that got viral - istomorrowhartal.com - and that fascinated him. Adnan, Sadad and myself were doing our own thing- making websites and themes back then. However, Fahim was charismatic, energetic and an optimist. The kind of energy that is contagious. We joined forces.

Together, and with a few more people we launched several projects in a short span of time: DhakaRides, Jaben, JeteChao and more.

Pathao was the one the projects that took hold- co-founded together by myself, Shifat Adnan, and Fahim. The first six to nine months was gruelling. It was an unsexy tech-courier company running out of a literal garage in Chairman Bari (which is now a Pathao walk-in-support centre). We didn’t have much to show - but we had a common vision that pushed us forward. We had our highs and lows. And at our lows - he kept pushing us forward.

Fahim and Pathao

Fahim’s role was invaluable. He was the first “angel” money. We all brainstormed together on what Pathao might become. Back in 2015 - there weren't many/any startups in Bangladesh. So we modeled together how we are going to grow the company. He helped me connect to our first seed investors.

By 2016 we were hitting our stride. We started hiring employees, we bought a 100 bikes and launched Rides. Our drivers and customers were coming online. Everyday we hit a new daily best. It was beautiful.

Fahim had a passion for building new products, finding untapped markets, and identifying promising founders. By 2017, Fahim started spending more time in New York. He established Adventure Capital, and became an angel investor in startups in Bangladesh and around the world.  He invested in JoBike (bicycle-sharing startup) Jatri (public transport ticketing platform), and Alpha Potato (gaming company).  He also backed PiCap, (ride-sharing company), and Muvo (micro-mobility solution) in Colombia.  More recently in 2018, he founded and later became the CEO of Gokada, a ride-sharing and logistics platform in Nigeria.

Fahim’s legacy in Bangladesh

The Pathao that we know would not have come into being without Fahim. The tone of our company - celebrating iterative development, building fast, failing early, pushing boundaries - all stemmed because of him.

Even as his interests took him far and wide - and away from operational or strategic involvement with Pathao - he remained an inspiration for us, the people on the ground.  As a true visionary, he had gone on to build great things, but perhaps his greatest legacy is the community he created here at Pathao.  He dared us to dream, to be bold, to be passionate, and to never stop moving.  The creativity we foster and the relentless focus with which we move forward, is our finest tribute to him.

Fahim, you will be missed.

Investors looking for the next rising star in Asia can look to Bangladesh, a market that isn’t quite on the venture capital radar as of yet, often overshadowed by its more established peers such as India.

On closer inspection, Bangladesh holds great potential to become the next tech frontier, with a small but vibrant startup community working hard to make life easier for the everyday Bangladeshi.

Why Bangladesh?

Bangladesh has had incredible economic growth, with gross domestic product reaching 8 percent last year. Its wealth to-date has been built on two main industries — garment production and overseas remittance.

It is the 8th largest country in the world by population — with a total population of 170 million, living in a country which is only the size of the state of New York. It is not just one of the densest countries in the world, but Dhaka, with 20 million people, is one of the densest cities in the world.

The mobile penetration continues to rise, and mobile internet penetration with it — slating to reach 41 per cent of the population by 2025.

Urbanisation is happening rapidly, and Dhaka’s infrastructure is bursting at the seams. With traffic moving at 7 kilometres an hour and only 3,000 buses plying the roads, the city is in dire need of transportation that is efficient, safe and cheap.

While commuters in Southeast Asia are already familiar with Grab and Gojek, the concept of ride-sharing was completely foreign to Bangladeshis back in 2016.

The idea that someone will pick you up at your doorstep and drop you off at your destination was completely unheard of. The cultural issue of sitting on a stranger’s bike, in a moderate Muslim country, was also pronounced — especially for women.

2015 saw the emergence of ride-hailing solutions in Bangladesh. What this also led to was a cultural and mindset change on how people were ready to commute. It also led to more jobs and hunger to tech talent in the country. Other industries like ecommerce, food delivery, fintech were soon to follow.

Bangladesh has around 90.501 million internet users, as of August 2018. So, ecommerce has huge opportunity to grow here.

With the improvement of living standard and fast-pace of bust urban life shopping behaviour of the consumers have shifted greatly.

One of the growing opportunities is secured payment technologies. It is most crucial for creating a positive mindset amongst the people towards e-commerce.

The most popular mode of payment for customers is still cash on delivery (COD) for ecommerce transactions, as customers are usually uncomfortable completing their transactions by using Digital Payment methods.

Currently in Bangladesh, the volume of e-commerce transactions is about Taka 1700 Crore per year (US$260 million). Still, around 90 per cent of e-commerce transactions are done on COD basis. To get the most out of e-commerce, the amount of online payment needs to be increased.

The startup environment in Bangladesh is nascent but very active, with 200 startups slated to launch every year, most of which are in e-commerce and software development, in a country of 170 million people.

With government-led initiatives like Startup Bangladesh which was launched in 2018, it is encouraging to see more support for entrepreneurship as a viable career choice and in promoting Bangladesh as a global hub for tech entrepreneurship.

Bangladesh is on its journey to become a Digital Nation. The “Vision 2021” of the present government aims to develop Bangladesh into a resourceful and modern economy through efficient use of information and communication technology.

Along with rapid internet adoption, tech savvy young generation, the commitment from the leaders is the most positive sign to build up a successful startup economy.

Key opportunity areas

Some startups have already made significant strides within Bangladesh.

ShopUp, for instance, assists Facebook shop owners by providing services such as deliveries, shop management and loans. It secured an additional US$1.5 million in funding this year from Sequoia.

Deligram provides ecommerce service to rural consumers have recently secured 3 million in funding.

PraavaHealth, a telemedicine startup aiming to raise healthcare standards in Bangladesh, opened its first family health centre in Dhaka in 2017.

E-commerce is another pillar that is growing steadily in Bangladesh. Players like ajkerdeal.com or deligram.com, have in their own played a key role in growing the online experience, which again was nascent in this part of the world till a few years ago.

But as a fairly new entrant in Asia’s startup scene, some challenges remain. Bangladesh is an undercapitalised market — while there is abundant funding for seed stage and early-stage startups, later stage funding is hard to come from local investors.

Like for any growing industry, talent always remains an issue. Tech professionals always prefer their stable, high-paying jobs over joining startups, so good talent is hard to come by. Convincing them to make the switch is an uphill task.

Our startups are also very new to the nature of their work, figuring things out as they go along. That said, the startup community is closely-knit and are constantly sharing ideas. There isn’t a lot of competition as each startup is solving problem sets that are not only unique but are extensive.

And as Bangladesh’s economy opens up, the talent that has left to work overseas are returning. And they are bringing in training, education and different business models that they are exposed to.

There isn’t a formal startup body that supports local founders as yet. But Bangladesh’s startup community frequently engages the local government in conversations about funding and investing in a local ecosystem.

A few local accelerators have also sprung up training first-time founders. The government is adamant in providing an environment for startups to thrive: it has built two high-tech parks, with three more coming on by 2020.

South Asia is increasingly becoming a hotspot for high growth, with growing interest from Chinese, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asian investors like Alibaba, Tencent, Openspace Ventures and more, who have been actively looking at South Asian startups, especially Bangladesh in recent years.

It only goes to show that it is a matter of time before Bangladesh achieves the success Southeast Asia is experiencing right now.

Originally appeared on e27.