Annual Review 2019: The Best of Future Startup 2019

Days are long, decades are short. It is time to say goodbye to 2019 and welcome the new year 2020. 

We launched new products, published great articles, interviewed a number of stellar guests for our different interview series, and continued growing our branded content business. We highlight some of our popular and interesting doings below. Happy new year! 

Most popular stories based on traffic:

These are the stories that attracted a large number of readers, overall. 

1. Meet 10 Top-Funded Startups And Tech Companies In Bangladesh (Updated)

2. The Rise Of Evaly: An Interview with Mohammad Rassel, CEO, Evaly

3. The Fascinating Story Of Shohoz: An Interview With Maliha M Quadir, Founder and MD, Shohoz

4. 6 Reasons To Invest In Open-ended Mutual Funds In Bangladesh

5. IGLOO, Ice Cream Industry In Bangladesh and Career: An Interview With G M Kamrul Hassan, CEO, IGLOO

6. Aarong, BRAC’s Social Enterprises, and Life: An Interview With Tamara Hasan Abed, Senior Director, BRAC

9. The Story Behind Pathao’s Explosive Growth With Hussain M Elius, Founder and CEO, Pathao

10. Stories Of 04 Bangladeshi Entrepreneurs Who Have Made It Big

Most popular interviews:

We interviewed a stellar cohort of markers in 2019. These are some of the best ones. 

1. Building A 100-Year-Old Company With Waseem Alim, Founder, and CEO, Chaldal

2. Life’s Work: An interview with Prabeer Sarkar, Founder, and CEO, Dhaka Distributions (Part 01)

3. The Enduring Edge Of Rokomari: An Interview With Mahmudul Hasan Sohag, Co-founder and Chairman, Onnorokom Group

4. The World is for Polymaths: An Interview with Sajid Amit, Academic, Researcher, and Development Strategist (Part One)

5. How To Build A Profitable Tech Product Business In Bangladesh: An Interview With Abul Bashar Md Sharif, Director and COO, Easytrax

6. Building An Omnichannel E-commerce Company In Bangladesh With Waiz Rahim, Founder and CEO, Deligram

7. Inside WebAble’s Phenomenal Five-Year Run and Beyond: An Interview with Ovick Alam, Co-founder, and Chairman, WebAble Digital

8. How To Build The Future: An Interview With Brain Station 23 Founder and CEO Raisul Kabir (Part One)

Most Popular Insight Analyses:

We published the largest number of insight analysis in 2019. Insight is our category where we publish in-depth analysis on tech and internet business in the context of Bangladesh. These are some of the good ones. 

1. On Growth: 5 Growth Hacking Lessons From Rokomari

2. Sheba Officially Unveils MSME Focused ERP Solutions sManager, Sheba’s Strategic Motivation

3. An Introduction To OKR: How Tech Giants Like Google, Amazon Set (and Achieve) Goals

4. 10 Lessons From Sabbir Hasan Nasir of ACI Logistics

5. 07 Lessons From BRAC’s Senior Director Tamara Hasan Abed On Leadership and Management

6. 9 Founders Share Their Biggest Lessons On Building A Business From Scratch

7. On Raising Investment And The Importance Of Taking Care Of Yourself As A Founder With Waiz Rahim, Founder and CEO, Deligram

8. On Growing A B2B Business And Growing As A Founder With Ovick Alam, Founder and Chairman, WebAble Digital

9. On Becoming A Better Founder With Waseem Alim, Founder and CEO, Chaldal

10. Khobaib Chowdhury: 4 Lessons From 4 Years Of Styline

Editor’s pick

Traffic isn’t the only measure of the worth of an article. Here are some of our personal favorites from this year's insight analyses. 

1. Intelligence Brief: The Ride-hailing Market Updates

2. Shohoz Food Sees Steady Growth And What Shohoz Food Means For Shohoz’s Overall Strategic Ambition

3. The Most Important Lessons From ShopUp

4. Khaas Food Moves Into Brick-and-Mortar Retail

5. Troubles at Pickaboo, Late Stage Funding In Bangladesh, and Pickaboo Lessons

6. Ridwan Hafiz: Business Vs Relationship – My Takeaway From 2019

7. IDLC Venture Capital Fund

8. How Garment Workers Salary Processing Is A Critical Move For bKash’s Digital Payment Play

9. An Introduction To OKR: How Tech Giants Like Google, Amazon Set (and Achieve) Goals

10. Consumer Tech Startups In Dhaka Remain Limited In Scale, Mostly Serve Urban Upper Middle Class

11. bKash Adds Train Ticket, bKash And SuperApp

12. 7 Questions For Ride-hailing Companies In Bangladesh As We Enter A New Year 2020