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Future Startup Weekly: No. 19

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Future Startup Weekly: No. 19

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5 Agri-tech Startups to Watch

Agriculture remains the most important sector in Bangladesh. Agriculture contributes 40% of the total employment and 14% of the GDP. But the sector faces a long list of challenges. There are roughly about 20 million farmers. 80% of them are smallholders. The majority of farmers are unbanked. The sector is considered to be unorganized. Lack of education hurts productivity. And a middlemen-dominated supply chain hurts the profitability of farmers. 

In this episode of our startups to watch series, we profile four startups building exciting companies at the intersection of agriculture and technology.


What Founders Can Learn From Athletes and Artists

This idea of quantity and success has become almost common sense in many fields. Athletes are about hours of training. In sales, the number of sales calls. The more calls you make, the greater is your chance of conversions. But when it comes to entrepreneurship and making things, we look down upon the idea of trying. [....]

Founders can borrow an important insight from the clay pot story. You can’t make the best quality clay pot on your first attempt no matter how much you prepare and try. Your clay pot will always be as good as the number of bad clay pots you've made. 


How Pickaboo Has Built a Destination Platform for Mobile Phones and Gadgets

Pickaboo, a Dhaka-based fast-growing omnichannel ecommerce startup, has built a strong position in the mobile and gadget vertical — one of the largest categories in ecommerce — over the years. The company sees huge potential in the vertical and has always given it special attention. It now seeks to expand its lead in the mobile and gadget market and, eventually, expand into other relevant categories. 


Four SaaS Startups to Watch

A new batch of ambitious founders are building exciting SaaS startups in Dhaka offering services to both local and international users. 

Some of these companies such as Dorik are part of a fast-growing global meta trend namely low-code, no-code software enabling anyone and everyone to build websites as digitization accelerates across the world. Others are building solutions for ecommerce and businesses, in the time tracking space for international users and project management SaaS solutions for the Bangladesh market. 

We profile four startups that are building exciting SaaS products for the local and global market out of Bangladesh.


Insights From ToguMogu, ROOTs Edu and Dorik: Product-Focus and Customer Service Drive Growth For Startups in the Early Days

In our interview with founders for our popular Founder Stories series, we regularly ask founders about their journey and early days. One common question is about effective growth strategies these companies use in their early days.

A common answer, from founders building companies in a wide-ranging of verticals, is that they use a combination of superior products and excellent customer service to build the initial happy customer base and then use it as a flywheel for growth.

In this collection, we feature answers from three founders. Nazmul Arefin Momel is the Co-founder and CEO of ToguMogu. Tahir Hasan Riddha is the Co-founder and CEO of ROOTS Edu. And Mizanur Rahman is the Co-founder of Dorik. Three of them have built excellent businesses and found growth early on.


Founder Interview: Tahir Hasan Riddha, Co-founder and CEO, ROOTs Edu

Tahir Hasan Riddha is the co-founder and CEO of ROOTs Edu, an edtech startup based in Dhaka. Founded in 2019, ROOTs covers SSC, HSC NCTB curriculum, and university entrance admission tests. The company says it has completed 350,000+ minutes of live classes and served about one lakh students. In June, the company raised an undisclosed pre-seed investment led by Omicon Tech Ventures.

In this fascinating interview with Future Startup, Mr. Tahir tells us about his background, founding and building an edtech startup from scratch in Bangladesh, talks about the state of ROOTs, the early days of ROOTs and how the company came to where it is today, and much more.


Mamun Rashid
Mamun Rashid

From our archive: Life’s Work: Mamun Rashid

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