Artisanal shoes, anyone? Pakistani startup takes to Kickstarter

A group of Pakistani entrepreneurs is taking to Kickstarter today to turn their startup idea into a fashion brand. They want to strike a blow against mass-produced shoes by creating a line of handmade shoes created using centuries-old craftsmanship – and then sell them exclusively online. It’s a blend of old and new.

The Kickstarter campaign, now online here, is run by the team behind Markhor, a specialist shoes estore. The startup wants to raise $15,000 to boost the fledgling business with a new range of shoes. Some will be in the traditional Pakistani style that sort of looks like a sandal, while other models will be more modern and hipstery – all of them are crafted in the same artisanal way.

Its crowdfunding campaign has raised US$4,200 in just the first day.

The startup is co-founded by Waqas Ali and Sidra Qasim in Lahore (disclosure: Ali used to work at Tech in Asia. He left in 2011), and it makes full use of the traditional craftsmen in the region. The estore itself is not new, starting out in 2011 as Hometown. Since then it’s been a slow evolution of learning and changing for the team. Recently, the startup rebranded as Markhor.

“Launching a Kickstarter campaign was on our mind for a long time, but we wanted to go there with some initial success and a clear understanding of the operational challenges. So now after the rebrand it makes perfect sense to do this,” Ali explains.

Waqas Ali (holding phone) and Sidra Qasim (right).

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Early battles

During that evolution, the startup has been through the Plan9 incubator, built an entirely new website, got some first-hand advice from Silicon Valley firms such as Zappos, and then incorporated the business in the US.

“The challenge with our growth was that we were paying very high fees for a payment gateway – as there’s no PayPal or Stripe in Pakistan – and huge shipping charges. Now we have finally managed to bring them down by incorporating in the US and setting up a base in SF,” says Ali. That has decreased the epayment fee being skimmed off each order from an outrageous 10 percent to a more manageable three percent.

The rebranded site is now seeing 50 to 70 sales per month.

“Our goal is to build Markhor as the most respected brand in men’s fashion by bringing the indigenous craftsmanship of the sub-continent to footwear,” he adds.

Ecommerce is slowly taking off in Pakistan, with larger ventures like Rocket Internet’s Daraz.pk and Kaymu.pk leading the way. The inevitable next phase, as seen in neighboring India, is for more niche estores to blossom – ones dedicated to things like groceries, travel booking, eyeglasses, babywear. That’s where Markhor wants to operate, standing out by selling its own brand of shoes. But startups will run into the kinds of issues illuminated by Markhor, as well as broader concerns about the economic stability of the country.