I founded Markhor, the first Pakistani startup accepted into YC, AMA!

Hi Tech in Asia community!

I am Waqas Ali (@waqasaday), co-founder of Markhor, a luxury shoes brand without the middlemen. We are based in Lahore and Mountain View and delivers handcrafted shoes in 5 days at half the price of designer brands.

Markhor started off as a side project, helping craftsmen in my hometown of Okara, Pakistan. From our humble beginning, we went off to selling our shoes in over 35 countries, launching a successful Kickstarter campaign and just graduated from summer class of Y Combinator.

My primary role is to tell our story, connect with our customers at a personal level and design the experience people have with Markhor and their shoes.

I am here to answer any question you may have, but I love conversation around:

• Storytelling for startup
• Reaching out to people and building relationships
• How not to die (both as a startup and as a founder)
• Building a startup with your spouse (I’m recently married to my co-founder Sidra Qasim)
• Which shoes size to wear
• Why I’m obsessed with design

Ask away!

Note from Daniel, TIA’s community manager:
The host may choose at his/her preference to not answer particular questions. The AMA is moderated by the community managers, so let’s keep the questions friendly. 🙂

Read more about Markhor here.