Steering the Wheels of Entrepreneurship

If there is one thing aboutsuccessful companies, itis the steady leadershiprequired to build a solidfoundation from its strongest,standout qualities. Suchcompanies know all too wellthat with overconfidence andimpatience, a good thing can fallflat and fizzle out without a trace.Launched in 2003, PakWheelsis now Pakistan’s best-knownplatform for all things with wheelsand an exhaust pipe. Given thefact that the company has beenaround for 22 years, the co-Founders certainly know a thingor two about dogged persistencein business.

“Well before Orkut andFacebook, PakWheels wasPakistan’s first social networkingplatform,” Suneel Sarfraz Munj,the portal’s co-founder, tells me.He isn’t wrong. Orkut cameto Pakistan in 2004, a yearafter PakWheels and Facebookfollowed two years later in2006. “For anyone who hasa car parked in their garage,PakWheels has been there,” saysMunj with justifiable pride.

Sharp as a tack, Munj, in hisearly forties, has an ‘old soul’quality about him. You wouldnever have guessed it. I mean,he is crazy about cars. Even the‘About’ write-up on the PakWheelswebsite states that he “eats,drinks and sleeps cars 24/7.”

What would a motorheadknow about anything other thancars anyway? But he does. Heis a treasure trove of knowledgewhen he gets started, reelingoff little wisdom bombs withabandon, sprinkled with someself-deprecating humour.

“I never expected PakWheels toblow up the way it did. It was moreof a hobby, never a full-time job.”

Enrolled in an MBA programmeat the Lahore University ofManagement Sciences (LUMS)in 2003, Munj says that backthen people had an avid interestin swapping notes about theircars. “If you are in love with cars,you would know that people canspeak for hours and hours aboutthem.” As a result, he set up abasic HTML chat forum wherecar enthusiasts could register,create their own nicknames andchat with each other until thecrack of dawn.

Then, in 2005, two yearsafter the forum was created,a user mentioned he had acar he wanted to sell. Withinhours, the car was sold. “It wasa low-hanging fruit to launch aclassified ads section on thewebsite,” reflects Munj. “It’s notlike we reinvented the wheel oranything. We were just the first tostart an online classifieds section.It worked because the life of acar ad in a newspaper lasts aday, and the next day you findyour ad wrapped up in a papercone filled with channas.”

When Munj speaks, he talksrapidly – a reflection of hissharp, quick-thinking mind. Also,he rarely ever smiles. While hisexpressions may be deadpanand stoic, the content andcadence of his speech matchthat of a skilled orator. Minusany airs and graces, there isa deep-seated humility aboutMunj too, especially when hespeaks about his parents andgrowing up in Lahore, where hewas born.

“My father was a self-mademan who would often tell methat his sole job in life was togive me an education and afterthat, I would have to figurethings out on my own.” It wasthis upbringing, he says, thathelped him gain an ingrainedsense of independence earlyon. “Once, when I got my carwindows tinted (somethingwhich was not permitted inPakistan at the time), myfather stopped a traffic wardenand asked him to fine me.These were the kinds of realitychecks I was exposed to at ayoung age.”

However, it paid off. Today,Munj has considerable clout. Infact, he is a brand in his ownright, even outside of PakWheels,where he is regarded as one ofthe most respected voices inlocal entrepreneurship.

With Munj, what you see iswhat you get. He is authentic andoutspoken at the risk of landinghimself in a hot soup. Fiercelyprivate about his personal life,he does reveal that he has twodaughters who live overseas –but that is as far as he goes. Hispersonal life remains under wraps,although when it comes to hispublic life, he is an “open book.”

Given his success, whatmakes him stick it out withPakWheels? What was thesecret sauce of his stayingpower and what has stopped himfrom exploring new pastures?

“Nowadays it’s very ‘in’ to talkabout founders and start-ups.When I was younger, if we talkedabout launching our own startup,we would get slapped byour parents and told to becomean engineer or a doctor! We areslaves of the schooling system.Kids become ratta [memorisation]machines. Even my grey parrotcan memorise stuff. I keeptelling young Pakistanis thatstart-ups are not easy. They arecash-burning businesses. Butto inculcate staying power inyourself? Do what you love.”

Having gone through therigmarole of job-hopping aftergrad school, he even gavejoining the family business ashot, but he felt ridiculous sittingin front of an Excel sheet day inand day out. “My brother wouldget annoyed and ask me whyI was wasting their time. Then,one day, he sat me down andsaid, ‘Suneel, what do you wantto do with your life?’ I answered,‘Cars… I love cars.’”

“When you take the plunge tolaunch a start-up, you have toroll up your sleeves. You weardifferent hats all at once. We area big company today, but whenwe started out, it was only thethree of us. You cannot haveillusions of grandeur thinkingyou will be comfortably sitting inan air-conditioned room. I had tojuggle multiple jobs to keep mykitchen running in 2012. I wouldeven clean the cars myself. Iremember my brother calling meto say, ‘You have an MBA fromLUMS and there you are on thestreet in DHA washing cars!’ ButI kept at it.”

Speaking about Pakistan’sauto industry, he says, with atouch of disillusionment, that “itis the infant who never grew up.Look, if you want an industry toflourish, you have to encourage itinstead of depending on imports.No doubt, it will be expensiveinitially, but given time, theindustry will be able to producecheaper cars like India.”

Clearly, the question has hita nerve. “Over the years, thelocal auto industry would showsigns of growth, but then a newgovernment would come inand change the policy. It is aconstant seesaw. Whenever anew government comes in, theauto industry becomes a methodto gain popularity. These shortsightedpolicy changes have gonea long way in hurting the industry.”

Despite all his othercommitments, Suneel SarfrazMunj is also dedicated tophilanthropic work and in 2008,during the dengue outbreak,he spearheaded Pak Donors,a website aimed at becominga blood donor library. “This issomething very close to myheart, but it has remained onthe backburner. I hope oneday I can turn it into a single,go-to blood donor repositoryfor people in need. Whenyou walk into a hospital, yourperspective changes. Yourealise health is everything.”

Sonya Rehman is a writerbased in Islamabad.