While most 17-year-olds spend their days juggling studies, extra-curricular activities and social lives, some prodigies are busy working on building their future businesses! One such example happens to be Wajeeh Mir. A young and talented individual from Karachi, who at the age of 17 is already an entrepreneur behind not one, but two successfully running e-commerce labels. While his online brand ‘Flex AppealWear’, gives us access to affordable and stylish active wear, ‘Product of Pakistan’ aims to showcase Pakistan’s local arts and crafts.
As part of a joint collaboration with a friend, ‘Flex AppealWear’ features casual, everyday clothing and smart gym wear. Being aware of the wealth disparity, the brand focuses on providing high quality products with minimal profit margins, so their clothes come within the buying power of a wider range of customers.
“I envisioned that through this tactic we would end up maximizing the number of orders, and people that aren’t able to afford clothes from multinational brands would be able to enjoy high quality clothing at affordable prices,” Wajeeh opines.
‘Flex AppealWear’ has been welcomed into the market with an overwhelming response since its launch in September 2017. The steadily growing brand has stayed true to its word and their products match the quality that they claim to offer.
The experience Wajeeh gained from Flex AppealWear then inspired him into setting up his own company to fulfill a longtime dream. This led to the inception of ‘Product of Pakistan’, the basic principle behind which is to cut out the middle man and end the exploitation of local talented individuals that possess a unique skill but are unable to sell their products for a fair price.
Wajeeh’s aim was to create an online portal that would enable talented individuals from all around Pakistan to directly connect with potential customers and set their own prices for their products.
“I started out with 8 vendors, a mix of Punjabi and Sindhi manufacturers, and I am consistently working on increasing the number. I do keep a small commission on every sale but that is added to the total price, so the price demanded by the vendor is exactly what the vendor receives.”
To start off, Product of Pakistan is only operational within Pakistan but Wajeeh is hopeful of expanding its reach and ultimately go global. The young entrepreneur’s current goal is to incorporate Kashmiri vendors into his website.
“Being a Kashmiri myself, I have always been very curious about the conflict over the region. Although I am unable to do anything about the political situation, I am in the process of attempting to get Kashmiri vendors to showcase their talent on my website so at least I am able to help stimulate some economic growth in the region.”
