Session on ‘Mastering the Financial Component for Startups’.

The Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation Development (CEID) at DHA Suffa University arranged an interactive session on an important topic of ‘Mastering the Financial Component for Startups’.

The speaker of this session was ‘Mr. Faraz Younus Banduka’ who is currently the Chief Executive officer at Al Hilal Shariah Advisors (Pvt.) limited, as well as ‘Al- Hilal Securities Advisors (Pvt.) Limited. Having a decade of experience and a diverse portfolio in Islamic Financial World, makes him a modern-day pioneer when it comes to Product Development, Shariah Compliance and Islamic Capital Markets. He is also a very enthusiastic serial entrepreneur and played a vital role in funding of various startups as an ‘Initial Investor’. Mr. Faraz is a veteran speaker with substantial financial expertise all across the globe.

In the session, Mr. Faraz discussed in detail about financial aspects of any startups, and how important part it plays in the planning and strategy development of any business at any level. He emphasized that entrepreneurs often have more or less a clear idea about their business but quite often they do not know the business models they have chosen works in practice and they end up learning it the hard way, through their own mistakes. They have even more problems with understanding whether the idea is worth trying or not. No matter what business one is working on or trying to start, it is worth devoting some time building a financial / business model. Creating a Financial Model forces an entrepreneur to plan very specifically how their business will work and having a solid financial model has always been a pre-requisite for raising startup funding.

It was an interactive event as he provided detailed and practical aspects from his own experience in operating the startups. It was a very beneficial event for the students as it exposed them to a new and diverse dimension of financial management with the mindset of an entrepreneur.