TechLahore

ArziRehaish helps single out of towners find inexpensive accommodations.

Tariq Khan, Founder of ArziRehaish contacted me recently, asking if I would help him promote his new startup. I’m always game for promoting local entrepreneurs as long as they can clearly articulate their ideas, convince me about their value proposition and generally excite me about their ultimate market potential. After quite a bit of back and forth, Tariq was able to show me that he was on to something. Here’s an interview conducted over email that describes his startup in more detail:

Q: Tariq, what is ArziRehaish.pk?

A: ArziRehaish is an online portal that facilitates bachelors looking for rental accommodations in Pakistan. There are a fair number of young professionals who travel away from their home town for educational or work purposes. We have experienced that out-of-town students and working professionals face lots of problems in finding the right accommodation, at the right price, in their new city.

On the other hand landlords looking to rent out small, inexpensive accomodations don’t always contact Agents; primarily to avoid the overhead. So, there is an unfulfilled demand from both sides. We figured we could connect both  parties for FREE and make some money in the bargain! Hence ArzeRehaish.pk

Q: Interesting. How did you chance upon the idea?

A: Back in April, 2006 I got an interview call from Islamabad. I moved to Islamabad from Karachi, appeared in the interview and was selected as a Software Engineer. One of my friends, who was living in Islamabad, helped me in finding a hostel, and I started living there. Initially I was paying Rs.4,500 per bed. There were 3 people to a room, and in general, the Hostel facilities were good. Food was decent and the environment was clean and friendly.

After 6 months of my arrival, the hostel manager gave me a notification of rental increase to the tune of Rs.1,500. I wasn’t happy about this and requested him to reconsider because the new rent was going to be out of my budget. However, he refused and rather curtly replied, “If you can’t afford it you can leave the hostel on a month’s notice.”

I started to search for new accommodation options. I had to wait for the Sunday paper because mostly landlords advertise on Sunday. At that time there was no information available on the internet concerning bachelor accommodations. I desperately wished there was a web portal which could provide the information quickly and conveniently. After going through newspaper after newspaper, and spending 6 weeks looking, I finally found a better option and left the hostel.

What I went through during this time gave me the idea for ArziRehaish.pk.

Q: Do you think there’s a large addressable market for this?

A: There are more than 18 million internet users in Pakistan. Given our demographics, the majority of these users fall in the 16 to 25 age group. These numbers show that we have a huge internet market in Pakistan composed of people who are likely to be single. A fair percentage of these will likely travel outside their hometown to work or study. There’s definitely a market out there. All we need is to figure out how to exploit it with our innovative idea.

Q: You mentioned you would connect renters and landlords directly and for free. How do you plan on monetizing ArziRehaish?

A: The plan is to earn revenue in multiple ways: advertisements and paid premium services.

We are not planning on using a banner ad service and will instead opt to show ad inventories from local companies like the large telcos etc.

The second stream will be paid or premium services. We will place property information in a special high visibility section in return for a small fee.

Q: How do you go to market with this idea?

A: We’re going to adopt an online and offline marketing strategy. We plan to promote our offerings via online marketing, which includes posts on forums, blogs, Web Portals ads, SMS marketing, Social Media and online press releases.

In the first phase we will focus on online marketing tools specifically because they are low-cost. Once we are able to generate some income, we will move to the second phase, which will include offline techniques, including physical visits and in-person meetings, advertising on physical billboards and so on.

Q: Are you the only ones doing this? Who are your competitors?

A: Currently, we the only web portal in Pakistan exclusively focused on this very specific market. But there are some other players in the market who can be considered our competitors. Olx.com.pk is a competitor since it provides a classified ad web portal which includes a section for bachelor accommodations.

Bastee.pk is another competitor. They are a real estate site, but don’t specifically focus on bachelor accommodations.

Great! Thanks for that introduction. We wish you good luck in your venture!

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