IBA Center for Entrepreneurial Development will host a session with Saif Ali focused on the financial side of building a startup, aimed at helping founders develop a stronger grasp of the metrics that drive sustainable growth. The session is scheduled for Saturday, August 8, 2026, at City Campus, IBA Karachi, and is being framed around the idea that a compelling pitch may secure a meeting with investors, but it is the underlying numbers that ultimately determine whether an investment follows.
Organisers describe the session as a response to a shifting funding environment in which investors are asking tougher and more detailed questions of founders, moving beyond a strong narrative to scrutinise the financial fundamentals behind a business. This shift places greater pressure on founders to understand core startup metrics, including how revenue, costs, unit economics and growth trajectories are evaluated by investors assessing a company’s long term viability rather than its short term traction alone.
The session’s central premise, encouraging founders to think like an investor while continuing to build like a founder, points to a broader gap that often exists between how entrepreneurs present their businesses and how investors actually evaluate them. Many early stage founders build strong products and compelling narratives but struggle to translate that into the financial literacy needed to withstand detailed due diligence, a gap that sessions like this one are designed to help close through direct, practical instruction rather than theoretical coverage of finance concepts.
IBA CED has continued to organise sessions addressing different aspects of entrepreneurship and startup development, with this particular session focusing specifically on the financial competency founders need as they move toward fundraising conversations. Positioning the event around a working knowledge of investor expectations rather than general business advice reflects a more targeted approach to preparing founders for the kinds of questions they are likely to face once they move past an initial pitch and into deeper investor scrutiny.
As the funding environment across Pakistan’s startup ecosystem continues to demand more rigorous financial preparation from founders seeking capital, sessions built around practical financial literacy, delivered directly by practitioners with relevant experience, are likely to remain a recurring feature of programming offered by university based entrepreneurship centres such as IBA CED.
Follow the SPIN IDG WhatsApp Channel for updates across the Smart Pakistan Insights Network covering all of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem.
