Most startups don’t fail because of a bad idea, they fail because of a bad equity split, a fuzzy business model, or numbers nobody fully understood, and IBA CEDIR built this week’s programming around fixing exactly that. Running from October 5 to 10, 2026, each day from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM, the centre is hosting four sessions addressing four skills it considers essential for every founder to eventually master, regardless of what their actual product or service happens to be.
The week opened on Monday, October 5, at SEIC’s Youth Development Centre with a session on Founder Agreements, Equity Mechanics and Incorporation, led by Raza Zaidi, Partner at Syed Shabbar Zaidi & Co. Zaidi brings international experience from JP Morgan and Deloitte UK in tax strategy, compliance and deal structuring, giving him firsthand insight into the legal and regulatory frameworks businesses must navigate as they formalize ownership and structure among co-founders. On Wednesday, October 7, at the same venue, Irfan A. Khan led a session on Business Model Canvas and Revenue Design. Khan is a corporate finance professional and entrepreneur with more than 28 years of experience across banking, healthcare and retail, and is the Founder of DVAGO and a Director at Cutera Aesthetics, with a track record of building and scaling ventures and helping entrepreneurs refine their business models and investor pitches.
Friday, October 9, brought a Startup KPIs and Goal-Setting Workshop led by Dr. Kanza Sohail, Incubation Lead at IBA CEDIR and Assistant Professor at the School of Business Studies, IBA Karachi, who specializes in entrepreneurship education and business incubation, helping founders validate ideas, build scalable ventures and navigate the broader startup journey. The series closes on Saturday, October 10, at IBA’s City Campus with a session on Financial Literacy and Venture Economics led by Fatiq Bin Khursheed, CFA. Khursheed is currently building an AI-driven investment platform at the intersection of finance and technology, and previously served as CEO of VLEKTRA, where he laid the foundation for Pakistan’s first lithium-ion-based electric motorcycle initiative, as well as leading Finqalab, Pakistan’s first modern-day trading platform for retail investors, from launch through to sustainability.
Taken together, the four sessions move founders through a logical sequence, from structuring ownership and incorporation, to designing a coherent business model, to setting the right goals and metrics, and finally to understanding the financial mechanics underpinning venture building itself. By spacing the sessions across most of a week rather than compressing them into a single day, IBA CEDIR gives founders room to absorb and apply each topic before moving to the next, reflecting the centre’s broader approach of pairing practical, speaker-led instruction with the kind of foundational business skills that often get overlooked in the rush to build a product.
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