National Incubation Center Karachi recently held a Pitch Fest that gave aspiring entrepreneurs and emerging founders a platform to present their startup ideas and receive feedback from experienced founders. The session brought together Sibtain Raza, Founder of Lendverse, and Aqeel Tarani, Founder of Cort Technologies, who spoke with participants through one-on-one pitching interactions. Each participant had a chance to present directly to an entrepreneur who has built a company in the same city, which made the feedback specific to their own ideas.
The discussions helped founders assess their concepts, identify gaps, refine their value propositions and gain a clearer understanding of the areas that need further development. Presenting an idea to someone who has gone through the process of building and selling a product tends to expose weak points that founders overlook when they work alone, such as an unclear customer or a promise that is hard to prove. In a one-on-one format, the founders giving feedback could respond to the details of each idea instead of offering general advice.
The center described such practical engagements as important for helping early stage entrepreneurs build firmer business foundations, make informed decisions and gain the confidence to move through the next stages of their startup journey. Both guest founders are graduates of the center’s program, which gave participants a direct example of where the process can lead. Lendverse and Cort Technologies were among the startups in the center’s recent cohort, and their founders returned to share what they learned along the way.
National Incubation Center Karachi operates with the backing of the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication and Ignite, the National Technology Fund, with Tech Destination Pakistan, LMKT, LuckyOne Mall and Orbit Ventures supporting its work. Pitch sessions of this kind form part of the center’s regular activities, offering aspiring founders a low pressure setting to test their ideas before they face investors or formal selection panels. For participants, the main outcome is a clearer view of what to fix and what to keep, which they can apply as they continue to develop their startups.
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