Startup Grind Lahore will host a fireside chat with Afra Nehal, a San Francisco based founder, investor, and Chief Operating Officer of Alif, on Monday, October 26, 2026, at Daftarkhwan Downtown in Gulberg, Lahore. The session, titled Cracking Go to Market: How Early Stage Startups Win Enterprise Customers and Scale, runs from 5:15 PM to 6:45 PM and is organized in collaboration with Daftarkhwan. The organizers open with a point many founders learn the hard way: building a great product is only half the battle, and the real challenge begins when a company tries to land its first enterprise customers, shorten its sales cycles, and build a repeatable go to market playbook.
Afra Nehal brings a mix of corporate, founder, and investor experience to the stage. Alif is an early stage venture capital firm that invests up to 500,000 dollars in high growth technology startups. Before that, she managed a 30 million dollar portfolio at IBM, co-founded three companies including one that ended in a successful exit, and has guided more than 30 early stage startups on sales and go to market strategy. The organizers describe the session as a chance to bring Silicon Valley playbooks directly to Lahore, giving local founders access to practical lessons from someone who has seen enterprise sales from the seller’s side, the investor’s side, and the operator’s side.
The conversation is built around four themes. The first is how to craft a high converting go to market strategy from day one, so that sales planning starts alongside product development rather than after it. The second is how to close enterprise deals as an early stage company, where long procurement processes and the need for trust make selling to large organizations especially difficult for small teams. The third covers what early stage investors look for in sales traction, a topic of direct interest to founders preparing to raise money. The fourth looks at how to scale local innovation to global markets, which is a central question for Pakistani startups that want to grow beyond their home market.
Seats are limited, and those who wish to attend can reserve a spot through the registration page. Startup Grind Lahore is part of the global Startup Grind community, which runs regular fireside chats with entrepreneurs and investors, and the Lahore chapter has long hosted such sessions in the city’s coworking spaces. For founders in Lahore selling software or services to businesses, the evening offers a chance to hear how an experienced operator approaches enterprise sales and to put questions directly to an investor who evaluates sales traction as part of her work. Given the limited seating and the short time left before the session, early registration is advised.
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