tldr: Recurship has been acquired by Sastaticket.pk
Making a big bet in a business strategy is hard – especially if your business is growing and doing financially well. This was the case for me when I had a to make this decision a few weeks ago for Recurship to be acquired by Sastaticket. The thought process however had been brewing in my mind for months. Ever since mid-last year, I had been thinking about what the next steps were. Over the last few years, Recurship had been moulded into specialist Javascript consultancy – helping clients abroad with product development and beyond. Locally we had focused on building the community and help share our knowledge with everyone. However something was missing, even with the amazing team, interesting clients, our driven culture and extreme focus on quality and automation, one thing I just could not figure out was our purpose.
The Golden Circle is a concept by Simon Sinek [1] which has helped me define the important things in my life. “What”, “how”, “why”. “What” was always easy – software development was at my core, web and mobile app development had been my focus for the last decade. “How” wasn’t too hard, I was well in touch with the latest technologies with Javascript being my personal favorite. “Why” however is very tricky – its not just about the purpose but a mix of your calling, your belief. Why do you get out of the bed in the morning? [2] Why does Recurship even exist?
I recall the “why” for when I started the consultancy. I had come back from UK after my bachelor’s with the hopes of making a dent in the local economy. Our country is a gold mine of opportunity. Back then the idea was just to get people who were passionate about programming and technology like myself working together so, instead of working alone from home or a shared office space, we could work as a team. The idea was to create a working environment like no other in the city and after getting some experience eventually move into product development. It was simple and exciting but also relaxed. It took a year or two to figure out the dynamics, I got to know the right people and convinced them to join the cause (i.e. the “why”). But at some point the “why” got lost – and as the burn rate increased, focus shifted towards growth and profitability.
Last year I decided to take a step back and start to reassess everything again. I mainly did this because I was no longer excited about the work we were doing. It was fun working for startups in the west, but for all our clients – it was hard to see the impact here. Since our own startup community was starting to grow, and internally the team felt we would be better off focusing on a single thing together – it was time to focus on product development. We had dipped our toes into it before with Asana Task Viewer chrome extension (over 5000 users) and Asana Importer chrome extension, along side several internal projects (BigBrother being my favorite) but keeping the focus was hard. When you have a consultancy that pays your bills, it always comes before the product. Its not like its not possible to do them side by side, there are many successful examples who have managed to do it before – but I personally just did not have enough discipline to do it.
So that brings me back to the next steps. Something had to change, drastically. After evaluating several opportunities in the last few months – this one caught my eye. Sastaticket.pk is a well funded startup working on disrupting how we organize and book our online travel. Its a huge growing market primed for a digital shift as we start buying our goods online and use services like Careem. I believe this potential unicorn has the right backing and the possibility to change the regional travel industry for the better. And the potential scope goes well beyond just travel. This is a startup which will not only impact our local markets, but also work on the problems we have faced over the last few years while traveling. So when the offer for acquiring Recurship came in, I did not have to think too long before making the decision.
Im looking forward to an exciting and adventurous journey over the next few years – expecting it to be full of interesting challenges, learning new tech and working with amazing people – most of which will be my current team. Im looking forward to learning the quirks of the travel industry and how we can build solutions around them to give the best online travel experience possible. There are several new technologies maturing which will definitely have a great impact on this space. Im also looking out to connect with people who are interested in similar problems, so if you are one of them – please do reach out!
I will end with one of Steve Jobs favorite quotes, an invitation for all readers to also take a step back and think about where they are headed:
“Stay hungry, stay foolish.”
Incase you are looking for inspiration:
[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action#t-162626]
[2] https://www.ted.com/talks/steve_jobs_how_to_live_before_you_die
Best of luck @mashhoodr & the entire team :+1