This week’s FS publication is full of fascinating reads. After a very long time, FS interviews are making an everyday comeback. This text options 01 sensible new interview.
Moreover, we’ve got wonderful articles on Zatiq, an ecommerce platform concentrating on SMEs, a coverage evaluation on Bangladesh Financial institution’s latest SME remittance facility, and a deep dive into ExchangeKori’s buyer expertise technique.
To prime it off, we have introduced again our studying recs. This difficulty has 03 wonderful hyperlinks.
All hyperlinks are beneath. Get pleasure from!
A Dialog with Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, CTO, Mind Station 23
Mohammad Mizanur Rahman is a Director and the CTO of Mind Station 23, certainly one of Bangladesh’s largest software program and expertise improvement companies firms with a rising world enterprise.
On this all ranging dialog, we discuss his path to what he’s doing in the present day, his work because the CTO of Mind Station 23, operational buildings and techniques of Mind Station 23 as the corporate grows into practically a 1000-people group, how Mind Station 23 is navigating emergence of AI and what he thinks about how AI will reshape the world of software program outsourcing enterprise, his administration method, classes from his journey and way more.
Based in 2006, Mind Station 23 has seen phenomenal development during the last practically 20 years, rising from a tiny group of some folks in its early days to a large of practically a 1000-people firm. The corporate has not solely constructed a robust world enterprise, it has additionally constructed an enchanting organizational mannequin, determining tips on how to scale with out breaking organizational tradition of agility and excellence, create leaders at scale, and always evolve with the market.
Progress is a problem for many firms. The primary problem is breaking out of an obvious development plateau that each one firms inevitably encounter after a sure stage of their journey. The second problem is designing a company that may handle development with out breaking up. An obvious scarcity of top of the range managers and operators make these challenges doubly painful for a lot of Bangladeshi firms. Being in an business that’s in fixed flux and has excessive competitors for expertise, this problem is extra pronounced for a corporation like Mind Station 23.
We glance into how Mind Station 23 has innovated on group design to handle a few of these challenges. To interrupt out of the expansion plateau, take dangers, give attention to folks, and ship persistently dependable companies. To scale efficiently, construct autonomous small enterprise models utilizing a mix of significant autonomy, duty, and rewards. Create and empower leaders. Decentralize determination making with significant logic. And eventually, evolve relentlessly.
We additionally discuss intimately about what Mizan thinks about how AI will change the software program outsourcing enterprise, how Mind Station 23 is navigating AI adoption, and whether or not the corporate has an AI technique going ahead.
Constructing a consequential and enduring group is a close to inconceivable feat. Certainly one of my takeaways from this dialog is that Mind Station 23 has found out the puzzle. To find out how Mind Station 23 has finished it, it’s a must to learn the interview.
Ideas on Bangladesh Financial institution’s SME Remittance Facility: Progress and Obstacles
Bangladesh Financial institution has launched a brand new international remittance facility for small and medium enterprises. SMEs can now remit as much as $3,000 yearly for enterprise bills overseas. They’ll use financial institution transfers or particular SME Playing cards with $600 limits. However there is a catch: SMEs should register with the SME Basis to qualify.
The round, FEPD Round No. 38, took impact on October 5, 2025. It offers a structured path for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to entry international alternate for worldwide enterprise bills. It covers routine enterprise bills however excludes royalty funds and technical charges, which fall beneath separate BIDA pointers.
Insurance policies are advanced affairs. If you find yourself placing ahead a coverage determination, you’re not solely seeking to advance the great and maximize the upsides. You’re equally seeking to decrease the downsides and restrict undesirable outcomes. This complexity makes it tough to jot down about coverage selections. However insurance policies are essential. They arrive with actual prices. Each coverage determination has each rapid and long-term penalties. Good intentions are hardly ever sufficient. Typically, no coverage is best than a nasty coverage. As such, they need to be scrutinized.
Zatiq: Constructing an Built-in E-commerce Platform for Small Companies in Rising Markets
In Bangladesh, small retailers and MSMEs have lengthy dominated commerce however face a essential conundrum. Whereas smartphone penetration deepens and digital funds grow to be mainstream and tens of millions of small companies try to transition from conventional retail to e-commerce, the instruments to promote effectively on-line stay stubbornly out of attain.
Many present world e-commerce platforms demand technical experience, hefty month-to-month subscriptions, and bank cards, all in brief provide for a lot of of those MSMEs and digital retailers in Bangladesh. Moreover, many of those platforms are too advanced, and critically, not designed for native market situations.
As a substitute, these entrepreneurs cobble collectively makeshift options, primarily promoting by Fb (therefore F-commerce) with guide record-keeping and cash-on-delivery preparations.
This digital disconnect, tens of millions of small sellers unable to entry appropriate e-commerce infrastructure regardless of keen clients, just isn’t distinctive to Bangladesh. Throughout South Asia and the Center East, a curious paradox exists: speedy digital adoption on the client stage has outpaced the event of acceptable instruments for retailers.
This hole represents not only a enterprise alternative however a structural financial bottleneck. How do you digitize tens of millions of small retailers who lack technical experience, capital sources, and entry to built-in native options?
Enter Zatiq, a three-year-old startup that is constructed an all-in-one e-commerce infrastructure particularly engineered for rising markets. The corporate says it goals to simplify the transition to on-line enterprise for SMEs in Bangladesh and past by providing a collection of accessible, reasonably priced, and user-friendly options that deal with each the entry-level wants of first-time sellers and the superior necessities of scaling manufacturers.
How ExchangeKori Delivers Distinctive Buyer Expertise
Buyer expertise in Bangladesh’s pc market tells a story of two realities.
The dominant expertise stays frustratingly acquainted: stroll into most electronics markets—Multiplan Middle, IDB Bhaban, Elephant Street—and you will find clients crouched on plastic stools in crowded areas, watching technicians juggle a number of repairs whereas fielding telephone calls.
Timelines are sometimes obscure (“come again tomorrow, possibly”), warranties come loaded with exclusions, and primary amenities for purchasers like clear washrooms stay uncommon luxuries.
Actually, some established gamers present respectable service, and some retailers provide skilled environments for brand new laptop computer gross sales. However for the huge center market, significantly used laptops and repairs, the shopper expertise incessantly ranges from tolerable to actively disagreeable.
For laptop computer purchases, the challenges multiply. Many used laptop computer sellers defend themselves with closely conditional warranties: Battery issues not lined. Show points excluded. Motherboard failures void protection. Clients usually depart these interactions feeling like they’ve entered a relationship designed round mutual suspicion fairly than mutual profit.
Company patrons face their very own frustrations. Even when buying a number of laptops, companies usually encounter the identical cramped environments, unclear restore timelines, and conditional protection that particular person clients expertise. When units want service, firms lose productive time sending staff to attend whereas hoping for favorable remedy.
Whereas these issues aren’t common, there are firms that present good companies, they’re widespread sufficient to symbolize a real barrier to expertise adoption. When buying and sustaining laptops entails predictable frustration, companies delay upgrades, people prolong the lifetime of failing tools, and the complete market grows extra slowly than it’d with higher service requirements.
Into this atmosphere, ExchangeKori launched a distinct customary of service: what if clients truly loved the expertise? The corporate addresses every ache level systematically. The place typical repairs contain obscure timelines and anxious ready, ExchangeKori offers rapid analysis, clear explanations, and particular completion dates. The place clients usually endure uncomfortable environments, it affords air-conditioned areas with correct seating. The place warranties expire into indifference, it maintains relationships by “grace interval” that cowl restore prices even after official protection ends.
Studying Suggestions
The Three Parts of the Good Life
A brief attention-grabbing piece based mostly on Carl R. Rogers’s One Turning into A Individual.
The Economist piece argues why authorities and coverage makers needs to be extra intentional about investing in producing geniuses as a result of usually people make important variations in advancing many essential fields. The article makes use of AI for instance the place prime AI researchers have performed an outsized position in shaping the sphere and the place each firm and nation is competing to draw the identical small cohort of AI abilities. The article argues that coverage markets would do higher in the event that they as a substitute put money into recognizing and nurturing abilities as a result of many extremely succesful younger abilities don’t flourish because of lack of alternatives.
The most effective normal recommendation on earth
A bunch of superb recommendation from William James on habits and tips on how to to consider habits.
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