This idea was not born in a boardroom. It was born in a DM inbox.
There is a creator on our team. He makes travel, food and couple content with his wife, his engagement is solid, and his bio carries the same line every creator's does: “DM for PR & collabs”. There should have been no shortage of work.
But every month the same cycle: messages to agencies, DMs to brands, waiting on replies from PR managers. Send a hundred messages and two come back, and half of those are “we will get back to you”. It was never about talent. It was about access.
And the other two of us? We have run marketing agencies for years. We have lived the other side of the pain: a whole week disappears finding the right creator for a client, you have to trust screenshots, you doubt the follower counts, and the fear of being ghosted after payment never goes away. The budget is there, the intent is there, but there is no system.
Sitting in the same office, we told each other both sides' complaints, and one day it clicked: these are not two problems. It is one problem. The bridge of trust in the middle is missing. So we started building it ourselves.
We are not building a marketplace. We are growing an industry.
Creators and content are this country's new livelihood, and we believe that the more this industry grows, the more people get dignified work. So Wasta's job is not just to broker deals. Our job is that creators get more work and safer work, small businesses get affordable and verified reach, and agencies can serve their clients faster and cheaper than before.
And yes, we grow together. Any creator, brand or agency that moves with Wasta, Wasta pushes forward: we feature them, we give them shoutouts, we tell their story. They push us forward. Remember the shoutout-for-shoutout days? Same thing, at the scale of a whole industry. When we grow, everyone grows.
Why the name “Wasta”?
In Pakistan, work often runs on how far someone's wasta reaches. Someone's uncle is a minister, someone's friend is at an agency. We thought: why not give every creator and every business that same power. Now anyone can have wasta. Only this time it is not a favour. It is a system.
Team
We are three friends, in one office, every day. Two of us have run marketing agencies and know every pain on the business side: how a client is won, how a campaign runs, and how much time burns finding a creator. The third is a creator himself who lives the DM pain daily. So all three seats at this table are ours: creator, business and agency. Karachi based, standing on our own money, and stubborn about solving this.
What comes next
- NowThe portal is live, Instagram verification is being tested with the first creators, and signups are open.
- ThenClosed beta in Karachi: real campaigns with the first creators, restaurants and salons. Whoever comes first gets featured the most.
- After thatEscrow payments, agency workspaces and a launch for all of Pakistan. We want a name as big as Foodpanda, but for the creator economy.
Where the name comes from
All guidesWhat does wasta mean?
Wasta is an Urdu and Arabic word for a link or intermediary, often meaning influence through connections. What it means, and how Wasta.pk turns it around.