The main purpose of this project was reviewing the state of business startups in Mazar-e-Sharif, therefore it is very important to have a clear definition of what we mean by a business startup in the context of Afghanistan. The startup that we refer to in this report is any business or company which is established within the past 5 years or less and is active today. Therefore, we are targeting entrepreneurs interested establishing small new businesses in recent years, rather than the startup the ideas that are funded by others to see if the product or service can create demand and end up in new ideas or products.

To get a full picture of the state of startups in Mazar-e-Sharif, we interviewed a sum of 278 companies (small businesses that have recently started operating in the informal economy). This figure excludes no response and includes those startups that were found within the past five years and are working today. Our participants included 25.2% companies that are established between 1 to 2 years ago, and another 74.8% companies that were established between 3 to 5 years ago. Around 95% of these firms are located in Mazar-e-Sharif City Center (Nahia 1 to 12) and only 5% of them are located outside the city in suburban districts. According to our prior estimations, 278 companies make up a valid sample size with generalizable results.

In order to obtain a complete picture, the survey was not limited to founders of the organizations, rather the survey interviewed people with different roles in the business including senior managers, directors, masters, and other technical roles, the following figure illustrates the participation according to the functionality of the participants in the firm