A lot has come and passed my way in the past three years, I remember I shifted to Bombay in August 2011, from being a naive intern at OnlyGizmos to founding a single person marketing company with 50,000 $ in sales in exactly 11 months.
Its been like a roller coaster ride for me, from finding a bug in Linkedin to get Linkedin Premium for free to seeing my bank account cross a decent mid 7 digit figure.
I avidly remember visiting the Rodinhoods session at Alok bhai’s office in 2012 or so, there were 5 people (excluding Alok), and we (I mean Alok and the other four people) discussed things like gaming / IT / Web Domain and how KoiMoi got its name.
Even Rodinhoods has emerged in the past 3 years, I remember Alok Bhai once said, I want to attend a session of Rodinhood when the guy standing beside me will tell me “How Rodinhood has helped him and how he is thankful for it, without knowing / recognizing that he is talking to the founder of Rodinhood”
Getting back to the point, I had no idea of what I wanted to do, and had a very vague idea about the IT / Web domain.
I wanted to do something on the web, the best possible thing I felt that I should do was to intern with a company that was in the web domain, and HeadStart came to rescue and I got connected with Annkur Agarwal of PriceBaba there.
Worked for him for a year, and later started up MBA Ka Keeda with Sukrut (friend / mentor and partner) for management students, we got lucky, traffic rose day in / day out, when things started moving way too fast, we felt it is better if we part, and I left it, I got decent money (Enough for a years all expenses paid nomad life in (Kashmir or Thailand) out of the exit, I thought to go take it and live the nomad life.
But, something inside me told me to work and work harder before I take any holidays, I shifted to Nagpur, there I ended up cofounding a product for followups (Email / Phone) for US B2B companies, we researched / experimented / analyzed / developed / marketed.
We were certain that people in the US and India need this product (They just dont know it yet)
All the experience was amazing, working overnights / designing stuff / code / taking to people / discussing ideas, an entrepreneurs paradise, but, seems like luck wasn’t in our court, we went out of cash and had to shut it down.
I and my friend had wasted all our savings into the product, we were out of cash and out of hope, I was planning to find a job and work for a couple of years before starting up again, and dropped this idea of being an entrepreneur.
But, something inside me told me to give it a try again.
I (being the marketing lead) for the previous company had some connections in the US (the people whom we sold our product to)
I thought to write them directly to outsource their marketing efforts to me here in India.
Fortunately, out of odd 11 emails that I sent, I got one reply, a guy named Gary Blackmon, he had started up an Insurance company in California and wanted to sell insurance packages to business in California.
He offered me a 1500 $ / month salary to generate leads for him, I took it and started working from my home, helping him generate more leads for his business.
It was November 2013, and ObamaCare was at its peak in California, I used to manage Fb Ads / Content Marketing / Email Marketing / Google Ads for his Business (Gary W Blackmon Insurance agency)
He started getting 20 – 50 leads / calls daily, I remember his exact words, Murtaza, when you send the campaigns, our phone lines here blow up.
He asked me to join a freelance platform called Elance to transfer my monthly salary, and the journey began.
I realized Elance is has a lot of clients who wants to outsource their services in India, and started bidding on projects.
I got lucky, I had already bagged my first 5 digit ($) project before ObamaCare deadline reached.
Im still a freelancer (single person marketing company) had to hire some hands though, with over 5k $ / month revenues, and among the top 3 freelancers in the world for Email marketing / List Building and Content marketing on Elance and have becomes wiser by every passing day.
Only if I would have taken up a job last year, I would have been writing reports instead of this post.
I really feel the three things that made all the difference in my life were :
1 ) Experimenting / Learning / Meeting People who knew what they were doing in life and learn from them. I make sure to read my morning dailies about marketing for an hour or so before checking mails or doing any work to enhance my knowledge.
2 ) Risk Taking (C’mon, we all have heard this) my parents really wanted me to take that job after I failed. No friends by my side to support, it was all dark. But, today, things have changed.
I remember, my Engineering classmate and a very good friend once told me that why do you do all this? his words were “I spend more money every month that you earn, Murtaza, get a job and things will get better” We are still very good friends, and I sometimes jokingly tell him his exact words agian.
3) The most important (To not care about what your “relatives think“)
Starting up? Family (expect for your parents and GF / Spouse) is the last thing you should worry about, they are there to pull you down by showing off how their NRI child sent them a Gucci bag in front of your parents. Stay strong and avoid family gathering if you don’t want to get disappointed. Be connected with friends, you are human and need support.
Im developing a new product for the US B2B Marketing domain (for companies who are marketing their products / services in the US (only for B2B marketing for now))
Do check www.salesengage.biz / www.theFortune5000.com
I provide guaranteed lead generation services to clients (no, I don’t work with web development companies to provide leads) and yes, first campaign free for all Rodinhood readers (pls mention that you read my post and first shot is on the table)
I would like to connect with people and companies in the B2B Marketing domain (India or US), to see if we can work out on something.
Also, I don’t mind offering one email campaign / or 10,000 B2B leads free to all Rodinhooders, feel free to reach me at murtaza@thefortune5000.com (the website isnt ready and is in process)
For detailed specifications of how I can help you, pls check www.salesengage.biz
Alas, I want to thank few people, Annkur (I am and will be) grateful to you for the oppourtunity, Alok Bhai for all the knowledge he shares with us through Rodinhoods and all the people who joined or played a part in my journey in the past 3 years.
Feel free to check my companies page : Twitter / Facebook or my personal Twitter Profile here.