“Do dreams come true?” We listen to these lines in our day-to-day life, but in my case (Rizwan Ahmed) definitely can say that dreams surely come true.
About
I joined freelancing back in 2013 and started from Zero i.e., no skills, no investment, and lack of moral support from family. At that time I remained connected with this field on and off because I was confused like so many newbies about where to start. There wasn’t proper guidance.
Sometimes I go for skill learning and sometimes for projects. I learned skills from trial and error and failed many times. Time passed by and days went on, I started doing affiliate website projects at a small scale due to lack of resources (Money + Time + Content writers). I posted an ad on different social media forums to hire content writers. From there a person named Mr.Imran contacted me and then we decided to expand our business.
Start-Up
Me (Rizwan Ahmed) and Mr. Imran got an idea to create an Amazon Associates Website from different Facebook freelancing and e-Commerce Groups.
At an earlier stage, we registered a domain in October 2020 and started a website. But there were a lot of problems related to investment, manpower, and management. To cater to the issue of manpower, we decided to build a team of content writers, developers, and graphic designers. As we were low on investment and can’t pay monthly salary to employees.
We adopted the “Learning plus Earning” model and came up with an idea to educate newbies where they can polish their skills and get hands-on experience “کیونکہ بہترین صدقہ کسی کو ہنر مند بنانا ہے ”. For this purpose, we posted an ad in different Facebook freelancing and e-Commerce groups.
We got messages from across the countryside. In the beginning, we created a WhatsApp group and added all members to that group. It was a difficult task to manage a large group of members. For ease of management, we created different WhatsApp groups according to the skill, aptitude, and interest of the members. We used the Zoom platform to educate them.
Strategies
Gadget Reporter was a dream project for us where everyone (members + management) has done their job passionately. The whole team worked day and night on this project. We conducted meetings and worked for 24 hours continuously. We devised unique content strategies according to back-to-back Google Algorithm Updates in the year 2021. Content writers implemented those strategies and consistently updated the content according to the provided plan. Due to action-oriented plans and constant content upgrades, Gadget Reporter managed to maintain its position in search results regardless of the Search Engine Algorithm Updates.
Challenges
It was a really difficult task to accommodate the members of different attitudes, interests, aptitudes, skill levels, educational backgrounds, languages, and cultures. But our mission was bigger than the problems. Despite all the hurdles, we didn’t give up and Allah (The Most Gracious and Merciful), rewarded us for our hard work and patience.
The newbies who belong to different areas of Pakistan face many difficulties. Some of them belong to small cities and villages where the internet connection is one of the main problems, whereas sometimes electricity breaks down. Many were housewives, they had to manage their families as well as to complete the assigned task. But they were passionate and hard-working and proved that “where there is a will, there is a way”.
I would like to mention one thing here which is common in every success story. Every story has two characters i.e. Good and Evil and ours is not exempted from this. Good characters come with their positive energy and Evil with their negative vibes,
BUT….
Productivity comes with positivity. We as a whole team, work with a positive attitude and progressive mindset. We as a Digital Family started this project with a positive mindset but there were some people with negative energies. They tried to destroy everything and defame us due to their own insecurities. They tried their best to earn a bad reputation for us but
ٌوتعز من تشاء و تذل من تشاءٌ (القرآن)
Skills & Opportunities
We trained them and provided hands-on experience to help them excel in their respective areas (content writing, development, graphic designing, SEO, Social media marketing). We not only train them but also provided a business opportunity to earn a livelihood. We offered them a 50-50 commission-based partnership where we were responsible for the development and management & content writers were supposed to provide well-researched SEO Optimized content.
Achievements
By the Grace of Allah Almighty and our endless hard work, Gadget Reporter was ranking in search results just after a month. The content was published in Dec 2020 and earned $13 in Jan 2021. Just after a month Gadget Reporter earnings crossed $250.
At the time of flipping, almost all articles ranked in the top 20 search results and most of them were in the top 10 with top content ranking for 1000+ keywords. Gadget Reporter has flipped on Flippa for $6500 a few days ago. This was the story of our last 10 months but our journey does not end here. After this achievement, we have planned new business ventures together with the aim to train newbies and become a helping hand in their struggling period.
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