This story sheds light on my life story.
From where I was born to where and what I am up to till date. My life growing up, education and choosing a career.
How I started my professional career in Internet Marketing?
How I ended up screwing up everything?
How I bounced back and going stronger than ever?
Since this is my life story I will try to keep this updated. Because that’s how I think it will make me more accountable and make me stay on my toes to do something better and lead a meaningful life.
Another aspect of this story is to remind you of who you are. Let the success do not deviate you in wrong direction. It is to remember my past and stay humble. Overall to motivate myself and a bit of inspiration for those who come from poor and humble background.
By ‘everything’, it implies just everything I generated through the business I embarked on for the first time. To be exact, the revenue being generated then abruptly ended up as Google updated its algorithm and from bad to worse, we ended up losing our 90% clients to eventually come back to square one!
Biratnagar, Nepal – where my story begins…
I was born and brought up, in a small town in the eastern region of Nepal which is called Biratnagar.
Growing up in a small town in rural Nepal, I had not developed any Smart skills within me or my insight or simply the way of thinking was not so developed. I always remained a mediocre kid in my regular life however, as a school-going student, I am still aware that I outshined my classmates in terms of performance.
More precisely, my scores were better than that of a regular student. However, in real world, I realize those scores hardly matters. Now while I have come of age, I realize that schools or the education system we have in most of the developing countries of the world is obsolete and we are still coerced to become an engineer or doctor etc. to lead a respectable and good life.
My pathetic story, as an adult, dates back to year 2003, when I had completed my college post-graduation from Nepal’s Tribhuvan University but was a complete fresher with no sound expertise in any technical job. At that time, a potpourri of ideas was hovering around my mind and I was intermingled in the ideas as if what to do with my life yet.
To speak volumes, I had not set any specific career goal in my life, so the situation was quite nerve-wracking. Many say, by the time you have completed your academic session, you must set certain goals for your life. Even I see eye to eye to the same but things were not so favorable to me initially perhaps because of my uncanny and critical philosophy about life.
Even though my goals about life were hazy and stepping into the shoes of an average person was something I had never dreamt of, to tell you very frankly. To be exact, working consistently throughout a year with only a few holidays to spend as vacation, and staying to be under the nose of a boss invariably were not interesting to me at all since I was confident that there would be some better ways out there than this!
[2005] The journey begins…
Finally, I landed in Delhi in the hot and scorching summer of 2005. Some 1500 miles away from my birthplace, I was all alone with my academic certificates and little personal stuffs.
I was deep down under shit when I landed in the Capital City of India. I had run up debt worth of $30,000 at that time! So the first thing I desperately needed to have was a cost-effective job that could help meet my basic personal expenses related to lodging, food, and commuting etc.
As grabbing a magic job was my first priority not only to fulfill the basic needs but also to clear the huge debts that was truly a big ordeal for me. In continued efforts to grab a well-paid job, I had to face about 100’s of interviews and numerous consultations, which however helped me achieve a low-salaried job and which I managed to carry out it for a short term and leaved it eventually realizing its nature was not in sync with my interests.
No two views about it that if I had been working there, it would take some 10 years to pay off the run-up debt! Again, I started looking for a well-paid job that can help me draw huge emoluments every month and ample enough to help me get off the hook of the debt.
My continued endeavors in regard to achieve a high-salaried job started to pass with flying colors and yet not virtually every job opportunity that I was offered unfortunately had to lack the potentiality. By ‘potentiality’, here I mean they all dealt in Indian Currency. However, I wished for something exponential like USD which was equivalent to apprx. INR.50 [USD 1 = INR. 50]!
[2008] – Enter the magical world of Internet Marketing
Then I stumbled upon the world of Internet Marketing. This was a turning point in my life. The concept of internet marketing was spanking new in India and only fewer companies were involved in this domain then.
The client base then mostly constituted a wide range of western companies. After conducting a rigorous search and passing from pillar to post, I was thrilled exceptionally to achieve the dream job. The job largely helped me to attain prominence to a certain degree.
Again, my happiness was short-lived. After exercising the job (from 9AM-5PM) for a span of nine months at a stretch, the market unprecedentedly started to crash down. It was rendered as Global Recession and it lasted for almost 18 months.
The critical situation led me to lay off the job and later I figured out that it was all intentional. The company intended to reduce its overheads by laying existing staffs off and finally they had something to blame on us, or say they had deduced the excuse to shove on us.
“Shit could not have been worse.”
By the time, I had already made up my mind that I would not be working for any one. As I did not want to be laid off again, I started freelancing from my home. I teamed up with one of my colleagues employed in a previous company to start freelancing on a joint venture basis.
We made a pact in accordance of which my colleague would exercise marketing while I was responsible to manage the hands-on operations expertly that would come by as generated results. We had started taking the plunge of internet marketing without caring about the end results.
We were building up our client base to earn handsome income. At that time, the amount we split between us on a monthly basis was indeed much more than our regular expenses. However, the figure of income we used to achieve then was not as impressive as I achieve today but yes, I must say I was more than happy and contended in my life with virtually no worries about my prospects.
To me, life was a cakewalk and I was enjoying every fraction of it in swing. Friends, so far, I have been very easy and accommodating kind of person by personality. Also, I am relatively far from jealousy and other materialistic stuffs that most people typically run after.
All I was looking for a sensational passion and I earned that in the form of Internet Marketing once and for all. I knew I would not be changing my line of work until I retire myself voluntarily in due course.
Then I geared up myself more strongly to nurture my talents in the professional stream to come up with improved expertise and experience eventually. I realized pretty early that this is the field where all I had to do was just pursuing my passion and putting my best efforts.
Byproduct is going to be the Money. I have always considered money to be a secondary choice in my life and it has pretty much paid me back in the way I often wish for. By 2010, I paid off all my debt. Not only that I bought my first land with the money I earned by freelancing.
[2011] – Started First Digital Marketing Agency
Finally, the day came when we started our own company.
Honestly, since the time I ventured into internet marketing business independently, I have been working incessantly really hard. I had never been so dedicated and focused on any industry ever before.
The dynamics…
In our Digital Marketing & SEO industry, we are at the mercy of Google. Adapt or Perish, is a harsh reality, which has to be accepted in either good or bad part.
Until late 2012, everything was going fine until Google hammered the online industry by revising its major algorithm drastically in various forms viz. Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird etc.
Following the year, it all started to crash down and we cut a poor figure in retaining our clients any longer, which brought a major setback and by the end of February 2013, we had run out of cash and it was a Herculean task to meet even our basic office expenditures. Resultantly, we had to lay off our staff and once again, I was back to square one.
Further, all out of my plain, naïve mind I had committed my former partners that I would turn around the situation to bear fruitful results eventually.
In critical moments like these, I think we all have to confront two typical options:1. Give up, fall-apart and disappear or 2. Fight and I did not believe I had what it would take to fight however.
Not only I had to deal with the juncture of debt then but also the sword of liabilities at the company’s end we were operating was dangling over my head constantly. The sense of utter helplessness beggared description and it was a tiring experience for me to deal with.
Within the agency we were experimenting with a lot of other side projects which I was sure would work. But luck had its own course and this time it did not favor me.
While I stuck to my commitment to working on making it work, all my savings laid aside for rainy days haplessly came to an end. In light of the fact, whatever I was able to lay aside the same was not ample enough to meet my basic expenses, a sticky situation that challenged my patience strongly for some time.
Now looking back I realize, I made two biggest mistakes. First, I should not have stopped working on SEO projects which is still my number 1 revenue generating stream. Second, I should not have chased that shiny object. Plus the calculation I had done basis my little experience of things was wrong.
By the time I was able to assess this, I was left with no other option but to sell my wife’s jewelry ultimately. She indeed has always stood in good stead to me no matter whatever my visions related to my career or our personal lives are.
Today she is the only one confidant who confers a trust upon me and warmly encourages me to pursue my passion.
As I already mentioned above, as a result of Google’s slap and our client’s base dwindling down, the company had to witness their business being dissolved into liquidation and was coerced to lay off us.