Karamveer's Blog

My Online Journey

admin — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 16:58:51 +0000

[I wrote this post in 2008, on one of my other blogs, jimkarter.com. I am moving it here as it is about my journey in the world of web.]

I received an email from one of my readers, asking me how I managed to be a success in the web business. Like him, there would a lot of people, who would want to know how I generate traffic for my websites. I thought, it would be a better idea to write about my journey of internet adventure and how I reached, where I am today! Let me give you an insight on how it all began. I am sure, it’s gonna be a big post, so bear with me.

Year 1997

I belong to a very small village in the state of Rajasthan, India. I did my schooling in a small city. In 1997, I got selected to study engineering at I.I.T. Bombay, one of the prestigious technology institutes of India. This is where, I first touched the computer; this is where, I first learned FORTRAN, C and C++.

Year 1999

In 1999, I was appointed as the Computer Secretary of my hostel (H6 IITB). I got my first PC (Intel Pentium 133 Mhz with MMX) and managed to get the internet connection up-to my room. This was the time of great technology and internet boom. All those “Get Paid to Surf” sites were making a lot of money by installing that small advertising bar at the bottom of the desktop. I, along with 3 other colleagues, started a company to bring that get-paid-to-surf business to India. We registered two sites called earnindia.com and publixzone.com. These were our first sites. Venture failed, sites lost. Pockets burned. Moved on.

Year 2001

I graduated from IIT Bombay and joined VERITAS Software (now Symantec) in 2001 and worked there till February 2004. In 2001, when I joined VERITAS, I had access to quite good (read as fast) internet connection. That is when I registered my first website hindilyrix.com (this site gets around 7 million page views per month now). It was just a hobby site of mine. The site, initially didn’t do well, and there were hardly any resources to monetize it properly. But slowly the traffic started to grow and I started earning few pennies out of it. Then, one day Google Adsense was launched and everything else is history!

Year 2002 and 2003

By this time, my first site was doing pretty well. Whatever I earned from this site, I invested in building my other sites. At the end of 2003, I had around 5+ sites generating a few dollars per month. My day job was also pretty good, hence I was able to save some good money. One fine day, I decided to quit my day job and enter into internet business full fledged. Planning took some time and it was not until Feb 2004, when I finally quit my job.

Year 2004 - The Toughest Year of My Life

This was the year, when I quit my day job (Feb, 2004). I started my company with the help of one of my friends [Mr. Amol Naresh]. The company was officially launched on 1st April 2004. In this year, my wife was pregnant; we were expecting a baby in the month of May. Company formation, salaries and initial investment were heavy on the pockets. I almost ran out of money, at one point. With the arrival of the baby, the money became even scarce. Many times, I thought that I should ask my dad for some money, but could never do that. My friend and I were the only two people working for the company. In two month’s time, we were able to build more websites and earn some pennies, and that is when, we hired the third person. In the next two months, we hired the 4th person, and then the 5th person. In all these times, I was almost out of money and my bank accounts showed nearly zero balances. It was till the end of year 2004, when our efforts paid off; we managed to get good revenue from our new sites on which we all 5 were burning the midnight oil.

Year 2005 - 2006

In year 2005, our company grew in size and revenue. This was the time when I slowly started making the company independent. I started delegating work to the employees who knew what and how to work on. The company now stands independent and I am there as a mentor to my people. With some of my responsibilities delegated, I had time to slowly start working on my own sites (the ones I used to work before starting the company). These sites, initially didn’t belong to my company, as these were personal sites. Then slowly, I started outsourcing the work on my personal sites to our own company, and if needed, I outsourced it to other companies/individual as well.

Year 2007 (Current Year)

The company has grown quite a bit. It now manages around 300 websites. With time, I registered many more sites. I personally manage a few of them. So, it was not just one night’s business to start and make things run smoothly. I had lots of ups and downs in this business. There were times, when I was almost out of money. It’s the hard work that paid off. When I started, there were not many places (like digitalpoint) to help people find information on making money online. I had to make my own online money-making strategies and try and test it myself.

Finally….

Finally, I am happy that I took that toughest decision to quit my day job to start my own company. I thank god for being there and for helping me sail through the toughest phase of my life.

Back to Blogging

admin — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 16:43:08 +0000

I am back! It took me 3 long years to decide that I need to blog again. And this is my first post on this blog after my 3 year long hiatus.

Earlier, I used to write some informative content on this blog, but gradually the work stopped for no apparent reason. I had another blog, jimkarter.com, for which I was writing till August 2009. I completely stopped writing on both my blogs, by the end of 2009.

Now, I am back to do what I love doing-writing blogs. I have removed most of the previous posts from this blog, as I plan on changing the theme of the blog.

What will I blog about?

Previously, I used to blog about how to make money online. Now, I will be blogging mostly on the following themes:

Web and Webmasters
Entrepreneurship in India
Technical aspects of Linux / Apache / MySql / PHP / Perl
Etc. etc.

There might be some more sections added, as and when required.

I will use this blog, mostly as my diary to keep track of things I am doing; just in the hope that somebody else might also need to do the same thing, which I have learned by spending great amount of time.

With this hope, wish me luck.

BlogCamp Mumbai : Had Fun

admin — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:43:49 +0000

I was in Mumbai this weekend (29^th March 2008) for BlogCamp Mumbai Style event. BlogCampMumbai was a part of the overall barcamp event.

There were around 300 to 400 attendees for the event. It was held at School of Management, IIT Bombay (my college). It was a moment of nostalgia, as I visited the college after 3 years. Before entering the event, I drove around the campus of IIT to see if there have been any changes, since I last saw it. As expected, a lot of things had changed.

Finally, I went to school of management and registered for the event. There was an informal sort of introduction on what barcamp is all about and what people are going to discuss/present in various threads. Then separate threads of the event started and I moved to the blogcamp seminar hall.

There were some presentations by various people about blogging, SEO and making money online. I also gave a presentation about how to make money online. My presentation was more of a question and answer session about various aspects of SEO, site building, link building and making money online.

I met with lots of interesting bloggers like Tarun Chandel, Moksh Juneja, Dinesh, Meetu, Rohit, Ashwin & Mani and many others.

DNA newspaper covered the event and there was a full page coverage of the event on 31^st March 2008, Mumbai edition. I was also interviewed by Mahafreed from DNA. You can read more about it here. Thanks Mahafreed!

Here are some of the pictures from the event:

Presentation at BlogCamp
Posing for DNA Newspaper:
Introduction at BarCamp:
BlogCamp Seminar Hall: