This brings us to July - Finally

Now in July (The start of Karachi's Monsoon season) things were starting to fall in place. I finally had everything ready except for a generator for the office and employees.

My parents had left for Quetta (Hometown near the Afghan Border) to attend my cousins wedding - where i was supposed to be in a few days time as well. Anyhow i put an add out in the Dawn Newspaper for writers, i think it cost me around 2000 rupees for a small text add, thats about 18 quid. I got over a hundred e mails in response to the add. After going through all of them i narrowed it down to around 5 writers. My cousin offered me to have the interviews at his office, as i dod not have a generator yet and if the electricity was to go during the interviews then i would not be able to test their writing skills.

So it was a saturday and 2 out of the 5 people turned up. I explained what i needed of them then took them upstairs where the computers were ready for them to start their tests. The tests took around 45 minutes and i told the writers i would contact them within a week.

After checking over the work, only 1 of the writers was up to scratch. So i went ahead and called him in for a second interview, where i explained the whole process to him. The problem is he wanted to work from home, i told him i was a bit funny about employees working from home, as i had already hired people working from home while in the uk and it didnt really work out as the work was never on time. But seen as only 1 candidate was successful, i decided to give it a shot.

So i got the writer started and he was supposed to email me the work on a daily basis - guess what - he was late on the first day. I decided to go him the benefit of the doubt and let him continue.

I was now cutting it really close with my cousins wedding. So i went ahead and bought my self a train ticket - i had been on a train before in pakistan, so i thought let me try it again - Now from Karachi to Quetta by air would cost around 5000-8000 rupees one-way, which is around 45-75 quid and will take 1 hour and 15 minutes. The train on the other hand cost 1065 rupees, which is around 7 quid and took around 22 hours give or take a couple of hours.

Now for anyone looking to travel by train in pakistan, if your travelling during the summer, then make sure you go for at least the Lower Ac cabin so that you have air conditioning. and be sure to take a pillow and light blanket with you as well as a packed lunch.

Trip Karachi To Quetta

Electrifying Electricity

One of the biggest problems we faced in Pakistan is Electricity. Especially in Karachi, They run a system called Load Shedding. This basically means they divide up whatever electricity supply they have amongst the different sectors of Karachi. So at anytime of the day the electricity can disappear from 30 minutes to 8 hours. Now in the winter we get by, but during the summer it’s just ridiculous.

Temperatures knocking up to 47 degrees Celsius. Without an Air Conditions its impossible. So we were forced to get a generator for the place. We managed to find a second hand Honda generator for the house. Now we were told that if we get a 5 KVA generator that it would allow us to run one air conditioner on the generator when the electricity went AWOL. So my father went and bought a generator that looked like it was manufactured during the Second World War. We still have it, but it can’t really stand the stress of an air conditioner. We use it to run the fridge, water dispenser, lights, fans, and computers when needed.

The worst time they could pick for load shedding was night tie when good folks like myself wanted to sleep. Now the weather was too hot for anyone to sleep without an air conditioner or fan. But even with a fan I found it impossible. The other problem is you have to put a generator outside due to the fumes it produces.

Now there seems to be a big problem with generator theft in Karachi. So I couldn’t leave the generator on during the night and not bring it in. Sometimes they like to play games where the electricity will go for about an hour come back for 5 minutes then disappear again.

So as you can see that even with a generator we were still screwed.

May

There were a couple of things that were still required for the office such as crockery for the kitchen and more importantly a water dispenser. Water dispensers are not normally used in the UK at least at home. A Water Dispenser is one of those machines u stick a water bottle in at the top and it gives you cold and hot water.

This was a must in Karachi’s weather, we needed cold water. As is Pakistan’s nature, things began to get ugly again. I ordered a water dispenser from the same company my cousins always use, and received it soon after. I had learnt that in Pakistan not all is as it seems, so I made sure to inspect the dispenser and make sure all was kushty.

But as was my luck the damn thing was broken, so I got them to take it back and exchange it. An hour later another dispenser was delivered and again I inspected it and got the same result, so once again 1 hour later another was delivered. Now the problem is I could only inspect the machine on the outside while the delivery guys were there. I was not allowed to put the dispenser on straight away, because of the compressor, if the compressor (the thing that cools and boils the water) is moved too much during delivery, which it is, and then you need to let the gas in it settle before you can turn it on.

So I left the dispenser there and on the same day the electricity went off as usual, or was it. Yep, the electricity to my office was cut off by the suppliers. Turns out when the owner handed over the office to me he hadn’t paid the electricity bills for a few months and neither had I thought to check it.

Heres another fine mess you got me into

I went back to my cousin and after a lot of options, this is the one I picked. Basically the plan was to get a wireless connection through my laptop and distribute it to all of the computers in the office. I bought an EDGE card that would go into my laptop from Telenor a mobile phone service provider in Pakistan.

After a lot of running around and a lot of help from my cousin, I was finally able to get the whole thing working, but there followed 2 more problems, the first was the cost and the second was the speed. My whole business relies on an internet connection and cannot do any work without it.

After some more running around and advice, I went back to World Online to see if they can get a connection up there, 3 weeks later I finally had a connection in the Office, now this whole process took me close to 3 months, so I was paying rent for an office which was of no use to me without an internet connection.

This brought me to the Month of May.

The Glass Tower

After more searching we finally found a fully furnished office in The Glass Tower, based near Teen Talwar in Clifton. On the 10^th of March 2007 the lease was signed and I finally had an office.

The only thing the office needed was computers and an internet connection and we were good to go.

The next hurdle I faced was setting up an internet connection in the office. Now its not as easy as it is in the UK, make a phone call and all is kushty and we still complain. I got some advice from my cousins and decided to go ahead with a company called World Online. Although there were 4 phone lines in the office only one was capable of handling an ADSL connection. So I got all the papers together and had to get a paper signed by the landlord to go ahead with the connection. It required a bit of running around and suddenly that one phone call felt like nothing. A few days later I got a reply from World Online, and was told that that specific line was already booked with another ISP (Internet Service Provider).

Ok for those of you confused, this basically means that the phone line was in use by the previous tenants with another ISP by the name of Multinet. Now the way the system works is you have to submit all papers required to the ISP, the ISP then puts in an application to PTCL, Pakistan’s Landline Phone service to get them to convert the line into an ADSL line. So what happened is World Online has submitted the application to PTCL and PTCL have come back and said that this line was already converted by Multinet.

So now I had 2 options, either I get a line clearance form from Multinet, which I tried but they sent me on a cat and mouse chase OR I get a connection with Multinet. So Multinet offered to match World Online’s offer, and I caved in and agreed. It took quite a while to get all the papers together and submitted, then it took a further 3 weeks for the technicians to arrive to the office, once they arrived it took all day to get the line sorted and at the end I was informed that the signal is too weak and its not possible to get a connection here.

So I got angry with Multinet and was told it will take 2 weeks to get a clearance letter for the line, so no messing around I went straight to the top and forced them to give me a letter within 3 days. I visited them twice and finally got the letter.

Now I was stuck. Multinet had informed me that it was impossible to get a connection in this office and the only other option was a cable connection, the problem with that is there are no cable lines running through that area. It was my mistake to take their word for it, and started to consider other options.

The Office and The Fraud

When I first arrived in Karachi I was advised by my uncle to not establish a whole fledged office in the beginning, rather to get a few employees and get them started from my new place. There were 2 problems with this, firstly it is illegal to use any property in the Defence residential area for commercial use, simply put you cannot setup any sort of business at home and secondly a lot of employees would see it as very unprofessional and on top of that the Colonel from downstairs had already warned us about not setting anything up at home.

So I began the search for an office. This like the portion took about a month. Unlike the UK where we take a lot of things for granted, the basics had to be inspected, this includes water, electricity and general maintenance. Soon after I found a small office on a mezzanine floor in a place called Rahat commercial area, which is close to our portion. We settled the amount and were about to sign the papers with the owner, when the owner aka Akhtar Gul told us he had another shop in a place called Tawheed Commercial Area, which was bigger and in a better location. All he wanted was an extra 15 quid per month.

We went to see the place, the biggest mistake we made here was not to bring the estate agent with us, and in fact Akhtar Gul asked the agent to stay at the office and said we will be back in 15 minutes, we trusted the guy, and so we went along with him.

When we got there it all seemed like a good deal. The only problem was with the bathroom; it had no water. Akhtar Gul informed us that he had turned off the water valve upstairs and would get it started immediately. We went back to the office and signed the agreement and handed over 2 months deposit and 3 months advance rent.

We left the keys for the shop with him, so that he could get the water problem and cleaning sorted.

5 days later we contacted him, to check on the work, turns out the guy has gone and installed a water tank in the bathroom and was expecting us to fill up the tank on a regular basis, which would end up costing us more. When we inquired about the water coming from the line, he said that it wasn’t working and tried to make excuses, this severely pissed us off, there was a lot more involved and really got to us.

We decided to withdraw from the deal and after a lot of meetings and arguments, and just to free ourselves form this bloke, we let him keep 2 months rent even though we hadn’t even taken the keys in to our possession. Finally we freed ourselves and approached the same estate agent who found us a portion.

I wish Karachi had an IKEA

About 99% of the places on rent that we saw in Karachi were all unfurnished and that was generally the idea here. So first and foremost we got a lot of help from my aunt, who gave us curtains, cutlery, pillows, rugs etc.

Here I would like to introduce our landlord. He is a retired colonel from the Pakistan army and has fought in 2 out of the 3 wars Pakistan had with India. A very nice and decent man. He lived with his wife and son when we moved in, he has another son who is married and has his own place and 2 daughters who are both married, one lives in Karachi and the other in Dubai. As his youngest son was getting married and they didn’t have the space, he offered us a double bed with 2 side tables and a small round table with chairs and we happily accepted.

The most costly things that we had to purchase were a fridge, Air conditioner (due to the heat), dining table, and a generator. “A generator” you may ask, in Pakistan the electricity has a tendency of disappearing for hours. Karachi has the biggest problem with a rapidly increasing population and heat. Due to the heat getting worse every summer more and more people are opting for Air Conditioners, even though the electricity bill for it amounts to about 60 quid a month, a lot of people working in Pakistan have a basic salary of 50 quid a month but the heat can get unbearable. Hence an increase load on the power station, hence the concept of Load Shedding. Load Shedding basically involves shutting down electricity in different areas at different times to even out the load on the power station. Hence the need for a generator to keep us going when the power station gives up on us.

2 weeks after we signed the lease, we moved in. Around the same time we hired a worker for the house who would take care of all the cooking and cleaning of the house except the bathrooms, for which we have a lady who comes and cleans the bathrooms on a daily basis.

Although it may all seem very easy, in reality it was a pain. My aunt had given us their Suzuki van to use to get around also famously known as the Suzuki dubba in Pakistan. Items were delivered and were not working, items were fitted and were leaking, and the list goes on and on. Then its not like London where u call up the company and they instantly deliver a new one, rather you have to call them at least 10 times to get any sort of response or they just leave the phone off the hook. Soon I started to realise why such a large percentage of the population were suffering from High Blood Pressure.

After a couple of weeks we realised that this was the norm of the country, so we got used to it and I started looking for an office.

The Search For A House in Karachi Begins

First and foremost we started to search for a place to live and although our aunt offered for us to stay at her sons house, which was next door and empty, we did not want to take the mick. So my cousin took me to a couple of estate agents they had previously used and we got started.

We decided to get a feel of all areas and types of living spaces. We must of seen well over 50 places before we made our decision. Our 2 main options were basically either a flat or a portion of a bungalow. After checking out all the different areas, we had come to the conclusion that we need to stick to the Defence area. Now Defence is where all of the embassies and big time business men are based and is considered one of the safest areas in the city. Although we did check out other areas, but to put it bluntly we just didn’t like them and on top of that my cousins had advised me not to look outside the Defence area.

The estate agents would take us out and show us all the different places available. Now that we had decided to stick to defence this gave us 2 options. All flats in defence are located in commercial areas; a commercial area is basically an area where there are a lot of shops and with shops come people and with people comes noise. Although we saw some OK flats, none of them had running water; all the tenants of that building had to chip in to fill up using a water tanker. I really didn’t like that option, you see I was thinking ahead if I had water tankers and God knows what to worry about, I would barely have time for the business.

This narrowed our options down to bungalow portions. A bungalow portion is basically half of a bungalow and for those of you who have visited the sub continent then you would know that the bungalows and HUGE. After a lot of running around we found our portion and we knew this was it as soon as we walked through the doors, you know you get that feeling sometimes and some things just feel right, well this was one of those times.

Although it was a bit steep, we wanted to be comfortable and it was also only 5 minutes from my cousin’s house so we went ahead with it. Ok just as a word of warning, the way the rent is paid in Pakistan is you generally pay a security deposit worth 2 months rent, which is kept up until the end of your contract, after which the landlord inspects the property and makes sure everything is in order, then the security deposit is returned, which is not a problem and is the usual practice in the UK as well. The bombshell hit when they wanted the whole years rent in advance, you heard it they wanted 12 months rent all in one go and this was the usual practice here.

After a lot of accounting and conferring we went ahead with the deal and finally signed the lease for the place on I think it was the 11^th of February 2007.

For those of you who are familiar with Karachi then I am located 5 minutes from the Saudi Arabian Embassy.

Arrival at Karachi

We arrived at Karachi on a Saturday morning. It was surprising, usually as soon as you leave the plane you feel the heat outside the airport almost immediately, but this time round there was a cool breeze and barely any heat, which was great. January being a part of Karachi’s winter months.

We were picked up by my cousin and their office driver. It’s about a 30 minute drive from the airport to my Aunt’s house, 20 minutes if you put your foot down.

My uncle is a partner in one of the largest private Civil Engineering firms in Pakistan. So they live in a nice house in Defence Karachi, it’s like the Knightsbridge of Karachi.

Every year we come to Karachi we stay at their house and are welcomed with open arms. This worked out a huge help for me financially as I saved on a lot of hotel and other related costs.

On the same evening I discussed my plans with my cousins and uncle and received a lot of great advice from them, if only I had listened.

19th January 2007

In December we had made a decision to get all shopping done and tie all loose ends well before the departure date. We tried our best but as was our family practice most jobs were left to the last week and then the last 3 days. Before we knew, it was the 18^th of January and chaos followed as usual. Our luggage was as USUAL overweight.

We managed to get through the baggage area and said our goodbyes to my 2 older brothers. We waited for 2 hours at the Gate because the flight had been delayed. Finally settled on the plane it was around a 6-7 hour journey to Dubai, where we were rushed straight into our connecting flight to Karachi.

Preparing For Pakistan

Since we were kids we have been coming to Pakistan nearly every year. That was a big help. My mother tongue being Pashto or Pushto, it was more important for me to be proficient in Urdu, but was lucky as my parents were also going with me and are both proficient in Urdu, Pakistan’s national language.

The most important thing we needed a lot of was capital or dosh. So I started working as a cabby in London, blinkin ell. I completed a course in Passenger Facilitation, courtesy of the Job Centre. Through which I also received my PCO licence. For those who don’t know what a PCO license is, it’s basically a relatively new initiative by the Public Carriage Office to have every single cabby (minicab driver) on record. Legally you are not allowed to work as a cabby without this license. So I got my license and started to work for a firm called Abbey Cars.

Before I go any further, now when it comes to cabbing the money is in Black cabs and Chauffeuring (driving BMW’s and Mercs). Black Cab drivers have to take a 3 year course to get started and have to learn and memorise their way all around London (Hats off to them). I was hoping to get into chauffeuring but little did I know that you have to be at least 25 years old to get into a chauffeuring job. The other option was for me to get my own car, which I just might of scraped and my own insurance for which I was getting quotes over a grand a year. Hence I went for Abbey Cars, they gave me a car, petrol and insurance, I thought what a good deal, until I received my first pay cheque.

To be honest they were really nice people, but the pay was, let’s say inadequate. I was working 12-14 hour shifts 6 days a week and didn’t earn more than 300 quid a week. I sort of didn’t have any other choice, the time it would take to get another job would just hinder my plans, and so I stuck to it.

After sleepless months and my body completely drained I decided to end the job in November 2006, kind of stupid actually when I think about it because the busiest season was just round the corner CHRISTMAS. But never the less I had enough money to get started.

Emirates Airlines were selling 1 year long tickets to Karachi. So tickets were booked for myself, my father, my mother and sister for the 19^th January 2007.

The decision to move to Pakistan is made

A lot of information and many opinions later, I finally knew what I had to do. The only thing was doing it.

Many Excuses later and a lot of push from my friend, my first website went live. I was a happy man, I couldn’t believe it. After a month I actually made some money from the site, not much but something. That’s when I realised all I have to do is multiply what I’m doing and the money should technically also multiply.

So in order to increase my presence on the World Wide Web, I had to put up pages of fresh content and articles. Now not being very good with English and Grammar as you can tell from my blog, I decided to outsource my Article writing work to (drum roll please) Pakistan. So I asked my cousin to put in add for me in the Karachi Dawn newspaper for article writers.

Believe it or not it actually worked; I received hundreds of applications and only 2 or 3 really stood out. So I got my first employee working on my articles.

As was my habit, I started to go OTT and tried to make the whole process of designing websites and creating articles easier on myself, Even after a lot of discouragement from my brothers both in IT, I decided to get my own software created which did all of this for me. The reason my brothers were discouraging me was they said I was wasting my time, I should instead spend this time creating more websites and later when the operation got to a very high level and I knew the whole process back to front should I even think about creating this piece of software.

But me being me, I contacting my cousin in Pakistan and asked if he could take on this project. He agreed and we got started. 6 months later the project was scrapped and my cousin was pissed. Why? Because I had no idea what I was talking about and what I was doing. This brought me back to square 1.

Soon after, I realised that if I really wanted to succeed in this industry, I needed a plan, and a good one. I knew I needed to put up more websites with more articles, although there is a lot more work involved, that was the gist of it. With the writers I had already, my dream could never be a reality as they were too few and were not very efficient. So the decision to move to Pakistan was made….

The trip to Abu Dhabi

In 2005 I was introduced to a book by a very good friend of mine; I think it was called Affiliate Marketing handbook by James Martell. This friend of mine explained to me about this new phenomenon known as Affiliate Marketing, which people were making millions from, I was so excited you could see the dollar signs in my eyes. The idea was simple and that was to put up websites and to advertise other people’s products on them and receive commission for every sale that is made through your websites.

I decided to go ahead and buy the book I think it cost me $197, alongside that I also bought a laser printer to print out the book with and had the book binded at my local printers. When I got the book home I read the first 20 pages or so and then did not touch the book for the next 3 or 4 months. It seemed that laziness had taken over. Every time I met my friend he would ask me how my sites were going I would grin and avoid the question.

I left the idea of making millions and started to be “more realistic” so I began looking for any work I could find, but wasn’t really comfortable anywhere.

I decided to take another look at the book and this time round read the whole thing. I was on a role, every time I would speak to my family about it, they thought it was just another of my lame ideas and I should just get a proper job or go back to my education. Times were hard.

It was then I got invited to work in Abu Dhabi (near Dubai) by my cousin who was in charge of a project there. I thought what have I got to loose. The idea was to go over for this project which was for two months and then stay on for a month to see if I could get another job. So in the beginning of September myself, my brother and our friend made our way to Abu Dhabi. It was the best experience and kick up the backside I could get. After 2 months of hard work, we started to realise how hard it was to find jobs in the UAE if you did not have any contacts there. My brother and his friend were finding it hard with their computer engineering degrees and that’s when I realised that without a degree I had no chance.

After our 3 months were up we decided to return home and I was at a cross roads. Do I complete my bachelors or get into this Internet marketing Phenomenon? Completing my degree did not seem like an option at the time due to my financial situation, so I decided to give it a go, I started very slow and started to research a lot more into Internet Marketing and started to realise the scope the industry had to offer…..

My business Mind.

I was never one for education. Up until my GCSE’s I got by, its when I got to my A levels that I realised I wanted to get into some sort of business. To please my parents I stayed on to complete my A levels (barely). I then applied for a foundation course in engineering with City University, which would go on to be a Bachelors s in Computer System Engineering if I passed. I moved to the city with my 2 brothers and 2 of their friends.

To be honest I wasn’t really happy with the whole idea of uni but tried to make the best of it, its not that the course was difficult because I ended the year with a 80 something percent average. I dunno maybe if I was in a course that was more business related and enjoyed more, maybe I would have been more attentive.

When I got to the first year of my bachelors then that’s when I really started to slip. Believe it or not there was a module for which I only attended one class all year and my friends are witnesses to this, other classes I attended now and then and just barely made the coursework dates. It was during my first year that I decided to make a try at business. So with using my student loan as capital I decided to buy a set of 20 used Irons from ebay, you heard it right, the stuff you use to straighten out the creases from your clothes. I had become an ebay addict at the time and would spend hours at a time cruising through all the deals and auctions (don’t laugh until you’ve tried it). The irons arrived, 1 month later I cleaned them up, and 1 year later they were sitting in my shed.

After the first year of my bachelors I made the stern decision to leave university, although my parents and extended family were not very happy with the idea they accepted the fact that education just wasn’t for me (how wrong was I, see how this comes to bite me in the backside later on)

I once heard a wise man does not get stung in the same place twice (or something like that), well I guess I am not very wise. After the Iron episode, which I am up until this day famous for amongst my family, I decided to chip in with my cousin and buy a couple of pallets of used electrical goods. I had repaired a few electrical items at home in the past and suddenly I thought I was an electrical repair man or sumfin. The idea was to fix up the stuff and resell it at the local Hounslow West weekend market.

So me and my cousin got ready, got into my brothers Toyota Corolla 1986 and drove down to Brighton where our fortune was awaiting us, we bought 2 pallets of used goods, shoved one of the pallets in our car and had one delivered. We thought we had grabbed a bargain, but its only when we started to unload the stuff at my cousins house from the car is when we realised we’d been had, but we didn’t let that get to us, we tried to do something with the stuff but nothing was working out, in the end I ended up selling the pallets on eBay for a small loss, we were just glad to see the back of the stuff.

After this I got involved in Mobile Phones, Japanese Imports, Dried food delivery, Park Security, and much more, but nothing was really working out, I was like a Pakistani Delboy trying to earn a quick buck. Then I was introduced to what would bring me to Pakistan.

Where it all began.

Both my mother’s and father’s stories begin in Ghazni, Afghanistan.

My father’s father was born in Ghazni and was from the Wardak tribe, after facing some problems in Afghanistan, he decided to escape and as a kid he arrived in neighbouring country Pakistan at his time it was still all India. He arrived to a small city called Quetta, then known as little London. After a lot of striving and hard work he was able to build up a business and family life for himself. My father’s eldest brother first left for the UK and settled there with his wife where he had 2 children. My father later followed at the age of 15 and he travelled by road, its really amazing how so many like my father not knowing any language accept their own made their way by road from the sub continent to the UK and other European countries, and they would travel in busses, trains, walk, anyway they could get to their destinations. Once in the UK he went to live with his older brother where he completed a diploma in Aeronautical engineering and later went on to work for a company that built harrier fighter jets called Hawkes Sidley. Many years later he returned home and married my mother in Quetta.

My Mothers family history is very long but basically they were settled in Afghanistan and were some sort of royalty and played a big part in the politics going on at that time in Afghanistan, one night they were informed of an assassination plot against them and they left in the night leaving everything behind and made there way to Quetta. Once they arrived they settled there and built up their lives and businesses and did very well for themselves.

My mum married my father and both came back to London and in the next 30 years would face the biggest challenge that every single Pakistani/Indian family faced when they arrived. That was to adjust to the London lifestyle while hanging onto their faith, culture and values and to make sure their future children did not forget where they came from.

Like many families who migrated my parents had their fare share of problems adjusting and being so far away from home didn’t help. They had made consecutive goals to return home with their children and settle there but as time went by the idea of returning home became more bleak and continued to do so Until………..