His name is Syed Balkhi.
- Started a blog called WP Beginner, a blog about WordPress.
- The blog starts getting traffic. He writes about different WordPress plugins and how-tos.
- After a few years, starts buying WordPress plugins. It starts working.
- After 10-13 years, has something like 30-40 WordPress plugins.
- Now the company does over $100m in revenue and is worth north of $1 billion.
- The entire company is bootstrapped. He owns the entire thing. Never took funding, loans, or anything like that.
- He’s only 32 years old.
- An immigrant who wasn’t wealthy.
The reason why he interested me: he was incredibly disciplined. He talked about how he went from becoming an internet founder to a capital allocator. I thought this was inspiring.
Why? Because when it comes to business I think of myself as more of a creative. Not super disciplined. I think of ideas and do them and sometimes they work. I follow my gut.
There’s a place for that. I don’t think you can Excel sheet your way to initial traction. At least I can’t. You need to invent a better mousetrap and that takes creativity.
But I’m a bit past that. I have some money, success, and an audience. But I’ve not always been great at leveling up. Talking to him really encouraged me to level up. Focus more on a capital allocator mindset.
It was great. If you want to listen just search My First Million Syed on Google.
– Sam
