Interview with Syed Faizan Ali - A Young Entrepreneur

By Zohaib Liaqat - 259 Comments

Today, I'm very excited to Interview one of the youngest and successful bloggers of Pakistan Syed Faizan Ali. I think his name needs no introduction but let me give you short introduction about him and his personality.

Syed Faizan Ali is a young entrepreneur from Pakistan and is known for his websites MBL (mybloggerlab.com) and the only Templateism. MyBloggerLab is his first website which is now one of the best blogger resource blogs. After the success of MBL, Faizan launched his 2nd project Templateism which is the No. 1 platform for Blogger templates with thousands of monthly downloads and millions of visitors. Well, when I sent him a mail, I wasn't expecting a quick reply. As he is busy person but I received a quick response and he agreed for the interview. So let's see, how he answered my questions:

1. Welcome to Blogolect, I think your Name is enough and no introduction is required but as a part of formality tell us a little about yourself?

First of all thanks for finding me worth to be interviewed on your wonderful blog. I am Syed Faizan Ali, a Pakistan Web Entrepreneur and currently pursuing my computer engineering bachelor degree. I have founded two of the most popular blogger niche website i.e. MyBloggerLab.com and Templateism.com

2. How you started blogging and what was the reason behind it?

I wasn’t a great student being mocked by family members that I would either be a vegetable vendor or a local clerk. However, I was really good with computers, playing games was my best hobby. I took all those bad things as a motivation and fortunately end up starting blogging which resulted very well for me.

3. How much time do you spend daily on blogging, how much you spent in the early days and how much you are spending now?

I use to spend almost 18-20 hours on blogging at initial stages. However, nowadays I am a lot busy with my university and personal life. Therefore, I didn’t give much of the time to blogs. However, I still give around 8-10 hours to internet, blogging and web developing.

4. Faizan, now you're a successful entrepreneur, tell us a a little about the sources which helped you in achieving your goals?

People help you a lot, it could be your friends who you shared your happiness with, it could also be your enemies who always keep you on your toes to achieve more.

5. Templateism :) Templateism is going viral day by day and obviously its all due to your hardwork. I want to ask you a general question that how much time it took to become a professional designer/developer and what were the sources which helped you?

I wonder why I didn’t started Templateism.com at very first. But I did, which was a great thing happened to blogger.com. You just need to learn HTML and CSS to get started with developing a blogger template.

I would tell you a secret, try editing your existing blogger template. You will find wonderful codes, learn them and utilize them in your own template. Simple, Right?

6. I hardly found a few template designers from Pakistan, what do you think what's the reason behind it? It really hurts, but I am saying this after my observance, Pakistan is far away from other countries in the field of blogging. So what do you think which steps should we take to create a sense in Pakistanis that blogging is a profitable business and is better than jobs.

You see there are a lot of Pakistani designers but the difference is that they are not good at it. They focus on too many things rather than mastering one thing. I think government should develop a proper IT Institution that teaches people not only standard education but also teaches them “To Blog”, “To Earn” and “To Develop”.

7. Which are the Primary Sources of your Income?

Our primary source of income is Ads Slot selling, Selling Templates and doing custom projects for our clients.

8. How do you prepare your speech for seminars and how much time it takes?

So Far I have came into public 2 times, my first ever seminar on blogging was at Karachi University in 2013. The next seminar that I took was at IBA CED (IBA Center of Entrepreneurship Development) in Karachi in 2014. I recently did an online webinar for Google Student Ambassadors, it went really smooth. The only reason why I am able to give such seminars and presentation is becomes of the motivation audience give me back when I speak.

9. What was the key factors behind the success of MBL?

The factor was pretty simple, “Write Quality Content” and wait for the right time to monetize. If you know I waited 6 months to place any kind of advertisement on MBL. That’s the key.

10. What are your future plans?

Future plans is to expand Templateism Network and to take it to the very next level, In Sha ALLAH.

11. Competition is increasing day by day, so what you think that starting a blog in today's date is a profitable business?

Competition is getting tough but the people are getting intelligent as well. They will certainly find a way to reach their goal. You just need to be motivated.

12. I have seen that all newbies pay more attention to their alexa ranking than their blog? What do you think about alexa, is it still matters?

Alexa ranking doesn’t matters a lot. Yes, It is a nice way to flaunt your website ranking but it has not a lot of worth so don’t worry about it and focus on your blog and how much you earn.

13. As a Student how do you manage you blogs and how you managed then in the start of your career?

As a student still, it is really hard to manage both. You either sacrifice your education or work. However, if you are motivated and determined in your goals you will overcome this issue as well.

15. What do you think about taking risks in blogging, like paying on advertisements and all this type of stuff?

Blogging is a risk, you put your everything on a blog and if you don’t get desire result all hardwork goes in vain. However, without taking risk you cannot do anything. Overcome your FEAR, when you put water in a Cup it becomes a Cup and when you put water in a jar it becomes a jar. Be water my friend.

16. Would you like to give any message to bloggers who are just starting their career?

First of all, new bloggers really need to learn to at least give some sorts of respect to the senior bloggers. Sometime novice bloggers shows extra aggression and that literally spoils everything. They should focus more towards their blog instead of looking what others are doing. The most important thing, a new blogger should always start a blog on a topic that he feels he can cover the best. Many people have started a website on totally unrelated topics that didn’t work out. Find your abilities and make them count.

17. What do you think about Blogolect?

Zohaib, you got a really nice blog. I would just like to tell you focus on doing whatever you are doing and don’t listen to anyone. Follow your dreams and In Sha Allah You will taste success someday.

Hope you guys enjoyed it and hope it motivated you to stick to your goals. Liked it, let us know in the comments section below.