Today I interviewed a young blogger who's making a living out of blogging while he's still in school.
He's been blogging since 6 grade and continues to grow online day by day.
The reason I interviewed him was because he was young. Most people at his age barely think of making money, especially from blogging!
In fact, I never thought about making money until I finished my bachelors degree. Nevertheless, it's never too late. You can start now.
I chose my questions carefully so they can hopefully inspire you and teach you how Abishiekh started earning money online.
1. What is Hackers Den?
- Top Facebook Tricks You Must Know
- How To Hide Secret Text In An Image
- How to Access Blocked Websites
- ...and much more
2. What Inspired You to Start Hackers Den?
I was scared and was not able to concentrate on anything, he didn't hack as he didn't know how to! Next day I asked him why you didn't you do it? He said I felt pity on you! That same day I went to my home, turned on my computer for the first time and I started learning about these things. You know, it took me 30-45 minutes to create my first Gmail account. And from that time, I started googling about programming and hacking stuff! Learnt programming and hacking online without spending a dime, spent 7-8 hours in front of computer everyday!, sacrificing my sleep . I learned till 8th standard but no one in school knew who I am. Then one day, I informed a page on Facebook with respect to work along with them and later, after they made some enquiries, hired me as an editor. I was initially rejected by 18 Facebook pages before the 19th one hired me. I was working on their page writing articles for free for approximately a year, because I didn't know that I could earn money online.
Later, I started my own page Hackers Den on May 10, 2014. Though, I left that page because I didn't have the time to post on their page. I didn't have money at that time, I wasn't earning, and (I) didn't have the guts to ask my father for money for the online things. I created a website in blogger with a free blogspot domain and then shifting to a .tk domain (the name was really very weird it was welcometoworldofhackers.tk, perhaps so small :P gradually Hackers Den page received so much love from the people. I later moved it to a custom domain hackersdenabi.net.
There were lot of ups and downs in my journey. To cover up in a nutshell, A boy who knew absolutely nothing about computers, who hated it, who did not even knew how to download an app from play store, now owning a site which is loved by many! which is visited by 1000,s everyday! Which is being featured at The Huffington Post And at the Harvard University! I was recently at Google Office, and got many online interviews and an audio interview in USA blog talk radio show! A Big Thanks to My enemy (who is still studying with me), if he hadn't said something on that day to me , I wouldn't where I am today. So My Enemy Inspired me to Start Hackers Den.
3. What Are Some Mistakes You Made on Your Journey and How Did You Fix Them?
Second Mistake I did is I was promoting Hackers Den as my site, I know you will think what's wrong in it? What lesson did I learn from this? When you tell people that it is your site no one will bag an eye, but when you say, "Hey man this site is just great , like awesome content is posted everyday" I am sure that you will see an increase in your website traffic.
Third mistake I trusted a lot of people and made lot of people join my group I have trusted many people during my journey, but I got betrayed and came to know about the world, then I accepted anyone who wanted to join my team, it was damn difficult to manage. I fixed it by trusting limited people and just selecting 1 out of 10 people to join my team.
Fourth Mistake Getting Trapped in online Facebook hacking, scams and other things was really the biggest mistake I did and I don't want you guys to fall on those traps, they don't help you in anyways instead they just hack u, so beware.
4. What Problem Does Hackers Den Solve and How is it Important?
5. How Big is Hackers Den? And What Did You do to Grow it to That Size?
He was invited by Mr. Imran Uddin, a blogger who earns 15-20 lakhs ($22.5K - $30k) per month. Hackers Den was even featured at bigstartups. With 211 global ranking and 84 Indian ranking (Included with 9gags, flipkart, ola, Uber etc.) So this big Hackers Den is in a span of two years with the founder being just 16 year old leading a team.
*These are the numbers of real time active users on site at one time! First it was 332, then it broke by a massive of 576 users online at one time!
6. How Many Hours do You work and What's Your Typical Schedule Like?
Get up @7, leave for school @8, come back home @4,rest, doing my daily chores, @5 study, do homework (that's a very rare thing) @6 I workout to be in shape, @7:30, I read any book of my choice (not school one), @9, start my online stuff and it goes up to 12or 1!
My daily schedule when I have a holiday!
I wake up @ 12pm or 1 pm!
Enjoy stuff I love doing!
Read my books, some autobiographies, do the work I love to!
Start my online stuff @10 or 11 pm, and it goes up to 7 am!
And then I sleep at 7 am!
So I don't have any fixed schedule!
Ps - : when I was learning all these, I just used to sleep 2-3 hrs!
Learning all things at night!
PPS - : I still forget to take my lunch or dinner!
7. What are Some Hardships you Had to Overcome in the Beginning and How Did You Overcome Them?
The second biggest hardship was my relatives no matter how much good talent you possess, but are born in India, only marks speak and not the talent! So because of spending 7-8 hours learning programming and online stuff, I didn't give much time to my studies. Result was I was first time failing in subjects, and relatives need one thing to pounce you back, so they started saying me you just be in your computers, playing games and failing in subjects, you have dark future! I became demotivated, but my parents did support me, they said do whatever you want to do online, but even study and get passing marks at least! If they weren't there that time, then I wouldn't be at this position!
Third biggest problem was my English, I didn't know how to speak with people, nor did I know English properly, but thanks to my uncle. He told me to watch English movies to learn action sequences from film, but instead of that I started learning English from the subtitles! This is how I overcame my poor English quality! I was easily misunderstood, people started taking me as a negative thing, I became weird! These were some of the major hardships I faced in the initial stages!
8. What Products/Services Does Hackers Den Offer?
9. How Do You Manage Your Time And What Keeps You Motivated?
Focus on high priority tasks rather than low priority! And I keep myself motivated by watching some Web series or read some entrepreneurs autobiographies and read about struggling life which keeps me motivated!
Even small things motivate me, like some fan mail or fan post, which encourages you to continue your work! When some people say hackers Den is a cool website I just smile, these small things make me feel motivated!
10. Do You Make Money From Any of Your Online Businesses?
I have many websites that generate revenue by ads!
Hackers Den generates revenue from Sponsored posts, links!
I even sometimes write articles for others too.
I work for many clients!
Many ways in which I'm earning!