So where did it all begin?
Good mentorship
Mr Bilal was just an ordinary guy who like many other
A-Levels students was not sure about his future. He figured out very
early that he did not want to go to a university. He then planned to get
an ACCA degree and decided to become an auditor. But this did not work
out.
Thinking that a career as a rock guitarist might be
the thing for him because he had participated in several school gigs
before, he decided to try his luck in singing. But Mr Bilal was
counselled by his father who being a good mentor told him he would not
be able to have a stable career in singing, rather he should utilise his
other talent, in computers.
He first used a computer when he was only 5 years old. This was where his passion for the world of computing began.
Then,
a friend from England told him to take a certification in Cisco and
work in networking technology. He went on to complete two CCIE
certifications.
Still 21 years of age, he was used to
getting many job offers. He even turned down the offer of a big
telecommunication company in Saudi Arabia and rather chose to do a job
in Beaconhouse. But thankfully within six months of his work there, he
realised that his talent was being wasted and his job role was not
utilising his Cisco expertise at all.
A company from Abu
Dhabi called him to give training sessions in Cisco. This company also
specialised in disaster recovery solutions. After gaining some
experience, Mr Bilal left the company to form his own company – Ikhtira
Systems – in Multan, a city chosen specifically because there was no
competition in disaster recovery services there. Lahore already had so
many companies doing similar work. His company’s name ‘Ikhtira’ was
taken from a band he was a part of in high school. But just like the
band, the company suffered heavy losses and failed within 10 months of
operations.
Mr Bilal was distraught; he did not want to
go back home and ask his parents for support. People used to look up to
him and appreciate the fact that he started a company at 22, and now
they were making fun of him. He did not even have money to buy lunch for
three consecutive days.
Freelancing pays
Destiny then led him to a guy who told him to start
freelancing on the Internet. He had a network of very supportive friends
in Multan. Even though, he did not have money to buy his own Internet
service, being the geeky genius he was, he started hacking into other
people’s Wi-Fi. Freelancing started making him some money. He got his
first project in 10 days and although he only made $35 for his first
project, he was relieved that at least now, he was earning something.
“Things then started moving in a good direction. Freelancing really
helped,” he recalls.
With the confidence of some money in
his pocket, he went back home and started living with his family in
Vehari. But his parents were upset with his routine. He used to sleep
all day and work all night. His parents worried that no girl would marry
him if he continued like this. Mr Bilal then got the opportunity to
move to Lahore. He started helping Arfa Karim’s parents in setting up
their institution in Plan9. He didn’t charge them any money, just
utilised the space for his own work. By this time, he had started
working on Wifigen already.
Getting breakthroughs
During his freelancing gigs, Mr Bilal got a project from
someone who turned out to be John Russell Patrick, the ex-VP of IBM. He
pitched Wifigen’s idea to him, but although John liked the idea, he said
that he did not invest in early-stage companies. Mr Bilal was
nonetheless adamant that Mr John could at least mentor him. Thus, began
the journey of a mentor turning into an investor.
Mr
Bilal then went on to do a project for another lady who had her own
consultancy company in New Zealand. She introduced him to someone who
wanted to be a reseller for this product in New Zealand, but was told to
complete the product in two months. Mr Bilal argued that he needed
funds to complete it in such a short period. The reseller in New Zealand
agreed to fund the project without taking any equity. A lucky break,
you may call it. He then hired some people on freelancer.com to help him
build his product within 45 days. The proposed timeline for project
completion was 60 days. This left a 15 days leverage to further test the
product and eradicate any flaws.
But that was not enough
for him. He was surprised to find that anyone could apply at Plan9. It
was a very open community that really motivated him. He went on to
launch his own company in New Zealand. Within three months of
incubation, he raised funding from his old mentor, Mr John.
Then
during a business trip to Singapore, he met a representative from
Changi Airport who was really interested in deploying Wifigen on their
airport. Mr Bilal then started beta testing Wifigen on Singapore’s
airport. Later on, he got Unilever Pakistan on board too. But this was
only the beginning. He signed on the biggest deal in the history of
Wi-Fi at Tahiti Island, which wanted to use Wifigen to give a better
experience to tourists. Wifigen then was seen as a product with a huge
application in the tourism industry.
What’s next?
Mr Bilal has been trying to integrate artificial
intelligence with Wi-Fi for the last three months. He realises that
machine learning is necessary to make things easy for the advertisers
and the people who will be using its Wi-Fi. It will allow the
advertisers to know exactly who the end user is and how deep his pockets
are, so they can accordingly pitch them different products.
He
wishes to move into more markets as business expansion will be the key
driver of Wifigen’s success. His company currently has a multi-million
dollar valuation while trying to raise another round of investment. For
all those aspiring entrepreneurs out there, he has only one thing to
say: “Keep failing until you are ready to change the world.”
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