This 18 years old neo marketeer from the most remote area of Pakistan is running a 5-figure dollar business.
This was another day of scrolling through social media, precisely Instagram! I stumbled upon a video of a fairly young lad talking about what freelancing means and how much effort freelancers particularly put into their work. I was quite surprised by how he was talking with a video background which seemed to be a village. It’s not normal nowadays that you see someone from a remote area, especially at a young age, talking about complex subjects like blockchain and NFTs (Which i actually saw after viewing his instagram profile). He made me google himself. ‘South Asia’s first Neo Marketeer’…. I was shocked!
The only thing I wanted to do at this point was to contact him and learn more about his career. And that’s what I did. I called him, Introduced myself and appreciated what he was doing. He sounded like a humble person. Conclusion, I asked for an interview and he agreed. I hung up the call and started preparing a questionnaire to understand what he was doing and how he had the knowledge that most people double his age do not acquire.
Freelancing and remote work has been an elephant in the room for quite some time and its adoption has increased among western nations. But we underestimate the skills and mindset of people living in a third-world country. Pakistan dominates most of the nations as a gig-economy. Coming back to our subject, I was even more shocked to hear what this young lad had to say about him and his career. He ran a Neo Marketing agency, which in his words is, ‘South Asia’s First’. Neo Marketing, unlike traditional digital marketing, focuses on data driven algorithmic approaches which tend to facilitate a search query on a search engine. Personal branding starts with Neo Marketing and Ameer Ali Salman, the person we are talking about, claims to be one of the few and youngest people to introduce this concept of Marketing.
Ameer Ali Salman, founder of Ameer& started back in 2018, not because he wanted to make money. But in reality he began algorithmic manipulation out of an interest, it was 4 years later that he started selling his services. According to Salman, ‘Any business, whether it’s online or physical, if not started as a pure interest, it won’t succeed. I had no idea at that time that my passion would become my profession’. He also quoted ‘Making money now is easier than ever with the invention of the Internet’. He also mentioned his other ventures which focus on news distribution.
‘As online agency owners grow within Pakistan there is a constant decline in appreciation from the government. There is no proper payment option for freelancers to receive their money from international clients which make them trust third party digital banks like payoneer which are not actually reliable as quoted by several freelancers over the years. A Pakistani-Government regulated bank which is affiliated with most of the providers internationally would solve the problem and generate more revenue which also converts to tax. It’s a win-win situation for both remote workers and the government.’ said Salman.
Salman has scaled from zero to five-figure dollar agency. Stories and people like Salman are actually trying to make a difference and it makes me wonder how our young generation is wasting time being influenced by western nations and going through an identity crisis. Starting a business would not be beneficial for you mentally, physically or financially but improving yourself as you grow and learning from your mistakes will be. All of these traits are by-product of Salman’s business.
