Farrhad Profile

I caught up with Farrhad A, a teen from India, who has run many succesful blogs and websites. Here he tells his story, and gives us some tips on how to be succesful.

1) Farrhad, you’re viewed by tens-of-thousands as a whiz kid blogger,

designer, teen entrepreneur, writer, and overall enthusiast about life.

You run an empire of very successful blogs. Where did you start?

My online ventures started less than two years ago. I would earlier waste my time playing online games and randomly going to chat rooms. By a complete stroke of luck I came across an article on creating websites and in less than a week my mother bought me my first domain, Farrhad.com.

On that site I had pictures of me, my friends and family and the usual personal stuff. Being an aviation enthusiast I started keeping aircraft and aeromodelling related stuff on that website and surprisingly it did very well. I was getting great traffic through Google and other sites linking in.

Then I decided to start a complete aviation related site- AviationEarth.com. I started that site on a free template. At that time I had no knowledge about Copyrights etc (I was around 12-13 then) so I would innocently copy content from Wikipedia. Somehow, I have had great luck with SEO since the very beginning and I managed to rank higher than Wikipedia for many pages.

Than I got a very good offer for that site and as I had to concentrate on my studies thus I sold it.

This was my small and humble beginning.

2) You say that “some pocket money never hurts”. When did you decide to capitalize on your blogs?

Making money from blogs was never really my priority but I first got an offer for private ads from a company for Let’s Sermo. Then I monetized it with 125 x 125 ads and started getting more and more sponsors.

Later on I got into site flipping and affiliate marketing in a big way.

3) You’re now known as a leader in all the areas that you cover, and that’s pretty remarkable considering you’re a teenager! Was age an obstacle in becoming a renowned expert?

I really am no expert. I just have some good knowledge in many fields and I use it for myself and I also help others willingly, that is the real reason of my ‘popularity’.

As for age being an obstacle- No, it has never been technically, but yes you do at times lack vision in certain areas and thus you need advise- from family and friends.

4) Corporations even target you for consultation – and this is no small feat. How did you advertise yourself to your market? Did any one thing particularly help you in your situation?

Yes, in recent times I am getting many big projects and I am working on them. Mainly my mother has been there to guide me through, plus as have strong support system from home which helps, i strongly feel creativity is at its best when one is emotionally secured.

5) You love aeromodelling, movies, writing songs, and playing guitar. How do you find the time in your busy life to manage all your interests?

Paucity of time has always been there. How I go about it- There are 24 hours in a day, use them to the fullest. I keep juggling between hobbies. (Note from Logan: and he really does use the day to the fullest… I don’t think he ever sleeps!)

6) What advice would you give to teens interested in becoming known for their talents?

- If you have an idea or a concept just do it! Never hesitate. Lost time and opportunities will never come back.

- There will be times when you start a project that you thought would have rocked but it completely fails. Don’t let that affect you at all.

Just move along. I have had a few failed projects but I have learnt from my mistakes.

- If you get early success don’t let it intoxicate you.

You can see Farrhad’s work in many ways:

Let’s Sermo, a blog about “rocking your life”

The Marketing Park, a new blog about marketing online, and offline

WebMaster Peers, a friendly and experienced forum designed to help webmasters

He is @Farrhad on twitter.