Soumya Pratihari
Soumya Pratihari is a young and our "youth Blogging role model face" of 2012.He owns 35blogs.He is a simple man and proved that how you start from a simple blogspot and your creativity can take you to heights.
Where are you from?
I am from Cuttack, the old capital of Odisha. It’s not a that big city, but still famous for Barabati Stadium that hosts ODI cricket matches.
What is your academic background?
I am an engineer in IT. I can’t say that I was a very good student throughout my career, but most of the times my academic reports were having over 80% marks on it. During schools I was very good in Maths and Science, and average in History and Geography.
How you started your journey?
Hmmmm, it’s a long story, actually! To cut it short, I was not an another job oriented youth. From my school days, I was very much sure that I would not serve for any company in my life. Even today if some company offers me a job with 10 crore CTC, I will turn that down without any second thought.
My dislike towards job inspired me to do something on my own. Again, I was against taking any financial help from my family, and hence the picture was not clear before me as you need money to make money. And then this “blogging” happened.
One of my friends was into blogging and he asked me to get into this! That time I was not even aware of this term, blogging, but decided to give it a try as it sounded something new, exciting, and promising to me.
What is your goal?
Money matters to me a lot, but at the same time it hardly matters to me. You see, few times you need money to get something for yourself, and few times you just spend money to make someone else happy.
I would like to earn hell lots of money and spend a part of it on me and my family. Rest amount of money would go for a noble cause where I can use my money to make others happy. It might take few more years to build a “Old age home” for helpless old people, and a large chunk of my earnings will go there only.
As far as my career in business goes, I have plans to grow my organization and add more value to it. Then there are some new online and offline business models in my mind that I would like to start eventually.
Who is your idol?
I always advice one thing to newbie bloggers, “Learn from everyone, but don’t follow anyone”. Following one person will keep you limited, but learning from everyone will help you getting unlimited source of knowledge. That’s the reason I don’t have one idol.
Which new blogger inspired you the most?
There are many. I belong to the 1980s while most new bloggers are from 90s era. Many times I find their way of thinking different from me, a huge transformation took place during the above two eras and it happened for good only.
They are fresh, vibrant, and open to challenges. They don’t see the stuffs in the same aspect as we do, and that brings the difference. It always feels good see their concepts, read their articles and wonder how different we human beings are!
Apart from thoughts, they are born-techies! I got the opportunity to use a mobile phone during my 12th, and now they are using them in schools. Their access to technology in early stage of life makes them very comfortable and familiar with them. And hence their write ups sound more professional and personal, at the same time.
How many hours you work in a day?
There is no specific time. Few times it’s close to 20 hours a day, or no work at all. On an average, I work for at least 14 hours a day.
Which goal you have not achieved yet?
Hmmm.. many actually!
I won’t feel comfortable to leak my planning here, but there are a number of new sites that I am yet to make. A number of website concepts are still there in my mind and yet to get the WWW access.
I do not start anything all of sudden without dedicating enough time in planning and preparation. I have seen success and failures in blogging. Few of my sites are getting millions of hits every month where I am not being able to drive at least 1000 monthly traffic to few sites. These success and failures are two essential part of my journey and I am proud of them. I could learn “What to do” from my success and “What not to do” from my failures.
I will use them to achieve my goals, eventually!
How many blogs do you own?
Currently we have got over 35 blogs and majority of them are being managed at iDev Blogs. Few of them are handled by some freelancers who work for me at a fixed monthly compensation.
Apart from those 35 blogs, I have got a number of micro-niche blogs and work on them. It’s me who work on those micro-niche blogs and no one except me is aware of those sites. In total, yes, we have got over 100 blogs.
How iDev happened?
In 2009, I was working for close to 18 hours each and every day on my blogs. But still that much hard work was not enough to start and work on few new blogs. This limitation or you can say inability of stamina to work more than 18 hours a day made to to think of starting a new blogging house.
It was a tough decision though! Finding people to work for a startup and that too as a content writer which is still considered as an unconventional job in Odisha, became a tough job for me. However, I could manage hire some 20 people in the very first month and iDev took birth on 14th July, 2010.
How is iDev doing now?
Since the inauguration day, I have seen many people leaving and joining my company. I take this behavior normally as I am not there to please everybody with their expected salary, and facilities. It’s the employees who need to adjust with a start up, and it’s not going to be vice-verse at any condition.
I have seen many ups and downs during this close to two years time period. I have laughed hard sitting on my chair, smiled with a proud look on the success of few sites, eaten birthday cakes of almost all employees, frowned on some unacceptable things, and then few times there were tears in my eyes.
We, at iDev, have seen success, and failure. We have spent happy moments and then very tensed atmospheres. We are like a family now and happy to be like this.
What are you Future plans for iDev?
Originally I founded iDev to be a blogging firm. But now I am going to make it the parent company and add two sub-profiles to it. iDev Blogs and iDev Labs.
iDev Blogs will continue following the exact concept of iDev. It will develop blogs, and that’s it.
iDev Labs is going to be service provider. We are going to launch many sites that will provide different services related to WordPress and I am all set to start the hiring process soon. iDev Labs should get started in full phase by June, 2012.
Finally, what would you advise to new bloggers?
Work hard, earn hard, party heard. All the very best!
At the last i like to thank soumya sir for providing guidance to new blogger , sharing his ideas how to become good blogger and how blogging can take you to another height's.
It is all what i and soumya sir can say now its time for you my friends come up with your comment what you want to say about our ""youth Blogging role model face" of 2012.
