Syed Moiz Balkhi

Syed Moiz Balkhi (Urdu: سید معز بلخی (Nastaleeq), सैयद मोइज़ बलख़ी (Devanagari)) is a Pakistani American entrepreneur known for his founding of OptinMonster,[1] as well as his work with WPBeginner, a WordPress resource.[2][3][4] Other WordPress software Balkhi invented include WPForms and MonsterInsights, which along with WPBeginner and OptinMonster, power "over 4 million websites".[5] In April 2016, Syed Balkhi acquired Yoast's Google Analytics plugins, which have been downloaded over 21 million times.[6] In January 2020, Balkhi acquired Michael Torbert's All in One SEO Pack plugin, which has been downloaded over 65 million times.[7]

Syed Moiz Balkhi
Born
Karachi, Pakistan
Alma materUniversity of Florida
OccupationEntrepreneur, Writer
Years active2009–present
Websitesyedbalkhi.com

Early life and career

Syed Moiz Balkhi emigrated to the United States from Pakistan along with his family when he was a child.[8] After taking a placement test, he skipped a grade and started high school at the age of twelve.[8]

At this age, Balkhi was very active in the Florida Cricket League, an interest he temporarily put on hold to "pursue a career in marketing."[9]

As a junior in high school, Balkhi started mastering WordPress and then hired a team to construct websites for clients.[10] When he saw that his customers struggled with using WordPress, in 2009, he launched WPBeginner, a tutorial website.[10] Due to the fact that the website was accessible to the public, he was invited to speak at several WordCamp conferences.[10]

List25 is another endeavor Balkhi is the brainchild of and its YouTube channel has clocked more than 550 million views.[11][9]

Balkhi eventually also returned to the sport of cricket, becoming instrumental in helping to spread it in the United States through his marketing skills.[9] He is a board member of the Cricket Council USA.[9] His efforts in this area led him to be inducted in the Cricket Hall of Fame in America.[9]

Philanthropy

Syed Moiz Balkhi has raised over $75,000 for Pencils of Promise, which were used to construct three schools in Guatemala.[12]

In addition, in 2017, Balkhi raised funds for the construction of a school in Dob Krorsang Village through the Cambodian Village Fund.[12]

gollark: It's fixed on UTC, but that isn't the issue.
gollark: ++remind 48m I meant now.
gollark: ++remind 58m Start the server soonish.
gollark: ++remind "6 PM" start the server.
gollark: ...

References
  1. ""Hard to beat a person who doesn't give up", says Syed Balkhi". WPeka. 8 July 2015. Retrieved 25 December 2017. We caught up recently with Syed Balkhi , a hugely successful young entrepreneur running multiple online ventures. The fact that he was named as one of the top 100 entrepreneurs under the age of 30 by the United Nations, speaks for itself. You probably known him from his most popular businesses – WPBeginner and OptinMonster.
  2. Spannagle, Peter; Soward, Sarah (2010). WordPress and Flash 10x Cookbook. Packt Publishing Ltd. p. 387. ISBN 9781847198839. WPBeginner: site to help beginners learn about WordPress, by Syed Balkhi.
  3. Black, Leyl Master (4 August 2012). "5 Low-Cost Social Media Marketing Strategies for Authors". Mashable. Retrieved 1 October 2014. In terms of low cost tools and personal branding, the first thing every author needs is a central presence for their brand, such as a blog or a website," says Syed Balkhi from WPBeginner, a WordPress resource site.
  4. McKeown, Siobhan (1 February 2013). "The WordPress Community Offers Advice to Beginners". Smashing Magazine. Retrieved 1 October 2014. As well as the support forums, Syed Balkhi suggests trying WordPress Stack Exchange and Quora.
  5. Baker, Loren (December 26, 2017). "5 Tips to Improve Your Website in 2018 from the WordPress Wizard, Syed Balkhi". HuffPost. Retrieved December 29, 2017. Syed is the founder of WPBeginner, the largest free WordPress resource site on the planet. Aside from that, he’s also the guy behind several popular WordPress plugins and tools like OptinMonster, WPForms, MonsterInsights, WP Mail SMTP, RafflePress and several others which collectively powers over 4 million websites including big brands in just about every vertical.
  6. Alton, Larry (December 28, 2017). "This Entrepreneur's Code Powers Over 4 Million Websites, And It All Started From His Parent's Living Room". Inc. Retrieved December 29, 2017. After looking at the WPBeginner annual survey results in 2016, Balkhi acquired the most popular Google Analytics plugin for WordPress from Yoast, and rebranded it to MonsterInsights, with a goal of making analytics easy for beginners. As of today, this plugin has been downloaded over 21 million times and is active on 1.9 million websites.
  7. Tadlock, Justin (February 10, 2020). "Awesome Motive Acquires the All in One SEO Pack Plugin". Last Thursday, Awesome Motive CEO Syed Balkhi announced his company acquired the All in One SEO Pack (AIOSEO) plugin. Michael Torbert, the plugin creator, first released AIOSEO in 2007. Since then, the plugin has been downloaded over 65 million times. It is currently active on over 2 million WordPress sites.
  8. Alton, Larry (December 28, 2017). "This Entrepreneur's Code Powers Over 4 Million Websites, And It All Started From His Parent's Living Room". Inc. Retrieved December 29, 2017. However, long before Awesome Motive was ever a thought and before WordPress had truly evolved into a proper content management system, Syed was an average 12-year-old kid whose life completely turned upside down when his parents decided to migrate from Pakistan to the United States. After taking the placement test, he was told to skip a grade and start high school at age 12. Not knowing the English language and being in the United States shortly after the 9/11 incident forced Syed to spend most of his time in the school library, where he learned how to code and started building websites for small businesses.
  9. Mamchan, Vinode (December 28, 2017). "Software master jumps on board cricket administration". Trinidad and Tobago Guardian. Retrieved December 29, 2017.
  10. Alton, Larry (December 28, 2017). "This Entrepreneur's Code Powers Over 4 Million Websites, And It All Started From His Parent's Living Room". Inc. Retrieved December 29, 2017. As a junior in high school, Syed was sitting in his parent's living room searching Google to expand his skillset when he discovered WordPress. At the time, the three-year-old open-source platform was focused on building blogs, but Syed saw it a way to make his website creation workflow more efficient. He spent the next three years learning the WordPress platform, hiring a small team and building hundreds of websites for his clients. During this time, Syed found that the most frustrating part about WordPress was training clients how to use it. At the time, most resources were written by developers for developers. He saw a huge opportunity and decided to take advantage of it by launching a tutorial website for beginners called WPBeginner, in 2009. ...WPBeginner allowed Syed to learn about users' problems first-hand, and he helped them solve it with his free tutorials. This earned him goodwill in the community and quickly elevated his status as one of the most reputable influencers in the Wordpress ecosystem. Syed was invited to speak and keynote dozens of WordCamp events across the United States.
  11. DeMers, Jason (December 29, 2017). "8 Secrets To Grow Your YouTube Channel In 2018 From A YouTuber With Over 550 Million Video Views". Forbes. Retrieved December 29, 2017. Syed is also the founder of a popular edutainment website and YouTube channel, List25, which has over 2.2 million subscribers and his videos have been viewed over 550 million times.
  12. Johansson, Anna (December 27, 2017). "6 Online Entrepreneurs Making a Fortune -- and Giving it Back". Inc. Retrieved December 29, 2017. Syed ran donation campaigns for his blog's 4th and 5th birthday to raise funds for Pencils of Promise and generated over $75,000. The funds went toward building 3 schools in Guatemala. He also did a campaign earlier this year with the Cambodian Village Fund to build a school in Dob Krorsang Village.
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