Webpreneur:  Roz M

Location:  Dubai, UAE

Industry:  Health & Beauty

When Roz joinged the Webpreneur course in July 2010 she was working in the pharmaceutical industry for Johnson & Johnson.  She had found a special product that she truly believed in to help women look younger.  But she didn't have the capital to invest in her own business....so she thought.

After joining the course she took the leap of faith and started her business online.  At first ordering through a supplier and then creating her own branded products.

Within a few months she was able to leave her intense job to focus more on creating her own brand.  She has been busy working with suppliers sourcing the product, creating brand and spreading word about her product around not only the Middle East but globally now too.

This is her speaking a year later having established her company and moving from being a corporate employee number 122,343 to being employee and owner number 1 of her own brand and her own company where she is able to travel the world and work for herself!

 Webpreneur:  Soraya Chiah

 Location:  Dubai, UAE

 Industry:  Tourism

 Website:  www.GuiaEmDubai.com

Having attended the Webpreneur Weekend in August 2010, Soraya was determined to leave a job she was bored in - administration in an Insurance company - to go work for herself.

At Webpreneur she learned to find her "niche" in the world.  In her case, as a Brazilian of Lebanese origin living in Dubai, she saw that she could help Brazilians visiting Dubai as many of them didn't speak much english.  She learned to setup GuiaEmDubai (Guide In Dubai) and started doing natural search engine optimization to be ranked on the first page of Google.

When Brazlians now looking to travel to Dubai need some assistance and type in "Guide In Dubai", "Tourism in Dubai" or other similar terms her website turns up near the top.  They are then able to request a quotation for a unique experience in visiting Dubai.

Soraya says:

"I have tried many times to have my own business.  All of them failed because of the need of enough money to start. But through the internet I did not have to invest that much. So I'm having my own business.  The store that I have - this website I have done by myself.  What I invested money in was my training.

What I have done through this last year, the result was that I have done my own website about tourism in Dubai. 

And thanks God, most of our clients are coming from Google.  People go to Google and they type the keywords "Guide in Dubai", "Tourism in Dubai" or "Assistance in Dubai" and they find us on the first page."

So I feel very proud of myself that I got this small result but which allowed me to leave my day job and now I have my own business where I manage my life.  No boss.  No someone telling me what I have to do. I do it by myself.

And this is thanks to you, Amir, because we got alot of assistance from your side, and a lot of knowledge." 

Here is Soraya attending the Webpreneur Weekend in August 2010 and here she is talking about what she learned about the possilbilites of the web:

By June 2011, she had left her job and became a full-time webpreneur.  Here she is talking about life being her own boss, doing what she loves (as quoted above as well):

You can follow Soraya's business at www.GuiaEmDubai.com.  The website is in Portugese as it is aimed at the Brazilian market.  Here she is promoting on YouTube:

She had faith, took the leap and now is reaping the rewards by being her own boss.  She worked hard, struggled through the technical and business lessons but her work paid off.

Soraya was able to find what made her unique in the world and what she could become best at:  Helping Brazlians visiting Dubai.  She is also now helping other people setting up their websites so has a seperate business in that.

 Webpreneur:  Newton Waithaka

 Location:  Nairobi, Kenya

 Industry:  Home Decor

 Websites: www.isaacobjectsofdecor.com

Newton had left Dubai to be back home to his own country in Kenya.  He wasn't sure what to do in his new chapter of life so he enrolled with Webpreneur Academy.  Newton says:

"I thought through many businesses such as travel and hospitality before deciding to setup a home decor business. The service in Kenya wasn't great for home decor and I saw that I could improve what was being done locally.".

With Webpreneur coaching Newton was able to setup his first online store atIsaacObjectsOfDecor.com and figure out innovative ways to market his business locally.

He wrote in to Webpreneur:

Hi Amir,

How are you doing? Bet you're very busy.

As for me i'm well been doing a different kind of marketing for my store and the response is quite good, actually overwhelming. On Monday this week i had 1,447 hits on the site since i was running a deal of a discounted shopping voucher.

Basically what i did is approach a company called Mocality who run daily deals on their site provided whatever you are offering is discounted significantly. My intention was to market the store, get new customers and dispose stock.

See the link for more detail http://deals.mocality.co.ke/deals/isaacobjectsofdecor

Newton.

Founder and CEO,

IsaacObjectsOfDecor.com

(Newton graduated Webpreneur Academy graduate with Distinction)

Newton advices other Kenyan entrepreneurs to stick with it as he says it takes time for businesses to mature.  He sees great opportunityt to expand his business by offering other services such as interior design consulting. He is already receiving orders from neighboring countries such as Tanzania.

Webpreneur:  Aamnah Akram

Location:  Lahore, Pakistan

Industry:  Web hosting

Websites: www.aamnah.com, www.hostmarkaz.com

Aamnah is studying Media Studies at Kinnaird College in Pakistan.  She is a self-confessed internet fanatic who was free lancing on odesk to earn an income while studying.  Originally she got hired by Amir Anzur, founder of Webpreneur Academy, as a virtual assistant to help him create content to teach other students how to become webpreneurs.  While creating the content, she realised that working in a job limited her income and so she started applying what she was learning while creating Webpreneur Academy content to her own self - to get out of being an employee to a webpreneur.

Within a few months she had become a proper webpreneur.  She began by differentiating herself from the thousands of other freelancers on odesk by creating her own profile at www.aamanah.com.  She realized how critical creating a personal brand was in the internet economy.

She then firgured that students from Pakistan and other emerging countries would also like to create their own websites and paying with credit cards to American web hosting companies was not always going to be easy for students.  So she founded HostMarkaz.com.  The website makes it easy for students and beginners on the internet to setup their own domain name, their own websites and also install Google Apps for themselves.  She is enjoying the challenge of balancing her studies with running a business with customers across the globe.

   "Webpreneur gave me the confidence and skills to go out and do what I love.  Working from home is perfect for me and my own business allows me to balance my life."

 Aamanh Akram, 

 Founder and Managing Director

 HostMarkaz.com

Webpreneur:  Anwer Ahmed

Location:  Islamabad, Pakistan

Industry:  Honey Bee Farming

Website:  www.SabeelHoney.com

Having moved back from the United States to Pakistan, Anwer wanted to start a business which he could help local farmers as well as earn some income for himself.  He didn't have much capital to invest in the business but saw that honey was a product with great potential to market as he saw premium honey brands being sold at over $250 per bottle in the United States.  He could source similar levels of honey at $12 per kilo.

Anwer founded Sabeel Honey, a website sourcing local Pakistani honey and exporting across the globe.  

"My first customer ordered from Burma - It was the last place I was expecting.  The customer ordered a single jar of honey and a few weeks later contacted me again to supply them wholesale.  I have since received orders from United States, Saudi Arabia and other countries around the world.  I am excited to expand my new found business."

Anwer Ahmed

Founder, Sabeel Honey.com

 Webpreneur:  Faisal Jalil

 Location:  Islamabad, Pakistan

 Industry:  Software

 Website: www.ITLinkSolutions.com,  www.ShopMarkaz.com

Faisal has been running an IT solutions company since 1998.  He was a pioneer in the web but maybe too ahead of time on many of his ventures.  He spent the last decade creating software for clients as their off-shore development house.  His clients sometimes made millions of dollars while he provided the back-end solutions.

He was now ready for his own product which he saw could help the Middle East and Africa.  Faisal says,

"What we need is software which will allow people to create their own stores.  And we need it localized with the local payment methods."

Through Webpreneur he got some initial funding to make that happen.  He founded ShopMarkaz.com and together with his team they built up the leading software for ecommerce in theregion.  WebpreneurAcademy.com, AmirAnzur.com, SabeelHoney.com, IsaacObjectsOfDecor.com are all running on Faisal's ShopMarkaz platform.

"In emerging countries we often become the backend providers for brands being created abroad.  I learned through webpreneur that the profits and money was actually in creating the brand rather than doing the back-end off-shore low value work in which we were simply the commodity.  

As we help our customers create websites and make money, we also see ourselves being able to compete not only in the Middle East but globally.  We already have US and UK based customes that love our software.  

My key learning was from being less of a technology person and more and more of the brand creator and marketer."

Faisal Jalil

Founder and CEO,

ShopMarkaz.com

Webpreneur:  Amir Anzur

Location:  Dubai, UAE

Industry:  Education

Website:  www.AmirAnzur.com, www.WebpreneurAcademy.com

They say "those that can't teach".  So do I practice what I preach or am I just teaching you while working in a comfortable job?

This is the day I woke up a free man 6 July, 2010 (video from then):

I teach about loving what you do, finding passion in your work, being the best at it and then making a living from it.  I had setup multiple businesses including insurance, travel, mobile, flowershops, hosting etc but then realized the thing that I was most passionate about was teaching others how to create wealth for themselves.  Truth is I don't really want to run a large company.  I love writing, creating but managing people is not something that drives me.

I simply love teaching.  But being a teacher can make you broke as your income is limited.  And this is where Webpreneur Academy has come in.  I am trying multiple ways to monetize what I love doing.  This isn't funded by Government or rich parents, I went out used my own credit cards, got venture capitalists on board and now I can teach you.  My focus is Webpreneur Academy as becoming the best teacher in the world is something I can focus on for the next few years of my life.  

Tiger Woods had Golf.  Michael Jordan had basketball.  Pele had football.  Picasso had the paintbrush. Stephen Spielberg had the movie camera.  I have teaching as my niche in the world.

My own dream was to help people from emrging countries learn how wealth can be created - so that they don't have to leave their homelands for a better life.  And through this business model, I am able to spend my time in creating content and researching while thosands of people are able to learn and benefit from each other.

The world of education is changing. I got lucky in that my parents were able to invest in my education - many people don't have those opportunities.  My assurance to you is that taking the webpreneur course will save you years of work and streamline what you need to know in order to start generating wealth for yourself or even educating yourself.

The internet is very real.  It can be used in many industries and I am grateful that it allows me to do what I love, help many people and make a living doing it.  Everything that I have learned, I put on this website.  There are many of you that love to teach, and I have created Webpreneur so that people like you and I can do what we love and make a living from it too.

Amir Anzur,

Dean, Webpreneur Academy