KOMPAS.com – “I have always been fascinated by the internet. I spent my teenage years online, building networks and businesses, and grew up in the suburb of Surrey.”
That was a statement Adnan Ebrahim |, 30 years old, a technology entrepreneur at English.
He founded the Car Throttle website, an internet community for car enthusiasts, from his room. Adnan has shown an entrepreneurial spirit since he was a child.
In his conversation for the program A Million by 30 (earn £ 1m or Rp19 billion) at age 30) with Sean Farrington on BBC Radio 5 Live, he said the first time he saw the potential for making money via the internet was “when he started selling plastic bracelets to school friends in 2005-2006. “
“Experience a loss”
Adnan said sales on “eBay were tens of times more than direct sales. I started my first auction of these bracelets from home.”
“I asked my mother to go to the shop and buy as much as possible.”
The income he said was quite a lot “for the size of a school child.”
At the age of 16, Adnan started blogging after failing to sell iPods.
“I lost quite a lot, up to £ 2,000 … it turns out that a seller is a fake,” he said.
Writing blogs turned out to be more profitable. He was a car enthusiast and started writing various things about cars.
“Every time I come home from school, I write an article, it is published. The next day I look at the results and check how many people have read … and see how many results are people clicking on my articles.”
“Second life… ‘a little embarrassed “
Adnan began to smell the potential benefits of selling online after his pennies became “ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred … to several thousand dollars a month.”
“It’s weird, but I love that nobody knows. Selling online is like a second life to me.”
Until this stage, he had not told his friends.
“No one knows, except my family.”
“I’m a little embarrassed, I have this kind of second life. I started blogging and I was a little worried what people would think.”
“I did not tell my friends one cost until the second year of living with them … they did not know what I was doing.”
Journalist Treveor Clawson, who writes extensively about tech entrepreneurs and fast-growing companies, says the secret Adnan holds is often held among young entrepreneurs.
“There are a number of reasons behind this, to stay humble in the early years,” said Clawson.
“Fear of being criticized can be a factor. A friend’s criticism of an idea that is still being developed can also make entrepreneurs discuss their ideas with their friends.”
Adnan himself said he needed time before telling him about his business.
“I feel when I tell the story, my friends don’t really understand and are interested either.”
He said he remembered the moment when he started talking about his business, the Car Throttle, to a boarding house friend, but his response was different from what he had expected.
“I said, I have something big. I have a website, and I remember my friend said, ‘so what?’, Not an interesting thing for him,” said Adnan.
The number “million”come quickly
Adnan said he recalled the amount of “million” (in pounds or billions in rupiah) of profits, starting to appear on his financial records.
“The million figures came fast, in 2013, 2014, in terms of business valuations, and got the first million in revenue, the first million people subscribed to YouTube, and the first million our followers on Facebook … we’re growing fast,” he said.
He sold Car Throttle in 2019 to Dennis Publishing, after building a following of more than 15 million and 2.5 billion people who watched the video.
Douglas McCabe, technology and media expert and chief executive of Enders Analysis, said Adnan’s business was not an important site about cars but managed to get a large audience.
“This site is attracting new readers, with over 60% of customers under 35 years of age. Outreach on social media is very valuable, about 14 times and 17 times more than the Auto Express and Car Buyer sites.”
This year, Adnan was included in the list of successful entrepreneurs in the magazine Forbes for Forbes’ 30 Under 30 (under the age of 30.)
Adnan said he never regretted starting the business so young, but said “he should have been more aggressive about seizing opportunities.”
“When I was younger, I often felt inferior,” he added.
Ben Laker, professor at Henley Business School, said young entrepreneurs often fear their own success.
Adnan is currently the chief executive of mental health company MindLabs, which he co-founded with his partner Gabor Szedlak.
His advice to technology entrepreneurs is, “The road to success is not easy, there are many challenges. What we have to realize is, we will make mistakes, and that’s normal.”
“What needs to be done is to keep trying. A lot of difficult things, that’s what I can describe what I went through,” he concluded.
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