“Follow your passion and the success will follow you!” the phrase that has become quite common today, and actually has done wonders for many. Same is the story of Delhi-based entrepreneur, Harsh Agarwal, who left a job (many of us dream of) just to follow his passion, and indeed the phrase set true for him, too.
Early Life
Born on 22 June 1987, Harsh Agarwal was a curious child and was always into learning new things. When he was 14, he became interested in computers and started saving to buy one. In 2002, he along with his family moved to Delhi, where he joined the Laxman Public School to pursue high school. After completing his school education, he joined the Sharda University and pursued a B.Tech degree in Information Technology.
Like any other parents, it was expected from him, too, to get a good job in an MNC and settle for a regular life. But it was not what Agarwal had ever thought. Having a curious mind, he was always into creative things and even got a certification in ethical hacking while in college.
Career
Soon the time for the placements came, his knowledge and creativity landed up him getting a job with one of the biggest MNCs, Accenture, in 2008. Since there was enough time between his graduation and joining with Accenture, he started working for Convergys.
Along with his job with Convergys, he started writing about things he knew and the things he was learning, at the BlogSpot platform. At that time, blogging was not as popular as it is today. Soon he also received his acceptance letter and joined a regular job at Accenture.
Along with his job, Agrawal was continuously working on his blog. He was interested in network and computer security, so he started a community named Underground World on Orkut. Soon the community started approaching more people, and Aggrwawal decided to build a blog with the same name. He tried to get a domain with the same name on BlogSpot, but the domain was not available, so he started a blog with name virgintech.blogspot. The first paycheque that he received from his online job was of $10, and the first money that he earned from AdSense was of $40.
Soon, the blog was making enough money with AdSense and other sources, such that Agarwal was able to pay his daily needs. After six months of his blogging career, he decided to devote all his time to his blog and left his job. His prime focus was to work on his blog, so he migrated his blog to a WordPress website and chose Shout-Me-Loud as the name for his blog.
Turning Point
On 29th June 2009, Agrawal met with a terrible accident, and the doctors advised him to stay on bed for the next six months. The accident was so bad that doctors had informed him that he won’t be able to walk again. Agarwal was shaken and had lost all hopes. But all he could do was try. Being bedridden, Agrawal had plenty of time to study and work on his blog. Along with working on his health, he was constantly working on the growth of his blog. According to Agarwal, it was a life-changing experience for him.
After seven months of practice and treatment, he was back on his feet. In December 2009, he met with another Blogger from Pune and partnered with him for a new venture. The two started working on a new project, and Agrawal became the B.D.O. of the firm. In just six months the company was financially independent, but the partnership was not going quite well. So, Agarwal decided to end the partnership and move back to Delhi.
ShoutMeLoud Growth
When Agarwal moved to Pune, he hardly got time for ShoutMeLoud, but when he came back to Delhi, it was the only thing which he was dedicated to. Soon the blog came back on track, and Agarwal started blogging to create awareness about making money from blogging. In just two years, ShoutMeLoud became one of the best blogs in India, and in 2013, even won the “Best Indian blog by Indiblogger” award.
By the year 2014-15, Agarwal received recognition as a public speaker, too. He organised plenty of workshops, and also, organised a blogger awareness trip ‘ShoutMeet’ from Delhi to Kanyakumari, in 2015.
Currently, ShoutMeLoud is operating under its parent company ShoutDreams and other than ShoutMeLoud, ShoutDreams is hosting WPhostingDiscount, ShoutMeTech, WPSutra, and CoinSutra blogs. In the past ten years, ShoutMeLoud has grown to a company of its own name, and many other bloggers are getting inspiration from the success story of Harsh Agarwal.
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.