How This Entrepreneur Is Secretly Powering 25 Million Sites

WPForms, OptinMonster, MonsterInsights, WPCode, All in One SEO: If you use WordPress, which powers over 43% of all websites on the internet, you’re bound to know these plugins. Chances are, you have one or more of them installed. 

After all, they add essential functionalities to your site - from easy to use contact forms over adding custom code snippets to driving up retention and conversion rates. 

But what do these WordPress plugins have in common? Apart from being indispensable, that is. 

The answer is Syed Balkhi, a Pakistani-American entrepreneur who’s built a diverse portfolio of WordPress businesses that make him multiple eight figures per year. 

In total, over 25 million sites are powered by one of his plugins. 

Here’s the business philosophy and technical acumen that helped him do it. 

Launching WPBeginner - On a Mission to Do Right By Clients

Balkhi’s career in online business started out less than glamorous. After his family immigrated to the US from Pakistan when he was 12, his father worked three minimum wage jobs, 16 hours per day, to get them by. 

To help out, Balkhi started taking small online jobs, from managing forums to, eventually, building websites. 

By 2009, he was running a thriving consulting business and realized that he had to let some of his smaller clients go. However, he did not want to let them down. 

“Back in the day when I needed money, they were there for me,” he explains. “I didn’t want to abandon them. So I pitched them the idea, ‘Hey, can I move you from your static PHP site to WordPress? Then you don't have to pay me a maintenance fee anymore, and you'll be able to make all those small changes on your site yourself.’” 

The majority of his clients were on board with the idea. But Balkhi soon realized that they would need guidance to use WordPress. “That’s when I discovered that there weren’t any freely accessible tutorials out there. Ultimately, that’s what inspired me to start the WPBeginner blog - as a free knowledge base.” 

Today, WPBeginner is the largest freely accessible repository of WordPress knowledge, with several million monthly visitors seeking tutorials and fixes for specific errors. 

It also forms the basis of Balkhi’s successful business ventures when it comes to WordPress plugins - by helping him identify his users’ pain points. 

Pinpointing Success Gaps and Building Tailor-Made Products 

“I fundamentally believe that the best way to business success is to focus on filling success gaps,” Balkhi explains. “There’s a gap that's holding my customers back from reaching success - and if I can fill that gap, they'll stay with me for a long time.”

The key way to identifying these gaps? WPBeginner’s annual surveys. Balkhi says, “I listen to what our customers are saying. In our survey, one of the questions is: If you could ask us to build one product, what would it be?”

Harnessing this information, Balkhi has either built tailor-made plugins that match users expectations to a T. Or he’s acquired existing plugins and improved them to help people close their success gaps. 

In one survey, users agreed that they needed a comprehensive plugin to manage search engine optimization (SEO) for their sites. As a result, All in One SEO was born. 

Another time, Balkhi gathered feedback on form builder plugins - and what users thought they were missing. Using this first-hand information, he crafted WPForms, which has become the most-installed and best-reviewed plugin for building forms.   

Now, he’s the CEO of AwesomeMotive, the company behind popular WordPress plugins like WPForms and OptinMonster - as well as over 20 others. Not to mention several open-source solutions, like Shopify to WP and Medium to WP. 

Balkhi’s mission, though, hasn’t changed since 2009. He’s still out to level the playing field and empower anyone who wants to build a captivating website, no matter how many resources they have at their disposal.  

Leveling the Playing Field - Making Success Factors Accessible 

“I realized that the advantage big corporations have is that they have access to better tools, better teams, and better training,” he says. “I call those the 3 Ts of success,” Balkhi says. “My mission in leveling the playing field is to provide better training - which we do through WPBeginner. And it's free!” 

As for providing better tools, that’s where AwesomeMotive and all of Balkhi’s plugin solutions come in. “We have the best technology at the most affordable prices,” he explains. 

“That's why we have great retention, and a very loyal user base, and why we're growing at the rate that we are. There is no secret sauce. We just do the simple things really well. And we keep doing them over a long time. You keep doing something for twelve, sixteen years - then all of a sudden it looks like an overnight success.”

The Bottom Line 

Balkhi’s story shows that even in the fast-paced world of online businesses and WordPress plugins, success is possible with persistence, a focus on the needs of users - and the right entrepreneurial philosophy.

By basing his business strategy on the insights he gained from a vast audience seeking free resources, he’s been able to thrive for well over a decade. And (em)power well over 25 million sites.

Image sourced from Shutterstock

This post was authored by an external contributor and does not represent Benzinga's opinions and has not been edited for content. The information contained above is provided for informational and educational purposes only, and nothing contained herein should be construed as investment advice. Benzinga does not make any recommendation to buy or sell any security or any representation about the financial condition of any company.