Success leaves clues. Finance Strategists sat down with Ahsan Sohail, founder of MavenUp Creatives. He shared his views on the past, present, and future of the company, as well as the insight that led him down the path to success. Q: Who are you and what’s your background? My name is Ahsan Sohail, and I am currently the CEO of MavenUp Creatives Private Limited, an IT company based in Pakistan. I have studied Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from Virtual University of Pakistan, a well-known and ‘W’ category university in Pakistan. From 2010 to 2015, my career was no more than a struggling cycle, where I couldn’t achieve anything. I tried too many different fields to settle in, but never got results in any of them. To survive, I used to give private tuitions to Bachelors and Masters Students as well, but as stated above, I couldn’t get myself adjusted anywhere because of the undesired results. In 2015, I started my own IT Company with the help of my friends, which ultimately got me on the right path, and I got much unprecedented results thereafter. Q: Who has been your biggest influence, and why did they have such a significant effect on you? I always wanted to achieve too much in my life, for which I had tried everything that could benefit me in the long-run. As I always planned on long-term benefits, what I wanted to do was to give my best inputs to achieve maximum results. I belong to a middle-class family, and I have seen many life challenges where our hands were tied, and we couldn’t live a comfortable life. My primary inspiration comes from my own home. My father has struggled throughout his life, where he always wanted to give the best to his children but couldn’t. Q: Knowing what you know now, what would you have told yourself when you were in your twenties? I had a clear vision in front of me when I started, I wanted to achieve the best, and I imagined the challenging situations I could get into and the challenges I could face during my struggle. The only thing I could have told myself about the few decisions to avoid that I made throughout this journey. These few decisions didn’t even hurt that much but could have possibly expedited the process of achieving success. But I believe anything you learn during the most challenging period becomes your strength in the end, and you always end up dealing with more pressure and life challenges. Q: What is MavenUp Creatives? MavenUp Creatives is an IT company established in 2015 and registered from the local SEC in mid-2016. It is one of the best web design and development company based in Pakistan, but we provide services throughout the world. We have some of the best IT personnel, and we know how to make a difference as far as the quality of the work is concerned. We have served more than two thousand clients throughout the world, and that’s a wonderful achievement for us. About 80% of our clients are from the United States and the rest from other parts of the world. Q: What makes your company different from its competitors? From the beginning, since the establishment of MavenUp Creatives Private Limited, we have had the ambition of being the best quality IT firm, having a customer base in the whole world. The best thing that separates us from our competitors is that we do not go after earning mere profits; we prefer customer satisfaction even if it comprises our profits. We always have preferred a long-term relationship with our clients who want to succeed in their businesses and are struggling in any case. This is the case we have some of the good clients who have been working with us for the last few years, and still, they trust us and never hesitated in giving full access to their company data and controls. In the same way, we have shown that we are trustworthy and never superseded the authority. Q: What led you to start MavenUp Creatives? As I previously explained, I was struggling a lot in my career and never wanted to give up. Self-motivation was the only thing left in me, which gave me the energy I needed, gave me the clarity of mind, which lead me to work in a lot of fields. I tried working in a medical transcription business back in 2010, which I became really good at, but the compensation in the job was merely enough. I worked for about one and a half years in the MT Company and then left to pursue my career somewhere else. I also started studying Chartered Accountancy in 2011, and along with the study, I started giving private tuitions to professional students of Bachelors and Masters (Specifically finance students). As I was arranging everything for my professional studies myself, I started teaching more and more, and every day, I used to take classes for about 4 to 5 hours. Then after taking my classes, I gave tuitions and academy classes for about 7 to 8 hours. So, I had to focus on two different fields, and also, when I would come back from my teaching classes, I used to spend two or three hours sitting over the internet exploring new opportunities. I was working very hard to make an impact, as I wanted to finance my professional degree, and I was quite passionate about that. Still, unfortunately, I never had enough time to study, and couldn’t pass a lot of papers. As Chartered Accountancy is one of the toughest degree certifications in Pakistan, I needed a lot of time to prepare for everything and pass out. I still was able to complete 2 out of 3 stages of the certification in 2014, but I then left my study and started working as a freelancer, providing financial feasibility and forecasting services, which gave me a good turnaround of my career. Q: What has the experience of building the business taught you? As previously said above, I started my proper career as a freelancer providing financial services. Then I realized combining my financial knowledge with IT can do wonders, and I, along with my three friends, opened our first small office back in October 2015. We hired a few employees to work on our small projects. We started getting good exposure in projects, and with growth in our business, we started hiring more people and resources. I have realized after working for more than ten straight years that the only thing that gets you to be on the right path and succeed in the end is the hard work and maintaining a very positive mindset. Whatever you do, whatever decisions you make, you have to take a good stand on them. Not too early, but after some time, you will start seeing positive results. So, the only thing to make us succeed, I believe, is to be persistent with your business, spending some time on learning new things to benefit your future, and staying positive and visionary whatever the circumstances are. Q: Where do you see things headed for you in the next 5 years? Our team has been working on an internet-based ERP system, which only a few companies are providing throughout the world. Our model is unique and will benefit the users in every way possible. We have worked hard on getting things done our way, and we will be able to complete all modules of the product probably in the next couple of years or sooner. I believe that product will give us a significant breakthrough in our lives and would give us the exponential growth our company needs. I have a family with a wonderful daughter, and I am not planning to retire in my whole life. About MavenUp Creatives MavenUp Creatives acts as your partner with a vigilant team, agile environment, and is steadfast in keeping commitments. MavenUp Creatives stands with you to fulfill your digital marketing goals, and to make any “Business a Brand” across the United States of America. Learn more at https://www.mavenup.com/.Introduction
Who is Ahsan Sohail?
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True Tamplin is a published author, public speaker, CEO of UpDigital, and founder of Finance Strategists.
True is a Certified Educator in Personal Finance (CEPF®), author of The Handy Financial Ratios Guide, a member of the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing, contributes to his financial education site, Finance Strategists, and has spoken to various financial communities such as the CFA Institute, as well as university students like his Alma mater, Biola University, where he received a bachelor of science in business and data analytics.
To learn more about True, visit his personal website or view his author profiles on Amazon, Nasdaq and Forbes.
