His first stint with the internet was back in 2004, and hardly anyone knew that Murtaza would use it as a tool in his Entrepreneurial journey. Although Murtaza was extremely curious about computers, the internet, and networking, he didn’t have access to that during his childhood. His school didn’t provide any formal education in computers until the sixth grade. Even minimal access to the internet via a cybercafé in Burhanpur (his hometown) seemed like royalty at that time. The charges for surfing the internet were just Rs.10 per hour back then.

After completing his schooling, he enrolled in an engineering college in Jalgaon. It was the first time he had proper access to computers through the college computer laboratory. During his college years, he became more curious about the working of the internet and the formation of networks.

His curiosity made him attend Wikipedia’s first-ever Wiki Conference in Mumbai in 2011, which had Jimmy Wales as the keynote speaker. After hearing about how Wikipedia is changing the world rapidly, he realized that the internet is the ‘one thing that will soon rock the entire world. After attending the 3-day conference in Mumbai, he returned to his engineering college, trying to calm the storm of thoughts and ideas that floated in his mind. 

The entrepreneurial journey of Murtaza

The very next year, in 2012, Murtaza attended yet another event that prominent speakers graced. There he saw Mr. Bhavish Agarwal of Ola, who was pitching to raise funds for Ola at the time. He did not want to let go of a single opportunity and asked him for an internship opportunity.

Among other great entrepreneurs, he also met Mr. Annkur Agarwal of annkur.com at the event. It was a turning point in his life. He very confidently mentioned to Annkur that he wanted to use the internet’s broad reach to help engineering kids make a difference in the world. Rather than just mugging up equations, numbers, and formulae, he wanted to find a way to help them build fundamental engineering skills.

Annkur warmly asked if Murtaza knew anything about websites, the internet, and how to work with them. He denied knowing much about the internet. Seeing his passion, boldness, and curiosity, Annkur anyway offered him an internship opportunity at OnlyGizmos.com.

Murtaza made a life-changing decision that day. He dropped out of his college at Jalgaon and moved to Mumbai with an empty pocket and a huge debt, solely on his instinct. And you know what? The city of dreams was indeed kind to him. After working with OnlyGizmos.com for four months, he got an opportunity to be the first employee at PriceBaba – another startup by Annkur Agarwal. 

Entrepreneurial journey of Murtaza

But everything was not as rosy as it sounds. Murtaza’s parents stopped sending pocket money to him due to his decision to drop out. And the stipend from internships was not enough to survive in a city like Mumbai. He took help from one of his aunts who stayed in Mumbai and has been an integral part of his life ever since. She gave him accommodation, food, and some money to travel during those times. It was a massive favor for him at that time. 

Now Murtaza focused on his passion, and his curiosity gave him more recognition. How? Murtaza found a bug in Linkedin that allowed users to become premium members without paying anything to LinkedIn. Such a bug can cause a massive loss in reputation and finances to any company. He disclosed the bug to LinkedIn. It got him recognition in several regional and technological publications.

With the burning passion for achieving more, Murtaza leaped faith in the year 2013. He started a company called MBA Ka Keeda with a friend. He took the website from 0 to 70,000 unique users per month with sheer hard work and research.

But later, he sold his equity in MBA Ka Keeda to his partner and settled all the looming debt on his head. After that, he started another software company with the remaining funds in Nagpur. He built his company to provide retail software to store owners. Unfortunately, that initiative failed miserably.

The good thing was that Murtaza had built his knowledge base by now. He utilized his knowledge about data and web scraping to provide services to clients. He collaborated with one of his friends who had experience with data extraction and started hiring him on an ad-hoc basis in Nagpur.

Soon, Murtaza found a big client, and that changed his life. The client was from UpWork and was desperate to get data scraping done for his business. After the client wired 5000 USD to him for his services, Murtaza started a proper office and hired staff to help with his data requirements. It is how BizProspex was created.

Soon after, Murtaza started procuring clients from across the globe and providing them data mining services. He also got an opportunity to work on-site for a few months with a client in the United States. It gave him a world view of business and chiseled his outlook and approach.

Even after traveling and setting base worldwide, his heart was still in Burhanpur – his hometown. While he had achieved a lot already, he wanted to do something for his people. Brain drain from Burhanpur was a significant issue. He wanted to provide some ways for people in Burhanpur to get job opportunities in Burhanpur itself.

In 2016, Murtaza took another big step. With the massive risk of losing business, he moved from Mumbai to Burhanpur. His passion and sense of belongingness drove him to do something for his hometown. And as luck would have it, BizProspex not only survived but also thrived in Burhanpur.

Today, BizProspex employs 50 people in Burhanpur and five employees at the Nagpur office. Murtaza owns three diverse businesses, BizProspex.com, wahleads.com (A SaaS software), and DaddyLeads.com (pre scrapped bundled data solution).

But his journey was not easy at all. It was full of challenges. He consistently faced a lot of opposition and counter opinions for his strong views, but he kept striding ahead. His community members opposed him too and looked down upon his decision to drop out, create his own company, and shift his company to Burhanpur – but he did it nevertheless! And how.

He has also been featured in magazines like Forbes and Entrepreneur.com for his views and surveys about Upwork and its pricing model. Murtaza also built a small free library in Burhanpur to encourage people to read. Murtaza also shares a lot of insight and real-life experiences on his YouTube channel and website, murtazaamin.com.

Honestly, his journey from being a dropout to a dynamic entrepreneur is awe-inspiring and a remarkable one!

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