Muzammil Arif is a Pakistani freelancer and entrepreneur who has mentored and inspired many to follow in his footsteps and enter the realm of freelancing. Muzammil was a key part of the National Freelancing Convention ceremony, where his story was shared by PITB Chairman Umer Saif. Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif stood up from his seat and shook Muzammil’s hand congratulating him on his success.
MORE asked Muzammil to share his success story with our readers. Here’s what he said:
Muzammil said he started his career in the IT industry back in 2007 when he started working as lab assistant in a college. When he resigned from the same college three years later he was earning Rs.25,000 per month. A friend advised him to become a freelancer so he made an account on Odesk.
He reminisces the time when he used to work on projects for $5 to $50 and now owns a company with nine employees working in different domains. The experienced freelancer said he completes the same $50 project in over $500 now. In addition to this, Muzammil also runs an online Quran academy with 30 trainers and a total of 250 students currently enrolled.
Answering a question about the future of freelancing in Pakistan he said 0.2 million freelancers are already working and earning $1.2 Billion per year. He said with the launch of Punjab Government’s e-rozgaar program it would become a bit easier to accommodate the huge number of students graduating every year.
Muzammil said money does not immediately start flowing in, freelancing takes time and you need to be patient. He said he wants to turn his company into a software house very soon and is also working on a couple of startup ideas.
Moreover, Arif plans to conduct more training, webinars and courses online so everyone can benefit from his experience. He said these trained professionals will be able to bring in foreign exchange. Arif said one of the benefits of freelancing is that you do not have limited human resource because of lesser office space but sometimes a physical location is also required and e-rozgaar plans to do just that.
