Journey of transformation of a university professor to becoming an entrepreneur with Alibaba.com

“People always encourage you to take a job, be safe. I started off as a professor but soon I started my own export business journey with Alibaba.com and today I can say, it is difficult, it is challenging, but it is equally rewarding and satisfying. ”

Story

Saad Ahmed Minhas is an electrical engineer by profession. After continuing his professional stint in various cities in Pakistan, Saad finally returned as a professor back to his hometown in Sialkot. While teaching business to new age MBA graduates, Saad himself was going through a transformation. He observed the city around him and the immense potential Sialkot had, as an export hub. Every other person was into export and the manufacturing and export ecosystem was already set. All Saad had to sort was to find a reliable partner who would connect him with the world of international B2B buyers and that’s when he crossed path with Alibaba.com.

Solution

After much research, Saad decided that Alibaba.com was the right platform for him. Being an engineer himself, Saad believed that digital commerce was going to be the future. He was good with numbers and hence he used the analytics dashboards of Alibaba.com to find the right products to sell based on their demand. He decided the right price by comparing his price with other global sellers and most importantly, he learned about keyword analytics and used the right keywords to drive traffic to his products. Saad took advantage of attending the online as well as offline lectures available to become a successful export seller in Alibaba.com and slowly started to see the good results that differentiated him from other sellers in the platform.

Success

Within just two years at Alibaba.com, S.A Sports is already a 3 Star account with more than 1300 premium products posted in it. In the first year of taking membership only, Saad has made 5 million PKR revenue only through Alibaba.com. Initially having started the business as a trader, Saad has slowly shifted his business to manufacturing and today he has more than 12 employees working for him. In Saad’s words, today, when he looks back at his journey, he feels content and satisfied. He feels he has achieved much more as an entrepreneur than he could ever have as a salaried employee and the journey is equally exciting every day.