Hey, Ibsta from Ibsta Tech here.
I go by many monickers. Abe is another one. My actual proper name is way too long. Muhammad Ibrahim Abdullah. Well, it’s even longer, to be really honest with you: Rana Muhammad Ibrahim Abdullah Sulemani. When I’ll transcend to being a saint, it shall be Hazrat Rana Muhammad Ibrahim Abdullah Sulemani Rehmatullah Alaih. Fingers crossed.
I wrote my first line of code 8 years ago, back when I was 18 years old. It was love at first sight, all that multicolored jazz running on that smooth IDE with the black background. I think it was Sublime Text. I’ve since then moved to Visual Studio Code. It’s the fucking best, in my opinion.
It was basic <!DOCTYPE HTML> in an index.html file, which after half an hour became a whole page complete with a style.css and an app.js, and I was like what in the actual name of God is happening! It was magic, I tell ya. Haven’t looked back since. This was back when I was still in intermediate college and was studying pre-med to get into medical college according to the wishes of my parents. Pakistani parents are all about wanting their kids to either become a doctor or an engineer. Not their fault, it’s just that to them these two fields appear to be the most, well, stable. Not their fault. It’s society that made them like that. The same goes for my parents. They wanted a doctor son, what they got in return was someone who failed to get into medical school for two years in a row. I, then, said to both of them that I want to pursue my passion. They didn’t let me. My passion being writing. They said there was no money in this field to be made in Pakistan, at the very least. So I said, fuck it, and did what was the most logical thing for me to do given the situation I was in: I gave an additional mathematics exam and got admission in the NFC Institute of Engineering and Fertilizer Research. It was the alma mater of my uncle, who studied chemical engineering from there. He’s now a big wig in a huge corporation in Saudi Arabia. Me, personally, I don’t like Saudi Arabia one bit.
Okay, so, like, yeah, in 2014 I got admission in bachelors of computer science in the aforementioned institute and started my education as a computer scientist.
I dropped out in my 5th semester.
I figured I’d learned enough. I couldn’t take the whole politics scene that went in that fucking institute that, although was the source of my learning and gave me wings to fly and everything, was so fucked up beyond belief that I was driven to the point of either suicide or murder. Since I didn’t want to kill either myself or the man that was the source of my misery (he shall remain unnamed here, because, well, I’m a DevRel on the weekends and I don’t want him reading his name here), I created a third option, the same option that the OGs of the field opted for when they were flying high: I dropped out.
Why?
Well, I started freelancing on Upwork around 6 years ago and was earning a good, steady income by ghostwriting fiction novels. I was making around $1500 per month when I dropped out. That was good money. It still is. I earn twice that amount now on a bad day.
Anyways, so, like, in my first semester, I learned all I could about C++ and became a complete OOP gangsta. In my second semester I dived deep into OOP and at the end of that semester I created an artificially intelligent therapist that would diagnose you with a disorder if you had any. In my third semester, I had a fling with game development in Unity3d. Loved it like death. In my fourth semester, I decided to invest in data structures, databases, web development, and all that jazz.
In my fifth semester, I proposed doing an AI IOT final year project that the HOD shot down and instead insisted I do something in the networking field. Let me just get one thing straight for all of you: I am not a networker. I am a developer, a programmer, a software engineer. I do not budge from my principles. I chose to drop out because of the pressure that man was putting on me in the form of verbal extortion. Said he’d fail me and shit. Said he’d do terrible things to my degree.
Fuck your degree in the asshole, motherfucker.
Right after dropping out I went to one of the best developers in Pakistan and began my internship at his software development firm for two months in Abbottabad. Then I came back to Faisalabad and resumed working as a ghostwriter because back at that time I wasn’t ready to get into development professionally and needed instant cash. Ghostwriting gives you instant cash. You write a 10,000 word eBook and you get paid $300. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
Anyways, so, like, yeah, after that I worked for a firm in Karachi as the head of their writing division till February of this year. That’s when the fucking Coronavirus shit started getting traction and businesses started closing and all.
Anyways, so, like, I went to Islamabad and became a business development lead for a firm and started generating business for them in the services sector. To be blunt, I’m talking Upwork. You get clients the easiest from Upwork. Best platform out there, Upwork. And then I was doing digital marketing for them as well for their IP. After I felt that I’d learned enough ropes of the industry, I decided to part ways with them and start my own company. I knew exactly what I had to do.
Enter Ibsta Tech.
I took a theme from Coding Nepal, changed it completely, and coded the entire thing in 40 minutes, bought the domain from Route 43 in AWS, hosted it on Vercel, Netlify, Heroku, Github, and made the whole thing go live. Then I linked my blog, my LinkedIn, my Facebook, and my Upwork to that landing page.
The landing page was so simple to make. Basic HTML, CSS, and JS.
So what does Ibsta Tech do, exactly? Well, I’m in the business of developing business. I’m in the business of making money appear out of thin air. I’m in the business of pleasing clients, delivering to the best of my ability, and generating revenue for the businesses that I work for.
So far I’ve, in the past week, landed around 5 clients, for 3 of whom I’m doing full-stack development for and 2 of whom I’m ghostwriting. I can land clients easy. It’s not rocket science. It’s all about what the client wants, and how you can offer them that.
I’ve hired a DevRel, a CTO, a COO, a CFO, a creative head, a business development manager, a full-stack developer, and like a bunch of other people like graphic designers, etc.
I’ve got the clients, I’ve got the resources, I’ve got the skills, now what?
Well, I’m all about doing tech the right way.
There is a decorum and respect that tech deserves. One must devote themselves entirely to what they’re doing. No digressions, no distractions. Focus. Devote yourself to what you’re doing. Unix philosophy: “Do one thing and do it well.” Ibsta Tech does that. It does tech the right way.
I’m not a jack of all trades. I’m a polymath. Yes, I know that sounds like I’m frikking full of myself, but it’s a fact. I am an expert writer, I can write code like it’s nobody’s business, I can develop business like crazy, I love digital marketing, and I am an avid break-dancer. I rap on the side, write book reviews for fun, play videogames like a fanatic, binge movies and shows, listen to songs all the time, and immerse myself in life carpe-fucking-diem. I’m the all singing, all dancing crap of the world.
I’m working on developing a game. The step I’ve taken toward that is buying a Udemy Unreal game development course.
I teach kids full-stack development in the night. I am a career coach as well and offer advice to anyone who needs it.
I am Abe and Abe means me.
Jesus Christ, this is the most meta shit I’ve ever written. Well, it’s my Medium. I can do it. Right? I’m allowed to? Yeah, you know what, I give myself this permission. Just this once.
Do check out my blog.
Follow me on Twitter.
Friend me on Facebook.
Connect with me on LinkedIn.
I post a lot of shit on Instagram.
Thanks for reading.
Oh, okay, okay, so it just came to me that I should mention the tech stacks I work on. They’re MEAN and MERN. I love JavaScript. I’m into React, React Native, Angular, Vue, Next, Gatsby, Remix, and all the other frameworks and libraries you can think of.
I’m all about learning all the time. That’s one of my mottos. Never stop learning.
Okay, see you on the flippity-flop.
Abe out.