This guy transformed an obscure forum into a tech blog with 15m monthly visitors

Online communities in Pakistan first started sprouting up in the early 2000s as the country gradually opened its doors to high-speed broadband services.

These communities took the shape of forums where users came together to share movies, games, software and discuss the latest tech trends. Soon there were lively debates and discussions with many of the members organizing offline meetups and events.

Whilst internet service providers encouraged the growth of these forums, there was an inherent problem. Most of the games and software that people shared were pirated. The authorities initially turned a blind eye but as these forums became more popular, with thousands of members, the problem was soon impossible to ignore.

“It was in April 2004 when the original Worldcall community forum got shut down due to the use of pirated software,” explains Abdullah Saad, CEO of WCCFtech. “So three or four of us, including myself, pooled in money and decided to buy the licenses to keep it going.”

WCCFtech is now a technology blog that publishes information related to gaming hardware, mobile, PC trends, and software. It boasts approximately 15 million monthly visitors with a community of over 35,000 registered members. But its origins were far more humble.

“We hosted our first forums out of a server in my house but that got shut down after an unexpected spurt of traffic,” recalls Abdullah. “We shifted to international hosting after a few months. By the end of 2005 had a healthy community of about 5,000 members discussing everything from politics to technology and current affairs.”

“We likened ourselves to VR Zone,” he says, name-checking a popular blog out of Singapore.

Photo credit: Andrew Magill .

Early days

Despite the site’s steady traction, the founders found it tough to monetize the traffic and barely had the resources to keep it functional. To pay for things like hosting and licensing costs the team would hold an annual fundraising event. Abdullah, who was a student in Singapore at the time, spotted the cash up front and would be paid back after the proceeds from the event came through.

He knew this wasn’t a sustainable model but didn’t know what else to do either.

The site’s first break came when one of the members of the founding team nabbed a job at Asus. The tech giant offered a few gadgets for review purposes which the team gleefully accepted.

“Asus really liked our reviews and asked us to do more,” outlines Abdullah. “But the site was still on shared hosting. A hundred people would show up at one time and it would shut down. Every second month we would shut down due to lack of resources.”

Uncertainty

Leading from the front

Make something people want

Team effort