Syed Balkhi

Syed Balkhi (aka Syed Moiz Balkhi) is an American entrepreneur of Pakistani origin. Balkhi led the development of more than a dozen medium-sized Internet companies and is best known as the founder of WpBeginner, the largest WordPress resource site on the Internet. Balkhi also created widely-used WordPress plugins such as OptinMonster, WPForms, and MonsterInsights.

Balkhi was named by the United Nations as one of the top 100 entrepreneurs under the age of 30. Balkhi claims on his personal website that over 20 million websites use the software that his companies built. Balkhi is also an active investor and has engaged in a number of philanthropic works.

As of 2022, Balkhi works as the CEO of Awesome Motive, a firm that he established in 2011. Balkhi is a respected person in the WordPress community. His innovations have, among others, helped make it easier for website owners to collect data from their visitors without needing to hire expensive developers or designers.

Early Life and Education

Syed Balkhi was born in 1990 in Karachi, Pakistan. Oldest among his 4 siblings, he spent most of his early childhood in Karachi. An entrepreneurial spirit since an early age, Balkhi had made some money selling holiday/Eid greeting cards when he was just 7. When he was 9, Balkhi started a small snack shop in Karachi, a venture strongly supported by his mother and grandmother. 

Balkhi’s life took a drastic turn when his family migrated to the United States in 2003 when he was just 12. Balkhi has often said that during his early years in the USA, he faced some of the biggest challenges of his life. Among others, learning the new language and integrating into a post-9/11 US society riddled with racial tensions was a big challenge for Balkhi’s family.

Once in the USA, Balkhi’s father began working for more than 16 hours a day to make ends meet. It was then that Balkhi had a sense of responsibility that he needed to do something to financially support his hard-working father and his financially struggling family.

At school, Balkhi spent his lunch breaks trying to play video games. However, since school computers were protected by a firewall to prevent students from playing video games, Balkhi began thinking of ways of bypassing the firewall. In the process, Balkhi taught himself coding, and ultimately built a web proxy that could bypass the firewall. 

A career in the Online World

Balkhi began his career in the online world already in school. In 2003, when Balkhi was 12, one of his cousins tipped off him about an online forum where he could make money by doing simple, but arduous tasks such as data entry and forum posting. Balkhi took on the job and made some money. He used that money to buy new domains and resell them later for a profit. While dealing with domains, Balkhi slowly started learning about hosting domains, building websites, making web directories, building online arcades, and promoting the websites that he owned. This all gave him the dual experience of innovation as well as SEO and marketing.

Balkhi’s online adventure began turning into a real business opportunity. Slowly, he began receiving consulting inquiries from both small and big firms. In response, Balkhi launched a company that provided web development and search engine optimisation (SEO) services.

Even though Balkhi is famous for his savvy Internet inventions, he did not study information technology at university. After finishing high school, he joined the University of Florida and graduated with a Honours (i.e. Bachelor’s) in anthropology and religion in 2011. While at the university, he was active in the Pakistani Student Association (PSA), Islam on Campus, and the University of Florida Entrepreneurs Club. 

A serial entrepreneur

Already in high school, Balkhi started building websites on WordPress. He also began hiring people for building WordPress websites. By 2008, he moved his clients’ static websites into WordPress.  In 2009, when he realised that many people found using WordPress difficult, he launched WpBeginner, a WordPress tutorial site. As of June 2022, WpBeginner receives more than 3 million monthly unique visitors.

In 2011, Balkhi partnered with his former roommate and best friend David Pegg and launched List25, an entertainment online portal. After two years, in 2013, Balkhi announced OptinMonster, an opt-in tool that websites could use to convert their visitors into customers. In the same year, Balkhi bought ThemeLab, a platform for selling paid WordPress themes. ThemeLab, however, did not produce the results that Balkhi had expected. He ultimately shut it down in 2016.

For Balkhi, 2016 was more of a breakthrough year. Even though he had to shut down ThemeLab, he launched WPForms in the same year. Used by more than five million websites, WPForms is a WordPress plugin that allows users to create forms for collecting data from their website visitors. It eliminates the need for developers to write code or insert HTML in order to create a form on their site. Moreover, in 2016, Balkhi also bought the largest Google Analytics plugin for WordPress and rebranded it as MonsterInsights. Two years later, in 2018, he also bought Google Analytics Dashboard for WordPress.

In the following years, Balkhi intensified his acquisition feats but also began investing in promising online tools, platforms, and particularly WordPress plugins. Through his Growth Accelerator Fund, he has invested in initiatives such as MemberPress, Formidable Forms, PrettyLinks, Affiliate Royale, Wholesale Suite, Advanced Coupons, Thirsty Affiliates, UncannyOwl, and Automator Plugin

His acquisitions in 2020 included All in One SEO, Smash Balloon, and PushEngage. In 2021, Easy Digital Downloads, an eCommerce solution for selling digital products, and SearchWp, an WordPress search plugin, also came under Balkhi’s ownership.

Income & Net Worth

In a 2018 blog post titled what is Syed Balkhi’s net worth? Balkhi provides an overview of his annual income and explains how financial gains play very little role in his family’s happiness. In the post, Balkhi writes:

We were a happy family when we had little in our bank account, and we’re a happy family now – and for me, that’s the most important metric!

In the same post, Balkhi says that he has hated income reports because they were not productive and tended to attract the wrong crowd. In addition, Balkhi also revealed that, though he was aware of the growing curiosity about his financial success, he had no interest in making his financial details public unless his companies went public.

Balkhi, nonetheless, offered an overview of how well he was doing financially. In the post, he wrote that his software was used by more than 20 million websites, and they generated over 1 billion USD each year in creator earnings. He added:

Combine that with my offline businesses and investments, I have everything that I need to live a comfortable life with my wife and family for years to come.

Even though Balkhi has been reluctant to reveal details of his wealth, given the scope of his investment and involvement in the online world,  there is no doubt that he is worth more than a billion USD.

Philanthropic work

Syed Balkhi has also been engaged in various educational philanthropic work. Through the Balkhi Foundation, he donates to educational charities and provides small scholarships to college students. The Balkhi Foundation has supported school-building projects in developing countries.

Balkhi celebrated WpBeginner’s 4th and 5th birthday by raising funds for the education charity Pencils of Promise. His fundraising campaign collected over 75,000 USD, which was used to build three schools (Chuche Primary School, Vijolom II Primary School, Villa Hortencia Antigua Primary School) in Guatemala. As WpBiginner turned 8, he ran another campaign with the Cambodian Village Fund to build a school in Dob Krorsang Village, Cambodia.

Personal Life

Syed Balkhi is married to Amanda Balkhi. Amanda is also a University of Florida alumni and holds a PhD in Clinical and Health Psychology. Amanda works as the director of the Balkhi Foundation. The couple has a son, Solomon Balkhi, and two dogs.

In a 2013 blog post dedicated to his dogs, Syed Balkhi outlined six important business lessons he had learned from his dogs. The lessons were: 1. Be Persistent in Getting What You Want 2. Make the Most of Every Opportunity 3. Only Do What You Love 4. Don’t be afraid to speak up 5. Learn to Shake it Off 6. Always Give your 110%

In his LinkedIn profile, Balkhi mentions that the causes he mostly cares about are: economic empowerment, education, and science and technology.

While studying at the University of Florida, Balkhi was a passionate cricket lover and an active member of the Florida Cricket League. However, when his online career began to take off, he decided to leave cricket aside. 

Balkhi is a native Urdu speaker. He also speaks English and Hindi at a native level. He is also an avid traveller.

Notable Quotes

• Happiness is the new rich. Inner peace is the new success. Health is the new wealth. Kindness is the new cool.
• When someone tells you it can’t be done, it’s more a reflection of their limitations, not yours!  
• No matter your social status or how powerful you feel you are, we are all equal. We came here by birth and will leave in death. Please be kind to everyone. Kindness is a gift everyone can afford to give!