: His First Salary Was Rs 1500; Today This School Dropout Runs a Rs 2.5 Cr Company #IndiaNEWS #Entrepreneurs Sheikh Asif is an entrepreneur, digital marketer, educator, author and philanthropist. He

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His First Salary Was Rs 1500; Today This School Dropout Runs a Rs 2.5 Cr Company #IndiaNEWS #Entrepreneurs
Sheikh Asif is an entrepreneur, digital marketer, educator, author and philanthropist. He is also a Class 8 drop out. Born and raised in Batmaloo in Srinagar, this 28-year-old-old is now running a company called Thames Infotech, based in Manchester, UK, with an annual turnover of Rs 2. 5 crores annually, pre-pandemic.
Coming from humble beginnings, Asif shares that his father, a head constable in the valley, fell sick. “I was in Class 8 but the condition at home was such that I had to drop out of school,� he says.
At 16, Asif took on his first job as a data entry operator in a local tourism-based venture. “I was always fascinated by computers and in the valley while we had access to computers, we never had proper internet connectivity. We were still living under the 2G network when the rest of India had moved on to 4G,� he adds. For this job, he was given a monthly salary of Rs 1,500 and says that all through, his ambition was to become an entrepreneur.
He adds, “I have worked all kinds of odd-jobs. From working in the tour company to working in a medical agency where I helped sell all medical equipment. I did whatever work came my way to make ends meet. I even worked for all major telecom networks at the time — like Airtel, Vodafone and Aircel. In 2014, I left everything and decided on setting up my own venture when in September 2014 the floods hit the valley and everything was wiped away. �
Starting from Scratch
Sheik Asif
After the floods of September 2014, it was almost like beginning anew for Asif. “While on one hand the situation around me was always difficult there were always opportunities that seemed to come my way. One such opportunity took me to Delhi in 2015, and what I experienced there opened up my mind to the possibilities before me,� he shares. Having used up all his savings to reconstruct his house that was destroyed in the floods, he says that he never gave up on his dream of becoming an entrepreneur.
In 2016, he got the chance to go to the UK as part of a project he was working on and says that his finances started looking up. “One of the first jobs I got was to design a website. I remember being told that I would be paid only if they were satisfied with the work I delivered. I worked very hard for that and the stamp of approval from that client meant the world to me back then. �
His next assignment took shape out of a garage in the UK. He says, “I worked out of a garage of a client to design a logo and complete the website work as well. Once completed I was paid close to Rs 7 lakh for that project. In a way it was my launch pad. � This also gave Asif the confidence to set up his business in the UK and the money also allowed him to hire more people to run the business.

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