Began Blogging From Bedroom At 19 & Focussed On 1 Major Insight, Now Has Multi-Millions

A colorful school life is where almost everyone’s childhood began. New opportunities, new friends and new learnings, supported by a tiresome day with classes and homework. We’ve all had some really good teachers, others, a little too strict.

School life is priceless, everyone deserves it, but not everyone gets it. Imagine not being able to attend school. There are so many students out there who don’t get to go to school.

“I started going my own way, using computers, trying to learn as much as I could,” says Pete Cashmore, who had an appendectomy (surgical removal of appendix) at the tender age of 13, due to which he couldn’t attend school. The 32-year-old from Banchory, Scotland, who had to face a major setback, is the founder of well-known digital media firm Mashable.

Bedroom idea that took the world

With nothing much to do, he spent most of his time browsing on the internet, one thing that he found solace in, discovering and reading countless blogs and feeds. Pete had lost touch with his friends, and to cope up with the realm he started using computers and the vast world of knowledge inside it. He was fascinated by the web and its democratizing power.

So, at 19, the idea of starting his own blog struck him and that was when an influential technology blog was born. Mashable started in July 2005 inside his bedroom as a small project to decipher technology to the mainstream audience. A home-stricken kid trying to make money through internet.

“Although I didn’t have connections and I wasn’t in Silicon Valley, I did have an outsider perspective, and as it turned out that was an advantage because there’s a mass market that wants to know what the coolest gadgets are and how to use Facebook, Twitter and other [technology]to get ahead,” says Pete.

He did not even tell his parents about it but he was serious nonetheless. He would try to get as many viewers as he could, each day in pursuit to beat the previous day’s record. Today, Mashable is a social media news site which gets a readership of around 23 million every month.

Strategic hard work for expansion

Pete soon realized that England wasn’t a big enough audience for him. So he adjusted his sleep schedule to work at the hours at which America was in prime time. Soon enough, he gained many more readers.

He would sleep barely for a few hours and write 10 articles a day. His days were busy. Every day, when he beat his own record of viewers, he would spring up with cheer.

“Until 2008 , I didn’t even meet a single reader of Mashable,” says Pete. This, in fact, gave him more encouragement as he wanted to realize that dream of meeting his readers. At an event in San Francisco in 2008, Pete was suddenly chanced with a lot of people who had read Mashable. For him, this was a very exciting time and proved to be a source of motivation for him.

“A lot of people start out with an exciting thing and they want to take over the world, but really the people who do take over the world have a good plan of how to get there and the steps along the way,” says the founder and CEO of the popular blog.

Pete, an inspiration to all

Pete’s estimated net worth is around $120 million.He has already been featured in a lot of magazines including Inc’ 30 under 30 and Time Magazine’s list of World’s 100 most influential people, Forbes’ Top 25 Web Celebs, and Huffington Post’s Top 10 Game Changers 2009.

Pete, till date, carries a quiet sense of urgency wherever he goes, despite his easy-going demeanor. He has been labelled everything from a tech wunderkind to one of the UK’s Britons of the Year. Being shut inside his home for most of his childhood did not quite stop him from writing his own destiny.

If you like this story, share it and spread positivity. Tell us your views by writing in the comment box below. We read each one of them.