Prakhar Khandelwal

Lambe Baal + MUFC Fan = Patience ki koi seema nahin.

[Prakhar Khandelwal @IMPrakharMI]

Paisa Haath Ka Maill Hai.
They are asking us to wash our hands every 20 minutes.
That's World Economy 2020.

[Natalya Coyle @Natalyacoyle]

My story of Olympic spirit from Athletics on Saturday.

I sat by a lovely man from Australia. He kept pulling out new flags from his bag & waving them. I asked him about it,
“I bring the 9 smallest nations flags with me as they won’t have many people in the stands” 🥹
#Paris2024

[Jordan Burroughs @alliseeisgold]

Maybe stories like this will wake up the IOC.

Wrestling needs MORE than six weight classes!

After three tough matches against world class opponents, no athlete should have to spend the night preparing for a Gold medal in this manner.

Absolute desperation from the Indian team trying to get the last bit of weight off of Vinesh to qualify for today’s final.

Read more here:

https://t.co/Mf52NNuILk

[Prakhar Khandelwal @IMPrakharMI]

@CricketKK_ Arshdeep Singh ❎ Glenn Phillips ✅

[Vinayakk @vinayakkm]

The team behind the team 🇮🇳 at #CWC23

Stellar stuff from @venkatatweets, @pratyush93_raj & @sportstoryguy in today's paper 🙏🏾

Link:
https://t.co/DIcjO7I5Mp

[Mazher Arshad @MazherArshad]

Glenn Maxwell is the first batter in ODI history to score a century after having faced first ball post 40th over. #CWC23

[Ankur Warikoo @warikoo]

"Who is going to give me a job at 56 years of age?"

When your father asks you this question, you feel nothing but helpless.

For the past decade he had had a string of professional failures.
He had attempted to start his own business 7 years back and had piled up massive losses and built a significant debt.

While as a family we had convinced him to shut down the company, his self confidence was dented.
He was tired.

Nothing weakens you than to see your father tired and helpless :((

The year is 2010.

I had quit my consulting job last year to become a startup founder.
And learnt a thing or two about running businesses.

So I decided to help him with the little I knew.
Search Engine Optimization!

I asked papa if he was ready to do work that looked like physical labor, with no intellectual effort required?
It would be draining, tiring, but could pay some money and keep him engaged.
I don't think he felt he had a choice.
"Let's try", he said.

So I setup a website - Top Jobs in India
The jobs market was one of the biggest advertising segments for newspapers.
And if that was the case offline, it was a matter of time for online to follow.

Bought the domain name.
Literally the worst brand name and the best SEO name possible :))

Once setup, I told papa my plan.

We would start a job site online.
As a blog.
Work to make the blog rank high on google search results.
And if it did, then ads displayed on the blog would fetch us clicks.
And hopefully money.

I recall him staring at me in disbelief, perhaps even dismay.
"Is my kid really that stupid?" haha

We had to try though.

"Where will these jobs come from?", he asked.

"The newspaper."

"Sorry? We will copy?"

"Yes - we will copy the exact job posting in a newspaper onto a blog."

"Nandu, tumhaara dimaag kharaab ho chuka hai (you have lost your mind). How can this possibly work?"

"Only one way to find out papa. Let's see. If you are willing to put in the physical effort, we will know in 1-2 months."

I gave him a target.
10 job posts a day.
For a 56-year old, typing with one finger, it used to take him 3-4 hours everyday.
But to his credit, he did that.
EVERYDAY.
For 1 whole month.

Without asking me even once, if it is working.

At my end, I knew it had begun to work :))

The blog was optimized well, started to rank for long tail keywords.

After a month I started the ad spots using Google Adsense.

Every week Papa and I would sit down and I would show him the Google Analytics dashboard.
- How many visits?
- What search queries are people coming from?
- Which links are they clicking?
- How many ad clicks are we generating?
- How much money are we making?

I think he believed every number, except the last one.
Because all he could see was some random USD number - but nothing had trasnlated into actuual money.

Until April 2011
We received a letter from Google (yes, there were no bank transfers back then!)
A cheque of USD 101.27 (I so wish I had clicked a photo of that)

Papa could not believe his eyes.
After 5 months of copy pasting 10+ jobs every day from a newspaper onto a blog, he had earned Rs. 5,000!

The amount did not matter.
The fact that he could do this, mattered!
He was hopeful, again.

Over the course of the next 1.5 years, we would go on to start 2 more websites
- Top Study Options
- Best Job Options

The monthly payout kept rising, peaking to $1,200 in the month of Jan 2012.

The party ended in April 2012 when Google released the Penguin update to its algo, bringing down all 3 sites to 10% of their traffic.

In the 2 years that papa worked on these sites, he had made a cool $17,000+ == Rs. 9L+

Funny enough - this was more than he had ever earned!

More than the money, what he gained was his confidence.
What he gained was hope.

"I want to work for some more time before I retire", he said.
He was ready for a job.

As a beautiful circle completing itself, he applied to a job that he had copies from a newspaper and posted it on his blog.
He got the job :))

At the age of 58 changed industries - from Pharma Sales to Office administration.

Worked for 4 years, before formally retiring in 2016.

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

Every time you find a door closing, remind yourself that the door will open again.

You don't know when.
But you do know that it will.

Be ready for that moment.
Be hopeful for it.

[Harsha Bhogle @bhogleharsha]

40 years ago today. My first ODI. Still remember that young man trying frantically to get opportunities. And a kind producer from DD-Hyd giving him this break. I sat on a roller the previous evening, in a simple t-shirt, doing the curtain raiser. And got two commentary stints the next day. Over the next 14 months I got to do two more ODIs and a test match. Gratitude.

[Pulkit Koolwal @KoolwalPulkit]

#BookMyShow @bookmyshow @ICC @BCCI #worldcup2023 Worst way to sell tickets of cricket world cup. Get stuck in que for 2-3 hrs even when logging at right time. & when finally getting to selection page, all stands sold out and only 3-4 seats available. Check out also not working.👎

[Prakhar Khandelwal @IMPrakharMI]

@MaheshwariAnant @BangaloreRoomi @FlatsnFlatmates @fmrbangalore @twitrbnb @fmxlistingsbot How the turn tables 😅

[Prakhar Khandelwal @IMPrakharMI]

Same director

[Meher @meherness]

Same director

[Deepak Gopalakrishnan @chuck_gopal]

Okay, I am having my ChatGPT moment, I think.

I was listening to The Beatles' "Ask Me Why" - average song from the 1st album but it has a lovely chord progression at 0:30. I wondered what that was, and if I could get more examples of songs...

And well...

[MoEngage @moengage]

Your Push Notification Campaigns without Push Amplification™ Plus

[Manchester United @ManUtd]

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣3️⃣ #CarabaoCup winners: Manchester United 🏆🤩

[Duncan Alexander @oilysailor]

29% of Marcus Rashford's PL headed goals have come since he started pointing at his head

[Divyanshu Asopa @DivyanshuAsopa]

Want to share details about a terrible accident that my wife went through so that anyone who reads this thread can take strong steps to avoid it from happening to them.

On 5th Jan, She went to take a shower and when I checked on her in 20 min..

#GasGeyserSyndrome 1/n

[Som Shekhar @somshekharsom]

Gulzar Sahib's poem for Javed Sahib. 🥹♥️

[Chess.com @chesscom]

I thought the French Defense was a solid opening?

[Joe Pompliano @JoePompliano]

This is how the Japanese national team left its locker room after beating Germany this morning 👏

(📷: FIFA)