Howdy,
Welcome to my personal web space!
This is the website where I write about things that matter to me, and the things that define me every day. Here I scribble down my thoughts, inspirations, dreams, and anything I feel is important in my day-to-day life.
For newcomers:
I’m Harsh Agrawal, and I manage an award-winning blog known as “ShoutMeLoud”.
I’m an engineer by education and a blogger by profession.
I have always been passionate about writing, so in 2008 I started my online blogging career with ShoutMeLoud!
Background:
Since childhood, I have been full of curiosity and interested in learning new things. By the time I was 14 years old, computers had fascinated me more than anything else. I started saving my pocket money (which was barely 1 rupee back then!) to get myself a computer.
In 2002, I moved to New Delhi, the capital city of India, to pursue higher education. I attended Laxman Public School and later joined Sharda University to complete my B.Tech degree in Information Technology.
In 2005, I finally owned my first computer (which I assembled myself), and that’s when I started learning about something greater than what any book could teach.
When I was in college, getting a good job and living the “ordinary” life was never on my mind. I wanted to do something different and be creative. I was an “ethical hacker” back then with an RHCE certification.
Soon enough, all of my batchmates were getting placements, and I was feeling left out. I felt that my accumulated social engineering and tech knowledge was a waste and that I should have stuck to my books. (Fortunately, Accenture eventually proved me wrong by hiring me due to my knowledge of hacking and social engineering.)
In 2008, I graduated from college and moved back to Delhi. I lived in a one-room apartment in and worked for Convergys as I awaited my acceptance letter from Accenture.
This is when I started my first blog to share whatever I was learning regarding technology, hacking, social engineering, etc. Back then, blogging was seen as nothing more than writing a personal diary, but I took a different route and used it as a platform for sharing knowledge.
I could hardly believe it when my blog started making enough passive income that I could buy gifts for my parents, and even pay my bills! Within five months, I decided to quit my daily job and opt for blogging as a professional endeavor.
Life-Changing Accident:
On June 28th 2009, I had a terrible accident that changed my life forever. The doctors told me that I would never be able to walk again, and I nearly lost all hope and faith for a good life. Thanks to an excellent surgeon (Dr. Prateek Gupta), I ultimately was able to walk again after being bedridden for seven months.
During those seven bedridden months, I worked day and night to learn as much as I could about blogging, which not only gave shape to the present, but to the future as well. Indeed, my accident is likely the reason you are here on this website reading about me now.
I began to walk again in December of 2009, and I went to Pune (Maharashtra) to meet another blogger from India who was quite successful back then. We teamed up to create a new industry there, and for six months I worked as a B.D.O. with my new partner.
During those six months, our company became financially independent, and I purchased my first car from my own internet earnings. My life was finally back on the right track.
One fine day in August of 2010, I decided to move back to Delhi to continue what I had been doing, but with a completely new approach. I always wanted to establish blogging as an outstanding career option & I could do it only when my focus is 100% on one thing.
Moving back to Delhi turned out to be a great decision as ShoutMeLoud started getting my complete attention & we started achieving our goal of create awareness about make money from blogging. Tim eflew by & in between I tested everything. I failed many times but most important I learned a lot from those failures & success.
In 2013, ShoutMeLoud won a prestigious award as “Best Indian blog by Indiblogger” & that was a proud moment for me, ShoutMeLoud team & our readers. This is the same time when I started doing public speaking.
In 2014-2015, I added a new flavour call ShoutUP. This was a one day paid workshop with selected 7-8 students. I did few workshop in Delhi & one in Bangalore. I wanted to do it for long but over the time I found it to be mundene & repetative stuff. May be not for the students but for me. I was losing the charm of such workshop & this is where the idea of Shoutuniversity was born.
I will share more about ShoutUniversity later but first let me tell you an important activity that I did in 2015. Me & one of my teammate (@Sharatnik) planned to do a blogger awareness trip from Delhi to Kanyakumari. We drove from Delhi to Kanyakumari (7000 KM) & organised bloggers meet in every state.
We named this activity as ShoutMeet & it wasa great experience. I have few stuff about ShoutMeet live on this website here.
