From 25MB of data
to 100+ clients.

My online journey began in 2012, when my elder brother Romen Roy showed me how to access the internet on a mobile phone. Back then we used GrameenPhone's free data pack, or sometimes paid 9 Taka for 25MB. That was our window to the world.

How it started: a mobile phone and 25MB of data

In 2013 I saved up and bought a second-hand Micromax X210 for around 400–500 Taka. I used it to download MP3s, wallpapers and small videos. One evening I sat there wondering: how does any of this actually work? How are these files stored? How does a website exist? From that question, everything else followed.

Building my first website for 150 Taka

In 2014 I got a phone called the Symphony FT10 — the same model my brother used to build websites. I asked Romen to create one for me. He charged 150 Taka and built it on wapka.mobi, a mobile website platform. I spent hours staring at the code, editing it, breaking it, fixing it. That was my first encounter with XHTML. I was hooked.

I built several more sites through wapka.mobi and Xtgem, copying source code from other sites to understand how things worked. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't — but every failure taught me something real.

Learning HTML on a phone, with no laptop

Throughout two years of intermediate school I taught myself HTML5, CSS, and the basics of PHP and JavaScript — all from a mobile phone. No laptop, no desktop, no formal training. I learned from YouTube, blogs and forums, experimenting late into the evenings after my studies. I also took a web design and development course at IT-Bari and finished it in about a month. I was still coding on my phone.

My first course and my first PC

In 2017, during my final HSC exams, I bought my first laptop. That changed everything. With a proper screen and keyboard I could finally work at the speed my mind was moving. I launched websites, drove traffic, and started earning meaningful income as a student.

From student to professional: SoftBangla and SEO

In 2018 I completed an SEO course at IT-Bari under Abdul Kader, then found my first mentor, HB Arif, who gave me hands-on SEO experience and helped me land my first professional role at SoftBangla in September 2018. I worked there until 2020, building real skills on real client campaigns. After a brief stint at Rok Online Marketing in early 2020 — cut short by COVID lockdowns — I decided to build something of my own.

Building three agencies from scratch

In 2020 I co-founded Grow Marketers with my brother Shimul Roy, serving local businesses across the USA, UK, Canada, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. In 2022 I launched Local SEO Lab, sharpening the focus on local search. In 2025 both merged into GrowNion — my current agency, operating with a team of four plus outsourcing partners in Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Everything I know, I built myself. No investor money, no shortcuts, no inherited network. Just curiosity, consistency, and twelve years of showing up.

Career timeline

Skills & tools

Education