Guest: Carl Ocab
Presenter: Henry Acosta
Guest Bio: Carl Ocab is well-known as the “kidblogger” from the Philippines who started his business venture with the love of playing online games at an early age. Carl was inspired by his father to make money out blogging, which at first was a big failure on his part. At 12 years old, he started creating information websites and forums. By age 13, he started carlocab.com and called his company Carl Ocab Internet Marketing Services. Today, he has turned his company into one of the best internet marketing agencies, putting businesses on top of Google rankings.
Segment overview: In this segment, we are joined by Carl Ocab, a young Filipino entrepreneur who started his business venture at the age of 13 out of his love of playing online games. He talks about how he turned his hobby into a successful internet marketing agency that puts businesses on top of Google rankings, and why the Philippines is a good outsourcing location to establish and grow your business.
Address: 5 La Carlota St., Alabang Hills Village, Cupang, Muntinlupa 1771, Metro Manila, Philippines
Contact Number: (US) +1 (800) 765-2158 ; (PH) +63 (917) 833-9601
Website: www.carlocab.com
Transcript
Henry Acosta: You’re listening to the Outsourcing and Offshoring Philippines podcast. I’m Henry Acosta, the host for the show. Our guest today is Carl Ocab. He is well known on the internet as the “14-year-old kid who has helped multiple businesses get the top rank on Google.” He now has his own internet marketing services agency which is called ‘Carl Ocab Marketing Services.’ Welcome to show Carl, it’s a pleasure to have you here on the show.
Carl Ocab: Hi Henry, thanks for having me.
Henry: It’s quite interesting how you got featured on the internet, even newspapers as a young teenager and you managed to gain attention of a lot of businesses and media. So can you tell us what got you started or how did you get started?
Carl: Actually, it started when my cousin and I were playing this online game. It’s a very popular here in the Philippines back then, that was I think 10, 11 years ago, it’s called ‘Ragnarok.’ And we were playing that for the whole afternoon and my dad noticed that we were playing and we were burning our allowance playing that game since back then, there were no DSL connections so we had to buy the internet card, the dial-up card and we also had to buy the Ragnarok card to play the game. So my dad noticed that we were burning our allowance there, so he suggested that we try blogging since he read about blogging and he found out that you can make money through blogging. And from there, we started searching about blogging and after 3 months, we blogged about the game we were playing, Ragnarok. So because of that, we were able to build a small community and a bit of readership. And a couple of weeks or months later, we were able to monetize the site using Google Adsense. And that’s how we first made money, we made our first hundred dollars there. So I started another blog, it’s the ‘Carlocab.com’, it was a ‘make money online’ blog before. I taught people, I shared my experiences on that blog on how I’m making money online.
Henry: You mentioned that your dad was one of the people or he’s the one that suggested the idea of creating a blog to make money. What do you think led him to pushing you into that direction?
Carl: He’s a techy guy so he knows some advancements in technology and the internet.
Henry: It’s not very common for Filipino parents to encourage that kind of idea to children.
Carl: Well it wasn’t really that kind of a push. It was more of a suggestion because my dad always reads about techy stuff. He bought his first computer when it was so expensive, I think it was Pension 3 or Pension 1 and it cost like P50,000 back then.
Henry: With regards to your business Carl Ocab Internet Marketing Services, what inspired you into starting your own marketing services online?
Carl: Okay. So when I was blogging, it takes time and a lot of effort and making money online can be hard for some people since you still need to know some techy stuff if you’re just doing it alone, if you don’t have any employees or you don’t have anyone to outsource it to. So my readers, they usually just ask me if I know someone who can do the stuff that I teach on my blog. So I keep referring some of my friends, they have their own internet marketing companies. And so I realized that I can do that as well especially since I’m here in the Philippines, there are a lot of excellent programmers here and the cost of living is very cheap. So that was the idea at first and I first started opening internet marketing services I think 2 or 3 years ago when I graduated college and then we shifted to White Label Development after a year. So basically right now, most of our clients are partners are in the United States and they’re mostly internet marketing agencies as well.
Henry: Can you tell us how you’ve been getting your clients? I’m sure that you get a lot of referrals from your past work or from your work so far. So do you market or do you work on your own website like you do with your clients?
Carl: Since I was very fortunate to get media attention when I was young and I use the domain name the carlocab.com that was published in media way back in different sites. So when I first started the internet marketing services, we were very fortunate to get natural clients come to us. But now since we are scaling up, we are advertising on Facebook and LinkedIn and basically, we’re just targeting digital marketing people there.
Henry: Can you share with us how your clients are doing and their experience working with Carl Ocab Internet Marketing Services?
Carl: Well most of them, actually I think all of them since they keep on repeating orders, they keep on ordering back from us. So basically they sell websites there in the United States for like I think $2,000-3,000. Some even sell for $10,000 per site. And they outsource that to us for only 3 figures in dollars. So they make a lot of money out of it and all they have to do is send us their details, I mean their clients’ details and we do the work for them. So after the site is finished, we give it to them, they give it to their client and they make 2 or 3 folds or even 10 folds the amount they invested in us.
Henry: Wow, that’s really impressive work you guys are doing. Have you ever thought about getting direct clients from the U.S. and entering the forte of internet marketing there and even other areas of the world?
Carl: Actually, if you go to our site, carlocab.com, it’s positioned as an internet marketing agency. So we also charge $1,000-2,000 depending on the client’s needs. We actually have the 1-800 number. So we’re positioned as an internet marketing agency in the States as well. But the outsourcing business is very fast, it’s quick, it’s repeatable and it’s sustainable so most of our business is there.
Henry: I heard you mentioned outsourcing and this is the Outsourcing and Offshoring in the Philippines podcast. What do you think makes the Philippines such an attractive place to outsource and offer to for a lot of businesses outside the country?
Carl: Well basically of course, the number one reason would be the cost. It’s way cheaper and the quality, if you find the right partner, you find the right agency to partner with, the quality can be the same or even better than developers in the States. Especially here in the Philippines, most of the people here can speak English very well compared to the other countries that are also doing outsourcing business. I think that’s one of the main reasons, of course number one is the cost and number two is the ease of communication and I think those are the two biggest reasons.
Henry: And you mentioned a while back that you have partners instead of clients. So for those people who are interested in partnering with Carl Ocab Internet Marketing Services, what can they expect out of you guys?
Carl: Well the first thing that they would expect is the communication would be a whole lot better compared to other companies and other countries since our project managers that will be assigned to them are college graduates here in the Philippines and college graduates here can speak English very fluently so that would be the number one expectation. And then number two is the cost, they’d be saving a lot of money if they have their development outsource to us. And of course, they’ll have more time, they’ll have more time to get more clients, they’ll have more time to reorganize, market their business.
Henry: And what can people look forward to with Carl Ocab, you and your business?
Carl: Well I started this internet marketing agency and outsourcing business just so I have a sustainable income that gives value to other companies. So with this, I’m able to have a cash cow for now and then I also get a lot of connections. So after this, my plan is of course to bootstrap an app or site that could be a million or even fortunately a billion dollar business. But for now, this will be our main focus and of course, in the future it will still be up and of course, I’ll also still be overseeing it. I think that’s one of the goals of most internet marketing people out there – create an app, sell it for a billion and retire.
Henry: That sounds like a great idea and we hope you get on the show once that happens. Since our listeners could be a partner of yours or would be interested in working for you, what would be your main take-home message for them?
Carl: I think the lesson will be is to not be afraid of outsourcing your business to other countries. Still, a lot of agencies and businesses in the States are afraid to outsource their work to other countries because they’ve had bad and horrible experiences before with other agencies. It can happen, yes. But if you find the right one, the right agency, if you find the agency that’s aligned with your needs then you’d be able to make a whole lot more money than what you’re currently making now since it’s easy, it’s fast and it’s so affordable compared to hiring people in the States.
Henry: And how can people get in touch with you and talk to you directly?
Carl: They can simply search my name on Google, they’ll search ‘Carl Ocab.’ Or email me, my personal email address is [email protected]. And then we usually just have a conversation through Skype or I can call their local number and then we go from there.
Henry: Thanks for sharing and yes, I really hope and I wish you more success with your business.
Carl: I hope so too.
Henry: And that was Carl Ocab, Internet Marketing Prodigy, Founder and CEO of the Carl Ocab Internet Marketing Services. To inquire and learn more about him and his business, you can visit his website at www.carlocab.com. To learn more about the ins and outs of the BPO industry straight from the top ponchos, visit us at www.offshoring.com.ph. You can stream, download and listen to us on SoundCloud, iTunes and YouTube. I’m Henry Acosta and this is the Outsourcing and Offshoring Philippines podcast.
