You might be familiar with a very famous quote, “Help sometimes comes from the people we least expect it from”. This was the case of Danish Hayat, brother of a famous box office queen, who at a certain point in time was trying to resolve some issues with their social media accounts. He looked in every nook and corner of the tech industry, but couldn’t find an appropriate solution to his problem. Then came the breakthrough.
A YouTuber got him to contact Haris Baloch, a very young entrepreneur hailing from Balochistan.
At first, Danish was taken aback by his tender age and took him as all of the others who promised to help him but couldn’t, but after a few days, he was literally shocked when this young boy, Haris, called him to tell him that he had solved his long-aggravating problem. Danish was literally surprised. This was the start of their long journey together.
The story of Haris Baloch is not different from that of most of the other youngsters of Pakistan.
He is a talented youngster who wanted to conquer the world with his high ambitions. But all of this seemed to fail if he continued to live in his hometown, Kharan, where people barely managed to make both ends meet. At just 16 years of age, he confidently explains that he didn’t have sufficient funds to get a quality education, but, fortunately, he got a scholarship from Saindak Metals, due to which he went on to study at the prestigious Army Burn Hall College, Abbottabad.
As he tells us about his dedication, zeal, and commitment to achieve his dreams, his eyes reflect that kind of overwhelming glitter and shine that is specific to the achievers alone. Haris tells us how he was just 14 years old when he started to save his ‘pocket money’ to fund his projects. His first interaction with the media stars was through the dramas and programs he used to watch. Barely could he imagine at that time that he would be helping them out in engaging more efficiently with their fans.
Haris says with a smile on his face, “I used to imagine if I will ever be able to meet any of these stars”. He ultimately realized the power of social media and started interacting with official accounts of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube along with quenching his thirst for learning digital and social media through tutorials on YouTube.
“I have no formal or institutional training in social and digital media. All of my knowledge comes from long hours that I spent in front of my laptop watching tutorials and then implementing them”, says Haris. He adds, “I faced failures but never got discouraged as this was another thing added to my not-to-do.”
How did Haris Baloch come up with the idea of Rifiako Media?
“Showbiz stars face a genuine issue, and that is how can they get their social media pages verified and get rid of all the fake pages around”, says Haris. According to him, it is a lengthy, tiresome, and difficult task, and earlier celebrities used to contact people outside of Pakistan to hire expert services for thousands of dollars. Haris says, “This made me think about how can we save these thousands of dollars flowing out of the country”.
As he was thinking of a way, a celebrity contacted him and informed him about a problem with his social media page that got hacked. This celebrity was too annoyed about the delays and told Haris that he had wasted a lot of his valuable time and money in solving his issue. Ultimately after a long and tiresome wait, his problem was finally resolved.
This prompted him to bring in local services which could help people like that celebrity. This thought, later on, became the basis of Rifiako Media; a company that went on to became one of the leading service providers to celebrities and media icons. Now they don’t have to pay hefty amounts to foreign experts to hire their services.
Haris founded Rifiako Media with his cousin cum brother Mehran Khan soon after 2018 to utilize the brute force of social media to market, inform and share updates about celebrities who wanted to stay connected to their fans.
“This three-year journey has never been easy for us”, says Haris as he explains the difficulties he had to face while running his company. “We are under 18, we didn’t know about the practical and professional difficulties and barriers, but thanks to the ongoing experience and expertise, I have now gathered around 20 million followers on my social media pages.
Shooting for the stars
Beginning with a humble start, Rifiako now acts as a media manager of the most glamorous celebrities and widely followed YouTubers of Pakistan, including, but not limited to Sham Idrees, Abid Brohi, Shahveer Jafry, Ducky Bhai, Raza Samo, and Falak Shabbir. According to Haris, this is all because of the massive support he has got from all of these marvelous people. He remembers the time he was striving for the place he dreamt of and mentions that had he lost hope, he would never have been able to become the youngest entrepreneur of Pakistan.
He has a strong message for the youths like him, “Be confident, be clear about what you want to do. Dreams could only be achieved if you have a strong will and a courageous mind to do so. Never shy away from who you are or what you want to achieve, for this is the only way you could hit the stars.”
