Hello, I’m Shamil Mae.
I came from nothing, having worked in numerous jobs from being a Waiter, Bar Man at The Belfry Golf Resort & Hotel to Barman and Glass Collector at Be At One, Warehouse Operative (a totally backbreaking job, would not recommend) to even being a Kitchen Porter.
I have started from the bottom and built a successful business up from the ground and then moved to Bali, Indonesia to live and start a new life here as well as start a business here in Bali.
I started with my creative art and marketing background. Starting my career as a Digital Marketing Apprentice, completing my qualification with a Distinction (The highest grade). I then worked in a Digital Marketing Agency for a few years before starting my first property business through skills I had learnt during my time as a Marketer.
Skills would be crucial in setting up my business, building my site, doing my own social media content, and even ranking my website through SEO (Google Ranking).
I now run multiple businesses, the main one being PILOT MY PROPERTY ® which is my Property Management Company where we manage properties for landlords and clients. Then my other main company MAEVELA® which contains my own portfolio of Serviced Apartments in Birmingham & of course my Bali income.
I also have a series of other business ventures in E-commerce & marketing.
1) The full journey...
I highly recommend reading throughout this entire page for full context till the very end. Everything I have said below is genuine and backed with evidence. I hope you enjoy the journey!
You can even find my old CV as proof of my crappy jobs from 2016, my college (high school days).
2) Introduction
I have started from the bottom and built a successful business. I started with my creative art and marketing background. Starting my career as a Digital Marketing Apprentice, completing my qualification with a Distinction (The highest grade). I then worked in a Digital Marketing Agency for a few years before starting my first property business through skills I had learnt during my time as a Marketer.
Skills that would be crucial in setting up my business, building my site, doing my own social media content, and even ranking my website through SEO (Google Ranking).
I now run multiple businesses, the main one being PILOT MY PROPERTY ® which is my Property Management Company where we manage properties for landlords and clients. Then my other main company MAEVELA® which contains my own portfolio of Serviced Apartments in Birmingham as well as my Businesses in Bali which I’ve built as I now currently live in Bali, Indonesia.
I also have a series of other business ventures in E-commerce & marketing.
But let’s drive through the start of my journey and the journey…
3) College days (2016 - 2017)
Let’s begin at Collage, Walsall and then Bournville College in Birmingham to be precise.
In college I studied Art & Design🎨, I always had a very creative eye, especially in drawing growing up as a child. Then later on found a passion for tech, computers and anything web related.
Doing any graphic work was perfect for me as it brought together my art skills and computer skills into one!
I soon realised studying Art & Design alone was a dead career and couldn’t really get nowhere so I moved to Graphic Design in my second year of college.
After finishing collage I applied to University studying Graphic Design. I received my offers and was starting uni in 3 weeks ⏱
Funny thing is, you can still find my Graphic Design Instagram Page here:
https://www.instagram.com/mae.graphics/
View this post on Instagram
You can see the proof for yourself on my old graphic design Instagram page. You’ll even find my end-of-college year project plus just some of the designs and graphics I did at the time.
View this post on Instagram
After some thinking and conversations with some people, I knew wasting £30,000 on a university course wasn’t for me and I would rather work and get some experience in the real world.
Luckily apprenticeships were available so I deferred my uni offer.
4) Apprenticeship 1 (2018-2019)
I started applying for some Digital Marketing Apprenticeships, literally sat on the GOV site and applied for as many as possible.
Here is a really old CV/Learner Card which one company made me fill out so they could submit it to employers to try to find me an apprenticeship, you can see I wasn’t very much academic, also a very old old pic of me LOL.
and soon got a call back from apprenticeship company one and took up the job!
With my little income of around £600 at the time I managed to finance a MacBook Pro from Currys, that was my first time purchasing a Mac as it was out of my budget at the time.
I remember buying it and feeling so happy, such a small thing but never being able to afford it.
5) My first Business - Prestige Candy (2018)
Whilst I was doing my first apprenticeship I began researching businesses to start, as I was extremely broke and needed income.
Here is something amazing I found whilst looking at my iPhone notes, the first notepad/brainstorm when I was trying to build a brand name.
I researched other companies in the same niche industry and then brainstormed name ideas.
See the screenshot from my notes below:
The Twitter page for my first business is still actually up, you can see it here:
https://twitter.com/prestigecandyuk
For this business what I offered was little Candy/Sweet Boxes for any occasion such as Weddings, Parties, Events and many more which you can see more below. You can see some examples here of them that I photographed at the time by hiring a camera from FatLama lol (https://fatllama.com/)
I have got to admit, looking back whilst typing all this out I can’t believe I was so smart back as a teen. Using the correct hashtags, simple but creative social media captions and posts.
I don’t know why but I got T-shirts made. I thought I was going to turn this into a large company, maybe I could have.
The real reason why I stopped this was because it was far too much manual labour to set up, install, put sweets into the individual boxes and at the time of this business. I felt like it was far too much.
I had got my first order via Instagram, it was for well over £300. The customer placed a large order for over 500 boxes, you can see the image below of every box we had to individually make.
Turns out I couldn’t do it myself, it was so tough. I had to get my mum and sisters to help me with this. I can’t imagine what It would have been like to make 5-10 orders for 2000+ boxes. HELL NO!
I’m glad I stopped that business and still had my marketing career. But I’m glad I started this business, I learnt about websites, and how to build them. Then I learnt about products, how to ship/Royal Mail postage/dealing with WooCommerce (WooCommerce is an eCommerce platform built on WordPress, an alternative to Shopify).
It was also my first time dealing with my own customers for my first business, being professional, taking payment all the way to delivering the service.
Here are some Snapchat memories I found:
6) My second business - 1.Touch Marketing
Swiftly moving on to the next business. I was already very skilled in building websites, good at social media and brilliant at SEO. So my next business idea would have to be marketing right? Indeed it was.
Now bare in mind, all this was taking place whilst I was still in my first apprenticeship/job on a salary of £600 a month.
I would finish work at 5 pm, then cycle home and grind on my business.
So another storytime. I actually quite enjoyed having this business, it was such an amazing experience and I learnt so many lessons. I managed to secure my first client by running a Google Paid Ad. Which you can see here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BkID8EglZfM/?hl=en-gb
As you can see, my design skills slightly increased from the last business, again using my skills to my full advantage I positioned my marketing business as a professional organisation. I had an ace website which I would love to show but sadly do not have it anymore. But you can see it here in this photoshop.
I even included my previous business logo work which I designed as a work showpiece.
This business was a true eye-opener, I gained a few clients. I learnt so much yet again, just like the previous business.
Clients can be demanding, they can take up time and effort. You really have got to factor in your time and ask yourself this question:
Is it really worth my time?
That’s what I learnt most. If a client isn’t worth taking on for a low package then decline. Because the stress and hassle you’ll receive for such little pay will not be worth the headache.
The true real reason why I stopped was that it was becoming very demanding (Client workload-wise) and due to a conflict of interest. Also because I was working at the first marketing agency/apprenticeship I could not run a marketing business and have a job in marketing due to a conflict of interest which I didn’t know.
Sadly as a young teenager, I was not aware of this or had a clue. I was just a young entrepreneur trying to make as much money as possible to live a better happier life. So I had to close this business down, I ended agreements with any clients and said my goodbyes.
I was finding myself working twice as much and this began taking a toll on my happiness.
Some clients did try to contact me again to do more work as I was actually good at my job and one client ONLY worked with me no other agency.
I really appreciated this but I had to stop for the sake of my apprenticeship qualification/degree, I needed to pass…
I’m also very grateful to the girl I was dating at the time who supported me whilst I was setting this up. After finishing work I would go to hers, spend time with her and also manage clients at the same time. I’m glad she was part of the journey. Everything happens for a reason!
Here’s a funny little thing I found on my iPhone notes, I used this script to send to people on LinkedIn to get more clients, sadly it didn’t work but good for the memory books lol.
7) Apprenticeship 2 ( 2019-2020)
After walking out from the last apprenticeship due to not learning enough from the job and being treated poorly at the workplace. I still needed to complete my degree. For that, I needed a new workplace and a job.
I then sent a few emails to some marketing agencies in Birmingham which I found on a Google search and received a call back from one agency not far from where I live. 🙌🏻
Little did I know, that one phone call would change my life…
That phone call now became my new place of work, I had a new job to complete my apprenticeship at my second workplace now.
It was great I learnt so much more in the 2 weeks that I had started there than in the last 9 months at my previous place. I built up my web design skills and marketing and most importantly myself as a kid to an adult. 💻
Genuinely it did.
Here is a photo of my office desk as the time and you can see I uploaded it on Facebook on February 2019.
I strongly believe in the saying “Good things come to those who wait” 🤟🏼
That is exactly what happened here, at this second workplace.
This workplace was amazing, my employer was more than just a boss here, he was a mentor, a second father figure and someone to turn to for guidance.
It was at this job/workplace that the first steps to becoming a property entrepreneur began.
I’ve attached some of the images of my apprenticeship documents as proof to back my story as a Digital Marketing Apprenticeship.
8) Starting property, events & networking
So, after the 2 previous businesses I wanted to do something else that would make me good money. Something that I could scale up and grow!
I began researching online for business ideas, one of the ones that came up was ‘Airbnb/Short Let Property Management”.
On my research, I stumbled on something called Serviced Accommodation or Serviced Apartments. Something that would later be my life, my main income.
Anyway, the main question is, what did I begin to start doing to gain knowledge? I couldn’t afford courses, no mentors as I was still an apprentice, still broke and making £600 per month…
The answer is NETWORKING & EVENTS, Facebook Groups & Online research. But to anyone looking to start soon as I would recommend getting consulting/training/mentor if you have the funds but as a teenager I did not!
I attended free events, I joined loads of property groups on Facebook, saw everyone’s posts on their experiences and learnt from them.
In terms of networking, I used an app called Eventbrite to find local property networking events, talks, and speeches as well as on Facebook.
I attended almost every event with my partner at the time and asked questions to the professionals who were doing it at the time and that’s my way of gaining knowledge and finding my answers without a mentor. Questions I asked were related to the Airbnb Property Management because I was about to start such as:
1) How to do you deal with cleaning, do you hire your own or a cleaning company?
2) What Channel manager/software do you use to manage the properties?
3) What properties are best?
4) What contract do I use?
Above are a few questions I asked many years ago when trying to start out in property.
9) My first Property Management Business - PILOT MY PROPERTY ®
So, from my previous networking, researching, building up my knowledge.
I then brainstormed a brand name and thought of ‘PILOT MY PROPERTY’. I bought the domains, social handles and that was the day my first property business was born.
Of course, still in the start-up phase, I did everything myself. When I landed my first client via my Google Ranking (SEO), I took on board his property which was my first, set it up, organised the furniture and staging for it.
Here is the first presentation pack I made when I met the landlord.
Who would have known I’m a jack of all trades, Mr Handyman.😂🙋🏻♂️
I was 21 at this stage, still getting into property and business properly… I was doing what most 30/40/50-year-olds were doing within the industry. I then listed my first property on Airbnb and started generating its first bookings.
How did I get my leads/properties? 🏘 Through my marketing.
I started to see an upward trend each month with many landlords approaching me via my website on Google to take over their property or manage it. Google is so vital for my business, I used SEO ranking to rank my site on Google in order to receive organic genuine free leads.
I’m spending £0 on Ads and I receive enquiries all the time!
I had property viewings planned every weekend and landlords approached me, keep in mind I was still doing my apprenticeship at this time!
I built a really nice online presence and brand, did a brilliant job at SEO and just sat back and waited.
Here was another property onto my books right in the heart of Birmingham. I actually love this photograph. It was one of my first few properties:
This landlord approached me asking how i can help him generate extra income for a property he was not using as he is always on holiday or working in another country. So rather than sit empty I managed to persuade him to allow me to manage it for him for short lets.
I also learnt a very valuable lesson in business at his point!
Falling ill is probably the worst thing ever when running a business as it wastes valuable business time. Time I could have spent building it up rather than being on standstill ✅
Now I have staff running my business but back then when I started I was running it all and wearing all the hats.
A tip: Make sure you always have someone at hand who can pick up the slack while you away or off.
I was still far too small to be hiring staff/VAs. I had to do it all myself!
I hired my first cleaner/housekeeper who will be part of my business till this very day.
“No one who achieves success does so without the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.” – Alfred North Whitehead
I just want to say how important cleaners are to my property business and Serviced Accommodation/Airbnb’s especially!
It’s really hard to find someone good and when you do it’s always good to make sure they are looked after.
While still working my apprenticeship, earning £600 per month I decided to pay one of my staff who always does an amazing job and exceeds expectations so I decided to give her a bonus!
I remember when I use to work as a waiter for hours and hours just trying to make £20 a day, the struggles of saving up just to buy some trainers🤯 Now I pay my cleaners £15-25 per hour and make sure they are treated well, what goes around comes around❤️
I believe in Karma. If the good is sown, the good is collected. When positive things are made, that returns well 🔮
10) Booking.com Award
After having a few properties for my management company we actually managed to get an Award from Booking.com which was pretty amazing!
I was so proud to announce that I’ve won a Booking.com Traveller/Guest Review Award 2020 🏆 (But is issued the next year) so 2019 achievements. This has been won by one of my recent properties that went live almost 4 months after onboarding and it already won an award due to exceptional service, reviews and great guest experiences ⭐️
I really did work hard and made sure to go over and beyond for guests, especially in the short-let industry, I want to be better than the competition. I’m always updating and renovating my systems/processes from each review so we can offer an amazing service to all guests booking any of our properties! 💻
Being an Official Booking.com Partner is amazing, as this really is the best platform to generate bookings for a variety of guest types from corporates to couples travelling.
The Booking.com Traveller Review Awards is an annual appreciation program that recognises Booking.com partners for their exceptional hospitality, as evidenced in the review scores left by guests after their stays.
At this stage, I am still working at the Digital Marketing Agency whilst running this business.
11) Asian Apprenticeship Awards 2019 🎉
My apprenticeship journey has been tremendously bumpy but life-changing at the same time 🤯, I’ve learnt many life lessons, business skills, workplace skills, and marketing skills but most importantly, I’ve become the man I am today. 🙏
I was a Finalist for the ‘Creative & Digital’ category, didn’t win but my company won the SME Employer of the Year Award who I worked for 💁🏻♂️🏆
Being a student, working full time and running a property business is tough, but I’m glad to say… I’m doing an amazing job at it 🔥
More wins yet to come! 🏆🏘
12) Starting MAEVELA® & COVID-19/Lockdowns
When I founded my second company it wasn’t originally called MAEVELA®. It was actually called ‘BIRMINGHAM STAYS’. I did all the logo design for both brands myself, using my skills learnt in my previous marketing job/apprenticeship I was able to be creative and come up with designs I’m happy with.
I later rebranded this to something more unique and personalised to me, I wanted a catchy shorter brand name.
When I launched MAEVELA® it was deep into COVID-19, we had many lockdowns, times were tough. Here is one podcast I went on to discuss:
Check out our discussion with James Sahota with Adam Rana as we discuss what we are doing to tackle the Coronavirus affecting the SA/Short Let industry in 2019! 🦠
𝗩𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼 – http://ow.ly/nAmt50z7wS3
𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 – http://ow.ly/AgGh50z7wS0
𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆 – http://ow.ly/blCq50z7wS2
Due to the worldwide COVID-19, so many things were affected, we had shops shut, bars, restaurants, clubs and most important of all Airbnb’s, Hotels.
14) First Office, BIG MOVE!
Exciting news🏆, I signed up for my first office space. Moving into a new office in Birmingham City center after starting my business in my bedroom in Sep 2020.
At 22, I never ever thought I’d ever walk past these big corporate office buildings and ever imagine I would ever have an office here but ay dreams finally come true! 🏢😢🎉
May not be an achievement to some people, but to me, from working in a bar, waiter, or office job to becoming a full-time entrepreneur, surviving lockdown/coronavirus & signing on an office is something to be proud of for myself. 🏆
With this in place, it has allowed me to run my business so much faster, and more efficiently, as all my cleaners/staff come to the office to collect supplies and equipment, which makes their life easier! ✅
Plus not forgetting being located directly in the city centre in the middle of all my properties.
Rewarding Staff:
I always make sure to reward staff, especially hard-working. Cleaner getting her £100 bonus for all her hard work & making sure all the apartments are clean ☺️👏🏼
Love to reward loyal people 🙏🏼
15) Scaling up, difficulties, referencing, agents, set-up fee, burnout
Throughout building my business, I was working day & night to set up 5+ apartments in the same month at some points alone🔨, no gym, no time to eat, and lost some much weight & muscle. My health was not prioritized and I faced burnout a lot.🙇🏻
Once I had finished all the apartments set up, next was to do the marketing, then time for the gym, a proper diet & more VAs (Virtual assistants) to outsource the business as possible! Back to focus on me👨🏻💻
Sole entrepreneurship isn’t fun and isn’t for the faint-hearted, sometimes you have to put your all into something even if it means losing it all, a very lonely journey, I literally felt like giving up twice, lost my partner but the future is bright. 🧠📈
17) Second Office - VIEWS BABY!!!
NEW OFFICE!📈
Bigger & better, this is the second office I took out at SPACES (Regus) big enough for our needs at MAEVELA® 😍👨🏻💻🧑🏻💻 – More staff, more cleaners & more apartments 🛋🏘
Could have financed a Range Rover for the price of the office but sometimes investing money wisely and where best is always right 👏🏼
18) MBCC AWARDS - ‘Entrepreneur of the year’ Award
I was a Finalist for the ‘Creative & Digital’ category, didn’t win but my company won the SME Employer of the Year Award who I worked for 💁🏻♂️🏆
Super Grateful to have been nominated for ‘Entrepreneur of the year’ Award for the MBCC Awards🙏🏻
I’ve worked my arse off the last 2 years since going full time into property & business👨🏻💻, what a rocky journey it’s been, starting off with 2 apartments, the late nights🥱, the debt, putting all my wage into my business, being broke, the struggles of not being able to even pay my phone bill but dam…
Gone are the days of working 2 jobs, being a waiter, and being a barman.
My business journey has been bumpy and the most hardest I think I’ll ever face, lockdowns, COVID-19, and business restrictions.
Where most businesses fell through we survived 🙏🏻
Most people don’t see the actual hard work and effort that goes into a business, behind the funny Instagram stories, is me sitting in the office, Monday to Sunday, 7 days a week, 16 hours a day working my arse off, seeing everyone else in the clubs, bars, enjoying their teens, whilst I grind my backside off trying to continually improve the business in every way, shape or form🥴✍🏻
But I enjoy it, I love it, and I would never trade my business time for a night in a club, never! 👏🏻
Them days are long gone 🔥I can proudly say, MAEVELA® / PILOT MY PROPERTY ® now makes enough money for me to sustain a perfect life, it’s a successful business and the income is rising week by week 😅💪🏻
We are currently taking on more office staff, more VA/PA’s. Hopefully to return the same gift that was given to me when I started my apprenticeship to someone young 💎
You have to taste failure in order to be both successful & humble ✍🏻
But hard work and perseverance does pay off 🙌🏼 It’s only a matter of time I say ⏰
Your time will come, mine too🏆
19) Self Reflection
Do you ever look back at yourself and think you’ve not achieved enough or are successful enough? 🤔
But then thinking about it👇🏼
– I have a beautiful Office & View
– I’m my own boss
– I have Freedom
– Sleep & wake up whenever I want
– Earn 6 figures every month/income
– A full team of staff/employer vibes
– Lots of apartments/properties in my portfolio
– A strong good business model
– No dependants
– No one telling me what I can or can’t do
20) - AMEX Plat - GOAL ACHIEVED!
ASSDS
Another life goal was to achieve the American Express Platinum Card as well as the Gold. As a young teenager, I always thought this was for the ultra-wealthy wealthy people in the world.
But turns out, running a business and spending enough is perfect enough to pass the criteria, see the video below for a quick brief explanation of why I use it and how I use the AMEX cards.
You can also use my referral links below & we can both earn points to use towards expenses, flights and much more:
21) 250 SQF storage unit for the business
My new 250 SQF storage unit for the business, is a massive upgrade from our previous 50 & 75 SQF to store our linen/supplies for my Serviced Accommodation Business. 😬📦
A storage unit is so vital for our Serviced Apartment Business/Hotel.
We use it to store supplies, cleaning equipment, linen, spare furniture & extras that are needed in case of replacement parts🔨
With a larger unit in place, we are able to operate more effectively, have more supplies on hand for our growing cleaning team, more stock & apartment portfolio in Birmingham 🏘
22) Final Words
To be totally honest, I can keep on writing about my journey and who I am but the best thing to do is, to follow my Instagram and check out my YouTube channel.
On my iinstagram you’ll get an insight into my daily life, day in the life or behind the scenes of a property entrepreneur.
Feel free to contact me if you wish to invest or partner up with me. Always open to a discussion!
I have since been featured on many YouTube videos, podcasts and interviews. You can find them using the buttons below.
Thanks for reading,
Shamil
