Qysh Me (meaning "How To" in Albanian) was an Albanian-language how-to and education portal I co-founded in 2011 with Korab Osmanaj. The idea came from a real problem: colleagues and relatives constantly calling with questions like "how do I create a Gmail account?" We decided to write it all down, in Albanian, for everyone.
We started on a voluntary basis, writing articles during early morning lunch breaks after night shifts. One of the first articles was "How to create a Gmail account." A few hundred articles later, the rest was history.
The team grew organically. Fisnik Sylka joined after reaching out with an SEO optimization suggestion and quickly became our SEO Manager; today he's a respected SEO Strategist working with international clients. Dardan Hasku joined as Social Media Manager and later founded his own agency, Dardha. Uranik Begu joined the leadership team when we incorporated as a startup in May 2013.
The site covered practical topics across technology, health, finance, and everyday life, all in accessible Albanian. At its peak it drew significant organic traffic from Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and the diaspora. Building in Albanian wasn't just a market decision; it was a trust signal. Users knew we were building for them, not localizing something made for someone else.
We faced the full range of startup challenges: servers failing under too much traffic, DDOS attacks we didn't understand at the time, the usual bugs and daily fires. Each one was a lesson.
In November 2019, after nearly nine years, Qysh Me was acquired by Dua.com, a network connecting Albanians around the globe. The acquisition gave Qysh Me new resources and capabilities to continue driving value for its readers. As an Albanian-language how-to platform, it's a rare success story in a market most people had never heard of.
Beyond marketing, I worked on the product itself: the content platform and publishing workflow, the information architecture that let a small team manage hundreds of articles, and the responsive web experience readers used across devices. Running it as a startup also meant business development, monetization, hiring, and the operational calls that come with scaling a web application under real traffic.