Your Tech Story

Aanchal Awasthi

Aanchal is a freelance writer and has been writing since 2013. She is currently pursuing her masters in English Literature from University of Delhi and received her B.A. (hons.) degree in English Literature from University of Delhi. She has a great passion for writing poetry. She is also a keen reader of inspirational stories of people who have achieved success through hard work.

Quick Heal Technologies: From earning $12 per month to billion dollar antivirus company

start-up, Tech Story / By

Stories of great achievers are always very enchanting, yet they are true and no fairy tales. Anyone with required skills, dedication, hard work, patience and never say die attitude can strive for the success.

Kailash Katkar, MD and CEO of Quick Heal Technologies Limited, never waited for success to find him, rather made all possible efforts to reach out to it. He did not belong to a rich family, did not have luxuries to lead a comfortable life yet he is at a position now where he can enjoy every comfort of life. But all this did not come to him in legacy; it is the fruit of his hard work and talent. And in his journey to the desired destination, his younger brother Sanjay Katkar accompanied him as a reliable support.

Image Credit: www.quickheal.co.in

Early life & hard work
Katkar belongs to a very modest Maharashtrian family, born in a small village at Rahimatpur, India. Since, the village was too small to support them with future prospects, they moved to Pune where his father worked as a machine setter in Philips. With a handful amount of family income, it was getting tough to manage all the requirements and this made Katkar take up a job right after his graduation. He worked as a mechanic at a local calculator and radio repair shop and managed to add $12 (INR. 400) to the family income kitty. But stagnation was something not made for Katkar. Following his interest in technical field, he learned to repair gadgets popularly used in offices in those days which included desktop electric calculators, radios, TVs, ledger posting machines and so on. From this side business, he could successfully earn $65 (INR 2000) a month which was undoubtedly an achievement for him then. But this achievement did not make him happy enough to stop. His dreams were not of walking on roads but to fly in the sky. Pursuing the same he set up his own hardware repair shop, whose success gave him a comfortable living.

Entry into the entrepreneur world
A comfortable life never tempted Kailash Katkar so much as to settle down. His first step into the entrepreneur world could be marked by the opening of his own shop with an initial investment of around $200 (Rs. 15,000) which was a big deal two decades back. The first year of this one-man venture gave him an income of $1100 (INR 45,000) which was quite decent but not enough to satisfy Katkar. He began feeling an incompetency in his skills and therefore went on to attend short computer courses around 1991-92 so as to look forward to a better venture and earn more and more. He set a second milestone in his way to be a successful entrepreneur by establishing a new business of computer services, keeping up the repair shop running at the same time. In 1993 he won the annual maintenance contract for New India Insurance, leaving all the well-established corporate ventures far behind. This success shows the amount of dedication this man gave to his work which led him to generate a turnover of $2300 (INR. 100,000).

During this time, popularity of computers in India began expanding and at the same time many virus related problems were also observed. This is when Kailash Katkar and his brother Sanjay Katkar got the idea of developing antivirus software to relieve people of such issues with their systems. Going along with the flow of their business, they appointed some software engineers later and with the immense efforts of each member they developed a better version of antivirus software.

Rebounded from the verge of shutdown
Promotion and marketing of Quick Heal remained limited to Pune area only for many years. Katkar brothers were finding it hard to manage a office in Pune in the absence of outside investment. It was then in 1999 when they decided to shut down the antivirus business.

However, on the suggestions of few friends they decided to give it a last shot with aggressive marketing. They started with half page ad in Times of India. Happy with their success they went on to open various branches of their setup in different parts of the country and by the year 2005-2006, they expanded the cause focusing on computer speed, mobile security and gateway level protection. They then, renamed their company to Quick Heal Technologies in 2007 which is counted among one of the popular companies in this field. In 2010, Quick Heal received an investment of $13 million (INR 60 Crores) from Sequoia Capital with another round of funding of $19.7 million from anchor investors, including BNP Paribas Advantage and Reliance Mutual Fund later.

This funding helped Katkar open sales offices in countries like Japan and the US. Today, Quick Heal Technologies have tie ups with several countries across the globe and its achievement is surely not unheard. It has grown to  31 branch offices with over 8 million customers worldwide.

From Rags to Riches: Journey of Jyothi Reddy from a farmer to the CEO of a $15 million IT firm

start-up, Tech Story / By

Everybody dreams of being a millionaire, but have you ever thought why everyone doesn’t become rich? We shall not impose all blame on luck, yes indeed, good fate is a necessary aspect to achieve success but relying completely on it isn’t justifiable. Persistent efforts, patience, hard work, determination and a good intention are equally important to get what you want. And we do have examples of those who started from zero but reached the zenith of success.

“I could not stand being poor. I was born poor and was wed into another poor family.”

These are the words of Jyothi Reddy, CEO of a $15 million US based IT company, Key Software Solutions. The story of Jyothi Reddy is about her extraordinary journey from a poverty ridden life to that of utmost luxury. She has set an example for all those women who have the potential to ascend the ladder of success but belonging to a weak economic background leaves them hopeless. There is nothing impossible in this world and one should never make any compromise with one’s dreams as you never know when time changes and transforms your life.

Constant struggle turning out to be fruitful

Jyothi Reddy, being from an extremely poor family from India had to become a forced orphan for 5 years where she attended a government school from class 5 to 10. After 5 years living in the orphanage, she determined to live a better life but leaving the orphanage proved no better for her as she was married off at the age of 16 to an impoverished farmer 10 years older to her. Poor economic condition did not leave her side and her life grew even worse. As a result of dearth of money, she too was compelled to toil as a farm laborer earning a meager amount of Rs.5 per day and this continued from 1985 to 1990.

Jyothi Reddy
Image Credit: jyothireddy.com

Meanwhile she became the mother of two daughters and this gave her the strength to fight for herself and for her daughters. By her sheer efforts, she grabbed the opportunity of teaching in a government school. But the money she earned from teaching was not sufficient to run her family of 4. Therefore, she constantly looked for other small works like stitching petticoats, selling one or the other things on buses and trains. But Reddy never lost hopes and she never turned back but prepared herself to fly victoriously. As she knew the importance of education, she graduated herself from Ambedkar Open University and also learned typewriting.

Prepared the way to America all by herself

Her first step to enter into the techno world could be marked by her meeting with a US cousin who inspired her to escape the situation of poverty by going to the US. The cousin too saw a spark in her to strive for her set goal. Reddy then drove herself to take computer science classes with great dedication. And after all needed arrangements were made; she made it to US alone. Reaching US did not make her problems go away, tussle for success didn’t end there but a new struggle awaited her. Her initial days there were of great struggle as she was not fluent in English and also had no big degree but again she not for a moment dwindled. She worked as baby-sitter, load/unload goods and many such places there. She also worked as a software recruiter in Virginia, from where she learned all about techno world and got much useful experience.

Beginning of entrepreneurial journey

Her ambitions never let her remain satisfied and this is the reason that she is standing at the pedestal of success today. Her job as a recruiter weaved her dreams of becoming an entrepreneur. She returned back from US only to determine herself to open her own software company in US. She set up an office at Phoenix in 2011 with an investment of her savings of $40,000 and since then she is running her company, Keys Software Solutions.

Today Jyothi Reddy is a known social activist and philanthropist working for the upliftment of orphans.

Defying the stereotypes, Afghan woman makes it to Entrepreneurship

Tech Story / By

Those who say women should better stay behind the four walls need a reality check. Looking at women excelling in all the fields one must realize the need of breaking all the stereotypical notions formed against their capabilities. From being a teacher to flying airplanes, women these days are leaving their imprints everywhere.

One such woman is Roya Mahboob, the founder and CEO of Afghan Citadel Software Company. She was born in Herat, Afghanistan a country with more than 85% illiteracy among women. Her childhood was not a bed of roses as she had to leave her homeland with family with the advent of Soviet invasion in Afghanistan. She took refuge in Pakistan and Iran like other homeless people of her country. This was the tough time for her and others. She was not allowed to attend a school and go outside to play. Who then knew, this refugee would one day become an entrepreneur? Her journey continued and she returned back to Afghanistan in 2003 and put her first step towards the entrepreneurial journey. She learned English while volunteering at a French NGO. In 2005, she enrolled herself in Herat University to pursue bachelor in Computer Science for information and communications technology. Since then she never looked back. Where women in Afghanistan even today remain behind the veil, Roya Mahboob has dared to break the stereotype and stand aloof from the line. After completing her graduation, she worked as IT Director in her university and also acquired an MBA in Information Technology in 2011.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

A woman of substance

Her progress towards entrepreneurship began when she was included among seven Afghan entrepreneurs as a part of the Herat Information Technology program. While pursuing her MBA, Mahboob with her two university classmates, laid the foundation of Afghan Citadel Software Company in 2010 with an investment of $20,000. Such a risky initiative she took with a positive intention of providing an opportunity to recent university graduates particularly women to look for a job in Afghanistan’s growing tech market. This initiative proved to be helpful for all those women like her who wanted to break away from the prejudiced notions and stand independent on their feet. The company aimed at developing software as required by the clients that were mainly government ministries, international organizations and universities. Thus, the company began to come into recognition of not just few but many.

Roya Mahboob is applauded worldwide for her efforts in giving a boost to technology and encourage women. She despite receiving several threats from her own countrymen kept her pace on and responded on these threats-

“You have to show everybody that men and women are equal. Women can do something if you allow them. Give them opportunity and they can prove themselves”.

Empowering women

She later joined in with partnership with Film Annex, to launch the Afghan Development project in the year 2012. Mahboob and Film Annex together are striving to make internet classrooms in the schools of Afghanistan so as to increase the connectivity in the education system throughout the country and offer them a hopeful future so that they are not led astray and don’t end up in joining the poisonous terror groups.

She has successfully collected many awards and titles for her social initiatives. Her nonprofit, Digital Citizen Fund, is helping women realize their potential, strength and freedom to fulfill their goals. Her tech efforts are aimed at connecting business and social world. She also got a place in the 2013 list of Times magazine of “100 Most Influential People In The World”.  Roya Mahboob’s determination, courage and entrepreneurial capabilities will surely encourage other women not only in Afghanistan but other developing countries to take charge of themselves and step out of their protective environment to participate in all sectors of economic life important to build stronger economy and to improve the quality of life for family and community.