Codilar, the unsung heroes
We were 4 e-commerce enthusiasts working in an e-commerce technology services company
based in Bangalore. There were some things that disturbed us and other things that motivated
to start on our own in the late 2014.
Firstly, in the era of start-ups, most of the development agencies failed to understand the
passion of these ambitious startup founders. Therefore the solutions engineered ended up
being mediocre or got delayed which partly killed the founder’s dreams. Secondly, we dreamed
of a work culture where the employees were given freedom, ownership and responsibility so
that they could work with passion, not just because they had to, but because they wanted to.
We decided to redefine both by leveraging the expertise we had already acquired in our career,
which is e-commerce. Moreover, e-commerce was already booming in India by then. We chose
Magento as the platform for our solutions, since it is the most stable and reliable shopping cart
software available. In spite of Magento’s global popularity, technical expertise was very hard to
find. There were only around 500 Magento Certified Developers in India then.
We quit our jobs and decided to start the journey. We chose Hashid Hameed as our head.
Mahaveer took care of operations and Biz Dev. Arshad and Tamjeed were the developers. We
registered the domain and built the website in one night and started our work in our flat around
the dining table. We were living on our savings from last job and freelancing. We used the
reputation we had in our network to acquire projects. Our first big break was Campus Sutra. We
moved to a bigger space, a duplex house. We hired brilliant and passionate brains to grow to 12
member team. By then we had acquired various clients like Featherlite Furniture, Eatfresh,
Mabel etc. We had mastered Magento.
We noticed a couple of prospective clients backing out from our services as we did not have
lavish infrastructure. We invested our earnings in a new commercial office which could seat 50
people. Our journey shifted a new level. We acquired big names like Amar Chitra Katha and
cool start-ups like Stylebank, ZurielHomes, Dogmycats, Happiesouls etc. We are right now 27
people strong.
Contribution to the eco-system
● We take the role of a tech co-founder for an e-commerce startup.
● We help bootstrapped startups by providing top-notch services at affordable costs by
having a skin in the game.
● We use our expertise and knowledge to provide guidance to startups to shape their
e-commerce strategy.
● We enable e-commerce businesses to woo their customers with high performing
shopping experiences by leveraging latest e-commerce concepts and technology.
Our growth is solely due to our passionate workforce. We give our employees (we don’t use the
term employees, but players or stars) freedom, flexibility, ownership, responsibility and sense of
purpose. This helps them to grow in multiple levels. What they give in return is hard work driven
by passion. We consider this as our greatest achievement as we believe it is the workforce that
defines the growth of a company.
As our CEO Hashid always says, we are never going to settle
for less. We will strive to change the face of service industry in India. We aim to be the best
place to work, of a whole different kind.
More Info: www.codilar.com
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