A Pakistani Programmer Made A Firm Worth $1 Billion From His Basement

Carl Rodrigues, a successful IT consultant, doing his 9 to 5 job, woke up one day and decided to quit his job, instead of working for other he decided to work for himself and confined himself to his basement in order to develop a best-selling computer product.

His close family members though he has lost his mind, he was eager and committed to doing something worth doing rather than just earning bread and butter for his family. Back in 2001, he shuts himself in the basement of his house in Mississauga Canada, and start working on his dreams.

Not 9 to 5 this time, Rodrigues worked round the clock over a month of freaking working hours to come up with a fully developed idea of developing a software system, which allows users to control mobile device from the laptop.

After some time sales started to grow, he named his company “Soti”, after 12 months Rodrigues receives a call from one of the UK’s largest supermarket groups, which was the game changer.

The firm didn’t want to sell the system, instead, it wanted to incorporate it into its operations, so staff could better communicate and pass on data and other information.

Rodrigues told BBC that they didn’t realize they were talking to a guy in the basement, the UK-based firm placed a huge order of 20,000 units which put the company’s vehicle in the fast lane.
“Today Soti has annual revenues of $80 million.”

Rodrigues 55 now, neither accepted outside investments nor acquisition bids, turning down all offers, with one in 2006 from Microsoft. The business is 100 percent owned by him and his wife.

Rodrigues was born in Pakistan belonging to Roman Catholic Family, his family decided to immigrate to Canada when he was 11 in 1970’s.

Today the company is valued at $1bn and has 17,000 business customers around the world, the company employs 700 people across 22 countries.

The company’s headquarters resides across two buildings in Mississauga, Ontario. Technology journalist Martin Veitch while reporting on Rodrigues’s career, says Soti has been so successful because of its specialized approach.

One biggest problem Soti encountered was the struggle in hiring good programmers, Soti has also hired 20 programmers from the Ukraine, who it helped move to Canada with their families. If you are a good programmer and want to reside in Canada, you can also try your luck in Soti.