A Software Saga
It has been a bumpy year for infotech companies. But Mindfire Solutions has prospered despite the turmoil all around. Slightly over one year ago Mindfire opened shop in a small one-room office with a staff of six.
Today, there are 120 employees in a smart office and the company, which specialises in software development services, is thriving even though some of its clients are slowing down. Mindfire offers services in mainstream technologies such as Web/Internet and Windows as well as niche areas like Apple Macintosh and Omnis Studio. The brain behind the company is CEO, Chinmoy Panda who graduated from BITS Pilani and then did an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
It was an urge to do something of my own which prompted me to start my own enterprise. I had a very comfortable job as a management consultant. But I was more interested in software and soon joined a software firm Intera and then Adobe. However, there was no job satisfaction. I was looking for something more than money and so, without thinking too deeply about it, I plunged into the software business.
Getting a venture capitalist for funding was considered fashionable in those days but I decided against it. Instead, I invested my own hard earned savings. I had managed to save some money and also the Adobe stocks which I sold fetched me enough capital to start my business. My total investment was Rs 3 lakh.
It was a modest beginning