16 Years of Kaz Software: How we started

We turn sixteen this month! Sixteen years! Time flies so fast, it feels only like yesterday when we began.

It all started with a small startup company in silicon valley in big trouble. They were trying to make an innovative software that could save millions of dollars for big companies by helping them find the best routes for financial transactions. The idea was amazing and the founders were leaders in their industry. They had enough investment money, gleaming California offices, maths PhDs, technical architects and a dev team with great resumes. And best of all - customers were knocking on their doors, waiting for the software to launch. But the founders had a dark secret, they knew that underneath their shining offices and sparkling resumes something sinister was slowly eating away their dreams.

Their technical team was doing meetings after meetings, running technical discussions and creating documents, Gantt charts, presentations and project plans. But no usable software was there to show even after a full year. Every time a new build was promised something turned up that made the technical team reconsider their plans and adjusted their schedules. After a full year of trying they were running out of money and had nothing to show to potential customers.

The Last Resort

This is where we came in, a last resort. One of the founders knew somebody who knew somebody who knew us! When we finally met up on a sunny March day in 2004 at one of those great seafood places at Fisherman’s wharf in San Francisco the appeal from the founders was desperate. They were giving up on their current team completely and had just enough money left that could run our team for six months. Equally desperate were we to get our first big project, to keep us afloat. So we said yes without a thought.

That yes led to a realization a week and a marathon code review later that the only way forward was to write from scratch. Six months to build and deliver something with a team of four that a team of nine couldn’t do in a year! Great challenge, but we love great challenges!

So that is the beginning. It has a good ending. We delivered two weeks ahead of time, with more features than the original list. We helped the lay the bricks of a company that is worth millions now and leads the industry in that special niche.

Here are some some pictures from our early days…