A post from the past - Shadows of Sinensis

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Shadows of Sinensis was our trip to Srimongol in Sylhet in 2009. Here’s what Ferdous wrote about the trip in our old blog…

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Shadows of Sinensis

- Md. Ferdous Bhuiyan


Shadows of Sinensis, a memorable trip to Srimongol, will remain afresh in the mind of Kaz family. Fun-loving Kaz Family went on rampage to obtain unlimited ‘Furti’ and relaxation during our 3-day tour to Srimongol from 15 to 17 February, 2009. Eventful Srimongol trip offered us relaxation, fun and most importantly the joy to share with our colleagues and family members. The team of Srimongol trip encompasses each and every one of Kaz Family. Young stars of the team aged 3-month to 3-year provided the team with pure and refreshing entertainment in the lap of nature. All of us along with our spouses and kids looted the unlimited joy by swimming in the pool, climbing the mountains, wandering in the wilderness and having delicious foods.

Powered by 41-member, Kaz team reveals the sportive frenzy of Kaz family. Many of our enthusiastic players as well as cheering audiences enjoyed watching and playing Cricket, Badminton, Football and Table Tennis at daylight and even at night using light. Frenzied bedding accompanied by enthusiastic cheering gave the events a special glow.
Silence of the evenings was shattered with the sound of laughter provoked by lively ‘Adda’ and the melody of harmonica and songs sung by us ruled the isolation of night. Monotony or tiered is something that failed to touch the mind even for a second. Luxurious and well-furnished bungalows became the place to spend last few hours of night to start a new day with more enthusiasm.

A spur-of-the-moment decision fixed the day scheduled. Going to ‘Lawachara’ or finding out the tea-stall named ‘Nilkantha’ to have multilayered tea was decided within a few minutes with the urge to know the unknown. Such whimsical decisions to visit outside of the Tea Resort made the trip more attractive and gave us the chance to experience something new and adventurous. Those who were more attracted to water of appealing swimming pool were busy with swimming and diving throughout the whole noon.
Delicious Food must be there to color a memorable time. We the KAZ people vowed not to get hungry and have delicious good food with every single chance of celebrating party. There is no exception of this oath even at Srimongol trip. Being the fan of delicious food we grilled chicken and included delicious dishes for a sensational dinner and enjoyed the last night having spicy food and dessert.

Sensible traditional ethos of our firm revives with this lovely trip. And it would be no rhetoric to reiterate the truth that ‘Shadows of Sinensis’ is a great step forward for the neatly tied Kaz family to enhance its fellow-feelings and team spirit as ever.

16 Years of Kaz Software: How our fun party revolution started

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Our guiding principle when we started 16 years back was:

We will build a happy place to work.

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And every one of our millions of tiny decisions over the past sixteen years has been guided by this goal of happiness. Happiness is essential at work, especially when work is as creative as software development. So sticking to this principle is very important for us. It isn’t easy. There are many decisions you have to take in a business where you are forced to decide between money and happiness. But I’m proud to say in most of those decisions points we chose happiness over anything else.

Our first real test

Really early on, just a six months after our first real big project and after we got hold of some real money, finally, we had our first such decision point:

Do we keep the money safe for rainy days or do we do a celebratory party?

This was a time when our future wasn’t very certain. Yes, we did deliver a great product and our first customer confirmed that they would continue with us to build the version 2. But everything was still up in the air, the customer was actually starting to recover the huge loss they had, we didn’t have any new business leads, we had no idea what would happen in a few months, let alone years. Yet I clearly remember the decision process that went like:

What we decide today will set the tone of the company.

Are we courageous enough to stick with our goal of happiness?

Do we want to be exceptional?

or are we going to sell ourselves to mediocrity by playing safe?

When we were young! A picture at Cox’s bazaar from our first big party

When we were young! A picture at Cox’s bazaar from our first big party

As you can guess from that line of reasoning, we decided to be be exceptional :) and arranged for an all expenses paid 4 day trip to the beach town of Cox’s Bazaar, staying at the most expensive hotel there (at that time) and having lots and lots of fun!

You might ask, as I ask myself now - Were we fools? Were we irresponsible? Irrational?

The answer is always a big NO. That single courageous decision set the tone, fixed the music and set us on a path that we have been on for the past 16 years. Happiness above money. This single formula made us successful as a business but more importantly successful as group of humans.

That first party led to our tradition of doing lavish anniversary parties and product release parties. Celebrating victories is a basic human need for happiness and for renewal of energy.

Happiness is part of us

Happiness is part of us

Our second party was a 12 day trip to Goa! And over the years we have done numerous trips and parties in Thailand, Malaysia, Bhutan, Nepal, India and all over Bangladesh.

We started a revolution that has been copied by many other companies around us. Yet when we started many warned us that this was not sustainable, it was a not business viable. They said that our enthusiasm and money will fizzle out as became more mature :) Didn’t happen for sixteen years, and I don’t see happening in the next sixteen :p

Some pictures from our trips and parties… you can find more at our facebook photos.

16 Years of Kaz Software: How we started

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

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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…