Together, Veer and Vinay Gidwaney are still younger than most chief executives in downtown Calgary. Despite their tender years, the brothers are well on their way to building their third successful start-up company.
Control-F1, based in the city, is a fast-growing e-support software firm. It provides technology that enables companies to deliver technical support to clients via the Internet.
Veer Gidwaney, 21, chief executive of Control-F1, is a finalist in the Leaders of Tomorrow category in this year’s prestigious Alberta Science and Technology Awards, to be presented Oct. 20 in Edmonton.
What’s the secret of the brothers’ success? “You have to have ultimate drive,” Veer says. “There’s got to be nothing that stops you.”
Veer was 15 and his brother 13 when, from the basement of their home, they marketed software they had developed initially to serve the needs of their high school’s laboratory. Called Classrooms, the product enables teachers to create interactive learning environments using the Internet.
The software is still being sold over the Web to teachers across North America, Veer says.
The Gidwaneys’ second company, Modaka, sold a product designed to give Web surfers the ability to amalgamate information from several Web sites to appear in one dynamic window on the desktop. The brothers sold that company, and it’s now part of a successful startup in San Jose, Calif.
Veer and Vinay consider Control F-1 their first “really serious” startup, one launched with venture capital. Their e-support software product is a “killer application” for software companies, value-added resellers and out-source providers like corporate helpdesks, Veer says.
The Gidwaney brothers started Control F-1 when Veer left the University of Western Ontario after finishing the third year of a business degree. Vinay, now 19, had just graduated from high school.
Vinay is the computer programming brain behind the company, says Veer, who admits he did “OK” in high school math and sciences. But Vinay in those areas “is brilliant. He’s amazing,” Veer says.
The brothers say their parents also raised them with the idea to do well at whatever they do. “My family has been our biggest motivating factor,” Veer says.
He says their father, a physician, “has been the most amazing person that my brother and I have ever known. . . . He taught us to be independent and be driven towards success.”
The Gidwaney brothers look like they’ve got another hit with Control F-1. The company, launched in March this year, shipped its first product in July. Since startup, the company has grown to 22 employees. It has targeted $50 million in business within three years.
Control F-1’s technology enables a software user who’s having problems, for example, to click on the branded Web site of the software reseller and be instantly connected with a technician for help. The technician has instant access to diagnostic, collaborative and communication tools to fix the problem over the Web.
Control F-1 eliminates the time-consuming, often confusing process of the client and the technician trying to sort out the problem over the telephone. While the technician is automatically gathering diagnostic data from the client’s machine, the client can continue working. “The client could be writing e-mail while the technician is fixing a problem in the background,” Veer says.
The automatic diagnostic tool saves time on the helpdesk and generates statistics to monitor performance, he adds. “It increases capacity and allows your technicians to deal with more calls.”
Control F-1’s technology greatly reduces the expense of having a mobile field staff to provide on-site support to customers. One of Control F-1’s clients, Voyus Canada, does out-source technical support in most major cities in Western Canada. Traditionally, support has been delivered on-site via a technician in one of Voyus’s green vans. Now, Veer says, the company can deliver e-support online.
The Gidwaney brothers chose Calgary as the headquarters for Control F-1 because there’s a “great pool of talent” here, Veer says. It extends from programming and software, to marketing and sales and business management, to start-up support from ventures such as Launchworks Inc., he says.
“There’s this entrepreneurial spirit in the air in Calgary,” Veer adds. “People respect risk-taking and they want to be a part of it.”
So what advice can the Gidwaneys offer to people contemplating startups? Persistence goes the distance. “Don’t accept ‘No’ until they tell you to screw off,” Veer says with a laugh.
Couple that persistence with ultimate drive and a good team that shares the company’s vision, Veer says. “If you can do those three things, then you’ve got a fighting chance. It doesn’t guarantee success by any means.”
Web Watch:
www.control-f1.com
