In October 1999, when two young IT professionals in Thiruvananthapuram decided to chuck their job at a reputed company and strike out on their own, it was a proposition fraught with risks. That was a time when words like start-up and entrepreneurship were alien to the IT sector.
With just Rs.25,000 in hand and virtually no client in sight, the two youngsters, Syed Ibrahim and Sreejith Narayan, went on to establish a start-up company Palnar Transmedia on the Technopark campus. Registered in October 1999, the company began operations from a 150 sq ft office in the Pampa building.
“It was a time when the dial-up connection tested our patience. Often the connection lasted only a couple of minutes. There was no search engine to list out the names of IT companies in New York or Frankfurt,” recalls Mr. Ibrahim, CEO of the company. “All that was available was a 486 RAM personal computer, a dial-up modem, three plastic chairs, a pedestal fan, and a Godrej table”.
Like many fledgling ventures, Palnar went through a lot of rough patches in the initial phase. The ray of hope came from two German companies, TERRA software GmbH and All for One AG, which provided infrastructure support and handheld Palnar for several years.
Rs.5-crore turnoverAs Palnar prepares to celebrate 15 years of existence, it is proud of its Rs.5 crore turnover and a 10,000 sq ft office with 100 workstations. The company’s clientele includes Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche and German high security automobile licence plate manufacturer Utsch AG.
Palnar today has several products of its own. Recently, it launched a novel iPad application for sailing boats and yachts. Developed in collaboration with a German partner, the product is available on iStore and is being incorporated in the next versions of sailing boats built by a French company. Another notable product is iLecker, an Android app that meets the digital requirements of a restaurant from order taking, kitchen tokens, billing, inventory and reports. iLecker is slated to hit the Indian market next month.
“It has been a long and hard journey for us. Today we are proud of being a successful IT company with a modest beginning and a strong value- based foundation”, a press note quoting Mr. Ibrahim said.
