Home ›› 09 Aug 2021 ›› Corporate
As with many others, Shameem Ahsan, who was a young businessman during the global economic recession in 2008, faced the pitch of the biggest-ever challenge in his career as his start-up -- eGeneration -- was on the verge of bankruptcy with three of his major clients from Denmark becoming bankrupts.
Not only that, one of his biggest clients committed suicide after failing to absorb the huge shock of the economic recession.
“We had a huge amount of outstanding payments from those clients that all went into bad debt. Consequently, we were unable to pay salaries to our team members, could not even repay our bank loans and also the other creditors,” recalled Shameem about the worst-ever time he faced during the global economic turmoil.
He continued by saying, “We had only two options. One was to shut our company just after declaring bankruptcy and the second was to fight back for the survival of the company from the ruins. And we chose the second one and finally, we succeeded in turning around all the odds.”
“Eventually, we were also able to clear all pending loans to the bank and other creditors apart from regularising the salary of our team members who also worked hard during the bad days.’’
Following his long struggle and hardship, Ahsan finally got approval for an IPO for his start-up eGeneration as the first software company listed with the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission.
He is now the chairman of the Silicon Valley-based World Social Innovation Forum. Apart from that, he holds a good number of portfolios such as founder president of the Venture Capital & Private Equity Association of Bangladesh (VCPEAB), the founder and ex-president of TiE in Bangladesh, ex-president of Bangladesh Association of Software & Information Services (BASIS).
The Business Post interviewed this seasoned business person and co-author of ‘Startup Kingdom’ to share his success stories with the readers. The experts are here:
The Business Post: Who and what were your inspirations to become a businessman in the IT Industry?
Shameem Ahsan: During the early ’90s, my father, Md. Shahidullah used to tell me that in the next 20 years, the IT sector of Bangladesh would reach the stature of the RMG sector. His foresight moved me deeply.
I went to the USA to study IT at the University of Central Oklahoma and after finishing graduation, I worked for AT&T and the Supreme Court of Oklahoma in their IT departments for a few years.
Later, I came back to Bangladesh and founded eGeneration in 2003. It was a boutique IT consulting firm at that time.
Soon after, I realised that the IT sector in Bangladesh was still underdeveloped, and we needed to build the infrastructure and ecosystem first.
I also realised that the power of IT goes beyond creating a profitable business model - we can use technology for the greater good.
TBP: What type of services does your company provide?
Shameem: At eGeneration, we wanted to establish ourselves as an organisation that emphasises environment, society, and governance (ESG) to create meaningful positive impacts on the lives of millions of people by leveraging technology.
In recent years, eGeneration has undertaken numerous impact-driven projects such as Covid-19 Dashboard for the Prime Minister’s Office which monitors the coronavirus situation while protecting and serving 170 million people of Bangladesh, “Shohojoddha - a Plasma Network” in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Ministry of ICT to connect critical Covid-19 patients with convalescent plasma donors, healthcare automation through Hospital Management Information System for two large government hospitals, Fertiliser Recommendation System in partnership with the Ministry of
Agriculture to help more than 15 million farmers in the country and Learning Management System with the Ministry of ICT to develop skilled human resources and reduce youth unemployment.
TBP: How many people work in your company?
Shameem: Currently, we have around 150 -team members including top-of-the-industry software engineers and business professionals to support both technological development and business operations.
TBP: What are the challenges of the ICT and startup industry in Bangladesh? What possibilities do you see for this sector in the next five years?
Shameem: Investment plays a big role in the advancement of the software industry. We need more country branding initiatives to attract foreign investments in our IT sector.
We also need to create a level-playing field for our local IT companies who compete with bigger and more resourceful foreign companies. Government can incentivise and encourage the local companies through tax exemptions and other favourable policy reformations.
We also find it difficult to acquire skilled human resources from the local market. We need stronger industry-academia collaboration and more training programmes on high-demand IT skills and emerging technologies.
TBP: What is your advice for the new generation who are interested in working or becoming entrepreneurs in the IT & Software sector?
Shameem: During the crisis period of my company, I learned the bitter lessons of life. Many of our closest friends turned their backs on us. When the situation got better, they all came back to being friends again. I believe resilience is the key to success for any entrepreneur. In the face of a crisis, you can either give up or fight back with whatever you have left. I would encourage our aspiring entrepreneurs to always choose the latter option.
To help our aspiring entrepreneurs, I, along with my colleague, Dr Anis Uzzaman, founder and CEO of Pegasus Tech Ventures, a $1.7 billion venture capital fund headquartered in Silicon Valley, have co-authored a book called “Startup Kingdom” from our cumulative experience of investing in more than 200 companies around the world including SpaceX, Airbnb, Coinbase, DoorDash, 23andMe.
TBP: Where do you want to take your company ten years from now?
Shameem: Our goal in the next 10-15 years is to become an Asian technology leader by touching a billion lives positively. While achieving that goal, we aspire to create ten thousand direct employment opportunities in eGeneration and export multi-billion-dollar worth of software products and services.
