Twenty years as a software dev house is a big deal!
Twenty years with no retrenchments is virtually unheard of.
Twenty years of running a software dev business with only full-time employees is an anomaly (Chillisoft does not outsource its dev).
Twenty years, 133 employees,120 customers.
In the last 20 years, Chillisoft has grown from a four-person company that serviced the KwaZulu-Natal market to a company of 40 full-time employees who service global customers. Chillisoft is renowned for its deeply embedded and lived values and its drive to add value and make an impact. Its rich, deeply embedded culture and its T- shaped training allows each Chillisofter to create value for themselves, the customers and for Chillisoft as a living organisation. This has resulted in a disciplined, resilient and sustainable organisation that has grown through recessions, COVID, international lockdowns, floods and riots.
In the last 20 years, some of Chillisoft’s highlights includes:
- Building and releasing its open source ORM framework, Habanero, which was used in over 160 countries. This ORM was developed before frameworks were mainstream.
- Developing ReMed, a product for chronic medication dispensing. Chillisoft impacted public health quality of service by reducing waiting times and queue lengths from an average of four hours to 45 mins.
- Adisa, the company's water quality and maintenance app, empowered the workforce and provided visibility in managing stock levels and water quality in municipal plants.
- In 2014, Chillisoft developed Mastery@Work for software developers and knowledge workers. The company taught individuals how to focus their attention, enabling blocks of deep focused concentration of 45 mins. It provided real-time feedback regarding heart rates and it taught deep abdominal breathing to shift the nervous system from sympathetic responses to parasympathetic responses. Product development entailed tinkering with biofeedback devices and hardware in an age before smart watches and heart rate monitoring devices were available in South Africa. Mastery@Work tapped into your dev day, providing the individual with statistics and a timeline about apps, patterns of focused attention and patterns of app usage. It also encouraged reflective thinking and allowed users to store their daily reflections in the cloud. This was ground-breaking in 2018, since the cloud was only just offered in South Africa.
- Setting up DevFluence, Chillisoft's school of Professional Software Development, allowed the company to distil the lessons that it has learnt in custom development. Chillisoft set up two schools in Johannesburg and Durban. The schools focused on teaching core tech skills and software skills that are required of software professionals. This was a pivotal shift to educate business about the difference between coders and software professionals. It was also a valiant effort to warn businesses of the looming global shortage of software developers.
- Creating dedicated teams to work and service the fast-paced fintech space since 2016.
- Successfully delivering digital transformation projects that have transformed business operations and capabilities for midsized businesses, allowing them to scale and thrive.
- Creating Chillisoft’s graduate apprenticeship that is well recognised locally and internationally.
- Providing opportunities for junior software developers to travel, live and work as software developers in a foreign country.
- Setting up a Chillisoft team to live and work in a foreign country, where Chillisofters train, impart software dev skills and do custom development.
- Speaking at several dev and international conferences. Chillisoft has also won several awards.
Chillisoft is an independent software dev house, who has never succumbed to fads, labels, greed or corruption. The company has marched to its tune, expecting and training Chillisofters to lead and make an impact in their lives, to their community and South Africa. Chillisoft questions deeply and all of its seniors is well versed in multiple business domains and tech stacks. Today, Chillisoft is extremely proud of being an ethical, successful and technically excellent company that is proud of the way it does business.
"I have founded and led Chillisoft for two decades," says Anujah Bosman, CEO of Chillisoft Solution Services, "seeing many tech stacks, languages, businesses, political, global and economic changes come and go. Through all the change and turbulence, Chillisoft remained true to its values, and has calmly focused on building a legacy of a unique, human-centred organisation. Today, Chillisoft is a well-oiled machine that is fuelled by its culture, alternate leadership practices and mature operational practices. The sales pipeline is full, our management team is solid, our practices are embedded and we are resilient. It is time for me to hand over the leadership reins to our new Managing Director, Peter Wiles, who will continue to ensure Chillisoft’s growth and sustainability."
Not bad for a small, PMB-based start-up, run by a female engineer who had a big dream of creating a legacy that is a human-centred, sustainable organisation. Two decades of being a successful software dev house is a fantastic and noteworthy accomplishment!
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