In 1974, Alykhan Jetha came to Canada as a child with his parents. He learned to tackle new challenges from his mother, who started up retail businesses and restaurants after she became the family’s sole support when her husband died.
Alykhan Jetha, Marketcircle chief executive officer
Photo: Rosa Park, The Globe and Mail
Perseverance has been a key to the success of his company, Marketcircle Inc. of Markham, Ont. The company which writes software for other businesses to help them track their bills and to businesses manage their projects, sales, contacts and other processes.
Marketcircle persevered in the start-up stages, when its first product failed, and it persevered when the dot-com bubble burst and drove away investors. It also kept going through some new challenges, including Sept. 11, 2001, which cost its key customer their main source of revenue in the World Trade Centre.
Today, Marketcircle has more than 30 employees and customers in more than 100 countries, and is positioning itself to take advantage in a post-PC world, when smart phones and other hand-held devices become more widespread.
Mr. Jetha, 42, is a self-taught software specialist, rather than a trained software engineer. He credits childhood hours spent with Lego for teaching him how to put things together, and giving him the building blocks of entrepreneurial success. “If you have the desire to do it, just do it,” says Marketcircle’s chief executive officer.
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