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Maxxor

IT services that bring power to people

The Founders

On the 1 September 2004, Mustapha Baboo founded Maxxor with no staff, no capital and no customers at all. A turning point for the business came when he approached SAB’s Kickstart programme and went through a month-long intensive training programme after which he presented a business plan, winning him some capital to give the business a kickstart. He used the initial funds sparingly to purchase office furniture, computers and a server to set-up the company’s offices at the well-known Bandwidth Barn in Cape Town. He also soon realized that numbers meant power and so he approached Raj Moodaley (who now serves as Director at Maxxor and Chief Technical Officer at Blue Leaf Games) and Shana Kassiem (currently the MD of Infointeg) who became his business partners.

What Maxxor Does

Maxxor is a company that provides services ranging from IT consulting, systems integration, systems development and e-business services. They specialize in the development of world-class websites, web applications and the facilitation of sophisticated solutions for the objectives and needs of customers. The company has also been verified as a Level 1 contributor to BBBEE (Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment) and is a proud member of CITi, the Black IT Forum, the Cape Town Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Enablis Entrepreneurial Network and is a Microsoft Certified Partner.

What makes Maxxor a Success Story

From humble beginnings to its current state, Maxxor has experienced its fair share of success and now boasts, amongst others, clients ranging from bigwigs such as Mweb, Media24, Woolworths, Investec, Pick and Pay and Fedics to NGOs like the Cape Town Regional Chamber and Triangle Project. Maxxor has also been honoured with numerous accolades, having revently been ranked 5th in Michael Porter’s AllWorld Network South African FastGrow 100. The company was nominated for the Department of Science and Technologies’ Technology Top 100 awards in 2009 and was also nominated as one of South Africa’s Top Emerging Empowerment Companies in the Software sector by Impumelelo in 2006.

Words of Advice

In the world of IT, what you put in is what you get out. “If you don’t put in the effort, you won’t get anything out,” says Mustapha. “I find it worrying when people who claim to want to run their own businesses start off by asking what everyone else can do for them” he emphatically states when asked about businessmen who expect everything to magically fall in place. “You have to start by asking what you can do for yourself”. “People complain that nothing is being done to help entrepreneurs, but it’s just because they don’t make the effort to find out what’s there and make use of it,” he says. In addition to this, he firmly believes that in order to get anywhere, one needs to constantly rethink, re-approach and adapt ideas and business plans in order to make them work – “You can’t compete in the industry if you don’t innovate”.

What is next for Maxxor?

“Recently Maxxor was selected as one of the partners for Microsoft´s Equity Equivalence programme. Our selection from the 700 companies that responded is a reflection of the technical expertise, business acumen and growth potential that Microsoft see resident inour business and people,” says Mustapha.“The Microsoft programme aims to create jobs, develop new enterprises,build the local software economy and develop scarce technology skills.We view this as a unique opportunity for Maxxor to continuecontributing to the growth and transformation of our industry and country that we all love.”