A Trailblazer's Journey

Ishtiaq Rahman

Photo: Prabir Das

In the high-tech world of Silicon Valley, ruled by the tech giants like Google, Apple and Facebook, a Bangladeshi youth has emerged as one of the most talented tech entrepreneurs. With his company called Eureka King, Ishtiaq Rahman, now works with some of the world's most renowned corporations and provides them with software products which are vital for their survival in this era of digital marketing.

Ishtiaq, with two of his co-founders named Arjun and Dmitry, established the start-up company in 2014. Within a few months, they got some of the largest and most popular publishers and media houses as their clients such as AP, McClatchy, KQED, PBS Mediashift etc. thanks to their innovative ideas and products. "We develop a behaviour-tracking engine which is a SAS platform (software as a service) that analyzes actions of the online customers of our clients and deliver customized response to the customers by promoting suitable products, encouraging signups and a variety of prompts appropriate for the individual customer " says Ishtiaq.

"Our product ensures that every user of an online platform will get customised features for himself and such user friendly features will boost the online marketing, and transactions for our clients", adds Ishtiaq. However, Ishtiaq's story could have been very different.

Ishtiaq passed higher secondary examination in 2005 from Mirzapur Cadet College. Than after obtaining a scholarship from University of Toronto, he completed his Bachelor of Science with a major in Economics as he wanted to be a banker.

"While working for one of the most renowned banks in Canada, I realised that this is not meant to be my job. As a banker I had to deal with people who are financially deprived and distressed because it was the time of the global financial crunch. This situation hurt me and I decided to quit the job", says Ishtiaq.

Then Ishtiaq switched his career to what he is passionate about- technology. Ishtiaq came up with an idea to form a tech start-up which would develop software products. "My initial plan was to develop software which would help smartphone users to choose appropriate apps."

With this idea, Ishtiaq and one of his co-founders Arjun moved to Silicon Valley at California, USA, to pursue the venture capitalists and accelerators for financial and technical support. "However, we failed miserably. We could not even arrange a meeting with them as we had no recommendation," he says.

With a heavy heart, Ishtiaq and Arjun were simply touring the office of Plug and Play, a start-up incubator; when they suddenly got an opportunity to pitch their idea at Plug and Play Start-up Camp. After several modifications, their idea was selected by Plug and Play as one of the top 21 start-ups. Then, with this recognition, Ishtiaq applied to the accelerators for financial support. Convinced with Ishtiaq's passion and innovation, one of the world renowned accelerators, Matter, agreed to fund and provide technical support to materialise Ishtiaq's dream.

From that moment on, Ishtiaq did not have to look back anymore. He says, "For Bangladeshi entrepreneurs my advice is that you have to be passionate and dedicated to execute your idea."

"It sounds clichéd but it's actually a fact that an entrepreneur will make mistakes and s/he must learn from those mistakes. If you have that passion and courage, no obstacle will be able to foil your start-up," adds Ishtiaq.