Adam Shapiro and three friends launched IT company pilotfish digital, with R10 000 each, home furniture including upturned doors to act as tables, and rented space in a garage. They were young men employed in a highly successful IT company at the height of the dotcom boom, and watching others raking in the millions, believed it could not be that hard to do it for themselves.
Clandestine meetings over beers in a watering hole at the Durban harbour opening lent imagination to the name - a pilot helicopter flew overhead as the discussion was brewing, and the fish part was added because it made the name unique - and the scene was set for their illustrious career changes.
Unfortunately, their timing was a little out, as the dotcom era imploded not long after they opened their doors. But, a decade down the line, pilotfish digital has not only stayed the course, but has grown into a multimillion-rand company worthy of praise.
It is a far cry from the early days when the partners promised themselves a R2 000 monthly salary, but because the cash flow could not sustain an R8 000 lump sum withdrawal, they took payment in instalments over the month, which caused endless headaches for their accountant.
“Running your own business is not for the faint-hearted,” Shapiro says.
A born-and-bred Durban boy, Shapiro was among the last batch of young South African white men conscripted to a two-year military service stint. He spent his time in the navy after completing matric at Durban High School in 1987, and then completed a diploma in company administration from the then Natal Technikon.
Never far from his passion, Shapiro found gainful employment with surfing company Island Style before the first of his three one-year itchy-feet-driven overseas travels reared its head.
That first jaunt saw him spending time in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, the UK and Ireland before returning to South Africa to work for the Maritime Institute training people in land-based marine operations.
Another itchy-feet episode saw him living in Australia and New Zealand before working for a Johannesburg company with the view to opening its Durban Office.
However, the third travel bug bit, this time following his ocean passion (Shapiro is a Springbok knee-boarder) across Australia, mainland US, Hawaii and Indonesia.
Now 30, he returned to South Africa to be employed with the IT company where he met Luke Smith, Brad Corden and Hannes Bantjes, the other three pilotfish digital founders. The intention when they launched the venture in 2001 was to be a Web site development and business systems applications company, and each partner invested their capital, the bulk of which went into purchasing computers.
“Literally, we bought those computers and sat back waiting for the work to come flooding through the doors,” Shapiro quips. Their break was not long in coming when someone approached a high-powered advertising agency requesting a PowerPoint presentation design. In being told the agency “only does (the graphics animation application) flash”, they were referred to “some young clowns down the road” - and pilotfish digital had their first major client.
“When we eventually managed to open the documents, the images turned out to be a Disney-Style water wonderland theme park. It was actually the dream concept for the uShaka Marine Park and the PowerPoint presentation would be the basis on which the venture could be sold to the eThekwini municipality,” Shapiro says.
The municipality approved the R750 million venture in September 2001 and pilotfish digital was on the map. Not only was this a mega-project, with a host of string to the bow, but it also exposed the partners to the high-powered Durban business community.
The initiative required updated PowerPoint presentations, a Web site and corporate video, while the other joint venture partners also began using their services for their individual corporate work. By 2007, pilotfish digital had become known as a Web design company and had more the 150 clients on its books - but it was not actually the strategic direction the partners wanted for their business.
“The market had changed; it was far easier to build Web sites meaning we had substantial competition from smaller, cheaper ventures. It was a hard decision to take, but we realised the focus had to be on building customer-driven IT programmes and that meant virtually winding up the clients we had developed to start fresh,” Shapiro says.
Today the company counts among its blue chip clients Deloitte and Rainbow Chicken, and has custom-built programmes for the taxi recapitalisation project and the auditing firm to assist with its annual graduate recruitment initiative.
Over the years, the partnership lost Smith when the focus shifted to applications, and then Corden when the lure of stable corporate work became too strong. But it has stayed fairly true to its criteria - never accepting work linked to gambling or pornography; never employing more people as they wholly wanted the profits; and never having a bank overdraft.
A decade later pilotfish digital has not accepted work based on gambling or pornography and has an overdraft facility rarely accessed. However, it does now employ 21 people, each of whom has to meet the same exacting standards that have stood the partnership in such good stead. Shapiro considers the initial establishment of the business, followed by the decision to sift direction and then parting ways with Smith and Corden as significant learning curves over the years, but he certainly does not regret any of the decisions taken. The focus shift enabled pilotfish digital to concentrate on intranet developments and company work flows, helping to evolve the corporate tagline “your business streamlined”.
The challenges have also not been without their milestones and again the focus shift is credited with being a defining moment in pilotfish digital's life. Another was the relocation to their current offices in Montpelier Road that provide the open-plan space for creative thinking and interactive energy from which to grow the company to the next level.
“There is also personal and professional reward in bringing solutions to our clients that improve the manner in which their businesses function and operate,” Shapiro says. However, everything is about balance and when he is not leading pilotfish digital, Shapiro can be found in the ocean or experiencing life. He swam from Robben Island to Blouberg Strand wearing only a Speedo in 2002 (the water temperature was a chilly 11 degrees Celsius); has run both the Comrades Marathon and the Two Ocean Marathon three times, the New York Marathon in 2007, the Greenland Marathon in 2008 and the Greece Marathon last year in a race that honoured the 2 500th anniversary of the first marathon run by the Greek soldier Pheidippides.
That founder of today's sport ran the 42.195km from the Battle of Marathon to Athens to announce the Persians had been defeated. Leg-end has it he proudly announced the news before collapsing and dying.
Shapiro has also climbed Mount Kilimanjaro (the same year he ran in Greenland) and represented South Africa for knee-boarding for several years from 1995.
Looking ahead, he has the vision to grow pilotfish digital, but recognises the constraints that came from a lack of skills within South Africa. Despite having large Johannesburg-based clients and 20% of the turnover generated outside South Africa's borders, he remains committed to retaining the company's offices in Durban. “This city is bubbling under with energy waiting to explode and wanting that revival,” he says.
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