MHSWare was founded in April 2004. Three fresh graduates of the Politehnica University of Timisoara felt they have something to offer and founded MHSware, an IT company, under the auspices of Timisoara Software Business Incubator in Timisoara, Romania. Since then, MHSWare has grown both in number of employees and as a network of people and competencies.

This interview was conducted with Bogdan A. Anca, Manager of MHSWare in July 2009.

Is this the first company that you have started, and what drove you towards it?
MHSWare is the first company I have started. I was thinking of starting a new company back in 2004 which specializes in offering its clients complete solutions (ranging from software packages, hardware component, OS administration and so on) because of the lack of a similar-oriented company on the Timisoara market.

How did you finance your start-up operations and how long did it take for the company to become self-sustainable?
I and two of my best friends have started MHSWare in 2004 using our personal savings. At the time, I was and still am a teaching assistant at the Politehnica University of Timisoara; one of my friends was also a teaching assistant and the other had just retired from a successful career as a military pilot. We continued to use our own money for more than a year until our company signed our first “big” contract.

What are your major products and services and how are they unique? What is your competition?
Our main focus is on embedded components: design and development of hardware and software components, systems design, PCB design, application development: Assembly, C. We also offer database applications, standalone applications, web applications, system administration and consulting services.

What wakes our offer distinctive is the mixture between the adaptability, optimal use of resources, innovative features and reliability of the solutions. We recommend the best alternatives for our customers, providing additional options and adding value for the long term.

How did you first launch the product?
All of our products are very specific according to the customer requirements so  the launch of a product is actually the delivery and acceptance stage from the client. However, based on desk research and insight of potentials customers we have concluded that some of our solutions [for example: GFS - monitors fuel consumption and prevents fuel theft from trucks and stationary engines; AVL - Automatic Vehicle Locator, monitors and manages a vehicle fleet; AmaNET - pawnbroker's shop management applications; Restaurant management applications] have great commercial potential. We have decided to promote these solutions, using various communications channels such as web directories, specialized events and press releases.

How do you measure the success of the company?
I was very pleased to find out from our client that the AmaNET application has helped him a lot, enabling him to make more than 10 times as many new contracts each day. Also the restaurant management application which was used by a client since the opening of his restaurant was extremely useful to him, enabling him to open a second restaurant - using the same application, of course - in less than two years. We are still working at GFS and AVL, but even thought they are not in the final stage of development, they have already raised a lot of interest.

In essence, the measure of our success is our clients' satisfaction. 

Who are your clients and how many do you have? How are you focusing on expanding your user community?
MHSWare current and former customers are companies from Romania, Italy, Switzerland, Canada, Holland and Germany. The size of our customers varies from a local small business with 4 employees to the division of multinational company. Our main concern is to create and develop relations with our customer, and secondly to increase the clients number, 11 clients being part of MHSWare portfolio until now.

We plan to extend the number of companies using our products and solution through integrated marketing efforts.

Are you planning to patent your product and do you see any obstacles in doing so?
I was thinking about patenting our products, but I am still gathering information about what needs to be done. There is a lot of bureaucracy that we would need to handle in such a process.

What was the biggest challenge in starting an innovative business in your country and how did you overcome that?
Although far into the new millennium, Romanian people have traditionally been very conservative and reluctant to use computers and software. It took a lot of convincing and a lot of live demonstrations to prove that using the computer means that the respective businesses works a lot faster.

Who are the shareholders in your company?
I and my other two friends maintain equal and complete ownership of MHSWare.

How have you benefited from business incubation?
One of the most important benefits is the possibility to work within a community of similar and like-minded companies. We have also benefited from participating in various events organized by the business incubator, such as conferences, presentations, and tutorials.

Do you have some specific lessons that you know now and wish you would have known when you started your business, and which you would like to share with fellow entrepreneurs?
Running my own company is more difficult than I thought when I started MHSWare. If you want your company to be known and respected, be persistent, don’t give up, and always try to expand the company.

How did you internationalize your product, and how to you plan to internationalize it even more in the future?
MHSWare solutions are adapted to customers requirements and features, including cultural values, way of work, language and habits. In the future we will continue to internationally promote our solutions through business networking and online actions. 

With hindsight, are there any particular lessons or messages that you wish you would have known when you started up your company?
I think that the main challenge for MHSWare was our lack of knowledge in the accounting and marketing departments.

Do you feel that you had the necessary advisory and support network when you started your company?
Yes. I was able to discuss start-up issues with some of my friends who have started their own companies, and especially in being part of the business incubator I feel we had enough support to get MHSWare going.

What is your message to founders/supporters and what is your message to the users of your product?
My message to the supporters and users of our products is that we are interested to add long term value for their business and to strengthen our relationship.