How did Kiwili begin?
At the origins of Kiwili, an ambitious young entrepreneur with a passion for the web
In 1995, Nadir Aboura, a young entrepreneur from Montreal, created a company called Onyris, which develops websites and web applications when only a handful existed at the time. The success was unprecedented and soon Radio-Canada, Vivendi Universal and Air Canada, to name a few, trusted him and entrusted him with important mandates. The team naturally grew to include some twenty seasoned experts in the 2000s.
Know how to adapt to changes
Do you remember the bursting of the internet bubble that reached its peak in the 2000s? Yes, the famous speculative bubble that affected the new information and communication technologies sector… The years that followed the bursting were difficult and the most fragile startups were wiped out.
In 2002, a fire destroyed the entire Onyris office, to the point that the company had to get rid of a good part of its employees. The small remaining team had to fight hard to keep each client and offer them outstanding quality service. Above all, they had to adapt, be efficient and reorganize in creative and inexpensive ways.
It is from this series of unfortunate events that Kiwili drew its strength and it was the beginning of a beautiful story…
Indeed, the small company had to be more organized in its daily tasks, closer to the needs of its clients and able to respond to each request in real time. Numerous accounting and office software programs were tested to facilitate their daily work. However, all of them seemed unsuitable for small businesses. None of them allowed real control of the short term, essential to the entrepreneur.
Kiwili, the answer to a clearly identified need
None of the tested management solutions were satisfactory and wishing to save time and money in the daily management of the company, the Onyris team decided to create the ideal software, both easy to use, complete and close to the daily life of small businesses and individual companies.
Kiwili, the online management solution, was therefore custom-made for the Onyris team. The creators, being also users of this new solution, were able to determine the limits to be exceeded, the possibilities to be exploited, and the improvements to be made. And if a need arose, they answered it!
After a few years of use and internal testing, they decided to make it available to small businesses around the world.
Kiwili is not a marketing product. It is a solution thought, created and used by a small company, for small companies, and which keeps on adapting itself on a daily basis.
Anecdote
For the record, Kiwili is a word from Swahili, which is the subtle result of a mixture of several languages from the African continent. Kiwili, in Swahili, means “community of interest”, and this is precisely why this name was chosen, as it represents the idea of community, common interest, and by extension, the small business that works with others, hand in hand.