Rohir Naik did his initial studies at Almeida High School situated in Ponda and like many other students, he experienced a lack of career guidance. Unsure of the future, with no direction, his parents suggested him that he take up something in the commerce field with a view to good job opportunities ahead.. But his interest lay in some other field, which we today we call Tech Stream. Due to his family background, he was lacking the setup required to be part of a tech fraternity- a basic computer, which he could not afford. Rohir thanks the former CM of Goa, late Manohar Parrikar, for his idea of giving the free computers to 12th grade students in Goa. The “Cyberage Scheme” changed his life and today he runs a very successful startup called ‘Coderix’.
According to Rohir, when he got his first PC (Personal Computer), he was in Higher Secondary School and at that time the internet was working at 2G speed. Ttoday we have reached 5G and 1gbps broadband speeds! “We used to use a data cable and plug in the PC to the internet in those days and though the speed was extremely slow, we still used to manage,” he said. He used to also do minor fixes when the computer crashed or there was some hardware issues. “Virus attack on the computer was rampant during that time, here I learned how to format the Hard Disk to remove the virus infection completely, and I learned lots of things which made me make my mind up to go for the BCA (Bachelor In Computer Applications) course.”
Rohir never had an interest in doing commerce graduation as he realised that his interest lay elsewhere and later on his acquaintance with the computer helped him to decide his future path. “After completing my BCA from the Don Bosco College, I took up freelance work for computer related tasks, like website development, web application development,” he said adding, “due to the lack of opportunities during that time not many companies were appointing programmers or web developers” hence he had no other choice but to take up freelance work on his own. “There was no concept of work from home and not many IT enabled companies in Goa so whatever opportunities came my way I took it. I even made up my mind to go abroad if I didn’t get any opportunities here in Goa but before doing that I decide to speak to my clients, because by then I had around 20-30 clients whose work I was doing.”
During this time, he came across a client who had given him substantial work. He asked Rohir why he wanted to leave Goa when there were enough opportunities here also, “He also guided me how to start my own business and that was the birth of my first company called ‘Third Eye Technology’. After registering my new firm, I received a very good response from the market and many good projects,” said Rohir.
Soon Rohir’s business started booming and within just two years, he managed to purchase his own place of business in Ponda. “While everything was going just as planned, suddenly one day I got the news that someone from Telangana had filed a Trademark Registration claim on our company name. This happened due to our SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) techniques and the name of our company started appearing on the first page of google,” he said. The trademark claim came as a setback to Rohir. “We decided to compromise with the claimant and settled the matter and then I started the new firm called “Coderix”.
Coderix and RixCast
Coderix was registered as a startup. “We had same services offered under the Coderix brand that we were offering “Third Eye Technology” and we took the same staff into the new company,” said Rohir adding he branched out into additional services like digital marketing. “In due course I decided to start product-based development, due to lot of competition in the IT field.”
According to Rohir, the pandemic changed the whole perspective of business and keeping survival in mind, he started working on new ideas of survival when the concept of RixCast, an online streaming platform, arose. “ RixCast is a video streaming platform that allows people to stream their content online. We developed this platform during the pandemic and our first clients were the Temples in Goa. You are aware that during the pandemic, temples and churches were closed and people had no option but to do online darshan and RixCast played a major role in connecting the devotees to the Temples with the help of live streaming,” said Rohir. According to him the RixCast is a unique concept in Goa and one of the very few in India. “We have all the major local TV channels on our RixCast platform and our platform gives an Ad free experience compared to the other social media platform that are free but filled with the advertisements.”
According to Rohir, the RixCast caters to clientele pan-India. “We have clients from all over India. There are TV channels from outside of Goa and they use our services. There are big companies who use our services, Temples and Churches use our services,” he said. Rohir said “We have plans going for funding for our project and we have already registered with Start-up India for the same. Meanwhile we are also working on the improving our platform by improving the overall user experience,” he added.
Rohir also has a plan of having his own broadcaster app by the mid of 2022. “Currently our services are running in manual mode wherein people register and we send them a code after the payment but in the future we are planning to make it a full SaaS (Software as a Service) based product wherein the people who want to make use of our services will be available online without any human intervention. Right from selecting your services to payment and activation, it will be done automatically,” he explained.
The RixCast product is not just meant for live streaming or temple darshan purposes, according to Rohir he has bigger plans with the same. “The next thing we are doing is onboarding CCTV Vendors and Digital Creators wherein we will sell them the packages which they can resale to their customers,” he said adding that this new concept will change the way CCTV cameras are installed. “Earlier one CCTVS are installed, there’s no further work to be done for the vendors. Now along with the cameras they will also be able to sell the RixCast subscriptions that will help them earn more money and at the same time it will help the users to use our services to keep track of footage for broadcasting purpose.”
Rohir gave an example of a school where they install the CCTV cameras but the access of the same is only available to the school authorities. But now with the help of the RixCast app, parents across various locations will be able to access CCTV footage and a keep watch on the movement of their kids. “Parent will be able see after the school what their child is doing, who is picking them up and so on. This will develop the sense of safety amongst the parents. These are my ideas and I am working towards making them turn into the reality,” said Rohir.
Rohir has hundreds of wonderful ideas and he is working towards turning them into reality with the help of RixCast. He feels that thetourism industry of Goa and in the smart city development projects will help “I will keep working on the improvement of this platform. I won’t say that I am successful yet as the journey is still on and we are going on the right path and with the help of good mentors and business partners we will achieve our goal.”
