A million lines of code and counting
Aslam Najeebdeen started FrontCube in 2010 from his bedroom. Five years later, the company can name brands such as Al Jazeera and Microsoft among its growing clientele.
Amidst this all Aslam remains grounded- in conversation he seems more interested in polishing the potential of both his products and employees than in big profits and fame.
Frontcube, which was founded in 2010, offers services such as brand development, user interface design, user experience design, responsive web design and usability reviews for clients worldwide.
It identifies as its mission “to create authentic online brand awareness” for companies through engaging user interfaces and simple, elegant design.
For example one of the company’s most successful projects was with media agency Al Jazeera’s STREAM programme; by implementing a responsive design, FrontCube helped STREAM to increase traffic by 130% in 2012.
For a boy who grew up fiddling with computers it’s a long way to have come in such a short span of time. Aslam grew up in Badulla, attending Welimada Muslim School.
He had a talent for numbers from the start and remembers his hopeful parents’ aspirations for him-“like most Sri Lankan parents they wanted me to become a doctor,” he smiles.
But Aslam was very interested in IT, mostly thanks to an uncle who instilled in him a fascination for computers. With his parents support he joined SLIIT after school to complete a specialized degree in IT.
While he was in university Aslam began developing products-inspired by Facebook he developed a social media platform for Sri Lanka known as Amba Yaaluwo.
Aslam
He also set up a partnership with a developer in Portugal-“during my last two years I was busier getting clients than studying,” he laughs.
His parents were fully supportive, patiently allowing him to run his business from their home.
Once Aslam graduated he was able to fully focus on his business and develop products for several Silicon Valley start-ups, even involving himself in the founding of a company there (the start-up didn’t materialize, however, due to a lack of funding).
In Sri Lanka his company FrontCube was doing very well and he soon needed to expand. “I was initially very worried about delegating,” he says.
“I had the fear that nobody was going to handle the client like I did.” Overcoming this, he expanded his team.
His friend Malinga Prabhasara was one of the first team members. Today Fron Cube employs just a handful of professionals, including ‘Front-end Jedi’ Sanjith Edward and ‘Rockstar Organizer’ Anne Marie.
If you’re bemused by these titles you should know that Aslam is a firm believer in unconventional careers at his company.
They don’t accept CVs, there’s a paid hour for learning every day and a pizza day once a week for the team to catch up, socialize and talk about their personal plans and goals. 
Aslam has a few plans up his sleeves for the future, and that includes expanding his team to take on the greater workload of new and existing projects.
They’ve also launched a series called ‘FrontCube TV’ to share insights with aspiring designers and developers.
Plans include the launch of a podcast that will feature industry experts sharing advice and addressing issues that most start-ups face. To get in touch, visit www.frontcube.com