Yasser Bashir: How a Stanford Alumnus Became a Driving Force for 1000 Engineers

This month, major changes were afoot in the edtech landscape. Edly, the consolidated edtech and Open edX services arm of Arbisoft, recently solidified its position as a dominant force in the industry with the acquisition of Overhang.io (a renowned provider of open-source engineering and technology services).

As an industry trailblazer in software services, Arbisoft is disrupting the educational technology landscape with its innovative solutions, positioning itself as one of the fastest-growing companies in the field. Now, with the addition of Overhang.io, Arbisoft’s Edly platform is poised to revolutionize the realm of online learning.

At its core, this strategic acquisition represents a symbiotic partnership between two visionary organizations. Edly, with its unwavering commitment to pushing the boundaries of educational technology, has recognized the immense potential of Overhang.io's expertise and cutting-edge technology in advancing and supporting the Open edX platform. By joining forces, Edly and Overhang.io aim to usher in a new era of accessibility and empowerment in online learning, where organizations and individuals both will now have unparalleled access to the transformative power of the Open edX platform.

Nestled within the vibrant cultural epicenter of Lahore, Pakistan, Arbisoft has gracefully ascended as a formidable contender within the swiftly transforming technological realm.

Established in 2007 under the visionary guidance of Yasser Bashir, the 47-year-old engineer from Stanford University, Arbisoft has garnered a stellar reputation by collaborating with clientele spanning the realms of TravelTech, Edtech, Healthcare, and Artificial Intelligence.

With an exceptional team of engineers at their helm, Arbisoft has consistently delivered cutting-edge technological ventures for renowned entities such as Amazon, Microsoft, edX (founded by Harvard and MIT), KAYAK, and an array of partners.

Born in Gujranwala, in Pakistan’s Punjab province, Yasser was raised in an environment where burning the midnight oil – be it in the classroom or at the workplace – was a principle that was inculcated from early on to his seven siblings.

All professionals in their own right, the entrepreneur reveals that his parents had a big role to play in “shaping” who he is. But mind you,it wasn’t a boring, bookish childhood…far from it. There was plenty of gentle parental coaxing which allowed for the unfurling of awe, imagination and creativity. Take for instance the time Yasser’s father brought home the 1982-launched Commodore-64 when the entrepreneur was only 10-years-old.

To Yasser and his older brother, the otherworldly machine was nothing short of mesmerizing – a portal into another dimension and how everything from the body of the machine right down to its code was a product that was artistically put together by the human mind.

For Yasser, the introduction of a C-64 in his home was a lesson in the magic of possibilities and in the endless reservoir of creativity that one could constantly tap into, something that he has continued to channel into Arbisoft – from its ethos to its products.

Sitting at a sleek, European-inspired coffee shop in Lahore on a quiet weekday afternoon, Yasser carries a worldliness about him which is both inconspicuous and genteel. Dressed in jeans, sneakers, a bright red hoodie and a shy smile, the entrepreneur comes across as someone with a measured approach to life – this is apparent in his body language and even in his speech; soft-spoken and very cerebral.

But the restraint breaks every now and then when the entrepreneur speaks about his work, particularly Arbisoft’s early years.

“I was taking the sales calls back then, I still do,” Yasser chuckles, “Being an engineer by profession, I hate doing sales but I also realize that it comes naturally to me.”

Given the company’s glowing roster of international clients, some of which have continued to work with Yasser over the years, the entrepreneur reveals that since he launched Arbisoft, he makes it a point to travel to the US every year to personally meet old and potential clients.

“It’s not that our customers were beating our drum everywhere, but they were always willing to be strong references because of the quality of our work for them,” he says, revealing that he knew early on that he had to put a face to the company and work at sifting out clients that he knew would be a good fit for his company.

“I always had a high hit ratio and would wind up closing three out of six deals. Over the years I’ve realized that it's crucial to demonstrate that you are not only capable of delivering what a potential client needs, but that you can also be counted on delivering it. By showing that you have their best interests in mind and are committed to delivering on your promises, you can build the trust and confidence necessary to effectively close the sale.”

It wasn’t until 2008 that Yasser got his first big break and that too with the well-known TravelTech company, KAYAK, based out of Connecticut. The co-founder, Paul English, gave Yasser four weeks to replicate the company’s app (then available on the iPhone) for BlackBerry as a ‘trial project.’

The entrepreneur was in a conundrum. “It was a very hard job creating the same quality app for a completely different interface compared to the iPhone,” he recalls. “I remember questioning how we were going to pull this off!”

However, Yasser took the plunge. Being an active coder who was used to eating, sleeping and breathing code seven days a week, he and his team luckily made the jaw-clenching deadline. It was an incredible feat. However, the app was a test-build, pre-release version, a note Yasser made clear when the project was filed and completed.

“I remember waking up in the morning to a barrage of messages from the office; KAYAK had released the app on the BlackBerry World app store and people were thrashing it left, right and center! Imagine, one star ratings! I was horrified,” Yasser laughs, “I thought wow, we’ve lost our contract.”

But on the contrary, Paul was unfettered by the virtual mud-slinging on the BlackBerry app. “He said; why are you worried, we’re getting all this great feedback – incorporate it and send a new release.”

And that’s precisely what Yasser and his team of engineers at Arbisoft did. Within three months, the KAYAK app was the number one travel app on BlackBerry and the one star rating soared to number five. The rest was history and years later, the company continues to outsource work to Arbisoft.

“That triggered a chain reaction. It created a lot of opportunities for us,” he says.

In the years since, Arbisoft has shouldered edX (the Harvard and MIT open online course provider) as its official tech partner since 2015, built apps for KAYAK since 2008 which have been used by millions of users (apart from bagging numerous Webby Awards), created apps for Wanderu Inc. (a meta search for ground and air travel), some of which were lauded by the likes of TIME Magazine and has continued to bring innovation and cutting-edge solutions to clients across the globe.

Having led Arbisoft for sixteen years (and counting), Yasser makes no bones about the fact that a company’s values dictate the success of one’s business. But for the entrepreneur, there has to be depth and meaning behind just “a couple of nice sounding words.”

And as Arbisoft’s founder, he’s unwavering about the fact that a company's values have to be practiced from the top rather than being preached. “They have to be in resonance with the founders, besides, your team has to be able to see you doing the work and living those values day in and day out.”

For the future, Yasser is hopeful that Arbisoft’s contribution in the TravelTech and Edtech spaces will allow the company to gain an even bigger global footprint. But for now, he isn’t too concerned about outcomes, rather, on value creation which the entrepreneur feels always, always triumphs over profit margins.

“I’ve seen rapid advancement in my career and equal – if not more – rapid decline,” he states, his tone softening.

“It teaches you humility…that nothing is everlasting. I’m a spiritual person and I think I nurture a bit of fatalism in me. I feel everything happens for a reason and not all those reasons are ever really in your control. You could say I have a bit of a stoic reaction to things,” Yasser chuckles.

But for the entrepreneur, the real test is leaving the world a little better by making meaningful contributions for the next generations to benefit from.

“Every individual has been given a very specific set of skills and gifts, so their first responsibility is to discover what those gifts are. And the second? To make use of them, even if it’s just for putting a smile on someone’s face or inventing something beautiful. I hope I’m able to create a tiny dent on the world which means something for someone.”

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Photos courtesy of: Yasser Bashir, Arbisoft

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