Faster Than Anyone Expected

In Adam Sandler’s Netflix movie Murder Mystery, there’s a scene I always remember between Jennifer Aniston and the race car driver.

Jennifer leans in, clearly annoyed.

“You don’t understand English, do you?”

He smiles and nods.

“Yes. Fast. Very fast.”

Of course, the joke is that he understands—and speaks—perfect English.

That scene has always reminded me of SYS-CON.

* * *

Yes. We were fast. Very fast.

But we kept it low-key—almost like Lieutenant Columbo: unassuming, slightly disheveled, quietly sharp. People underestimated us, and we were perfectly fine with that.

Yes, Powersoft inserting our subscription cards into their product boxes was pure dumb luck. No argument there. But once that miracle happened, we weren’t dumb—and we certainly didn’t rely on luck every day after. We grabbed the ball, put our heads down, and ran straight for the finish line.

If I had to summarize the five years from 1994 to 1999 as briefly as possible, I’d say this:

I accidentally enrolled in a full-contact business startup crash course.

At the beginning of 1994, my home became the company address—and the company office.

It worked great.

Until it didn’t.

Twelve months later, I was evicted from my own townhouse.

Why did the condo association throw me out of my own home?

First, AT&T knocked on my next-door neighbor’s door and asked if they could use her attic. Naturally, she asked why. The technician casually explained they were there to install twelve new phone lines—for me.

That was disaster number one.

She immediately reported me to the condo association.

* * *

Then, twice in the same week, two different semi-trailer trucks tried—barely—to navigate our quiet little streets. Both rang the wrong doorbell looking for me.

Both were there to unload 10,000 books, stacked neatly on eight pallets.

And I almost forgot—before those books arrived, the printer in Brooklyn had already shipped 10,000 copies of our first issue to my condo.

That was our company address.

Where else would they ship them?

That turned disasters number two and three into one glorious, catastrophic combo.

* * *

Only if we were located in an industrial complex with loading docks would we get that kind of cargo traffic.

UPS and FedEx deliveries were already nonstop, all day long. The trucks, the traffic, the doorbells—it never ended.

Soon after, I received a cease-and-desist letter from the association’s attorney.

Not long after that came the court order.

I had to leave.

* * *

Urgently, we packed up and moved into a tiny office space in Pearl River that we rented from a pizza man.

It wasn’t glamorous—but it worked.

And three years later, we occupied the entire ground floor of a Class-A office building at 135 Chestnut Ridge Road in Montvale.

Yes. Fast. Very fast.

* * *

How did we grow that fast—like the race car driver who drove Jennifer Aniston crazy?

First, I refused to commute between Pearl River and Jersey City.

I worked as long as I could during the day. Then, sometime after midnight, I crawled under the conference room table and passed out.

I woke up just before Nancy arrived for work around 7:00 a.m., brushed myself off, and pretended this was all part of a carefully designed productivity system.

It worked.

Exceptionally well.

Seven days a week.

* * *

In a nutshell, we made it onto the Inc. 500 list—America’s fastest-growing private companies—three years in a row.

It took a little luck, a lot of hard work, and an unhealthy amount of strategic planning.

Yes. Fast. Very fast.

* * *

In 1999, Milliyet, a Turkish newspaper, profiled SYS-CON’s inclusion among America’s fastest-growing companies.

The Fastest-Growing Turk in the U.S.

In 1999, a Turkish-born entrepreneur named Fuat Kircaali was listed among America’s 500 fastest-growing business leaders. The company behind the recognition, SYS-CON, began not with venture capital or a business plan, but with a $1,500 cash advance taken from a credit card.

From a modest office near a New York taxi stand, SYS-CON grew into a multi-million-dollar publishing and media company serving the global technology industry.

Founded in 1994, the company reached a valuation of $30 million in five years and began preparing for a public offering.

SYS-CON became known for its influential developer publications, including Java Developers Journal, PowerBuilder Developer’s Journal, ColdFusion Developer’s Journal, Object Magazine, Delphi Journal, and Tango Journal—titles read by hundreds of thousands of software professionals worldwide.

At a time when technology publishing lacked depth and specialization, SYS-CON filled a critical gap by focusing directly on developers.

* * *

Kircaali was born in Eskişehir, Turkey, and studied computer science at Boğaziçi University before continuing graduate work at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. He arrived in the United States as an intern in 1984 and spent the next decade gaining hands-on experience in technology companies before launching SYS-CON.

The company’s culture mirrored its founder’s unconventional path. SYS-CON rejected rigid corporate norms in favor of flexible hours, casual dress, and a strong emphasis on trust. Many employees joined while still in school and grew into senior editorial and leadership roles.

By the late 1990s, SYS-CON was posting double-digit annual growth and receiving regular acquisition offers. Kircaali declined them, choosing independence and long-term vision over early exits.

“Our goal was never growth at any cost,” Kircaali said at the time.

“It was growth without losing our humanity.”

What began as a risk funded on a credit card became a defining chapter in American tech publishing—and a case study in how instinct, timing, and trust can outperform conventional business wisdom.