Like most college students living in Cambridge, George Popescu was flat broke. He was a grad student at MIT, working towards his PhD and experiencing the financial hardships of student life. George decided to proactively change his financial status by posting an ad on Craigslist that read “MIT grad student will do work for money.” In storybook fashion, the ad was answered by a foreign exchange currency broker in Boston’s financial district, called Trader Swiss, offering George some programming work. While George had no formal currency trading systems experience, the position paid more than any other options, and George “MetaTrader 4 (MT4)” Popescu was born.

George had always thrived in challenging environments and quickly became a student of currency trading and the MT4 trader platform. Though it was outside the realm of the project, he discovered a flaw where the volatility of the gains and losses by traders was negatively impacting revenues. Like most MIT students, George recognized the issue and focused his efforts on fixing that problem, and with the help of an engineer he also found on Craigslist, started Boston Technologies in April 2007.

With no budget, a small team and a relentless pursuit of a resolution, George created his first product, inventing an MT4 Bridge connecting to a major bank system. This was a game changing innovation and it caught the attention of the largest retail broker in the market, Forex Capital Markets (FXCM Inc.). With the MT4 Bridge FXCM, they could increase their market share and revenues and create more predictability in their business. FXCM would later turn the keys of their MT4 platform business over to Boston Technologies which now supports several of the world’s largest foreign exchange brokers, like FXCM, MF Global and Citibank. Boston Technologies has since added a new product that allows individuals to “Start Your Own Brokerage” (SYOB), supporting the explosion of interest in foreign exchange trading.

While the technology is clearly front-and-center for the business, Popescu talks about his employees as the real fuel for this growing business. “We’ve been very fortunate to attract and retain top talent and we work hard to keep them happy, healthy and engaged in growing the business” he says.

Making The Inc. 500

This month, Boston Technologies was named the #143 fastest growing company on the prestigious Inc. 500, with year over year revenue growth of 1,944%. Popescu told me he was honored and amazed, as this all started with him hoping only to make $1000 from that original Craigslist ad. He attributes this exceptional revenue growth to Boston Technologies’ focus on consistently providing low-latency, high-quality, innovative FX trading applications and execution services, with an emphasis on 24-hour live support. The Company’s systems managed nearly $200 billion in trading transaction volume in the month of August alone.

What’s Next

Not surprisingly, Boston Technologies is still growing rapidly, in 2011, and currently has a series of job openings in their HQ offices in Boston’s Innovation District. They also have some aggressive growth plans for 2012 and beyond, and are considering a new financing round (following having raised $2.5 million in venture debt in 2011, from Bridge Bank and Goldhill Capital) being led by CFO Rich Morris. “Our business continues to explode and we’ll use this new round to fund growth” said Morris. “The Inc. 500 achievement was a great recognition of our past hard work and I’m confident that our team will work feverishly to consistently remain part of this list”.

So next time you are looking at the Craigslist job posting, be careful as you may end on the cover of Inc.