As one of the many new tech firms in Ottawa, Titus Labs, a company that develops email-protection software, looks like an overnight success story. It's not—it's a story seven years in the making. But with new offices, new staff, and new contracts, Titus Labs seems like a tech firm from the boom days of the 90's.

At the firm's recent annual meeting, employees looked at where they've been and where they're going. CEO Tim Upton broke out in some modern day dance routines. He said having fun can remove barriers to communication.

Company officials are excited about the firm's success.

"We had a record year all around with very, very good sales," said global sales manager Scott Morin.

Surrounded by planes at Ottawa's Aviation Museum, the location for the meeting was in sync with the company's take-off success.

"We have products that are successful," said Upton. "People use them, they buy them they work. We know that because we had some very big sales to customers this past year."

Recently, Upton surprised his staff by announcing he was paying for everyone to head down to Cuba for a four day vacation early in the New Year. The vacation is a gift of gratitude for employees after the firm not only hit, but exceeded sales targets by some five million dollars.

Despite increasing criticisms that email is becoming old-fashioned, there are still billions of emails being exchanged every day and some need to be kept secret. This is where Titus software is needed and the firm is expanding to meet this need. It just opened two new offices and staff count is up 90 per cent in the last year.

Two of the co-founders said luck played a role in the success of the firm. The original idea came from a government department that wanted a better way of flagging emails.

"There was a bit of luck but once we put up our website and getting the word out about what we were offering, we found there were a lot of people interested," said Charlie Pulfer.

Titus clients include the Australian and US military. The Canadian military also bought 90, 000 licenses for Titus Software.

Titus believes ease of use is a key selling point for their software. Making their first sale to a Canadian government agency was key for the firm because much of their business is conducted with government organizations. Upton expects next year to even better than the last.