In the late 1990’s, we saw a trend occurring in the software industry. IT companies had been traditional outsourcers of certain services, but product companies hadn’t because of concern over IP. But as the cost of building products became increasingly prohibitive, they didn’t have a choice but to explore this option. Additionally, freshly minted MBA’s were coming out of business school with ideas for new technology businesses, but no technical capacity or expertise to get the products built. CoreObjects’ very first client, Stamps.com, materialized from this scenario and put us on the map as an early pioneer in outsourced product development. This began a journey of continuous serendipity.
The first observation we made was that product development had always been wrought with challenges. The alarming statistic of 90% of products failing to meet their objectives caught our eye as we developed the team for Stamps. We vowed to do it differently, with clarity, visibility and accountability. But we were posed with an additional set of challenges...a distributed environment. Not only were we faced with perfecting the process of product development, but we were determined to make the development environment independent of boundaries. We started considering the concept of productizing product development.
As the development of Stamps.com became overwhelmingly successful, other opportunities presented themselves. Could lightening strike twice? Had CoreObjects really figured out how to successfully build products over and over again, independent of client environment or location? The answer was an emphatic yes. The Core Unified Process (CUP™) had been developed, a distributed agile development process, and was the defining success factor in being able to service customers and build successful products in a distributed environment. Distributed Cooperative Software Development™ (DCSD) was now the mantra at CoreObjects.
We didn’t stop there. Certainly DCSD allowed us to differentiate against traditional project-based outsourcing companies. But we believed there was more. Our involvement at the nascent stage of developing companies often put us in a position to be an asset and partner in building the company, not just the products, for our clients. At times we made introductions to funding sources, sales channels, business advisors, and so on. How could CoreObjects continue its evolution and look to being thought leaders in the world of software development? Incubators were all the rage in the late ‘90’s, but none achieved their objectives in providing the infrastructure for growth. Sure, they would provide office space, administrative services, sometimes even an executive to run the company. But a shared service model is not what’s needed in a start-up software company. You need more. You need to have the power and ability to see around corners, to leverage existing technologies, to capitalize on established technology infrastructure, to get access to powerful networks of people, to have tools (not shared secretarial services), to have access to some of the greatest minds.
This was the genesis for the next generation of CoreObjects. The Entrepreneur’s and Executive Network (EEN) was established to bring access to a powerful network of business and technology minds. CoreLabs was established to provide advanced research and prototyping services to clients who can’t afford to experiment on their own or who don’t have the time. An entire framework of reusable architecture frameworks was established to aide in rapid development/deployment cycles. We even developed a new product lifecycle management framework, built around the fundamentals of CUP, to provide the visibility, accountability and traceability required to build products in an unpredictable market.
CoreObjects has evolved a lot since its founding in 1997. And we suspect we’ll evolve a lot more in the years to come. But the fundamental foundation for existence and passion for being will not change. The bottom line is we love the process of building products and building companies. It’s reflected in the team we’ve assembled. We’re not a bunch of former project consultants. We’re hard core product engineers. And we’re also entrepreneurs – but who understand what big companies need too. That’s how we can confidently say that We build the software that builds companies™