Readers Digest:
In his famous Socratic dialogue, Republic, Plato wrote, “our need will be the real creator.”
The line was more elaborated with time and was eventually written as – necessity is the mother of invention – something we can bet you must have heard thousands of times since childhood. But these aren’t mere words. It’s an inevitable and undeniable reality. Look around you. Everything you see is born out of necessity; businesses/enterprises are no exception.
It is true that most businesses are profit-centric. After all, that’s the primary reason for their existence. But their problem-solving aspect cannot be cast aside. In fact, many are born as a solution to a particular problem. Take River Point Technology, for example.
It appeared on the business landscape to address the lack of interest in the game-changing, cloud computing technology. Its founder, Jeff Eiben, who is also known to be a smart innovator, after working with multiple corporations, observed that embedding technology is the only way forward for the business community. And for the cloud, he believed, will revolutionize the way we do our business and establish mega-corporations.
His observations stemmed from two things; his childhood affection for science and mathematics and the companies he worked with before founding RPT in 2011. As a child, he was enveloped in a love for science. Though he was not that passionate about it and was rather inclined toward the business world, he eventually chose technology as his future and joined an engineering school at West Virginia University.
The second reason behind his observations came after his graduation. When Jeff worked with established corporations like Westinghouse Electric, Mallet, Ansoft, and lastly, VMware, he was taken aback by the way new technology was aiding businesses. However, at the same time, when cloud computing was around the periphery and had a great potential to make an impact, companies were showing signs of interest. In fact, whenever he brought up the topic during meetings at his employer at the time, VMware, the emerging technology was laughed off.
But Jeff trusted his instincts and after having many comprehensive discussions with business coaches, mentors, and his wife, Laurie, he finally decided to quit VMware and started River Point Technology.
There was one obstacle though, yet to be passed. He knew that cloud computing will change the future of everything, including the business world, but he lacked a comprehensive business plan for it. He had started the company with $50,000 and had only a few close friends by his side. He made some calls but in vain. Businesses had no time in their tight-scheduled space to even discuss the idea.
Hence, accepting the miscalculation of the market timing, Jeff reevaluated his plans, and this time he came up with a model that allowed businesses to proceed ahead while testing the pros and cons of one particular action plan with very little loss, if failed, and small win, if it succeeds. The model was termed the ‘Value Creation Technology.’
Read the full article here.