If our global economy is to flourish and expand, we need to empower risk-taking innovators with the structure and the resources to reinforce their vision.
According to the BNP Paribas Entrepreneur Report, millennials are starting their first businesses far sooner than previous generations 1. This finding shouldn’t surprise those of us out in the workforce who experience firsthand the entrepreneurial characteristics inherent to today’s 20-somethings. Still, not every start-up has a college grad at its helm. The majority of successful new businesses are led by those with hands-on experience and a vision for how to improve upon a specific product or service. Often, the best way to move from idea to execution is with a minimum viable product (MVP) supported by a rapid application development platform like Agiloft.
In a recent Forbes article that acknowledges Agiloft’s leadership as a no-code platform, Dan Woods wrote: “A language becomes more powerful not only when it fits the problem at hand, but also when you find a wide array of people who can address the problem using the language. Accessibility is the key. And that’s behind the push for low code development. It’s actually, therefore, more of an economic argument than a computer science one.”2
A picture begins to emerge as we use statistics and patterns of use to frame the future of commerce. We need to enable the entrepreneur to do more with less. It’s no longer a bright employee with the financial backing of Bell Labs behind her — it’s a t-shirted man with a compelling concept using the free Wi-Fi at his local coffee shop, and he needs processes that can bring substance to his idea.
Here at Agiloft, we get excited about this fast-moving-always-changing variation of the traditional business model. With our roots in Silicon Valley, we’ve seen firsthand how this style of innovation can lead to extraordinary things. We also take our role in this new business paradigm seriously. In fact, you might say we were made for it.
Agiloft enables the development of a custom product in a matter of days, without writing a single line of code. Built on J2EE to leverage the billion-dollar investment made by companies such as IBM and Oracle, it integrates all the core functionality needed by enterprise-class products and keeps costs low; with built-in support for workflows and business rules, web services, integrated email and reporting. It can then be extended to customers, creating a Software-as-a-Service product.
4Infinity CEO Greet Verellen explains how she and her team realized the benefits of Agiloft in developing the bedrock of their business, with nary a programmer to be found on site: “It’s hard to report our ROI for the Agiloft solution because first off, we never paid for it until we outgrew the free licenses. Second, it’s integral to all parts of our business. With our core model built on Agiloft, we are doing a multitude of things that we could not have done otherwise. It’s even instrumental in our sales cycle. When we go out to meet with a new client, we show them the capabilities and every time, they want to have it.”
To raise the visibility of visionaries like Greet, we recently sponsored the third annual BizHacks hackathon with the aim of using no-code technology like Agiloft to facilitate accelerated problem-solving for businesses. It is our stance that Agiloft is well-positioned to be the universal language that enables economies of scale for both the start-up and the seasoned business. We’re eager to see what happens next.
