Dan Prince set out to improve healthcare as the founder and CEO of illumisoft. Building close ties with clients, he feels, aids in understanding their needs and providing them with the best software solutions. Dan has more than 20 years of experience in the software business and knows how to lead unique solutions that assist healthcare organisations, practices, and doctors function more effectively and make a difference in the lives of their patients.
Below are the highlights of the interview conducted between World’s Leaders and Dan Prince:
Brief our audience about your journey as a Tech leader. What challenges you had to face to reach where you are today?
Building a business is not without challenges. I was given an ultimatum at work, and I wound up quitting that job in May of 2015 after a year of working on Unidoor’s project on the side. In June of 2015, Unidoor pulled the plug on the project. My income suddenly dried up. I knew I could’ve gotten my job back, but at that same time, it made me feel a bit guilty. The reason was that one of my sons was working hard trying to grow his business and was struggling with it. He wasn’t throwing in the towel, and as I pondered what to do next, I felt obligated, as a father, to take advantage of this opportunity to build my own business in support of him growing his.
Another time, in early 2018, we had found a considerable number of new clients and new projects and were humming right along. We had hired 20 people when suddenly, the majority of our work was either completed or cancelled within a short time. We found ourselves unable to make payroll more than once, and as a result, we let everyone but 3 people go. It was a very dark time. I considered throwing in the towel and even looked for a CIO position for a few weeks. But, it dawned on me that I still had clients that needed their projects finished, so we continued to work. We changed our model from onshore developers to offshore, from rapid turn-around time to scheduling projects a bit further out, and we made it through.
Describe illumisoft offerings that address the needs of your customers.
In general, the services that illumisoft provides are described as software development services. People hire us to help them build solutions that they then take over and manage going forward. Often, they have an internal development team, but they don’t have the necessary experience to architect modern solutions using modern technology. Their hope is that if I provide a codebase, I can teach their developers how to maintain it. In my experience with supporting entrepreneurial efforts in this area, I would say the three main steps that you need to take to build a strong community of users and subscribers would include building a strong brand that aligns with your intended audience, making sure that your software is easy to use and easy to understand, and being consistent in never taking advantage of your subscriber base by marketing to them and upselling them ad nauseum.
After completing a successful project for local Children’s Hospital, the focus of the company pivoted to the healthcare industry.
Enlighten us on how you have made an impact in this industry through your expertise in the industry?
As of today, we have done about 42 projects worth over $10M. Our projects have helped 30 different clients, and changed the lives of 100’s of thousands of children and families of children with diabetes and other diseases. We have had ZERO failed projects although we were not able to complete one due to a shrinking budget and cost overruns. We have 100% 5-star reviews. After all these efforts, illumisoft was awarded the 2021 Globee Awards Gold Medal for Best Healthcare & Medical Innovation.
What are the challenges you and your team at illumisoft come across in your day-to-day operations?
Our approach to providing customer service is to have multiple people first in each and every project so that we can ensure coverage even in the case of what we call, “The Bus Factor.” There’s probably a better, more appropriate name for it, but the bus factor for us attempts to answer the question, “What are we going to do if someone important to a project gets hit by a bus?” That is probably our biggest challenge, not only because it takes a lot of work to become semi-expert on so many different things, but also because educating oneself or one’s team is hard to bill for.
Describe in detail the values and the work culture that drives illumisoft.
Being centered around helping others is why we at illumisoft have focused our services on the healthcare industry. We realized at some point several years ago that building great solutions feels good and delighting our clients feels great. But, building great solutions that delight our clients, and then realizing you’ve helped literally hundreds of thousands of people around the world live happier, healthier lives feels noble, heroic and worth it.
Where do you envision yourself being in the long run and what are your future goals for illumisoft?
We see Illumisoft becoming the go-to custom solution provider for hospitals, private practices, and research centers across the United States. Eventually, we will spread worldwide. We have already seen a consistent, incremental increase in our growth, and we expect that to continue at an exponential rate. Additionally, we plan on becoming a product company and combining that with our service offerings. We have several product ideas in the works, and we already have a couple of products built that we are beginning to market now.
What would be your advice to budding tech leaders?
I’ve got a lot of advice for emerging leaders, but it does depend on their situation to a certain extent. If I had to give blanket advice, I would say read, and read constantly. Learn everything that you can learn. People are flawed and you have to accept them for their contribution rather than their proximity to your ideal. Operate your life out of a place of love for other people. I truly believe that, although it is kind of corny.
