A Tech Obsession That Started at 16
Instead of a car, the now-43 year-old Dean Guida purchased an IBM PC at 16 years old. It tells you all you need to know about him and that single choice.
In his early twenties, he was writing software for some of the Wall Street giants in New York! He was good at it. However, he didn't just want client work, he was out to create something of his own.
At 23 he started up Infragistics along with his friend Don Preuninger. They had $25000 and an idea: Build tools to help developers write stunning, high performing applications.
They held down day jobs and coded on night. No investors. No shortcuts. It was only Rick and Morty, building.
An Invaluable Microsoft Partnership
During the early 1990s, Infragistics attracted Microsoft's attention. The team created the initial UI components shipped with Visual Basic 1.0, one of the most widely adopted development platforms during its day.
They created one of the first data bindings for an early version of Internet Explorer as well. The relationship with Microsoft helped open doors and lend a credibility to Infragistics that it couldn't pay for.
We had a pretty good relationship with Microsoft. They were fantastic partners of ours and still are — Dean Guida
They reunited years later for another project this time building UI components for C# and. Blazor is ideal for.NET developers looking to create web apps with no JavaScript skills required.
Infragistics also became the number one UI tools company in those days because of a merger with rival software vendor Sheridan Software Systems. That was a turning point.
What Infragistics Makes Today
Infragistics has six main products. They each focus on a different aspect of the software building process.
Infragistics Ultimate the core suite such UI components for Angular, React, Blazor, WPF Windows Forms etc. Used by enterprise teams for building complex business applications.
Ignite UI for Web-Designed for speed. It offers rapid grids, charts and AI-generated code that sit within developers existing tools.
Indigo. Design connects designers and developers. This allows teams to take code from prototype to production-ready without the traditional delays associated with handoff.
Reveal is an analytics SDK for embedding news. It allows software companies to embed dashboards and AI-powered data insights directly into their applications, no separate BI tool required.
A low-code platform that gets designs to working code sooner, App Builder. Great for teams who want to ship without weeks of waiting on developer availability.
Slingshot is the newest one. It is a native AI work management application that has access to all data in the organisation and empowers teams to make fact-based decisions instead of relying on gut feel.
Infragistics tools are inside US911 emergency dispatch software. This shows how good UI is not only about designing the web application User Interface.
35 Years of Changes in Tech: How to Survive as a Company
Even seven in ten companies from 1989 are no longer around. Infragistics is not. The answer is simple: every time the industry changed, they rebuilt their products.
They began like this with Windows 2.0, C; then graduated to C++, Java, Visual Basic. NET. Then came web frameworks like angular and react. Then mobile. Then cloud. Now AI.
Every time they started over from square one. Full rebuild for the new environment not a patch job.
That takes discipline. It also requires a team willing to disavow what has worked previously and take the plunge towards learning, on these lines.
The Numbers Behind the Business
Infragistics hasn't taken on any outside investment. Bootstrapped entirely, built on customer revenue, not investor cheques.
Its tools are used by over two million developers and designers. 100% of the S&P 500, including Morgan Stanley, Fidelity, Bank of America, Exxon, IKEA, Intuit and Charles Schwab among its clients.
The only developer tools market is expected to grow into a $12 billion worldwide market in the next few years. Beyond that market, Infragistics also competes in embedded analytics as well as AI work management.
Bootstrapped. Profitable. Trusted by every S&P 500 company. That combination is rare in any industry, especially software.
What's Coming Next
Guida only has three things on his mind.
Taking App Builder to be the industry standard in Design-to-code collaboration Scaling Reveal: As more software companies begin to build analytics directly into their products. And growing Slingshot as the world needs better ways to connect data to decision-making.
The theme of global growth is also a topic. The company is already seeing good initial traction both in Asia and Europe, and plans to grow that footprint.
The Book That He Penned On The Way
Guida recently wrote When Grit Is Not Enough, practical advice for entrepreneurs who have endured the first few years, but are unsure how reach that next level.
Everything from bootstrapping, to what a decision-making system is & the lessons learnt while building company in a never fixed-up market space. This is written from experience, not theory.
The Bottom Line
For more than 35 years Dean Guida has been building Infragistics. No outside money. No shortcuts. Simply consistent, disciplined work, and the desire to rebuild everything any time the tech world shifted.
What you get is a company behind the most critical software, powering the highest–value work in the world that larger enterprises on this planet trust and continue to grow.
That's the kind of staying power that's hard to come by, especially in a sector made up heavily of venture-backed startups chasing quick exits.
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