#305 - Dean Guida, CEO Infragistics - on business resilience

Tech Entrepreneur on a Mission Podcast

This podcast interview focuses on the resilience lessons learned from running a successful business software company for +34 years. My guest is Dean Guida, CEO of Infragistics.

Dean has over 34 years of experience as a CEO and founder of Infragistics, a user interface development tools platform, and an expert in User-Centered Design.

He scaled the business globally across 6 countries with a client roster that includes 100% of the S&P 500.

What is special is that he guided Infragistics to withstand a series of tumultuous moments in the Internet’s ongoing evolution (think: the dot-com tech bubble of the late 90s, the explosion of the Internet, and the 2008 recession).

Not that he got lucky– or happened to be in the right place at the right time, or worked harder than the next guy. He did it by crystallizing the insights at each key moment along the way–from common growing pains to completely unpredictable challenges–into a hard-won philosophy.

All his lessons are now bundled in his new book, “When Grit is Not Enough.”

And this inspired me, and hence I invited Dean to my podcast. We explore an inspiring journey of resilience of running a successful software business for +34 years. Dean talks about his near failures and shares the big lessons he learned to come out stronger, again and again. He digs into the fundamentals to build a resilient software business and how he's incorporating that into the day-to-day work, so it's lived to the fullest.

Here's one of his quotes

There's nothing like the fear of going out of business to sit in your brain, "how can you do this better next time?" And, what it comes down to is really early investment is making bets on the future where you think the future is, and spending your money there. Even though if you report to others who want to have better financial performance, you have to always keep investing in the future and refreshing your technology. And like there's this great analogy that software's like lettuce it, as soon as you have it, it's already wilting.

During this interview, you will learn four things:

1. How to achieve the Financial resilience to be able to don't fall behind.
2. What to prioritize to ensure culture stays healthy and everyone stays on track with the direction?
3. What two simple instruments Dean uses to navigate tough times.
4. How to build trust in periods where you have to lay off people.

For more information about the guest from this week:

• Dean Guida
• Website: Infragistics
• Deans' book: When Grit is Not Enough

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