I sat down via zoom with Michael Zuercher and Beth Harwood to talk about their startup Prismatic. We spoke for about 30 minutes about their upcoming product launch, the pandemic, hybrid office culture, their company goals for 2021, and their software.
Prismatic opened its doors in the Spring of 2019 and began to build application integration software in December 2019. For the founding team, it was not their first foray into building a tech software company from scratch in Sioux Falls. The first company Zuercher technologies was acquired by TriTech Software Systems, the largest public safety software company in the world, in 2015. The difference this time arrived 3 months after starting up in the form of a global pandemic. So what changed that allowed Prismatic to be successful during unprecedented times?
“In truth, it actually accelerated some things.” said Zuercher. “The plan all long was to focus on customer development. Going remote (for everyone) allowed us to focus more on talking with customers and spend less time on travel.”
Hybrid Culture
Remote work became “the norm” in 2020 for everyone. This made hopping on zoom or providing a demo online a standard practice. Still, some us need that place to go and that office culture and comradery to support us in our work. At Prismatic, establishing a strong hybrid office culture begins with listening to the employees.
“We have about 10 employees now. We left the decision up to them to work from home or come back to the office. Some did and some didn’t. So we have a hybrid structure of sorts which is a challenge but I think it is a challenge for everyone under the circumstances.” said Zuercher. “I think having a strong communication structure and using tools like Slack has helped.”
Niche Verticals
Application integration is defined as the process of enabling independently designed software applications to work together. According to a 2019 article in the Wall Street Journal, the average number of software applications used by companies is 129. This makes software integration a huge challenge for businesses. The integration market includes all the big name software companies which dominate the conversation like Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, etc. But what about all the other software products out there that require integration? The result is an underserved universe of smaller niche verticals with custom software systems that need to build integration. Prismatic’s software is designed to solve this rapidly growing problem in the market.
“As a customer you just want multiple systems to magically work together. Meeting that expectation is a huge problem for B2B software. Smaller vendors are often stuck building these software integrations themselves.” said Zuercher.
The Future
So what does 2021 look like for Prismatic?
“We’ve been incredibly fortunate to work with a great group of early users as we’ve built out the platform over the past eighteen months. Prismatic has grown into a full-fledged solution that addresses B2B software companies’ biggest integration challenges head on, and our launch marks a milestone toward getting it in the hands of more teams” added Beth Harwood.
Zuercher agreed, “The main focus is having a mature product available in the market.”
That focus begins in earnest this week as Prismatic is officially launching their embedded integration platform for B2B software companies. You can find a link to their press release below. Part of this launch also includes a feature on Product Hunt which according to their website “surfaces the best new products, every day. It’s a place for product-loving enthusiasts to share and geek out about the latest mobile apps, websites, hardware projects, and tech creations.” You can find the Product Hunt feature here.
Here is a link to their official press release on Mug.news.
For more information about Prismatic check out their website.
