Ep. 37: Ben Wilson of Rivers Agile

This is Jonathan Kersting hanging out with Comcast to tell our 50 Summer Stories of Pittsburgh Tech and I'm kind of pumped about today because today we're actually recording this on August the 18th, which happens to be the 12 year anniversary of Rivers Agile, the company that I'm talking to you today with one Ben Wilson hanging out with us today, Ben, thanks for hanging out. And Happy Birthday man.

Thanks, Jonathan. We're I'm very happy to be here. It is a big day for us turning 12 you know, it's small businesses rarely make it past year one or year two. Exactly.

No, I think I think you've made it past this point where you're gonna survive you're gonna survive. We're way past that. Now. We're not we're thinking okay, so how do we navigate things like a pandemic? How do things like a pandemic, right?

But But, you know, every every business has challenges right now and worse. You know, it's it's the leaders that will take their company through this and, and rise above right So you have to, you have to put that that mindset into into place, and make sure that you're driving your company right through this thing. And hopefully on the other side of it, you know, we have a little bit of a normalized business climate, right. That's what the plan is.

And I love that attitude, man 100% and all things good to talk about today, this exactly what you're doing right now. Like you got this summer trucking down the road 60. And you're gonna bash right through it, man.

We're trying for sure. And we do have some positive momentum. I'm very excited about it. And I think that, you know, what we're gonna talk about today really aligns with, you know, the summer of tech stories that you put together, which is such a great program. Thank goodness, this mode of storytelling in this era is very interesting. Everybody has a story to tell, first of all, good or bad. And, you know, how are these companies morphing? How is Pittsburgh tech adapting to the changing landscape? And it does seem to change every few weeks, doesn't it? I mean, seriously, just when you think we have something kind of figured out like oh, this is where it's going. And Nope. And then but then adapting just the course correct and everything. I think that's part of the theme, though, which is, you know, an organization's ability to adapt. And sometimes that's easier said than done, of course. But you know, those are the ones that I think are going to come out looking the best or more whole. I agree. So before we jump into the conversation, I always like to make sure in case anyone's new to the game here, and they don't know who you are, what River's Edge is all about. Here's the quick nickel tour about all the great stuff that the rivers does.

Well, sure. So so as you mentioned, we're 12 years old and 12 years ago, we were a unique boutique little organization that had a better version of quality assurance that they took to to clients, right? And help them see that an elevated role of QA could proactively get them to market faster with less risk more more predictability. Right. And that was that was the that was the roots of the company. Of course, we've more since then, over the years, we've become a whole sale you know, from design through deployment and maintenance, organization, focus focused on on tech innovation here in Pittsburgh. And we did that for a number of years. And now we even have another chapter, which is the workshop, which, you know, the last time I spoke with you, we talked, and I'll tell you, it's been really well received, right? We are helping organizations get to that next level of reinvestment. And we do that by putting some of our own skin in the game right. Now, the longer term strategy for the company is a better valuation for the firm, you know, deeper roots into Pittsburgh tech itself, right? And not only not only do we help put that into the market, but we we put some skin in the game and now we're a partner with you a long term partner, and we love being that company, right? We still push out, you know, at least six to 12 new technologies every year. We do that through our clients. And it's just a little bit of a different model on how we do it. Right, a very different model. That's why I love it. I think it's just so unique. And I'm just so I'm so thrilled that you're doing that here in Pittsburgh.

Well, you know, and this goes back to adaptation. We have tons of new innovation that comes could come out of Pittsburgh, and yet the traditional VC routes or funding routes have been a little, a little gun shy naturally, of course. And maybe maybe the minimums or or the models that they're looking at with their due diligence have changed a little bit, right, because risk is extremely scary right now. And so, you know, tolerance for that has gone down.

Exactly. So I think that's one of the reasons why, why we've had so much interest in volume for the workshop, which is because it's a little, it's a little non traditional. And it also puts a stake in the ground and says, We are here with you, and we want to work with you and partner with you.

As opposed to just being a service based organization.

 I mean, you're putting manpower to it, you're putting investment into it. So it's like you're there.

Right. Right. And, you know, believe me, you know, investing in in startups right now, for anyone, including rivers is a little bit risky, but, you know, through our due diligence, and when we start working with the leadership team, and you know, for example, fire crowd we're going to talk about today, their leadership team has multiple wins. on, you know, on their belt already, and, you know, it's easy to gravitate towards those who have done it before and have had success before. Right? That's, that's part of our due diligence. So, you know, I'm very excited about that, you know, they are the first organization, the first company to come through the workshop. And so of course, we internally members are very excited about that work your first baby, come on, this is all very, I love it. And you know, the model is just expanding now. And I think now that people have heard that we are actually processing applications we are, you know, investing into companies now. Now, it seems to the word has gotten out a little bit, the word is gonna spread in Pittsburgh, we know it's a small town, they're gonna see the results that are coming out of this, and people are going to be a part of it. So be careful what you wish for, but it might get a little crazy. That's a good thing. That's very cool. So yes, tell us about about FiCrowd and what this is all about. Give us give us the details here. I'm excited.

So it's a client centric, interactive platform that allows for local banks credit unions cusos to easily spin up a campaign. Alright. So, and this is very timely, because there are, there are times right now where organizations need a crowdsourcing model to help them move to the next step or to even survive driving, maybe their needs exceed what the PPP offered and what the state is offering in terms of, you know, emergency funding. And so it's actually extremely timely to be offering something like this, because this is another option that organizations do need today, right? And the crowdsourcing focus allows for sort of quicker turnaround, less paperwork, things like that. Right. And so, of course, of course, you know, it's designed to be a custom turnkey solution. So if you have a credit union and a retail bank, you know, having your own version of that is built into the vision of it. And so it's not a it's not a restart from the beginning. It's it was anticipated, it was built and architected in anticipation of that need.

Exactly. So that way that you're not starting from scratch with each with each implementation of the correct, exactly.

These are very cool and so you know, You know, our role within the within this engagement, you know, our goal, again, is to get them into a refundable situation, right? And we do that through our engineering resources, right? So we're providing, you know, UX, Product Management, software development, QA, all as part of that investment. And we know that the outcome of that is that they're coming out with less risk the projects on time under budget as anticipated. Exactly. These are all blessings, right? You must do that never really happened in the real world, under more traditional ways of doing this, right. And we're able to do that consistently. And it's working well. And don't forget, these are, you know, this is an investment for us, too. And so, you know, knowing knowing that we can get it to market, you know, during these times is, is a bonus for sure.

Very cool. It's, uh, tell us a little bit about the engagement with them. I mean, like, how long will this like start? And what was a time when you first started tapping away at code into getting any method really ugly over a year ago? Okay, and you know, and at the time had had an idea. They're they're industry experts, they come from the space, they know that there's a need, you know, credit unions and local banks have a, a purposeful footprint in their local area to help those who resist that's part of their mission, right? This tool helps them get there.

And so that's why it's so important. And that's why some people are excited for this to come out. In the projects doing really well, we're almost almost to the MVP stage, in which case, you know, there are plenty of clients already lined up, you know, sort of, in anticipation of its completion. So, we have momentum for sure, you know, our role is on the technical and the advisory side. And, you know, we work with their their CTO specifically where their engineering arm for now, and, you know, it's working really well. I will tell you that we had many whiteboard session before we even put, you know, one one coat. But it was important to take our time to make sure we're building the right thing, especially during these times when you know that it's good. To help people almost almost immediately, you have like extra incentive to really get this thing out. Because it can make such a difference to a small business. Like I look at some of the work like honeycomb credits done with their version of doing some some some some crowdsourcing for people to raise money for their companies. And like literally like someone if they can raise $20,000, that will save their business. And if they can do it through action, people buying gift cards through them that they can't use for another year as a way to get some cash into the business. And someone else can get a product later. So you just know that like, wow, we're building something that's going to make an impact. I think as an organization, you have to think about the region in which you serve, right, you know, having some impact by investing in this organization. Feels good to us internally, right? We know that we're doing some good here.

And so, you know, the team is very excited about it, and we can't wait for it to come out. So I believe it now you gotta be just completely stoked as far as there's how much of an impact was COVID-19 in developing this we're all of a sudden you couldn't be at the whiteboard. Together, you had to do a virtual whiteboard and so forth that much of a flow, not as much as you would think. Thankfully, we had done a lot of that whiteboarding. Prior to Okay, good, we had already kind of had had a vision as to what this MVP would be, got towards. You know, I'm the first one to say that, you know, virtual whiteboarding is just not the same. However, thankfully, the timing of this worked out pretty well, where we had already had those conversations, you know, over the last handful of months to sort of get to this point.

Very well mean five crowd sounds like an awesome company and how cool is that? You're like the engineering arm in this thing in order to get it out and about it. Tell us more about the reverse agile workshop in general because I mean, obviously I know you're always looking for new companies and ideas and which now don't that product for them and be that partner with

VR. It's It's It's part of a growth model for rivers agile, we, you know, as we talked about last time to say this, this whole workshop idea was sort of born, you know, on the beach and how we can grow the organization have more than half your locally and we settled on the workshop and it's, you know, As a summary for the for the workshop itself, we are putting our own dollars into clients that we believe in it have a technical focus, you know, we are focused on FinTech, obviously with Wi Fi crowd. And then machine learning. IoT as well. Right. Very cool. So and, and so those are areas that we think are the next growth sectors. For the industry. That's our surprise. So there's so many other people. But we know that that's where we want to hang our hat. And so we look for organizations they're delivering or want to deliver a solution that has some of those components into it. Right. And so it's working well, there's does not seem to be a shortage of local entrepreneurs or small businesses that are trying to take the next step with tech that are interested in the program itself. So we're excited about it. We we are we are fielding applications for the next round. Of course, right now our hyper focus is on fire card making sure that your first investment goes very well.

Yeah, you got to put all money, all money versus all energy right into that, because it looks like that's gonna do so well to it. I'm just really excited about. So I'm looking forward to talking to you again to hear about success and it's having, but I know that's gonna be the next story that you guys

I think, I think the next next story might be telling is, you know, you know, how did how to find crowd end up, you know, once they came out of the workshop, and who else are we are we considering? Or have we just invested in ourselves? Right, exactly, exactly. We have. We have a group of local venture capitalists that are very interested in this program because they, they see this as a consistent engineering resource, Zara, game, love to work with them. So now now we're getting questions of what are you? What are you considering investing in next? You know, maybe maybe that's something we should look at it? I know. Absolutely. That is so cool. When I think about that whole aspect that Yeah, like a venture capitalist. They want to make sure that their investment that they got the right engineering team, they haven't trusted, they knew your experience while they work with you on.

Almost predictable I mean why why as investor wouldn't you want a partner that specializes in this space system with their outputs? And frankly does what they said they would do right? You want to stabilize much things you can't you want to mitigate as much risk as possible and one of the biggest parts of the risk is getting to that and getting overrun projects are probably your one of your biggest risks when you first invest into a small startup, right with that anticipation of a cost for an MVP. If it doubles somebody didn't do their job exactly you always tell your investment is worth half as much like that's crazy. So I know like on your website people go to riversagile.com/RAW. You can get more details there and can can you also kind of like inquire there as well to find out can hire based on your cycles and so forth.

You can you know, there's there's an open portal there for you to get more information to sign up to get contacted. You know, we want to we want to hear from you. We want to know what are you thinking about building or what are you trying to build right now? Are you in the process of building you can be held?

Exactly. It's all for the conversation because some of the coolest things pop up because someone asked, right? To ask if someone does not ask you to, I suppose switch gears just a little bit here, because 12 years is a really big deal in your field. I've seen so many companies up and down flame out in 12 years, this is a fast moving industry. And you can ride a trend for a couple years and then you can adapt that trends over so as your business but you've been able to keep things going. So when you started 12 years ago, do you think you'd be around 12 years later?

I had no idea. I look at Looking back, I had no idea that it would grow to be this. So I'm very bad. That's awesome. Okay. It was it was me and a couple of key engineers that I worked with very small work literally working out of my basement, you know, right. I love it. stereotype, right? But no, we're very proud. We're proud to be here in the North Shore with a beautiful empty office. But no, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't realize what I was building back then. And maybe, maybe it took me a couple of years to understand just how much impact we can have, you know, fast forward to today, you know, being rooted in the innovation center that is in Pittsburgh, and helping lead in some way and even giving back to to the local region, by you know, bringing products to market that can have immediate impact for immediate need, frankly, which is right now. feels amazing.

What's it been like going through the evolution of being like techie guy to I'm starting a small business to all of a sudden, like, You're like a business leader in the community. Now you're a tech leader in the community. Now. It's like, yes, you got the coding, and you got the engineering at heart. But you also got to have both the business side of thing and now I see you also building this community side of things as well, too, because you're trying to get these businesses up, you know, just like fire crowd that can actually make an impact and make things better, like

it's a maturation of a career that I probably fought a little bit because I said, No, no, we're all engineers. That's all we do. Exactly. You realize you've built Something has a much more greater impact to the local region. It feels wonderful I, I would not have predicted it. When we first started out, you know, we, when we first started out, it was simply we can do QA better than anyone else. If you have a QA problem call call Ben called rivers agile, and they can fix it. And that was great. But But now seeing what we've grown and what we what we plan to do, frankly, over the next 12 months, is extremely exciting. Something to be very proud of for sure.

I think it's an amazing story. 100% It's one of the stories that I always say. It just happens in Pittsburgh and so we're glad you're in Pittsburgh, glad you're on the North Shore, neighbors this at the tech Council and when we get back to our offices when he's ready to get pizza at Badamos.

Yeah. So one of these days soon, but in the meantime, you're driving that 18 Wheeler down the road, man, you're hauling butt and you're breaking through barriers. Simple as that you're not letting anything get in your way and I just love that.

We're moving forward even In the most awkward business you I've ever been around. We are moving forward though. And I'm very excited about what we're getting to the next 12 months. Great story all the way around. We're gonna keep having updates from you and all the other companies you're going to start working with in order to get them to where they need to be. Good stuff, man. You're the best. And we can't thank Comcast enough allowing us to tell us 50 stories.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai