Cool Tools Committee keeps Logic Solutions ahead of tech curve for 20 years

Logic Solutions is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, which makes it a veteran of the local software scene. This is no small feat in an industry where many startups flame out after a couple of years.

So how does the Ann Arbor-based company stay young and relevant in a world of constant change?

"It's about continuing to keep up with the next big thing," says Angela Kujava, director of innovation for Logic Solutions. "It means staying on top of trending technology, adopting it, and getting your customers to adopt it."

Which is a lot easier said than done. It's easy for entrepreneurs to talk about staying ahead of the technology curve by being able to pick the winners and losers of what's next. It's much harder to actually do it.

Logic Solutions has done it. The company, which develops software for everything from websites to mobile apps, has handled 5,000 projects for 2,000 clients in its two decades, creating 3,000 websites or web apps and another 100 mobile apps in that time. That has allowed it to grow to 200 employees in six offices around the world. It employs 45 in Ann Arbor, where it has hired a handful of people over the last year.

Logic Solutions is successful partly because it picks which technology trends to pay attention by committee. Its five-person Cool Tools Committee meets every other week to talk about technology trends and ideas. They debate the merits of what is brought to the table and occasionally pick a winner from that bunch.

"Anything that they think we should dive into or at least take a look at we make plans to do," says Matt Sarkesian, CTO of Logic Solutions.

It's how Logic Solutions got started with the Magento e-commerce platform. It took a year of research and toying with it before the company brought it onboard, but today it makes up a huge part of the firm's revenue.

"These decisions aren't something we make with a hair trigger," Kujava says. "At the same time we try to make and adopt them quickly."

Source: Matt Sarkesian, CTO of Logic Solutions, and Angela Kujava, director of innovation for Logic Solutions
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.