When your company is in the market for the services of a software development firm, you want one that is at the vanguard of the latest technological breakthroughs. You also want one with a CEO who has a strong passion for constantly uncovering new, innovative ways to help its clients’ businesses thrive.

Making Sense is such a company. And it starts at the top. Our CEO, Cesar DOnofrio, is a leader and committed entrepreneur. He is passionate about communicating his vision for state of the art software products. He has over 17 years of experience in business leadership and “in the trenches” software development, focusing especially on providing users with pleasant, trouble-free user experiences (UX) and simple, intuitive user interfaces (UI).

A Rock Solid Commitment To Excellence

As a software development industry thought leader who is constantly looking to challenge himself, sharpen his skills and provide better and better leadership for his team at Making Sense in order to help them build higher quality products and provide even greater service for our clients, Cesar regularly travels to events where he can network with the sharpest minds in the tech industry (and other industries also), learn exciting new ideas and expand his concept of what’s possible.

So he was very excited to visit Las Vegas (USA) to take part in the first-ever SXSW V2V event. To quote their website, “SXSW V2V offers entrepreneurs from across all creative industries a space to learn the skills, make the connections and find the inspiration to take their ideas and talents to the next level”.

SXSW V2V was an opportunity for 1500 thought leaders from a number of industries, including technology and software, to come together to learn from, make solid connections with, and be inspired by each other.

Driven to constantly expand his knowledge, Cesar attended several key sessions while at this landmark event. A few of them really stood out in his mind. He was most impressed by “America’s Entrepreneurial Spirit: The Case for Fixing our Broken Immigration System”.

Cesar understands that the US is a nation of immigrants. He is always keeping up to date and staying close to news about Visa requirements for highly talented, passionate entrepreneurs, engineers and other professionals, so they can more easily obtain work or start business ventures in the United States.

He believes it’s critical for the health and growth of the US economy for us to be able to draw upon the capabilities of very qualified technology workers and business leaders from other countries.

In addition to being passionate about the topic of immigration, Cesar is also committed to providing Making Sense‘s clients with software, games and apps that offer an enjoyable user experience and have a simple-to-navigate, intuitive user interface.

So he made a point of taking part in another session: “UP Global Live: Design & Scale”. Cesar understands how critical design, UX and UI are to you and all of Making Sense’s clients. He understands that this vitally important part of the software production process can “make or break” the software from a practical usability standpoint.

This is an area where Cesar “leads from the front”. He and his team at Making Sense are driven to provide all of their clients a well-designed, easy to use software program.

As a board member of the Nearshore Executive Alliance and Nearshore Americas, Cesar is mindful of the issues, potential benefits and possible pitfalls of outsourcing. He was very interested in attending this SXSW V2V session – “Sourcing Uncensored”.

Here, the audience learned about the hidden costs and expenses associated with outsourcing and crowdsourcing and the key factors in evaluating and selecting an outsourced workforce provider.

Drawing Inspiration From Business Giants

“I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.” – Elon Musk, Founder of Tesla Motors

As a champion of US immigration reform and a passionate entrepreneur, innovator and business leader, Cesar draws inspiration and feels challenged by legendary entrepreneurs and inventors who have immigrated to the US from other countries. One such person who inspires Cesar is Elon Musk.

Elon was born in South Africa and is now an American business success story. He’s the founder of Tesla Motors, builder of premium performance electric cars. He is also cofounder of PayPal, the world’s most popular online payment system.

Attending exciting events like SXSW V2V and meeting so many successful, dynamic business leaders and innovators in one place (leaders from the US and many other countries), to encourage his team at Making Sense to reach for greatness as they endeavor to give their clients the very best software design and production experience possible.

One of the most electrifying parts of SXSW V2V for Cesar and the 1500 other thought leaders attending was the opening keynote by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos and the son of Taiwanese immigrants to the US.

Company Culture Is Critical

While at SXSW, Cesar met several key employees from Zappos and was most impressed with their company culture. Indeed, it bears a remarkable resemblance to the culture at Making Sense. Consider this quote from Tony Hsieh:

“Businesses often forget about the culture, and ultimately, they suffer for it, because you can’t deliver good service from unhappy employees.”

For Making Sense and Zappos, customer service is of the utmost importance. Innovative thinking and an entrepreneurial spirit are encouraged and rewarded at both companies.

Cesar attends events like SXSW V2V to learn from, be inspired by and to be challenged by other leaders and innovators like himself. He goes to these sorts of events so he can return home afterwards and inspire and challenge his team at Making Sense to “push the envelope” as they work hard to provide outstanding service and software products for their clients.

This approach seems to be working very well. We have lots of clients that are enjoying stellar success stories after choosing us as their software development company. One recent and very notable success story that Rackspace, a leading provider of cloud computing services enjoyed from doing business with Making Sense, is documented here.

We have many client success stories. How would you like to be one of them? Do you have a big idea for an exciting, cutting edge app, game or other software project? Contact us today at hello@makingsense.com and tell us about it!