Austin firm looks north by northeast to open office in Grand Rapids

Adonit is a two-year old, Taipei-based manufacturer of Jot, a line of innovative electronic stylus that "empowers creatives."

Its U.S. headquarters is located Austin, TX, but when the growing company needed to open an office to support further software development, it looked to Grand Rapids.

According to Mac Fowler, director of software, and Peiter Buick, director of user experience and design, the decision to open a software development center in Grand Rapids boiled down to two factors: a vibrant design community, and access to a strong base of talent.

Buick says their products are currently used primarily by visual designers, story boarders, comic book artists, and other creatives to quickly and easily capture their ideas on an iPad. Having an office in a design-centric city like Grand Rapids allows Adonit to be close to their customer base.

"We need to tap into the design community (that contains) our end users," Buick says.

The other factor in Adonit's decision was the availability of talent in Grand Rapids. Fowler says, "It's really difficult to find talent in Austin. There is a huge startup community, so many developers are working on their own thing or inside of a large organization." He says the Grand Rapids office already has filled five positions and is looking to be at an eight-person staff by the end of the summer, with current openings for iOS developers.

Fowler and Buick say they will have office space in downtown Grand Rapids shortly. Both are very excited about the job growth opportunities for their office here, as the market for electronic styluses is quickly expanding beyond "creatives" and into other industries, such as healthcare and education. 

You can currently purchase the Jot stylus through their website, on Amazon, or at Target, with more retailers being added soon.

To learn more about Adonit, you can view their site here or their Facebook page here.



Source: Mac Fowler and Peiter Buick, Adonit
Writer: John Rumery, Innovation and Jobs News Editor