The publishing giant wanted to create software versions of popular books, such as J.K. Lasser's tax preparation guide and Dr. Spock's child-care book. Yet the company persevered, attracting clients such as DuPont and Federated Department Stores. Increasingly, the founders noticed the same type of business problems. We were watching the way people use spreadsheets for projections and cash flow management, Elad said. People weren't representing the problem, and they didn't have the tools to solve the problem once it was represented.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
That problem-solving process gave birth to a whole new direction for Quantum, which it wholeheartedly embraced in 1989. It wasn't easy. One founder even mortgaged his house to fund the creation of a prototype to present to venture capital funds. But it was worth it. Quantum Leap caught the eye of Alan Scherr, an IBM fellow, who convinced IBM to partially fund the first commercial product.