As Brilliance Business Solutions gears up for 2020, we are also grateful to be wrapping up our 20th year working in the software development space.
Brilliance was founded by our President & CEO Lori McDonald in September 1998 (Yes, we share our birthday with Google). By 2006, we had three employees working out of a bedroom of her home. This was a time when the internet was in its infancy. Digital commerce began to bustle, but some businesses weren’t sure how to utilize it – and that’s where we came in. In 2007 we moved into an office space in downtown Milwaukee, originally in the Germania building, a few blocks away from the space we are in today.
Brilliance was created to provide services such as creating web-based stores or portals for sales representatives to track inventory pricing, and various other detail-oriented solutions, filling a need for decades to come.
We pride ourselves in our technologically sophisticated solutions, and attentive, one-on-one customer service. Our approach is process-driven, and we take our clients’ results very seriously - in part due to our NASA roots.
The lessons that guide Brilliance’s success began on a launching pad when Lori served as part of the team that put NASA’s Space Shuttle missions into orbit. Here is an excerpt from the Milwaukee Business Journal’s Women of Influence feature:
“While performing the technical task of managing the Shuttle’s in-flight data recorders at Mission Control in Houston, Lori also gained invaluable personal insight from the dedicated NASA professionals working around her. It’s only natural that when McDonald transitioned from space science to web development and from Houston Texas to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a focus on creativity and reliability continued as a common thread. “Everybody loves an impressive, exciting web site,” she said, “but unless it achieves its practical business goals, it’s like a rocket that never gets off the ground.” With a background in computer and electrical engineering, Lori is passionate about helping companies achieve big things by realizing the untapped potential of the web.“
But that’s not the only NASA reference in our origin story. Our Director of Development David McDonald worked for NASA during college at the Johnson Space Center as a Shuttle Operations team member on seven shuttle flights.
Like most start-ups, Brilliance’s success hasn't come with ease, but we get through any tough times together. With over 20 years of experience in the B2B sector, developing digital commerce solutions on multiple platforms, we have seen it all and understand the challenges our clients face.
Today, Brilliance is made up of a growing team of 18 knowledgeable, dedicated, and creative... <nerds> working from our downtown Milwaukee office in the Railway Exchange building. At this rate maybe we’ll hit 20 employees by 2020!
We are thankful for our journey, this exciting growth, and thrilled to continue helping our clients, and clients to come.
A warm thank you to all of our clients, staff members and partners – here's to celebrating many more!
