Startup QS Labs Banks On Vertical Touch

Now he hopes to leverage that experience to bring true business value to those solutions as president and CTO of Quality Systems Laboratories, an Irvine, Calif.-based startup dedicated to building compliance applications for the life sciences market.

While at eBuilt, Lindsay tried to drive the horizontally focused firm into vertical markets for both personal and professional reasons. "On a personal level, I wanted to learn more about a specific industry rather than just be a generalist," he said. In addition, Lindsay saw real value in providing solutions that solved specific business problems for vertical industries and wanted to be a part of that growing trend.

"When I look at IT's place in the world, it really is an enabler of business," Lindsay said. "To bring value to an individual or a business, you need to understand that particular business really well."

Costa Mesa, Calif.-based eBuilt, with its proximity to Hollywood, served many companies in the entertainment industry and developed a specialty in providing custom applications for movie studios during his CTO tenure. The problem is there is a handful of large movie studios to serve, and eBuilt's focus became limited very quickly.

When the opportunity arose for the 40-year-old to join QS Labs and focus on helping vertical industries grapple with the growing problem of regulatory compliance, he jumped at the chance.

"From a business standpoint, QS Labs is not just selling labor, we're selling intellectual property—what we've learned about IT and what we know about this space," Lindsay said. "We have subject-matter experts that understand the regulations, and I bring the ability to apply technology to that."

While QS Labs is initially helping life sciences companies deal with FDA regulations and HIPAA compliance through applications, Lindsay hopes to branch out into other vertical markets.

The future of application development lies not in providing integration services around a set of software products, he said, but in identifying the application a person needs to make his or her job easier and using that software to build a tailored solution.

"The best operating system in the world, the best database in the world, is not going to directly help a CFO publish a quarterly result, or help the vice president of marketing break into new markets," he said. "They are only the pavement on the road. The applications are what actually drive people to their business destinations."