Onshape history?

3dcad

Just out of curiosity, when was Onshape born?

I mean the date when it was first time online or some other milestone that you keep as the birth date?
When did you know it's actually becoming something more than great idea?

Was there some major steps to overcome before being sure that it is possible to build cloud cad system? 

@jon_hirschtick

brucebartlett

Late August-2014 was when I first signed up, that was pre-production, I think this was pretty close to the first public release but I am sure it was Online as prototype long before this. 

john_mcclary

I'd like to hear it too

john_rousseau

Jon and several others can talk about the birth of the company, but the "production stack" that answers at cad.onshape.com was created at 

2014-07-09T01:57:58.929Z (this is the very first database entry). Our early "alpha" users, like Bruce, were given accounts later that summer.

Onshape opened up for public beta in March of 2015 and went to "general release" in December 2015.

3dcad

@brucebartlett
How did you hear about Onshape?

I came in a bit later in March 2015 and it was just googling around to find alternative for Alibre (Geomagic at that time) since 3Dsystems pretty effectively burried that fine piece of software.. I had to request for account but Onshape already looked good and there was basic functionality to start modeling.

ilya_baran

The birth of the code base I would say is when @ravi made the first check in on December 27, 2012.

konstantin_shiriazdanov

john_rousseau said:

Jon and several others can talk about the birth of the company, but the "production stack" that answers at cad.onshape.com was created at 

2014-07-09T01:57:58.929Z (this is the very first database entry).

If you mean it was the seventh september in american date code, then it is exactly my birthday.

john_rousseau

konstantin_shiriazdanov said:

john_rousseau said:

Jon and several others can talk about the birth of the company, but the "production stack" that answers at cad.onshape.com was created at 

2014-07-09T01:57:58.929Z (this is the very first database entry).

If you mean it was the seventh september in american date code, then it is exactly my birthday.

Sorry. That's an un-Americanized, ISO date stamp, so it's 9 July.

konstantin_shiriazdanov

john_rousseau said:

Sorry. That's an un-Americanized, ISO date stamp, so it's 9 July.

ok, at least you guessed the year in 2014 I graduated from university

ilya_baran

@konstantin_shiriazdanov If we had known, we would have waited for September 7.

konstantin_shiriazdanov

ilya_baran said:

 If we had known, we would have waited for September 7.

@ilya_baran we have no power over time, but as a russian hacker you could correct this date in hindsight)

jon_hirschtick

@3dcad Thanks for asking!

Our company, originally and temporarily called "Belmont Technology", was founded Nov 1, 2012.  This was truly a "cold start" -- we had no prototype, no business plan.  Just a group of six great people (Michael Lauer, Dave Corcoran, John McEleney, Scott Harris, Tommy Li and me).

I think we quickly knew the potential value of our system based on visiting users and hearing about the problems they were having with traditional installed CAD and file-based data sharing and management -- you state these problems better than we do!

A top priority from day one was assembling the Onshape *team*.  Hiring some amazing people that have made Onshape what it is.  You know many of them from here in the Forum plus there are many others you do not hear as much about.

We also set out to raise the investment capital we knew would need.  We were lucky to find quality venture capital investors who shared our vision for the future of CAD and how we could someday improve the way every product gets designed.

Our team and capital were and are both critical building blocks for us.

We all *believed* the Onshape we imagined was build-able, but there was no *proof* yet since nobody had ever built a system like Onshape before (true web app, no install, mobile, real-time collaboration, etc -- yet with performance and pro-level function).  Many people in the CAD industry thought a system like Onshape would not be possible to build.  They were of course wrong!

Our great team proved out the concepts and feasibility of Onshape, or "BelCAD" as it was known early in our life, through many development projects, prototypes, white board designs, etc.  Along the way proving out how we could be interactive, performant, collaborative, use FeatureScript ("BelScript"), Part Studios, Tabs, Versions, upgrades, reliable/fault tolerant, secure, run on mobile, etc.  We laid out the visions for someday having Release Management, Enterprise, etc.  The team thought about how to make things scalable to support very large numbers of users reliably.

We also thought a lot about the design of Onshape.  We wanted a system that would feel familiar enough to existing CAD users so they could learn it, yet could also be a cleaner and more productive design that would fit well into the current and future world of users' computing experiences that are informed so much by web and mobile.  To implement better CAD ideas, but not alienate users' existing senses of CAD.

And of course a lot of feedback on early prototypes came from users!  We did User Experience testing from inception.

Honestly looking back it felt like we had not only an *opportunity* to build Onshape, but also in some sense an *obligation* to build Onshape.  Building a system like ours took a clarity of vision plus considerable team and financial capital.  We felt someone, us, had to take a shot at asking what-could-be and then building it.

And from the earliest days to now and continuing into the future the greatest reward for us are you, our users, and the products you build in Onshape.

Thank you to all of you -- you have helped us so so much in building what we have, and I am certain will continue to help and drive us ever-forward into the future.

Marc_Miller

Thank you @3dcad for asking this question, and thank you @jon_hirschtick and others for for sharing the history!  It really is fun and amazing to watch Onshape grow and become better and better every month.  (I signed up Aug 2015.)

3dcad

@jon_hirschtick @john_rousseau @ilya_baran

Thanks a lot for taking time to answer.

Onshape is one of the greatest companies in my values that I use to measure business: innovative product, great people, work together with customer and fearless attitude to push new ideas in the dark slowly evolving industry. It's an inspiration to see enthusiasts taking a challenge like Onshape even though I suppose founders of SW had already enough 'bread on table' to just play safe and make it to the pension.  

And I think Jon pointed out few simple things that we all should think when planning our business / career:

Put some real effort in gathering a great Team around you (no mather what role you play, leader or member) and listen carefully what problems your current / future Customers encounter then Work hard to make their life easier.

owen_sparks

Well said.