Luristic

Luristic is a pioneer and a leader in Rich User Experiences (RUE) for websites, web applications, desktop applications, mobile applications, embedded applications, and games.

RUE is a complex yet very exciting field which requires the precision of a software engineer, the analytics of a computer scientist, the heuristics of a cognitive behaviorist, and the creativity of an artist.  In short, that’s all the left and right brains that any single normal brain can handle. 

Luristic is a new breed of firm that combines the technical skills of an innovative software company along with the creativity of an avant-garde agency.  While one skill set alone is difficult enough to master, we are raising the bar and doing the hard work so that you don’t have to. 

What interests us at Luristic is the extraordinary.  So whether we are your short-term hired guns or your long-term partner, we produce killer applications for you.  We are particularly apt at turning the complex simple, and the simple powerful.  We get motivated by demanding customers who want it all – from functionality to efficiency, from reliability to scalability, from flexibility to security, from usability to beauty, from function to form, from art to science, from intuition to analytics, from quantitative to qualitative, and everything in between. 

As a result, we take a holistic approach by offering a comprehensive set of products and services that deliver world-class, award-winning, and state-of-the-art applications and websites with very rich user experiences that lure, attract, engage, convert, and retain users with extensive features, robust architecture, logical taxonomy, flexible workflow, intuitive navigation, and stunning graphical user interface.

While on one hand we consider ourselves progressive in our craft by often finding ourselves pushing the envelope on the design and the engineering fronts, yet we are rather conservative when it comes down to work ethics. 

In short, RUE is all we do, and we do it right. 

Dr. David Saad is the founder, Chairman & CEO of Luristic.  He is responsible for the overall direction and management of the company.  He is a seasoned veteran in the software industry with over 27 years of experience in sales, marketing, engineering, and funding making him uniquely positioned to lead Luristic.  Dr. Saad started his career as a system programmer, became a data base consultant, a public speaker, an entrepreneur, and an angel investor. 

Prior to Luristic, Dr. Saad was the founder, Chairman & CEO of Clupedia - a social media company that offered clues from crowds.  Clupedia was the Wikipedia of opinions.  The company won several industry awards for its innovation including the AlwaysOn Media 100 award.  During his tenure with Clupedia, Dr. Saad won the Most Promising Investment Award during the 2006 Fast Pitch competition sponsored by Tech Coast Angels (TCA) from whom he raised a Series A round of funding.

Prior to Clupedia, Dr. Saad was the founder, Chairman & CEO of Calibra - a software company that offered a viral marketing tool that used Social Network Analysis (SNA) in order to identify influencers within a social network for the purpose of launching, managing, and measuring viral campaigns.  Calibra was nominated for the Innovative Product of the Year Award by the American Electronics Association (AeA). 

Prior to Calibra, Dr. Saad was the founder, Chairman & CEO of Braintec - a software company specialized in Unix kernel development, compilers, computational linguistics, and artificial intelligence.  Braintec became the largest Unix engineering firm in Southern California with customers such as AT&T, IBM, Sun, NCR, and Teradata.  Braintec was sold to Technisource – an IT firm listed on NASDAQ which was taken private by IntelliMark Holdings.   

During his tenure with Braintec, Dr. Saad was also the founder, Chairman & CEO of In-D-Pocket - a label company specialized in R&B, Hip Hop, and rap music.  One of the company’s acts was a female group called Foxx Empire whose debut album included couple of hits such as “Do You Want Me”, “Can’t Let Go”, and a remix of “Walkin’ in Rhythm”.

Prior to Braintec, Dr. Saad worked for Mathematica Products Group (MPG) – a software division of Martin Marietta where he was instrumental in establishing the Canadian division.  During his stint at MPG, Dr. Saad won several awards for his software sales achievements including the ICP award.  

Prior to Mathematica, Dr. Saad worked as a programmer and data base consultant for IST - a consulting and service bureau based in Montreal, Canada. 

Dr. Saad earned a PhD in Computer Science with high honors from University of Paris, an M.Sc.A. Cum Laude in Computer Science from McGill University, a B.Sc. in Computer Science from Concordia University, and a D.E.U.G. in Mathematics & Economics from University of Paris.   He speaks four languages.  He had a very successful athletic career in Judo during which he participated in the European Championships, World Championships, Pan American Games, and the Olympic games.  Dr. Saad is a USTA member and regularly participates in league and national tennis championships.

Luristic offers its products and services under the following business models:

• Products are offered based on a license fee and an annual maintenance fee.  We don’t offer any shrink-wrapped or packaged products.  All of our products are digital and can be downloaded from our website or from any of our partners’ website such as online software stores. 
• Researching, consulting, designing, engineering, and testing services are offered based on a daily rate for each consultant assigned to the project.  The daily rates excluding expenses vary between $400 for a usability tester to $3,000 for a senior staff at the CTO level.  Fixed prices can be considered in cases where we have worked on similar projects and where the specifications of the project are well-defined.  Since the majority of our consultants are our own employees, we typically do not offer contract-for-hire arrangements nor do we provide any recruiting services.  In fact, there is a mutual non-solicitation, non-compete, non-disclosure, and confidentiality clauses in our agreement with our customers.  In addition, our services are performed as work-made-for-hire giving our customers all rights and titles to the work-product produced by Luristic on their behalf. Projects can vary from simple supplementary staffing arrangement where the work is performed on the customer’s site, to a complete outsourced arrangement where the work is performed on our premises.  We typically invoice our customers on a monthly basis under net 10 terms.
• Training services are offered on a tuition fee for each course.  Courses can be public or private for exclusively one customer.  They can be offered at our own premises, at the customer’s site, or on the web.  The fees vary between $200 to $2,000 depending on the type of course, its length, its location, and its instructor.  Full tuition must be received prior to attending a course.   

 Regardles of the type or size of an application, and in order to ensure the success of all customers, we deliver our products and services to our customers with passion, dedication, quality, flexibility, warranty, and guaranty.  

There are many agencies that can offer some impressive artwork but they lack the deep and broad expertise and experience necessary in software development in general, and Rich Interactive Applications (RIA) in particular, let alone Rich User Experiences (RUE).  Marketing, advertising, public relations, and art design are typically their core competency and not hard-core software development.  Even though some agencies have programmers on board who are quite skilled in scripting languages, it takes a lot more than just programmers to build RIA or RUE with industrial strength.

Similarly, there are many software engineering firms who can crank efficient code but they ignore usability and beauty at their peril.  Their typical mode of operand is “build it and they will come”.  The weakest are those offshore vendors who, because of the distance, are oblivious to what is currently fashionable and trendy relative to graphical user interfaces. Furthermore, the great majority of software engineering firms have some experience in developing internal applications but not commercial ones, which usually require a higher level of craftsmanship because commercial products must meet a higher standard and competitiveness due to their wider exposure in the marketplace. 

It is rather rare to find a person who excels at both art and science.  Yet, that is exactly what RUE requires.  Simply assembling artists and scientists is necessary and difficult, but not sufficient because often artists and scientists live in different worlds and they certainly don’t speak the same language.  What is required is a rare breed of hybrid brainers capable of orchestrating the left and right brainers resulting into a tight mesh not a mere collage of talent and skills.  As an analogy, a sprinter and a marathon runner don’t add up to a decathlon champion.   

So what makes Luristic so unique is our rare breed of hybrid brainers, in addition to our left and right brainers.  Another distinguishing factor is our blend of depth and breadth of expertise and experience related to both products and services in RUE.  While on one hand we are highly focused and specialized in RUE, on the other hand we cover all aspects of RUE unlike some of our competitors.  We are truly a one-stop-shop and a full-service company that covers most, if not all, your needs in RUE.

• LureBar is an open standard Rich Interactive Component (RIC) that offers the most advanced features for a bar or a dock very similar to the Mac Dock that many of you are quite familiar with but never experienced it on the web. http://www.luristic.com/products/products_lurebar.html

• LureDoc is an open standard Rich Interactive Component (RIC) that offers the most advanced features for a document player or an eBook. .http://www.luristic.com/products/products_luredoc.html

• LureList is an open standard Rich Interactive Component (RIC) that manages lists.http://www.luristic.com/products/products_lurelist.html

• LureMap is an open standard Rich Interactive Component (RIC) that provides a comprehensive website map.  It combines the best of the desktop and the web worlds by offering multiple views of the hierarchical structure of a website along with some intelligent shortcuts. http://www.luristic.com/products/products_luremap.htm

• LureMedia is an open standard Rich Interactive Component (RIC) that includes a fully-featured media player that can play audio, videos, or slides.http://www.luristic.com/products/products_luremedia.html