Jeff Medeiros

Jeff Medeiros, and his business partner Keith Adams believe that once you filter out the unnecessary noise of managing what is currently a digital tsunami–multiple emails, calendars, contacts, to-do’s, document/content storage systems–and give people a tool to manage their basic digital lives from a single all-in-one place, anything is possible.

Jeff and Keith founded and run a software company called Keastone which has operations and marketing based in Prague, software development in Bangalore, and headquarters in San Francisco. Their teams are currently working on the release of IRIIIS, with a soft launch planned for the first quarter in 2018. IRIIIS is a software platform and services that they believe will help everyone who uses basic personal productivity applications to unlock greater opportunities in how everyday people get things done.

The idea for IRIIIS began when Medeiros and his partner came to Prague to begin a bicycling trip around Europe. Along the way, they were introduced to scientists working on an EU project and who were having problems managing all their digital information in a way that easily allowed them to work by themselves and collaboratively. “Long story short,” he says, “we figured out how to help them, and we also figured out that their problem is everyone’s problem.”

Most people are forced to work with multiple applications and sources of information to try to get their work done or to collaborate with others. However, the opposite usually happens because people spend more time trying to manage all the different programs on their computers, phones and the cloud than actually do working. They proved this in their research, which was also Medeiros’ MBA thesis. IRIIIS is a client and cloud-based system that pulls all the data in to one place and on to one integrated system so users can “get back to work instead of focusing on managing their stuff,” Medeiros says.

While other platforms achieve part of this, they usually fall short of integrating everything. For example, some might offer instant messaging, but fail to incorporate email, and another might only provide document or content storage. “Everyone is trying to do it from a different angle,” Medeiros says. “We’re doing it in an all-inclusive, comprehensive way,” It turns out, from our research and beta testing, that if you don’t have all of the core services together, then you simply can’t get the maximum benefit and you’re forever jumping from one app to another.

Before he began work on IRIIIS, Medeiros had a successful career in technology in the San Francisco Bay Area. A graduate of UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Medeiros worked for IBM as a large systems specialist after graduating with his Bachelor’s degree. During the dotcom bubble, he and his partner started their own computer firm focused on the design and installation of complex IT infrastructures to support the Y2K requirements and the newly and rapidly expanding host of internet based businesses and services.

It was at the beginning of the recession when Medeiros decided to leave the United States for Europe. During that time, he started teaching e-commerce and entrepreneurship at the University of New York in Prague while also getting his MBA. Before starting UNYP’s MBA program, he was a little skeptical. He had already had a successful career and as CEO for a firm for over 13 years felt he had learned quite a bit. “At the time I was like, I’m 45, what am I going to learn?” he says. However, once he started he realized he was wrong. “There were so many talented professors with experience from various fields that proved invaluable and complementary to what I already knew and experienced,” he says.

UNYP also provided a great network of graduates that Medeiros now has on his team at Keastone. Unlike other schools, UNYP alumni stay connected long after graduation. “I’ve made more relevant contacts in business through UNYP than UC Berkeley,” Medeiros says.

Even now, as Medeiros and his team grows, he says when it comes to solving problems, he’s “constantly coming back to the things I learned or relearned in the UNYP MBA program. This has allowed us to build Keastone on a much more stable strategic foundation with creative tactics, which increases our likelihood of success. And I continue to communicate with and leverage all of the bright and creative folks I’ve met along the way. The UNYP MBA program is a winner.”