There's more to life than just software, ex-Plex Systems CEO & founder Beatty finds out (repost)

Tom Paine

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Robert Beatty / LinkedIn

Robert Beatty founded and headed the cloud manufacturing ERP company Plex Systems (not to be confused with the home media player). Based in Michigan, (Beatty attended Michigan State) Plex did much of its early work in auto-related industries. Its primary investors today are Francisco Partners and Accel Partners, and in June 2014  Plex secured $50 million in financing from institutional and hedge funds managed by T. Rowe Price, at a reported $500 million valuation. The company would like to IPO if market conditions are right; it certainly could be an acquisition candidate for a large ERP vendor that wants to strengthen its application's connection to the shop floor, a concept that is hot right now.

But Beatty is no longer with Plex. He left as CEO in 2006, though remaining as Chairman until 2012. His immediate reason for leaving was a family health issue (now fortunately under control), but once removed from the day-to-day grind he began to follow his desire to write again, which was suppressed by the exhaustion bought on by 70 to 80 hour work weeks (a feeling many of us have known.) The family decided to move and settled on Asheville, NC, alternatively known as the "Paris of the South" or a mountain oasis, with a good bit of Appalachian backwardness mixed in.

Here the script of his life takes another interesting turn. Beatty works on writing to an adult audience, struggling somewhat, but a daughter pushes him to try writing something for kids or the "tweener" audience, portraying a young girl as a heroine. His Serafina and the Black Cloak, published in mid-July, is the story of a young girl who wanders the enormous Biltmore Estate in Asheville and faces up to a potentially dangerous mystery. The novel became a New York Times Bestseller in the first week of its release. Its published by Disney's Hyperion, which leads to questions about whether a movie will follow (they've already produced a trailer for the book):





Meanwhile, Beatty, 51, maintains some business interests, including a firm he founded called Beatty Robotics, based in Asheville. He told an area newspaper he has the go-ahead from Hyperion for two more titles.