The name Dymaxicon stands for “dynamic + maximum + content” and is a twist on futurist inventor Buckminster Fuller’s coined term, Dymaxion, which stands for “dynamic + maximum + tension.”
Dymaxicon was founded in 2010 with one aim in mind: to publish high-quality books and websites that cross all genres, from software development to literary fiction, using a business model based on the bootstrapping methodologies followed by Silicon Valley software startups–informed by the idea that it is high time for the creators of content to be in charge of the culture of publishing.
Founded by and for authors, journalists and software geeks, Dymaxicon is a new kind of publishing company where small groups of authors, editors and designers work in close collaboration on projects of their own choosing–much the way software developers collaborate on bootstrapping projects in their garages–backed by the editorial, design and operations chops of a lean business built to function more like an incubator than a traditional publishing company. So while Dymaxicon has been a profitable business since day one, it is really as much a literary salon as it is a publishing house, based on the belief that great minds think alike, and that collectively we are greater than the sum of our parts. Curious to learn more? Novelist Madison Smartt Bell introduced the Dymaxicon concept in the Huffington Post: A Shape of Things to Come.
Early plans for Dymaxicon had long been lying dormant on the hard drive of Hillary Louise Johnson, a novelist, essayist and former newspaper editor who in 2010 was serving as Creative Director at Agile Learning Labs, a technology startup specializing in software development methodologies and training. Agile Learning Labs had been looking for a way to expand from services into products, and gave Hillary the go-ahead to start a publishing arm. Why would a company that specializes in training software developers found a literary publishing house? When Chris Sims founded Agile Learning Labs in 2007, one of his earliest ambitions was to create an entrepreneurial culture in which every team member and employee had room to experiment with creative business ideas in an open, laboratory environment. The idea was that the only question that really mattered in reaching for new ideas wasn’t “Why?”, but “Why not?” So it made perfect sense for Dymaxicon to publish software titles with a literary bent, and literary titles that were developed like software projects.
In October 2012, Dymaxicon spun-off from its parent company and became a stand-alone business.