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Imagine trying to convince a Yankees star pitcher to join a new, unproven Major League Baseball franchise. An impossible task? Not necessarily. Corey Reese, co-founder and CEO of Ness Computing, took on the tech-world equivalent of the challenge--and succeeded.

Reese wanted Apple engineer Scott Goodson, a member of the team that developed the iOS platform for the iPhone and the iPad, to decamp from Apple and join Ness as director of engineering. It was 11 months before Reese got a yes out of Goodson. What did it take?

"It was a mutual respect and recognition of each other's situations," Reese says. Over many (many) conversations with Goodson, Reese made it clear that the engineer could really shine at Ness, and that he could help solve a problem that had never been tackled by a startup. "It was more like, "Whenever you're ready to move, let's talk,'" Reese says, "and it was definitely worth the time to develop that relationship, because it really does start with hiring great people."