Yet more of the same …………..
Well, they say that “time flies when you are having fun” and I can’t believe that I last blogged in early June. At that time we were anticipating the opening of the Malaysian development center and were excited by the year to date sales and the prospect list. Well not much changes!
So what is the news?
June saw the annual DIA conference, this year in Atlanta. It was an average show for us even though we had a good booth location. The basic problem is the sheer size of the conference. It is easy to get lost. We have signed up again for next year but I can’t help but feel that it would help everyone if there was some kind of ‘zoning’ employed. So, for example, software companies in a single zone, recruitment companies in another, CROs in a third and so on. Currently it’s pretty random for both us vendors and the delegates as to whether they ‘happen’ upon a booth or not. Some delegates do undertake pre visit planning and work out which companies they wish to visit. However, I’d wager a majority don’t have the time for that and simply try to cover the floor in a logical manner. So they walk up and down the aisles trying to spot something of interest. Covering the entire floor is itself a non-trivial exercise. I managed it over the course of the three days but it took a lot of walking. Zoning would help delegates decide where to concentrate their attention.
July saw a visit to Malaysia for some further interviewing of additional development and test staff. This was not without its amusing interludes. It’s the first time in my career I’ve interviewed a Software Engineer who had a sales target! An interesting concept which I suspect wouldn’t catch on in PleaseTech. I was also ‘hoisted by my own petard’ during one interview by an interviewee who had obviously read this blog in some depth. When I suggested that the next stage may be a telephone interview with Tim Robinson our CTO, my blog entry which stated that “telephone interviewing is actually quite hard” was quoted back at me! Full marks for having read the blog.
The Malaysian development center is up and running and delivering code and testing the forthcoming v3.4 release. A majority of our forthcoming v3.4 release has been developed in Malaysia and the team is fitting in seamlessly with the UK team. I love it when a plan works!
The 3.4 release is currently in final testing and, among other things includes additional functionality to enable the recording and reporting of review metrics. This is emerging as an increasingly important feature for a number of clients and prospective clients. We will then start work on a v3.5 release prior to the longer term 4.0 development. This is a change of strategy since earlier in the year when we had envisaged v3.3 being followed by a v4.0 release at Christmas this year. However, ‘the only constant is change’ and, to meet client requirements and contractual commitments, we had to revise the plan. The v3.5 release will contain some functionality which would have been in the v4.0 release but which we don’t feel that we can leave until Q3/Q4 next year.
So the current plan to release the v3.4 in the next couple of weeks (we are code complete on this now), then v3.5 towards the end of the year or in January followed by a major development and the release of v4.0.
One of the real issues with a product such as PleaseReview is the ongoing change of other products. Adobe Acrobat 8, Word 2007, Vista all need to be supported just to stand still! The work is never ending.
The September & October conference season kicked off in mid September with the Lorenz User conference. This year held in Nice, S. France. What a wonderful place. I can highly recommend it. As always the conference was well organised and well worth attending. The Lorenz conference was followed rapidly by RAPS (Regulatory Affairs Professional Society) conference, this year in Boston. We manage to combine the conference with some visits to clients, prospects and partners in the Cambridge, MA area so it was a good visit.
The problem with this time of year is that the conferences come thick and fast. So, back to the UK for a week before turning around and flying back across the pond to Atlanta (again!) for the AMWA (American Medical Writers Association) conference. I think this year the conference was marginal. We will have to see whether we do it again next year – the jury is out. Then back home for a week before a 9 day trip which I am in the middle of as I write. The schedule for this trip is crazy. Fly into Philadelphia on the Monday arriving late evening. 1st thing the next morning fly down to Florida for LiveLinkUp the Open Text User Conference. Then Tuesday evening, Wednesday and Thursday flat out at the user conference, fly up to Philly 1st thing Friday morning, leap into a car for some visits. Saturday off to catch up on the email (and write this blog entry), then fly up to Ottawa on Sunday for the DIA Canada conference, fly back Tuesday evening to Philly, make some visits on the Wednesday before flying home on the Wednesday evening – you have to be fit to tale the pace!
The Open Text User Meeting in Orlando was an excellent conference for us. The size and focus of the conference was good and the booths were reasonable value for money. It reminded me of the Documentum Momentum user conferences of a few years ago before EMC entered the equation. Once EMC took over Momentum lost its focus and the booth prices went up but the number of delegates appeared to remain fairly stable. So consequently the value for money went down and we are no longer able to justify attending Momentum. Hopefully LiveLinkUp will not go that way.
On a slightly different note, those of you questioning my ‘carbon footprint’ will be please to learn that, as a company, we are corporate members of The Woodland Trust. Whilst not a formal carbon offset scheme, The Woodland Trust invests in and maintains native woodlands throughout the UK and is a very worthwhile cause – it also provides a carbon offset opportunity for us as a business. I have an inherent distrust of the dedicated carbon offset schemes but have always supported The Woodland Trust as a private individual. So it works well for us. Whilst we are on the subject, we also recycle all old print cartridges and used paper. So we are not all bad!
Some people question the wisdom of doing all these conferences. With a schedule like mine I sometimes wonder as well. However, all I can say is that it works for us. Our prospects list is strong, our client base growing and, most gratifyingly, existing clients are rolling out and placing orders for additional users. It looks like we will make the ambitious revenue target we set ourselves this year and may even exceed it.
The conferences are not the only marketing we undertake – but it is the only proactive marketing. The reactive marketing is the use of Google & Yahoo sponsored searches. As previously, mentioned these programs also deliver a good stream of prospects and clients.
The real question we are going to be facing over the next year is ‘how fast do we want to expand the business’? The options are to continue to pursue the organic growth model where every $ spent is earned via revenue and expansion comes out of profit. Or so we seek external investors and give up some control of the business. Having been through the venture capital route with CDC Solutions (where over three years we took £11 million / US$22 million) in investment, I’m keen to grow the business as much as possible without VC support. However, we have to continually monitor the progress and take rational decisions. It’s a tough one. Obviously we want to expand and address the undoubted market opportunity we have but we also want to retain control, concentrate on the task in hand and not spend hours on investor management. We will see.
Well I’ll try and get the next blog entry out in December. Between now and then I’ll be home for about 10 days and then over in the USA for a week and then back to the UK and then back to Boston and then off to Prague. I’m looking forward to a Christmas break already.
So what is the news?
June saw the annual DIA conference, this year in Atlanta. It was an average show for us even though we had a good booth location. The basic problem is the sheer size of the conference. It is easy to get lost. We have signed up again for next year but I can’t help but feel that it would help everyone if there was some kind of ‘zoning’ employed. So, for example, software companies in a single zone, recruitment companies in another, CROs in a third and so on. Currently it’s pretty random for both us vendors and the delegates as to whether they ‘happen’ upon a booth or not. Some delegates do undertake pre visit planning and work out which companies they wish to visit. However, I’d wager a majority don’t have the time for that and simply try to cover the floor in a logical manner. So they walk up and down the aisles trying to spot something of interest. Covering the entire floor is itself a non-trivial exercise. I managed it over the course of the three days but it took a lot of walking. Zoning would help delegates decide where to concentrate their attention.
July saw a visit to Malaysia for some further interviewing of additional development and test staff. This was not without its amusing interludes. It’s the first time in my career I’ve interviewed a Software Engineer who had a sales target! An interesting concept which I suspect wouldn’t catch on in PleaseTech. I was also ‘hoisted by my own petard’ during one interview by an interviewee who had obviously read this blog in some depth. When I suggested that the next stage may be a telephone interview with Tim Robinson our CTO, my blog entry which stated that “telephone interviewing is actually quite hard” was quoted back at me! Full marks for having read the blog.
The Malaysian development center is up and running and delivering code and testing the forthcoming v3.4 release. A majority of our forthcoming v3.4 release has been developed in Malaysia and the team is fitting in seamlessly with the UK team. I love it when a plan works!
The 3.4 release is currently in final testing and, among other things includes additional functionality to enable the recording and reporting of review metrics. This is emerging as an increasingly important feature for a number of clients and prospective clients. We will then start work on a v3.5 release prior to the longer term 4.0 development. This is a change of strategy since earlier in the year when we had envisaged v3.3 being followed by a v4.0 release at Christmas this year. However, ‘the only constant is change’ and, to meet client requirements and contractual commitments, we had to revise the plan. The v3.5 release will contain some functionality which would have been in the v4.0 release but which we don’t feel that we can leave until Q3/Q4 next year.
So the current plan to release the v3.4 in the next couple of weeks (we are code complete on this now), then v3.5 towards the end of the year or in January followed by a major development and the release of v4.0.
One of the real issues with a product such as PleaseReview is the ongoing change of other products. Adobe Acrobat 8, Word 2007, Vista all need to be supported just to stand still! The work is never ending.
The September & October conference season kicked off in mid September with the Lorenz User conference. This year held in Nice, S. France. What a wonderful place. I can highly recommend it. As always the conference was well organised and well worth attending. The Lorenz conference was followed rapidly by RAPS (Regulatory Affairs Professional Society) conference, this year in Boston. We manage to combine the conference with some visits to clients, prospects and partners in the Cambridge, MA area so it was a good visit.
The problem with this time of year is that the conferences come thick and fast. So, back to the UK for a week before turning around and flying back across the pond to Atlanta (again!) for the AMWA (American Medical Writers Association) conference. I think this year the conference was marginal. We will have to see whether we do it again next year – the jury is out. Then back home for a week before a 9 day trip which I am in the middle of as I write. The schedule for this trip is crazy. Fly into Philadelphia on the Monday arriving late evening. 1st thing the next morning fly down to Florida for LiveLinkUp the Open Text User Conference. Then Tuesday evening, Wednesday and Thursday flat out at the user conference, fly up to Philly 1st thing Friday morning, leap into a car for some visits. Saturday off to catch up on the email (and write this blog entry), then fly up to Ottawa on Sunday for the DIA Canada conference, fly back Tuesday evening to Philly, make some visits on the Wednesday before flying home on the Wednesday evening – you have to be fit to tale the pace!
The Open Text User Meeting in Orlando was an excellent conference for us. The size and focus of the conference was good and the booths were reasonable value for money. It reminded me of the Documentum Momentum user conferences of a few years ago before EMC entered the equation. Once EMC took over Momentum lost its focus and the booth prices went up but the number of delegates appeared to remain fairly stable. So consequently the value for money went down and we are no longer able to justify attending Momentum. Hopefully LiveLinkUp will not go that way.
On a slightly different note, those of you questioning my ‘carbon footprint’ will be please to learn that, as a company, we are corporate members of The Woodland Trust. Whilst not a formal carbon offset scheme, The Woodland Trust invests in and maintains native woodlands throughout the UK and is a very worthwhile cause – it also provides a carbon offset opportunity for us as a business. I have an inherent distrust of the dedicated carbon offset schemes but have always supported The Woodland Trust as a private individual. So it works well for us. Whilst we are on the subject, we also recycle all old print cartridges and used paper. So we are not all bad!
Some people question the wisdom of doing all these conferences. With a schedule like mine I sometimes wonder as well. However, all I can say is that it works for us. Our prospects list is strong, our client base growing and, most gratifyingly, existing clients are rolling out and placing orders for additional users. It looks like we will make the ambitious revenue target we set ourselves this year and may even exceed it.
The conferences are not the only marketing we undertake – but it is the only proactive marketing. The reactive marketing is the use of Google & Yahoo sponsored searches. As previously, mentioned these programs also deliver a good stream of prospects and clients.
The real question we are going to be facing over the next year is ‘how fast do we want to expand the business’? The options are to continue to pursue the organic growth model where every $ spent is earned via revenue and expansion comes out of profit. Or so we seek external investors and give up some control of the business. Having been through the venture capital route with CDC Solutions (where over three years we took £11 million / US$22 million) in investment, I’m keen to grow the business as much as possible without VC support. However, we have to continually monitor the progress and take rational decisions. It’s a tough one. Obviously we want to expand and address the undoubted market opportunity we have but we also want to retain control, concentrate on the task in hand and not spend hours on investor management. We will see.
Well I’ll try and get the next blog entry out in December. Between now and then I’ll be home for about 10 days and then over in the USA for a week and then back to the UK and then back to Boston and then off to Prague. I’m looking forward to a Christmas break already.
posted by David Cornwell, PleaseTech Ltd at 2:28 PM
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