A good start to 2008
Well Q1 ’08 has been and gone. It wasn’t a bad quarter for us. Revenue was well ahead of the same period last year despite the indications of belt tightening. To date, to the best of our knowledge, we’ve had three expected orders cancelled due to budget cuts. So that is basically three lots of 6-9 months sales effort gone up in smoke. But I guess that is business.
When I posted my last blog entry I was on my way back from the US for a brief visit home prior to heading out to the Annual Euro DIA conference. My last post recalled the fact that I was in two minds as to whether we should do it (see 30th March 2007 entry). Well I decided we should and we went. What a mistake!
On first glance the whole thing stacked up. There were about 3,250 registered delegates. Allowing 750 of those for vendor booths (~250 companies exhibited) gives about 2,500 ‘real people’. So why was the exhibit hall empty? The DIA appear to have done everything right. Refreshments were in the exhibit hall and delegates had to walk past the booths to get to the refreshments. But the booth traffic was simply non-existent. From talking with other vendors we were not the only ones suffering. I had one, yes, a single meaningful conversation (ie one which may ultimately move forward into an opportunity) over the full three days. So, it was a complete waste of money, time and just about everything. Another one on the ‘we won’t do that again list’.
This leaves the whole question of how we market in Europe up in the air. Clearly exhibiting at shows is not going to do it. I have a theory about this. It’s a cultural thing. Europeans simply don’t have the same attitude to the booths, conference vendors, etc as Americans. Certainly, there is the language barrier but it goes deeper than that. The British, as an example, find the whole concept of talking to someone who may be selling to them somewhat distasteful and scary. Their image of a sales person is not a professional who knows their stuff but is more associated with the “2nd hard car salesman” or “double-glazing” salesman approach.
So that is it. I’m finally cured. No more European shows except the annual European DIA EDM conference. Even that is marginal but at least it’s relevant!
Back to European marketing …..
Speaking with several contacts there is a commonly held belief that ‘you can’t do Europe from a single country’. You need ‘feet on the street’ and, presumably, language skills, in each country. This is, of course, expensive and requires significant investment. It’s certainly nothing we can afford at present.
Then there is the re-seller/partner approach. That is attractive but we are a niche product and therefore will probably be difficult to find good re-sellers. However, it is certainly an avenue we need to explore.
There is, of course, the argument which says ‘ignore Europe’. Lots of Europeans visit the US conferences and shows. In fact, some would argue that those Europeans genuinely interested in innovative solutions and looking to solve specific business issues seek the answers in the USA rather than Europe. We have certainly seen some evidence of this and I believe that it is a partially valid argument.
So, we are currently thinking about it. You will see us continuing to concentrate on marketing in the USA and maybe try to add some firepower in the UK – our backyard. How we address the UK is yet to be determined!
There have been a couple of interesting articles about start-up and growth companies in the press recently.
This article in the FT “Founders take aim at a bigger target” (click here) discusses the fact that companies rarely make a success of the thing they first start out with and it’s the next phase product/service/offering which is successful. One example they give is PayPal starting life as a way of transmitting payments securely between Palm Pilots. Another, Flickr, the photo website, grew out of a multiplayer online game. The article goes on to discuss the novel approach of one entrepreneur/angel investor who is putting in place multiple two-man teams to develop ideas in parallel. The goal is to churn out as many promising ideas in as short a time as possible.
The concept that companies don’t make money on their initial offering is certainly true in my experience. CDC, my previous business, started out re-selling a US document management product and developed publishing technology to help itself compete and give itself an edge. It soon became apparent that our publishing technology was unique and much sought after. Therefore the obvious way forward was to port the publishing technology onto other DMS offerings. We caught the Documentum wave and ‘on a rising tide all boats go up’. We certainly did.
PleaseTech started out doing something different (XML publishing) and, through that, found itself in document review. Personally, I’m not convinced it is possible to get it ‘right first time’. However, you have to be out there demonstrating and listening - in the game, to put it another way. Demonstrating because people can’t visualise stuff from documents and listening because what they’ve seen acts as a catalyst for them to discuss what really is causing them pain. Pain = pain solution = revenue.
Another article of interest “Sequoia’s Gospel of Startups More True Than Ever” (click here) discusses the key drivers of success for any start-up looking for venture capital to drive growth. The first point, interestingly, is ‘clarity of purpose’. Not for them, presumably, the concept of a change in direction if the first idea doesn’t take off!
The article is broadly reasonable – although it does seem a little ‘motherhood and apple pie’ – and I agree with most of the points. However, there is no substitute for ‘being in the game’ and listening to feedback. I like to think that is how we are where we are. We were in the game, listened to prospective clients, and developed a solution. Yes, by-the-by we meet most of the points in the article: we now have a clear purpose, collaborative document review is a large market, it has potentially rich customers feeling pain for which we have created a novel solution which challenged conventional wisdom. We are a self-funded, organically grown company which certainly forces discipline and focus. Not having a large marketing budget, our limited marketing dollars have gone into securing clients and not raising our profile so we operate ‘below the radar’. The key point is that we didn’t set out to meet the check list – I think a successful company evolves into it.
So talking of success ……….
We are finally ‘code complete’ on our version 3.5. Obviously the code is not locked away as there are bugs to fix, etc. However the software is currently in the formal testing process. We have a revised target date for the end of the month to ship but I suspect that will slip if the testing turns up issues. This is our most technically demanding release yet and its hard stuff. But we are moving forward and Tim (our CTO) and I are flying out to Malaysia next week to discuss the next major release (v4.0) with the development team. So that is progress.
On a final note, I am of course able to fly out to Malaysia because I managed to avoid doing myself any serious damage whilst attempting to snowboard in February (see previous blog entry). It was shortly after I’d written my blog and mentioned one of the reasons for giving up learning to snowboard was the fact that I was concerned that I would do myself a serious injury, that my attention was drawn to an article at the Times Online website regarding the cheerful subject of “Ski Breaks – the X-ray stories.” (click here) There are some interesting facts and great pictures in the article, but the one which leapt out at me was the statement that “snowboarders trying the sport for the first time are almost three times as likely to injure themselves as anyone else out on the mountain.” It seems I have an instinct for self preservation!
Perhaps that is what CEOs need. The flexibility to change direction when required, the clarity of purpose to move forward (when not changing direction obviously) but, most importantly, a well developed sense of self preservation!
When I posted my last blog entry I was on my way back from the US for a brief visit home prior to heading out to the Annual Euro DIA conference. My last post recalled the fact that I was in two minds as to whether we should do it (see 30th March 2007 entry). Well I decided we should and we went. What a mistake!
On first glance the whole thing stacked up. There were about 3,250 registered delegates. Allowing 750 of those for vendor booths (~250 companies exhibited) gives about 2,500 ‘real people’. So why was the exhibit hall empty? The DIA appear to have done everything right. Refreshments were in the exhibit hall and delegates had to walk past the booths to get to the refreshments. But the booth traffic was simply non-existent. From talking with other vendors we were not the only ones suffering. I had one, yes, a single meaningful conversation (ie one which may ultimately move forward into an opportunity) over the full three days. So, it was a complete waste of money, time and just about everything. Another one on the ‘we won’t do that again list’.
This leaves the whole question of how we market in Europe up in the air. Clearly exhibiting at shows is not going to do it. I have a theory about this. It’s a cultural thing. Europeans simply don’t have the same attitude to the booths, conference vendors, etc as Americans. Certainly, there is the language barrier but it goes deeper than that. The British, as an example, find the whole concept of talking to someone who may be selling to them somewhat distasteful and scary. Their image of a sales person is not a professional who knows their stuff but is more associated with the “2nd hard car salesman” or “double-glazing” salesman approach.
So that is it. I’m finally cured. No more European shows except the annual European DIA EDM conference. Even that is marginal but at least it’s relevant!
Back to European marketing …..
Speaking with several contacts there is a commonly held belief that ‘you can’t do Europe from a single country’. You need ‘feet on the street’ and, presumably, language skills, in each country. This is, of course, expensive and requires significant investment. It’s certainly nothing we can afford at present.
Then there is the re-seller/partner approach. That is attractive but we are a niche product and therefore will probably be difficult to find good re-sellers. However, it is certainly an avenue we need to explore.
There is, of course, the argument which says ‘ignore Europe’. Lots of Europeans visit the US conferences and shows. In fact, some would argue that those Europeans genuinely interested in innovative solutions and looking to solve specific business issues seek the answers in the USA rather than Europe. We have certainly seen some evidence of this and I believe that it is a partially valid argument.
So, we are currently thinking about it. You will see us continuing to concentrate on marketing in the USA and maybe try to add some firepower in the UK – our backyard. How we address the UK is yet to be determined!
There have been a couple of interesting articles about start-up and growth companies in the press recently.
This article in the FT “Founders take aim at a bigger target” (click here) discusses the fact that companies rarely make a success of the thing they first start out with and it’s the next phase product/service/offering which is successful. One example they give is PayPal starting life as a way of transmitting payments securely between Palm Pilots. Another, Flickr, the photo website, grew out of a multiplayer online game. The article goes on to discuss the novel approach of one entrepreneur/angel investor who is putting in place multiple two-man teams to develop ideas in parallel. The goal is to churn out as many promising ideas in as short a time as possible.
The concept that companies don’t make money on their initial offering is certainly true in my experience. CDC, my previous business, started out re-selling a US document management product and developed publishing technology to help itself compete and give itself an edge. It soon became apparent that our publishing technology was unique and much sought after. Therefore the obvious way forward was to port the publishing technology onto other DMS offerings. We caught the Documentum wave and ‘on a rising tide all boats go up’. We certainly did.
PleaseTech started out doing something different (XML publishing) and, through that, found itself in document review. Personally, I’m not convinced it is possible to get it ‘right first time’. However, you have to be out there demonstrating and listening - in the game, to put it another way. Demonstrating because people can’t visualise stuff from documents and listening because what they’ve seen acts as a catalyst for them to discuss what really is causing them pain. Pain = pain solution = revenue.
Another article of interest “Sequoia’s Gospel of Startups More True Than Ever” (click here) discusses the key drivers of success for any start-up looking for venture capital to drive growth. The first point, interestingly, is ‘clarity of purpose’. Not for them, presumably, the concept of a change in direction if the first idea doesn’t take off!
The article is broadly reasonable – although it does seem a little ‘motherhood and apple pie’ – and I agree with most of the points. However, there is no substitute for ‘being in the game’ and listening to feedback. I like to think that is how we are where we are. We were in the game, listened to prospective clients, and developed a solution. Yes, by-the-by we meet most of the points in the article: we now have a clear purpose, collaborative document review is a large market, it has potentially rich customers feeling pain for which we have created a novel solution which challenged conventional wisdom. We are a self-funded, organically grown company which certainly forces discipline and focus. Not having a large marketing budget, our limited marketing dollars have gone into securing clients and not raising our profile so we operate ‘below the radar’. The key point is that we didn’t set out to meet the check list – I think a successful company evolves into it.
So talking of success ……….
We are finally ‘code complete’ on our version 3.5. Obviously the code is not locked away as there are bugs to fix, etc. However the software is currently in the formal testing process. We have a revised target date for the end of the month to ship but I suspect that will slip if the testing turns up issues. This is our most technically demanding release yet and its hard stuff. But we are moving forward and Tim (our CTO) and I are flying out to Malaysia next week to discuss the next major release (v4.0) with the development team. So that is progress.
On a final note, I am of course able to fly out to Malaysia because I managed to avoid doing myself any serious damage whilst attempting to snowboard in February (see previous blog entry). It was shortly after I’d written my blog and mentioned one of the reasons for giving up learning to snowboard was the fact that I was concerned that I would do myself a serious injury, that my attention was drawn to an article at the Times Online website regarding the cheerful subject of “Ski Breaks – the X-ray stories.” (click here) There are some interesting facts and great pictures in the article, but the one which leapt out at me was the statement that “snowboarders trying the sport for the first time are almost three times as likely to injure themselves as anyone else out on the mountain.” It seems I have an instinct for self preservation!
Perhaps that is what CEOs need. The flexibility to change direction when required, the clarity of purpose to move forward (when not changing direction obviously) but, most importantly, a well developed sense of self preservation!
posted by David Cornwell, PleaseTech Ltd at 3:39 PM
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