EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
General => General Technical Chat => Topic started by: John_ITIC on January 17, 2016, 12:43:08 am
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I'm considering partnering up with a driven individual that can handle the business and sales aspects of my ITIC protocol analyzer business. The plan would be to find a partner with the skills, personality and perseverance to first attract seed funding and later venture capital for future growth of my business. Just like dating, I find the prospect of personally spending a huge amount of time socializing, socializing and even more socializing daunting. I'm a technology guy and can spend years in my lab learning the ins and outs of technology but find that spending days or weeks talking to people more or less randomly is extremely frustrating and emotionally draining. Business is a job for an extrovert and I am a hard-core engineer and introvert! Surely, there must be a better way to find a business partner online and I'm sure lots of people on the EEVBlog have much to say on the topic! Heck, I even found my wife online so surely society must have evolved to meet the right business partner online too; but where?
My goal is to find a person that will contribute the business experience, contact network etc., which complement my engineering skills. As an analogy, I'm more like Steven Wozniak that needed his Steve Jobs to get anywhere business-wise. Had it not been for Steve Jobs, Wozniak would probably still be sitting in that cubicle at HP (sorry Woz).
ITIC's site is here:
http://www.internationaltestinstruments.com/default.aspx (http://www.internationaltestinstruments.com/default.aspx)
For project and product background, see here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/itic/professional-usb-20-ls-fs-hs-protocol-analyzer-mod (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/itic/professional-usb-20-ls-fs-hs-protocol-analyzer-mod)
My consulting practice is here:
http://www.summitsoftconsulting.com/ (http://www.summitsoftconsulting.com/)
My original plan was to self-fund (bootstrap) the ITIC business by doing consulting on the side. I have done that for years with the result that that I'm constantly chasing the product-cycle bell-curve. These products are so complex that by the time they are completed, the market has moved on to the next technology. What is needed is to initially allow me to complete the USB 3.0 protocol analyzer project without having to do consulting on the side to self-fund the project. For that, some cash flow would be needed, around (net) $5K USD/month, for about 3-6 months. At a later stage, more engineering resources are likely needed to get to the market sooner. For this, a business partner is needed such that funding can be obtained. Personally (like Steven Wozniak) I prefer to stay in technology rather than being forced against my will into the business side of things. Steven Wozniak would never have gotten his "board in a box" funded had it not been for Jobs (sorry again Woz!).
Finally, this is not another "I have a great business idea - just need some money" post. I have plenty of skin in the game since I have put in close to 10 years and somewhere of north of $500K USD getting on top of these technologies. Actual products are sold and working prototypes of the latest product is available. I have sold some 850 of these protocol analyzers and am now about to complete the third unit, which is a USB 3.0 Protocol Analyzer. There clearly is a market for these high-speed serial protocol analyzers as everything is going serial. USB, HDMI, SATA, SAS, Networking, NMVe, PCIe etc., etc. Now, it is time to leverage this knowledge and it is time for some seed funding!
Thanks,
/John.
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You could start by adding a (Steve) Jobs section. to your website. aka "partner opportunity".
Or shoot an email to Woz. He is a nice guy, he may have a few people in mind.
"If you want something in your life you've never had, your'll have to do something, you've never done"
as the saying goes...
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The plan would be to find a partner with the skills, personality and perseverance to first attract seed funding and later venture capital for future growth of my business....
If that's the value-add of your partner, what is yours? why does s/he need you?
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The plan would be to find a partner with the skills, personality and perseverance to first attract seed funding and later venture capital for future growth of my business....
If that's the value-add of your partner, what is yours? why does s/he need you?
20 years engineering experience, 10 years and $500, 000 product development and working products in a fairly hot niche segment. In addition, I have existing distributors in about 10 countries, including Japan, EU, USA, Australia, India, China etc. What is missing is business-savvy and cash-infusion to get to the next level.
I'm sure there are lots of educated, experienced, business-savvy people looking for good technologies to sell. The question is *where to find such people*?
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You could start by adding a (Steve) Jobs section. to your website. aka "partner opportunity".
Or shoot an email to Woz. He is a nice guy, he may have a few people in mind.
"If you want something in your life you've never had, your'll have to do something, you've never done"
as the saying goes...
Serious responses only, please...
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I feel your Pain John. |O
I am in the same position. My product has been awarded locally and by the E.U. Yet I am still to get it investment funded to scale into manufacturing and I quit my job to develop this over the last 2 to 3 years.
I am living in the developing world and sometimes it really sucks, no VC's , greedy middlemen, endemic corruption.
have a look....at my latest effort to get it going.
https://www.patreon.com/batteryguy?ty=h (https://www.patreon.com/batteryguy?ty=h)
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It has to be people around you. People you already know and trust, and vice versa.
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It has to be people around you. People you already know and trust, and vice versa.
The few entrepreneurs I know suggest going to the local meetings to network. Perhaps I will have to do just that but I wanted to find out whether there are better options than to enter the fast-pitch clown-suit competition each Tuesday...
https://www.techcoastangels.com/press/san-diego-tech-coast-angels-announce-finalists-sixth-annual-quick-pitch-competition (https://www.techcoastangels.com/press/san-diego-tech-coast-angels-announce-finalists-sixth-annual-quick-pitch-competition)
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I feel your Pain John. |O
I am in the same position. My product has been awarded locally and by the E.U. Yet I am still to get it investment funded to scale into manufacturing and I quit my job to develop this over the last 2 to 3 years.
I am living in the developing world and sometimes it really sucks, no VC's , greedy middlemen, endemic corruption.
have a look....at my latest effort to get it going.
https://www.patreon.com/batteryguy?ty=h (https://www.patreon.com/batteryguy?ty=h)
In general, to prove the value, one must have a proven track record of successful ventures to be taken seriously by investors. Investors are (as they should be) suspicious and need proof of the viability of the products. As a first stage, one would be expected to contribute lots of ones own time and money and take the product as far as possible. This is why I have spent 10 years and half a million USD to get to the point where the products are in the same ball-part as the major competitors, which are actual big corporations. As a professional engineer, I could very well have worked in one of those corporations but with real funding, and quicker time to market, the ITIC protocol analyzers have a good chance to be good sellers.
Nobody is expected to work for nothing so the "greedy middle-men" are unfortunately often needed. As they say, 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing...
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It has to be people around you. People you already know and trust, and vice versa.
The few entrepreneurs I know suggest going to the local meetings to network. Perhaps I will have to do just that but I wanted to find out whether there are better options than to enter the fast-pitch clown-suit competition each Tuesday...
https://www.techcoastangels.com/press/san-diego-tech-coast-angels-announce-finalists-sixth-annual-quick-pitch-competition (https://www.techcoastangels.com/press/san-diego-tech-coast-angels-announce-finalists-sixth-annual-quick-pitch-competition)
My emphasis is still on building up the pool of trusted like minded people and then choose from there, than aiming for the "driven Steve". How sure can the "driven Steve" stay on the game? and fairly executing what he is supposed to be doing? In your question, I can sense that you actually already knew the best course of action for your case which is to force yourself out of the comfort zone, and be the one driving and managing. Development of the product is easier to delegate to hired hands.
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The plan would be to find a partner with the skills, personality and perseverance to first attract seed funding and later venture capital for future growth of my business.
You mean "our" business, right?
You and your new partner.
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In your question, I can sense that you actually already knew the best course of action for your case which is to force yourself out of the comfort zone, and be the one driving and managing. Development of the product is easier to delegate to hired hands.
Yes, I can drive and manage the technical side of things but my personality type is not suited for the business-side of things. I'd rather take a job in engineering than be forced over to the business-side in my own company. I can be CTO but not CEO. I know that the local Angel group"https://www.techcoastangels.com/" may assist with finding business-savvy people to run the business side of things but I have heard from a friend that they have no clue about technology, having made their money in real-estate, essentially. Having some investor choose the management team for me seems a bit risky so I would want to find the partner first...
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The plan would be to find a partner with the skills, personality and perseverance to first attract seed funding and later venture capital for future growth of my business.
You mean "our" business, right?
You and your new partner.
Yep, correct. But written in the present. Old habit and all that. I'm well past the thoughts that a tiny bit is given away to the partner. For the right person, I'm ready to give away 50% of the company. That requires a solid business experience of such partner. I've tried using distributors but their cut is too small to give them a real incentive to work hard. They rather sell Agilent than ITIC. Much better margins.
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I'm not sure why you need a business partner to pitch the idea for you.
You already have an accepted polished product in the market, that's streets ahead of most other pitches with just an idea or a breadboard prototype.
I'd simply go pitching and see what happens.
Instead you seem to wanting someone to handle sales and business (combined CEO/salesman?) who can also pitch the business. That means simply another person to dilute the business share with when you get funding.
e.g. If you pitch and you get funding then you might still own 50% of the company.
But if you get a 50% partner first and then get funding, then you find yourself with only 25%.
I'd cut out the middle man.
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I'm not sure why you need a business partner to pitch the idea for you.
You already have an accepted polished product in the market, that's streets ahead of most other pitches with just an idea or a breadboard prototype.
I'd simply go pitching and see what happens.
Instead you seem to wanting someone to handle sales and business (combined CEO/salesman?) who can also pitch the business. That means simply another person to dilute the business share with when you get funding.
e.g. If you pitch and you get funding then you might still own 50% of the company.
But if you get a 50% partner first and then get funding, then you find yourself with only 25%.
I'd cut out the middle man.
I suppose I would want to have someone with a proven business track record to give more credibility. Just because one can create a product doesn't guarantee that one knows how to build a business around it. Engineers tend to think that it is the product that matters while it is actually the business processes around the product that makes it sell. I can deal with the product development cycle short-term but I don't have the business experience / savvy to leverage these products to make sufficient revenue to support the product development long-term. The first an investor would ask is "who is your team" - a response like "it's just me" doesn't instill much confidence. Perhaps, though, an investor would understand, take 50% of the company and put in enough cash to allow the business folks to be hired into the team.
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You may be better off building it up slowly, on a shoestring, on your own, than asking somebody else to invest a lot of sweat equity in what in effect sounds like you want to still be "your" business.
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You may be better off building it up slowly, on a shoestring, on your own, than asking somebody else to invest a lot of sweat equity in what in effect sounds like you want to still be "your" business.
Thank you for your input. However, it appears you didn't read that I have already boot strapped for ten years. I have also been quite clear that I'm prepared to give up to 50% for money/expertise needed to grow. The product cycles are faster than I can develop on my own so more resources are needed to keep up with the market. Continued bootstrapping is not possible, realistically.
I'm currently watching (again) a nice video from our local angel investor group. What scares me a bit is that they appear to have very stringent investment criteria, like $10 to $50 million revenue per year after 5 years. I know that my smallest competitor is selling about 1/10th of that. Larger competitors sell in the $10M range, likely. Perhaps a more aggressive business plan and team can fix that...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpYQqv-LdxQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpYQqv-LdxQ)
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The last person you want is a Steve Jobs type person.
Unless you want to give up all control to them and be a silent partner.
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The last person you want is a Steve Jobs type person.
Unless you want to give up all control to them and be a silent partner.
No, that would be a very nice position. As long as the goods sell and I can focus on technology. Some people want to be in charge. I just want ownership of the technology I create. Essentially, I want to create my own ideal job with ownership rather than work without ownership in somebody else's business.
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Trade shows are full of business people, find one that impresses you and you have confidence by looking how he sells and how many contacts in the industry s/he has and that has the potential of a good CEO, you being the CTO.
But it depends what salary you can offer because they like to get paid. But be aware that rapid growth can result in rapid death too. He is going to need a sales force and more employees, meaning once you ramp up to that scale there is no going back until you stabilize.
Edit: The question is, can your product maintain that? Is the market untapped?
You can always go the Mark Cuban or Robert Herjavec route, they do have the contacts but not really full dedication, but they do have the money. Problem is you got to be a good salesman to sell your product to them 1st.
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The plan would be to find a partner with the skills, personality and perseverance to first attract seed funding and later venture capital for future growth of my business....
If that's the value-add of your partner, what is yours? why does s/he need you?
Because without some solid reason to be in business, s/he will be over on one of those sleazy crowd-funding places promoting something stupid and bilking people out of their money.
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Trade shows are full of business people, find one that impresses you and you have confidence by looking how he sells and how many contacts in the industry s/he has and that has the potential of a good CEO, you being the CTO.
But it depends what salary you can offer because they like to get paid. But be aware that rapid growth can result in rapid death too. He is going to need a sales force and more employees, meaning once you ramp up to that scale there is no going back until you stabilize.
Thanks. For that option to work, I would have to go in and pitch the company myself and later hire a management and sales team. With OPM (other people's money), this can be done. Given the feedback so far, this seems like the most viable option. As the above video shows, our local angel group also provide business coaching and introduction to business people that can even out the team. In addition, they provide a path to continued funding by venture capital firms once the business has grown sufficiently.
Edit: No, the market is not untapped. There are a couple smaller companies as well as 2-3 larger corporations in this field. One of the main business questions is how to differentiate the ITIC protocol analyzers. Frankly, the competitor's software is very bad - clearly created by hardware engineers trying to do software engineering. Software these days is a big part of the products so could be a differentiating factor.
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In my opinion (which doesn't really mean anything but you did ask on a public forum) you don't need a partner. You need an employee. If you are taking the passive role of saying you aren't any good at a MAJOR part of your business and you have no desire to learn or are incapable of learning how to get better at it, anyone you partner with to effectively run your company is going to crap on you and you are going to get screwed in the end. Your example of Steve Jobs is a good one. Look at how Jobs crapped on the Woz when he let him handle all the business stuff because Woz just wanted to play with circuits. Their first business deal (where Woz did all the work) started with a lie where Steve lied to Woz about how much money they made. Woz only ended up with tons of money because he and Jobs got lucky in the beginning. Steve Jobs was a world class dick that got WAY more credit than he deserved and was by all accounts a shitty person to work with. We need zero more people like him anywhere. Are you really looking to infect your company with that? It sounds to me like you need a sales and marketing guy and spend a little less time yourself in the lab.
One major tennent of owning your own business is that you should be spending the majority of your time working ON your business not AT your business. After the initial just-you period, you should be doing progressively less and less work yourself and moving that to employees. If there is one thing that will absolutely positively never ever ever (exaggerate much smokey?) scale to any reasonable measure of success it's a one man operation that stays a one man operation.
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In my opinion (which doesn't really mean anything but you did ask on a public forum) you don't need a partner. You need an employee. If you are taking the passive role of saying you aren't any good at a MAJOR part of your business and you have no desire to learn or are incapable of learning how to get better at it, anyone you partner with to effectively run your company is going to crap on you and you are going to get screwed in the end. Your example of Steve Jobs is a good one. Look at how Jobs crapped on the Woz when he let him handle all the business stuff because Woz just wanted to play with circuits. Their first business deal (where Woz did all the work) started with a lie where Steve lied to Woz about how much money they made. Woz only ended up with tons of money because he and Jobs got lucky in the beginning. Steve Jobs was a world class dick that got WAY more credit than he deserved and was by all accounts a shitty person to work with. We need zero more people like him anywhere. Are you really looking to infect your company with that? It sounds to me like you need a sales and marketing guy and spend a little less time yourself in the lab.
One major tennent of owning your own business is that you should be spending the majority of your time working ON your business not AT your business. After the initial just-you period, you should be doing progressively less and less work yourself and moving that to employees. If there is one thing that will absolutely positively never ever ever (exaggerate much smokey?) scale to any reasonable measure of success it's a one man operation that stays a one man operation.
Thanks for the input. Yes, I think I agree. I'm now leaning towards pitching my company myself. Up till this point, somebody had to actually do the work of creating the products, handle sales, work on web site and marketing etc so little time was left over on strategy and overall business strategy. With funding, parts can be off-loaded. But the question is; what parts? Given that my background is 20 years of hard-core consulting experience in both hardware and software, it seems like a waste of experience if I were to move over to the business side. People are trained in business just like people are trained in technology so I can only assume that it would take close to 20 years to fully know what you are doing on the business side. by that time I would be long retired, which is the main reason I originally asked for a competent business partner. But, again, this skillset could be bought once funding comes through. As can additional engineering and sales resources. Long-term, I can envision a more hands-off CTO role.
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I suppose I would want to have someone with a proven business track record to give more credibility. Just because one can create a product doesn't guarantee that one knows how to build a business around it.
That's typically what the angel investor / VC's are for. They will often help with that and even appoint their own CEO's and directors etc.
They don't usually just give you money and hope for the best, they offer advice, help find people etc.
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No, that would be a very nice position. As long as the goods sell and I can focus on technology. Some people want to be in charge. I just want ownership of the technology I create.
Once you take VC money, the game is up, you don't own it any more, the investors do. You just have a part share, and very likely a non-controlling one.
They can even fire you.
Essentially, I want to create my own ideal job with ownership rather than work without ownership in somebody else's business.
It's never ideal when you owe people something.
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I suppose I would want to have someone with a proven business track record to give more credibility. Just because one can create a product doesn't guarantee that one knows how to build a business around it.
That's typically what the angel investor / VC's are for. They will often help with that and even appoint their own CEO's and directors etc.
They don't usually just give you money and hope for the best, they offer advice, help find people etc.
That's exactly what I need. They are apparently very interested in finding coachable entrepreneurs so should be a good fit.
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I couldn't tell if you already have a business plan or you need someone to help you with that. Because no investor would talk to you without one. Then most of them are morons who only care what would their ROI be in X years. Your product is niche, non-consumer (this is where the Jobs/Woz parallels don't quite work) and you are probably competing with a few massive companies (not sure, I haven't studied the space). If your "value proposition" is only "lower price than Keysight model X" your market is probably hobbyists and smaller third world companies. I was tempted to say find an honest partner in China and flood the world with decent non-expensive signal analyzers, but that's a tricky proposition too. Dave Johnes' advice above seems decent. In any case good luck, I wish we had more products like yours available...
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It's never ideal when you owe people something.
Technically, I would not owe anyone anything. I'm not taking out a loan. I am rather getting a partner that provides much needed money and expertise while I provide the technical knowhow and products.
Regardless, I have pretty much decided to:
1) Do proper research to find out the dollar amount of the potential market. High-speed protocol analysis can be used for much more than simply protocol analysis. Perhaps even NSA would be interested in buying some units to snoop on our phone calls. I'm sure this travels on high-speed serial links as everything else these days.
2) Put together an investor presentation in both PowerPoint and YouTube video format.
3) Submit to the local angel group to see what traction it has.
Anything I've missed? Has anyone here actually gone through the funding process and can give advise? Are there any internet forums that discuss the funding process specifically?
Thanks,
/John.
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I couldn't tell if you already have a business plan or you need someone to help you with that. Because no investor would talk to you without one. Then most of them are morons who only care what would their ROI be in X years. Your product is niche, non-consumer (this is where the Jobs/Woz parallels don't quite work) and you are probably competing with a few massive companies (not sure, I haven't studied the space). If your "value proposition" is only "lower price than Keysight model X" your market is probably hobbyists and smaller third world companies. I was tempted to say find an honest partner in China and flood the world with decent non-expensive signal analyzers, but that's a tricky proposition too. Dave Johnes' advice above seems decent. In any case good luck, I wish we had more products like yours available...
Yes, I have studied the funding process actually over a few years but not really felt I have done all I could myself before going to that stage. Now, my funds are running out so a good time to get out of the comfort zone and actually get it done. The value proposition must be better functionality for a lower price. The biggest cost is the engineering cost for FPGA and software designs. Cheap production is not going to be a big factor since not high-volume products. Coming up with a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is a bit of a problem since already multiple players in the market. Having that said, there are many more uses for high-speed data capture and analysis than lab equipment. Data communication monitoring and analysis comes to mind. This is where an experienced business executive that know the space would be very valuable. Once on top of the technology it will be possible to create various equipment on top of the technology platform. It is quite common that the final "success" product is not what companies start out with.
Edit: There could be military and commercial contracts for custom protocol analysis hardware etc. Also, consulting services within the field comes to mind. Once the know-how is there I'm sure there are many uses for it. But there must be people pounding the pavement and working the phones to make that happen. Right now there's just a guy in a lab...
Edit: Investors also want to have an exit-strategy: I can envision a buy-out by a larger corporation if sufficient value has been built (i.e. people and revenue).
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The last person you want is a Steve Jobs type person.
Unless you want to give up all control to them and be a silent partner.
"Steve Jobs" types of guys are known to consume honest sounding guys like "John_ITIC", and throw them away when sucked dry.
You never know how the real story of those millionaires is, maybe Woz had the luck he was just enough of a psychopath himself to not be completely eaten by the Shark.
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"As an analogy, I'm more like Steven Wozniak that needed his Steve Jobs to get anywhere business-wise"
Here lies the central problem for any engineering types that want to get into business: it is much harder to find a jobs than to find a Wozniak. Ie., your value-add in this partnership is considerably limited, relatively speaking.
If I were to advise you, I would suggest that you avoid a jobs type at this point. Get a business person, either a partner or an employee, and learn from him or her as much as you can the softer side of business. So in the next round of fund raising or future projects, you don't rely as much on the jobs type as much.
The marginal return for your learning about business greatly outweighs the marginal return of your learning engineering.
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<sarcasm>
Maybe you should contact the Batteroo-guys. :D They seem to be very market-oriented people and are able get news coverage for their non-existent product. What is more impressing, they were selected as one of the coolest gadgets of the 2015 by the CNN Mon(k)ey even if there is no actual product yet. That's what I call marketing!
http://money.cnn.com/gallery/technology/2015/11/24/coolest-gadgets-2015/9.html (http://money.cnn.com/gallery/technology/2015/11/24/coolest-gadgets-2015/9.html)
</sarcasm>
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I've tried using distributors but their cut is too small to give them a real incentive to work hard. They rather sell Agilent than ITIC. Much better margins.
Wait a second, why does Agilent (you mean Keysight) have better margins? Why aren't you giving distributors an adequate discount?
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The truth is, Jobs and Woz got into making the Apple sort of by accident, it was originally designed to be an early "hacking device".
A lot like the Russian computer with the programs loaded by a tape drive mentioned in another thread.
They were basically hippie geeks.
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The last person you want is a Steve Jobs type person.
Unless you want to give up all control to them and be a silent partner.
"Steve Jobs" types of guys are known to consume honest sounding guys like "John_ITIC", and throw them away when sucked dry.
You never know how the real story of those millionaires is, maybe Woz had the luck he was just enough of a psychopath himself to not be completely eaten by the Shark.
That did happen many times but at the same time he wasnt as much of an ***** as to not also be liked by many people. All in all, a complicated man and story that doesn't translate well to generalities.
Also, I agree with Dave and others in that debt is like poison. Its also often poison to creativity. And health.
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The plan would be to find a partner with the skills, personality and perseverance to first attract seed funding and later venture capital for future growth of my business....
If that's the value-add of your partner, what is yours? why does s/he need you?
20 years engineering experience, 10 years and $500, 000 product development and working products in a fairly hot niche segment. In addition, I have existing distributors in about 10 countries, including Japan, EU, USA, Australia, India, China etc. What is missing is business-savvy and cash-infusion to get to the next level.
I'm sure there are lots of educated, experienced, business-savvy people looking for good technologies to sell. The question is *where to find such people*?
I'd go hunting for specialist investors in tech startups if you want to sell part of your business. They usually have the money and access to people who can catapult your product into the right market but they usually want a controlling share. Still you'd need to get a clear overview of the potential of your busines. Because you already have customers I'd ask them what kind of products they expect from you in the next couple of years. You can turn this information into a outlook of your turnover and profit margins for the near future.
However, it seems much better in your case to borrow money from a bank and hire a sales person to do sales (partly on sales commissions). That sales person must have experience selling similar equipment so he/she already has a network in place.
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I've tried using distributors but their cut is too small to give them a real incentive to work hard. They rather sell Agilent than ITIC. Much better margins.
Wait a second, why does Agilent (you mean Keysight) have better margins? Why aren't you giving distributors an adequate discount?
Yeah, anyone with business savvy would home in on that.
Talking of Steve Jobs, while Apple products may be better products, they also have fantastic margins which is the real reason for a successful business.
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Have you considered licensing your product to an up-and-coming China test equipment OEM? Or even selling your company to them? Or any other test equipment that can offer a higher value, or offer the best package. As a single product maker, after a long detour, with dilution through additional parties, your past decades of hardwork may still end up as a part number of a larger test equipment maker. You might as well get the best deal for all your effort and investment now. Of course, you are going in to negoitiate with a stronger hand after tempting a few investors to put their cash on the table, or liquidate youself in other means.
Which OEM need your product, and you, the most? This is the question I would be asking if I do not want to bother in doing business, and just want to a hired hand (CTO or not, may not be up to you).
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What you need is an "As seen on TV" type of product to get most VCs interested.
If you can sell to the that it's an invaluable tool for all IT departments in the planet, you'll get their ears perking.
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I've tried using distributors but their cut is too small to give them a real incentive to work hard.
I think your answer is right here out in the open: talk to your distributors and find out what price levels/margins they would like to see! If your products add more value to their business they are likely to invest more time into selling them.
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If I were to advise you, I would suggest that you avoid a jobs type at this point. Get a business person, either a partner or an employee, and learn from him or her as much as you can the softer side of business. So in the next round of fund raising or future projects, you don't rely as much on the jobs type as much.
Yes, after the feedback I'm set to go down this route. Thanks.
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<sarcasm>
Maybe you should contact the Batteroo-guys. :D They seem to be very market-oriented people and are able get news coverage for their non-existent product. What is more impressing, they were selected as one of the coolest gadgets of the 2015 by the CNN Mon(k)ey even if there is no actual product yet. That's what I call marketing!
http://money.cnn.com/gallery/technology/2015/11/24/coolest-gadgets-2015/9.html (http://money.cnn.com/gallery/technology/2015/11/24/coolest-gadgets-2015/9.html)
</sarcasm>
Anything can be sold with great marketing. One of my US competitors has superb marketing but not very good products. I definitely need more resources on the marketing side - luckily this can quite easily be hired. Essentially, to create a good web-presence, have good artwork, datasheets etc.
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I've tried using distributors but their cut is too small to give them a real incentive to work hard. They rather sell Agilent than ITIC. Much better margins.
Wait a second, why does Agilent (you mean Keysight) have better margins? Why aren't you giving distributors an adequate discount?
The big players have huge resources at their disposal so can take fully advantage of the product business cycle, selling advanced products when the price it at a premium. Lacking the engineering resources, one is forced to get to the market later, which results in lower prices and sales. Less revenue to pay for engineering results in a death spiral, where one never will catch up with the market.
In short, resellers will rather sell the large brand-names because their margins are much higher and they have an easier job selling well known brand.
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The truth is, Jobs and Woz got into making the Apple sort of by accident, it was originally designed to be an early "hacking device".
A lot like the Russian computer with the programs loaded by a tape drive mentioned in another thread.
They were basically hippie geeks.
Well, the acronym for LUCK is Laboring Under Correct Knowledge! Wozniak had spent years designing computers on paper and he was extremely dedicated due to his introversion. Jobs had raw intelligence, a chip on his shoulder (wanted prove himself) and together things happened. Had jobs not spent weeks (months?) making phone calls around the Santa Clara Valley trying to peddle the goods and/or get funding then things would not have happened. Once the money was added to the mix, great things could happen.
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I'd go hunting for specialist investors in tech startups if you want to sell part of your business. They usually have the money and access to people who can catapult your product into the right market but they usually want a controlling share. Still you'd need to get a clear overview of the potential of your busines. Because you already have customers I'd ask them what kind of products they expect from you in the next couple of years. You can turn this information into a outlook of your turnover and profit margins for the near future.
However, it seems much better in your case to borrow money from a bank and hire a sales person to do sales (partly on sales commissions). That sales person must have experience selling similar equipment so he/she already has a network in place.
Well, I wish I knew where to go where these technology specialist investors hang out. If anyone could tell me who to contact it would make things easier. Regarding product roadmap; for the current customers, it is obviously a USB 3.0 protocol analyzer that is needed. Very little sales in USB 2.0 analyzers these days.
Borrowing money would do me no good; I would not know what to do with it. I want an "advisory package" with business advise + cashflow such that a "peddler" and "strategist" can be brought on. Given the bad situation of competing on lowest price, I can envision that this technology can be taken elsewhere. For that, contacts and knowledge about the business landscape is needed. This is exactly what angel investors are doing.
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Have you considered licensing your product to an up-and-coming China test equipment OEM? Or even selling your company to them? Or any other test equipment that can offer a higher value, or offer the best package. As a single product maker, after a long detour, with dilution through additional parties, your past decades of hardwork may still end up as a part number of a larger test equipment maker. You might as well get the best deal for all your effort and investment now. Of course, you are going in to negoitiate with a stronger hand after tempting a few investors to put their cash on the table, or liquidate youself in other means.
Which OEM need your product, and you, the most? This is the question I would be asking if I do not want to bother in doing business, and just want to a hired hand (CTO or not, may not be up to you).
Yes, these are good questions. The problem is how to find the answers. These are all business strategy issues that a seasoned business person would easily navigate through. For an engineer, not so simple. Just as a businessman would not have a clue understanding board design, FPGA digital design and software engineering, I don't live in the business world. This is why a partner would have been good, or as 2nd option, hiring the right competence once funding is in place.
As a side-note: I did contact one of my smaller US competitors, asking if they wanted to acquire the PCI Express protocol analyzer technology. They blew me off, of course.
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What you need is an "As seen on TV" type of product to get most VCs interested.
If you can sell to the that it's an invaluable tool for all IT departments in the planet, you'll get their ears perking.
VCs are not interested unless they can invest millions into a huge project. Angel Investors are local, private investors that contribute expertize, funds and contacts to help smaller entrepreneurs along the way. They offer mentoring, which is what I need at this point. Money alone would not do me much good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_investor
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I've tried using distributors but their cut is too small to give them a real incentive to work hard.
I think your answer is right here out in the open: talk to your distributors and find out what price levels/margins they would like to see! If your products add more value to their business they are likely to invest more time into selling them.
See my previous post for an explanation; when introducing a product that lags the product life cycle, one will not be able to charge as high prices and, consequently, the margins for everyone (vendor + reseller) will be lower. The only way to make sufficient margins is to get to the market quicker, which requires more engineering, sales and marketing resources. That requires investor money. Growing organically doesn't work for products with a product life cycle that is at best 5 years.
I watched an interview with the Linear Technology funders on YouTube (part of the computer history museum oral history) and they mentioned something very interesting; a big key to their success was to develop products with a 20-30 year product life cycle. Examples were low-voltage dropout linear regulators (7805 etc.) as well as jelly-bean op-amps (741 etc.) , which are selling in good quantity many years after being designed. With a business model like that, one can build revenue on top of existing products. For protocol analyzers, things are quite different.
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Still the question which bothers me is: is the market big enough to support a company consisting of 4 to 5 persons? That is what you are talking about IMHO. You'll need yourself, a secretary to answer the phone, a salesperson, a support person and probably a techie to do all kinds of simple jobs. Perhaps you have to think about a second design engineer as well to reduce the risk in case something happens to you.
To look for investors I'd start on Linkedin and initiatives which help startups. Over here there are also several annual startup competitions. You don't have to enlist in one but talking to the companies which have enlisted and the ones which invest probably gets you valuable information. Just start asking questions and at some point you'll get the right answer.
Teaming up with a competitor is not a bad idea either. Perhaps there are more but I'd start with the ones to which your products are complementary.
Still I think you'll be giving up a lot of your freedom if you want to pursue the protocol analyser business! Why not concentrate on the contracting business and let the protocol analyser business die?
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Still the question which bothers me is: is the market big enough to support a company consisting of 4 to 5 persons? That is what you are talking about IMHO. You'll need yourself, a secretary to answer the phone, a salesperson, a support person and probably a techie to do all kinds of simple jobs. Perhaps you have to think about a second design engineer as well to reduce the risk in case something happens to you.
To look for investors I'd start on Linkedin and initiatives which help startups. Over here there are also several annual startup competitions. You don't have to enlist in one but talking to the companies which have enlisted and the ones which invest probably gets you valuable information. Just start asking questions and at some point you'll get the right answer.
Teaming up with a competitor is not a bad idea either. Perhaps there are more but I'd start with the ones to which your products are complementary.
Still I think you'll be giving up a lot of your freedom if you want to pursue the protocol analyser business! Why not concentrate on the contracting business and let the protocol analyser business die?
Thanks for the suggestions. The web is littered with web sites claiming to assist startups so I'm not sure where to start looking for serious information or help. I do know that our local angel investor group has monthly meetings and I even sent a prior co-worker there for his funding. He ended up getting funded but later sued by his own company when things didn't work out.
What is needed short-term is a cash infusion to get the next product ready (3-6 months living expenses for 1 person). Having one more person employed full-time for sales, marketing, trade-shows etc would be very nice. One more engineer would be very important to get to the market sooner and to maintain existing products. So, yes, 2-3 people would be needed. And for that to happen, proper funding would be critical.
Consulting is not very profitable in the US anymore. Companies are holding on to their money very hard as they don't have any rush to finish their projects. They are essentially in "cash-preserve" mode and are trying to be profitable by cutting cost rather than try to get more business. I've seen this since around the start of the financial crisis (end of 2007 or so). Also, the laws here in the US make it harder for larger companies to hire independent consultants with the effect that corporations now prefer to work with larger staffing firms, passing all profit to the staffing firm owners.
The best options for me are to either get a job, which pays around $150K USD per year or to attract funding and work for around $60K/year until sufficient revenue exists to take out more salary. The choice is not easy.
Edit: Regarding market size; the protocol analysis business appears to be around 1 billion USD. A company like LeCroy seems to have about $100 million USD share. My smallest competitor has around $1 million USD revenue. They are about 5-10 people, I think. Perhaps one can extrapolate from these numbers.
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In general, to prove the value, one must have a proven track record of successful ventures to be taken seriously by investors. Investors are (as they should be) suspicious and need proof of the viability of the products. As a first stage, one would be expected to contribute lots of ones own time and money and take the product as far as possible. This is why I have spent 10 years and half a million USD to get to the point where the products are in the same ball-part as the major competitors, which are actual big corporations. As a professional engineer, I could very well have worked in one of those corporations but with real funding, and quicker time to market, the ITIC protocol analyzers have a good chance to be good sellers.
Nobody is expected to work for nothing so the "greedy middle-men" are unfortunately often needed. As they say, 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing...
You asked for serious replies so I will give you one, although it will be harsh.
What you write above in your first sentence is absolutely untrue. I have invested in business and been invested in by others and while a track record of success is a bonus, it is never ever a requirement or even close to the top of the list in terms of necessary characteristics.
You also have (many times) insulted the value of the very people you are seeking... referring to them as people in clown suits and "greedy middle men". You are setting yourself up for failure and for a tumultuous future by starting out disrespecting the very people you say you need to succeed. Imagine a business guy who has investment capital in hand and needs a tech nerd who lives in mom's basement and that they can keep away from public view and just toss him a few bucks to develop some tech that they will use to get rich. How'd you like to be the disrespected party in that deal?
It seems to me that you have created a self fulfilling prophecy where certain skills are required but you do not possess these skills (because they aren't worthwhile) and therefore will grudgingly partner with such a person so you can have something rather than nothing.
As an investor many times in different businesses and having a network of VC's and angel investors I've worked with before, I would *never* invest in such a person or work with such a person or want such a person to have any contact with my investment network. They would look at me and wonder what I was thinking.
You probably have a lot more skills than you think you do. Yes, giving presentations and talking about your product may not be your forte, but you will have to learn how to do it and you will need to do it. An investor is going to care about your companies numbers... sales, cash flow, IP, customers, etc. You obviously have some sales ability because you have customers... you definitely don't want to say "the reason I am not selling more is because I am not good at sales". That's a recipe for failure.
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You also have (many times) insulted the value of the very people you are seeking... referring to them as people in clown suits and "greedy middle men". You are setting yourself up for failure and for a tumultuous future by starting out disrespecting the very people you say you need to succeed.
With all due respect, please read the posts carefully before doling out undue criticism. The "greedy middle men" was a comment made by another poster, who said that he though investors didn't add value, seeing them as greedy. I, on the other hand, have repeatedly said that I greatly value the input from experienced investors, even ready to give up half of the ownership, knowing that the product is only a small part of the business. The "clown suit contest" comment was a reference to the dog and pony show most business owners put on in an attempt to hype their business in hope of attracting funding.
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I second Smokey's advice. Steve Jobs was a lying, scheming, double-crossing, egotistical unpleasant bastard, and that's the last thing you need.
The only advice I can offer, comes from my own business failures in the distant past.
One: never sign any exclusive distributorship agreements, ever, and especially not in return for nebulous benefits. In my case that mistake killed a great product (back in the Apple II days) when that guy (who I was friends with) totally failed to do any effective marketing, either international or local. I'd though the same as you - "I need someone more extroverted and gung ho." Didn't work. I should have done it myself.
Second: Never give up control, of a business you created and in which you are the essential technical driver. You say you want a 50% partner, but has it occurred to you this person will then have a say in what future products you develop? And by definition, he'll be much less technically informed than you.
This factor killed another venture I was involved in - a partnership, in which my partner did bring a lot to the business, but was ... how shall I say it? An idiot? Ha ha.. well not really. But it was most frustrating.
Edit to add: Oh, and 2016 is probably a terrible time to try and start up in a field like protocol analyzers, that depends mainly on corporate investment in test equipment. Perhaps as you've been busy with your work you haven't spent much time reading economics news lately? To summarize: in 2016 the world appears to be sliding into a new financial crisis, predicted by many to be much worse than the 2008 events. I'm sure no one here wants to read a long discussion of why. But for you, I'd suggest spending some time reading sites such as http://www.zerohedge.com/ (http://www.zerohedge.com/)
Perhaps you might consider staying in 'small, surviving' mode for a while more, and use that time to build your business networking skills, till it's clearer how the economy will go?
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I second Smokey's advice. Steve Jobs was a lying, scheming, double-crossing, egotistical unpleasant bastard, and that's the last thing you need.
Well, these character traits are what got him ahead, apparently. I would never want to work for such a person but I can see how it will be beneficial to work with such a person.
One: never sign any exclusive distributorship agreements, ever, and especially not in return for nebulous benefits. In my case that mistake killed a great product (back in the Apple II days) when that guy (who I was friends with) totally failed to do any effective marketing, either international or local. I'd though the same as you - "I need someone more extroverted and gung ho." Didn't work. I should have done it myself.
I have signed a couple of exclusive distributorships but that is for a distributor in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It is a big test and measurement distributor and not global so ok. Also, I have seen exclusive distributorships that are cancelable. If they don't work out, the agreement can be canceled and transferred to someone else.
Second: Never give up control, of a business you created and in which you are the essential technical driver. You say you want a 50% partner, but has it occurred to you this person will then have a say in what future products you develop? And by definition, he'll be much less technically informed than you.
Yes, it has occurred to me and (unless the person is an idiot) hopefully he will be much more experienced in the business planning. The idea would be to find someone with 20 years of experience, in a similar situation as me, that would want to go for something bigger than a regular job. Most likely, much easier to find such talent if first getting funding and then hiring the right business talent. For that, a solid business plan is needed, which is the next step!
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You probably have a lot more skills than you think you do. Yes, giving presentations and talking about your product may not be your forte, but you will have to learn how to do it and you will need to do it. An investor is going to care about your companies numbers... sales, cash flow, IP, customers, etc. You obviously have some sales ability because you have customers... you definitely don't want to say "the reason I am not selling more is because I am not good at sales". That's a recipe for failure.
Got it. Thanks. Best to step out of the comfort zone then. Again...
Edit: Not much sales skills have been needed since I sold about $450,000 USD on a small Google Ad. The technical features of the products were the main selling points as well as the much lower price than competitors'. The engineering sold the products. The issue is that I have 20 years invested in top of the line engineering skills (consulting level) and see the value of that as a better contributor to the business than whatever business skills I may have time to learn. Therefore, being distracted by the business side will definitely hurt the engineering side. This is why I have started using distributors, getting help to sell the products. This helps a little bit but, still, the product development cycle is still too slow. Therefore, the bottle-neck is really the engineering side and not the business side. Possibly, I could attract enough funding to hire additional engineering resources and then utilize distributors world-wide for distribution. But, again, the product life cycle is very short so hard to compete with larger corporations. Even the large test and measurement competitors frequently sell their protocol analysis divisions since hard to make money.
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Edit to add: Oh, and 2016 is probably a terrible time to try and start up in a field like protocol analyzers, that depends mainly on corporate investment in test equipment. Perhaps as you've been busy with your work you haven't spent much time reading economics news lately? To summarize: in 2016 the world appears to be sliding into a new financial crisis, predicted by many to be much worse than the 2008 events. I'm sure no one here wants to read a long discussion of why. But for you, I'd suggest spending some time reading sites such as http://www.zerohedge.com/ (http://www.zerohedge.com/)
Perhaps you might consider staying in 'small, surviving' mode for a while more, and use that time to build your business networking skills, till it's clearer how the economy will go?
As a consultant, I have a direct view into the economic well-being of the US economy. Interestingly, between 2000 to 2007, the consulting market was very good but stopped abruptly at the end of 2007, about 6 months before the stock market plunge. It makes sense because when companies stop seeing gold at the end of the rainbow, and instead start seeing rain clouds overhead, they have little hurry hiring consultants to finish their projects sooner. The number of consulting requests have never come back to the pre-2007 level.
I have been deep into economic analysis the last time around and know all about Dow/gold ratios, the debt-pyramid to the tune of 100's of trillions of dollars, credit default swaps and all the rest. One thing I've learnt is that the federal reserve has a printing press in the basement and they would never let things get out of hand like on 2008. As Bernanke said, dollars dropped from Helicopters... One problem is that the interest rates are already at zero so not much they can do on that side. I used to be a subscriber to Mark Faber's newsletter, which was an interesting read, to say the least!
I do get sufficient requests for consulting projects not having to get a job so I could continue the bootstrapping of ITIC until times improve but that doesn't solve the problem with far too long product development cycles...
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I definitely need more resources on the marketing side - luckily this can quite easily be hired. Essentially, to create a good web-presence, have good artwork, datasheets etc.
Are you sure about the underlined part?
It's easy to hire "a" frontpage-monkey, like it's easy to hire "a" pcb designer.
But you want it to be continually growing, I would expect you need a high-potential here, the guy/girl that also manages every change,sees new opportunities and it able to communicate about that.
You say to have a number of distributors in a number of countries.
No one there that is ready for the next step?
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I definitely need more resources on the marketing side - luckily this can quite easily be hired. Essentially, to create a good web-presence, have good artwork, datasheets etc.
Are you sure about the underlined part?
It's easy to hire "a" frontpage-monkey, like it's easy to hire "a" pcb designer.
But you want it to be continually growing, I would expect you need a high-potential here, the guy/girl that also manages every change,sees new opportunities and it able to communicate about that.
You say to have a number of distributors in a number of countries.
No one there that is ready for the next step?
Well, to clarify: I more meant a graphics designer that can create nice looking artwork for web sites and marketing material. The actual marketing strategy is something I can do fairly well myself. Regarding distributors; they do little more than list the products on their web site. Nobody is going to do sales call for these kinds of low-cost instruments. Distributors are interesting because each country have their own main distributor such that customers know where to go - this is why I started my other "distributors" thread: to get some more exposure internationally.
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... top of the line engineering skills (consulting level) and see the value of that as a better contributor to the business than whatever business skills I may have time to learn. Therefore, being distracted by the business side will definitely hurt the engineering side.
... development cycle is still too slow. Therefore, the bottle-neck is really the engineering side and not the business side. Possibly, I could attract enough funding to hire additional engineering resources...
I think in your product range, your business man needs to know everything about engineering too, because your customers do.
Maybe a combination is the solution?
You need an extra engineer, so hire a guy that is 3/4 engineer, 1/4 salesman, do the engineering together, do the sales/marketing/business together.
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I have been deep into economic analysis the last time around and know all about Dow/gold ratios, the debt-pyramid to the tune of 100's of trillions of dollars, credit default swaps and all the rest.
Good, my apologies for assuming you might be unaware of such things.
One thing I've learnt is that the federal reserve has a printing press in the basement and they would never let things get out of hand like on 2008. As Bernanke said, dollars dropped from Helicopters...
Otoh, if you think the FED is any part of the solution, or capable of keeping the exponential debt Pandora's box closed, that they learned any lessons last time round, and that unlimited money creation will have useful results, (or indeed that the existing political structures _want_ to preserve the US economy as opposed to destroying it), then perhaps a _little_ more reading is in order.
One problem is that the interest rates are already at zero so not much they can do on that side. I used to be a subscriber to Mark Faber's newsletter, which was an interesting read, to say the least!
They (alternate economics sources, gold bugs, Austrians, etc) are all fun reads. Plenty of free ones, no need to spend money on subscriptions.
I do get sufficient requests for consulting projects not having to get a job so I could continue the bootstrapping of ITIC until times improve but that doesn't solve the problem with far too long product development cycles...
Can you overlap project cycles? Also, can't modularize, to use common processing/UI sections, and only need to create custom HW&code for the protocol specific parts? (I didn't look at your products, forget I spoke if you already do this.)
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The technical features of the products were the main selling points as well as the much lower price than competitors'.
This comes back to the same question... if your price is so much lower, why can't you raise it and give your distributors a decent discount?
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I second Smokey's advice. Steve Jobs was a lying, scheming, double-crossing, egotistical unpleasant bastard, and that's the last thing you need.
Well, these character traits are what got him ahead, apparently.
shafting Woz along the way... Read how he bilked Woz out of his share of 500$ when he sold a game to Atari.
On the other hand. Jobs got things done. Not like Apple today. I bought an ipad Pro over a month ago. i'm still waiting to see the pencil ... under jobs this would have been unthinkable. He would have kicked his supply chain managers so hard in their collective assses they'd have bounced several times between the ceiling and the floor.
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author=John_ITIC link=topic=61420.msg844768#msg844768 date=1453087099]
I second Smokey's advice. Steve Jobs was a lying, scheming, double-crossing, egotistical unpleasant bastard, and that's the last thing you need.
Well, these character traits are what got him ahead, apparently. I would never want to work for such a person but I can see how it will be beneficial to work with such a person.
Dont really get it why you adore such a personality as Jobs so much you even start a thread in his name and want one in your company! It's an myth/illusion, you'r better out not employing a narcissist/asshole unless you are a narcissist/asshole your self and as such knows your partners mindset! You need a John Scully type slightely less of an asshole!
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34188602 (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34188602)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3222400/Steve-Jobs-didn-t-know-technology-just-wanted-important-Steve-Wozniak-claims-business-partner-played-no-role-design-early-Apple-devices.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3222400/Steve-Jobs-didn-t-know-technology-just-wanted-important-Steve-Wozniak-claims-business-partner-played-no-role-design-early-Apple-devices.html)
There's a tendency to mythologise successful people after their deaths. To what degree have we seen that with Jobs?
Oh my gosh, even while Steve was alive [so was] the myth.
He became our hero because we have our iPhones, and he saw the way the world was going to evolve much earlier than others, so we love him.
But the mythology, even while he was alive, was extended back to make him that person from day one.
[People] try and make him a lot more right about things than he was and ignore what some of the real facts were.
The most incredible scene in the Sorkin movie is between Steve Jobs and [ex-Apple chief executive] John Sculley.
It goes back and forth at two points in time [with them] saying different things that add up to where the company stood and the difference between the two of them. And it was really just a business difference.
See, the mythology is that Steve Jobs had this beautiful vision for the Macintosh and the board and John Sculley didn't buy into it.
No. Our entire company bought into that vision as the future for Apple.
It was just going to take at least three years to build until it could finally not lose money.
And John Sculley is the one who actually made the Macintosh successful because of believing in it.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/11/be-a-jerk-the-worst-business-lesson-from-the-steve-jobs-biography/249136/ (http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/11/be-a-jerk-the-worst-business-lesson-from-the-steve-jobs-biography/249136/)
The next batch of business books: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Assholes, The One-Minute Asshole, and Who's The Asshole Who Moved My Cheese?
But such subtleties may be lost on CEOs, middle managers and wannabe masters of the universe who are currently devouring the Steve Jobs biography and thinking to themselves: "See! Steve Jobs was an asshole and he was one of the most successful businessmen on the planet. Maybe if I become an even bigger asshole I'll be successful like Steve."
This sort of flawed thinking -- call it asshole logic -- isn't something that's necessarily endorsed by Jobs's biographer.
"(Jobs) was not the world's greatest manager," Walter Isaacson said in a recent interview with 60 Minutes. "In fact, he could have been one of the world's worst managers."
But asshole logic, not surprisingly, tends to ignore facts that don't sanction one's own assholery. This distorted reasoning was already prevalent before Steve Jobs's death, and is only likely to spread as Isaacson's biography closes in on becoming the best-selling book of 2011. Five years ago, when Stanford professor of management science and engineering Robert Sutton was researching his book, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't, he ran across a disconcerting number of Silicon Valley leaders who believed that Steve Jobs was living proof that being an asshole boss was integral to building a great company.
Sutton's counter-thesis was that assholes--which he defined as those who deliberately make co-workers feel bad about themselves and who focus their hostility on the less powerful--poison the workplace and induce qualified employees to quit and are therefore bad for business, regardless of the asshole's individual talent or effectiveness.
When Sutton published an article in the Harvard Business Review advancing his theory, he was amazed at the reaction. He had published other articles in the Review, many of them longer and better researched, but nothing provoked the response that his asshole article did. Sutton received well over 1,000 emails, and gathered countless horror stories, including one about a worker undergoing chemotherapy whose boss told him he was "a wimp and a pussy."
What an asshole!
Sutton decided to expand the article into a book, and wound up interviewing dozens of Silicon Valley leaders and insiders. When Sutton would advance the notion that assholes are bad for business, one person after another had the same reaction: "What about Steve Jobs?"
"Even people who worked with Jobs told me that they'd seen him make people cry many times, but that 80 percent of the time he was right, " says Sutton. "It is troubling that there's this notion in our culture that if you're a winner, it's okay to be an asshole."
So many people advanced Steve Jobs as evidence that asshole CEOs build better companies that Sutton somewhat reluctantly included a chapter in his book on "The Virtues of Assholes," with Steve Jobs as Exhibit A. There is some evidence that "status displays" by aggressive bosses can motivate workers and give slackers a kick in the pants. And effective jerk bosses usually aren't assholes all the time, they're able to turn on the charm when the situation demands it, something Steve Jobs, by most accounts, was very good at doing. And it helps for companies to have skilled subordinate executives that are good at cleaning up after the Asshole-in-Chief, much like the sad-faced men carrying shovels who walk behind circus elephants.
But Sutton's book makes clear that for the most part, assholes are bad for the bottom line, to say nothing of the human toll they exact. There are plenty of very successful companies that aren't led by assholes - Google, Virgin Atlantic, Procter & Gamble and Southwest Airlines among them. Likewise, there are legions of assholes who lead companies that aren't successful, in part due to their own bad behavior.
With the death and canonization of Steve Jobs and the emergence of the Jobs biography as a kind of sacred text for managers, the ranks of bosses who see Bad Steve's nastier traits as something to imitate is liable to swell. It's unlikely the book will make despots out of thoughtful, fair-minded middle managers. It's far more probable that it will turn bosses who are already assholes into even bigger assholes, raising the temperature of the worst actors so that they become that most combustible of workplace figures, the flaming asshole.
Already, the web is full of articles that hold up Steve Jobs as the model of how to lead and succeed in life, with titles such as "Ten Leadership Lessons from the Steve Jobs School of Management" and "21 Life Lessons from Steve Jobs." Most of these works prefer to focus on Good Steve, but it may not be long until business book authors hone in on the timeless lessons to be drawn from Bad Steve's asshole ways. The titles write themselves: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Assholes. The One-Minute Asshole. Who's The Asshole Who Moved My Cheese?
The fact is, Steve Jobs didn't succeed because he was an asshole. He succeeded because he was Steve Jobs. He had an uncanny sixth sense about what consumers wanted, an unmatched ability to adapt existing technology and turn it into something new, and a commitment to quality that turned ordinary Apple customers into fans for life. Being an asshole was part of the Steve package, but it wasn't essential to his success. But that's not a message most of the assholes in the corner offices want to hear.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-jerk-2011-10?op=1 (http://uk.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-jerk-2011-10?op=1)
Why was Jobs such a rude person?
Isaacson asked Jobs' best friend Jony Ive what he thought. Here's his response:
I once asked him why he gets so mad about stuff. He said, "But I don't stay mad." He has this very childish ability to get really worked up about something, and it doesn't stay with him at all. But, there are other times, I think honestly, when he's very frustrated, and his way to achieve catharsis is to hurt somebody. And I think he feels he has a liberty and license to do that. The normal rules of social engagement, he feels, don't apply to him. Because of how very sensitive he is, he knows exactly how to efficiently and effectively hurt someone. And he does do that.
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... top of the line engineering skills (consulting level) and see the value of that as a better contributor to the business than whatever business skills I may have time to learn. Therefore, being distracted by the business side will definitely hurt the engineering side.
... development cycle is still too slow. Therefore, the bottle-neck is really the engineering side and not the business side. Possibly, I could attract enough funding to hire additional engineering resources...
I think in your product range, your business man needs to know everything about engineering too, because your customers do.
Maybe a combination is the solution?
You need an extra engineer, so hire a guy that is 3/4 engineer, 1/4 salesman, do the engineering together, do the sales/marketing/business together.
Yes, that would be perfect but I can only assume that it will be a very mammoth effort to find such a person. I have thought about creating some kind of Internet-based collaboration, perhaps via the many good engineers here at EEVBlog, but the issue always comes back to trust and value of such contribution. One thing I know is that people will not work for nothing, while an entrepreneur works for (close to) nothing until a bigger payday (hopefully) appears in the future. Few people are willing to take a chance, which is why most get stuck in a JOB (acronym stands for Just Over Broke)...
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Otoh, if you think the FED is any part of the solution, or capable of keeping the exponential debt Pandora's box closed, that they learned any lessons last time round, and that unlimited money creation will have useful results, (or indeed that the existing political structures _want_ to preserve the US economy as opposed to destroying it), then perhaps a _little_ more reading is in order.
No, I don't think they are part of the solution but they always manage to keep papering over the problem with more liquidity. We are soon to witness QE4 (printing money to prop up bankrupt quasi-government banking institutions; in fact paid by a lowered purchase power of everyone with assets in dollars, due to inflation). I have failed to predict a collapsing stock market twice, only to see it go to new heights. I'm not betting on that again but I agree that the economic realities will not be fixed by the fed. The fact is that the prosperity the last 40 years have been fueled by a speculative credit bubble of biblical proportions and, as the economists say, we have spent tomorrows prosperity today. After the 40 year party may come 40 years of hang-over...
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=QE3 (https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=QE3)
Can you overlap project cycles? Also, can't modularize, to use common processing/UI sections, and only need to create custom HW&code for the protocol specific parts? (I didn't look at your products, forget I spoke if you already do this.)
Yes, a lot of the technology in my PCI Express Protocol Analyzer (2.5 GHz) could quite easily be reused in my USB 3.0 Protocol Analyzer (5 Gbps). I got bit by the USB 3.0 transceivers from TI not working as advertised. It took months of debugging, dealing with frustration due to useless TI online support etc. I actually got my new revised PCB from the board house today so I will hand-assemble via reflow oven and solder iron. If the new board workarounds work properly, I can have the USB 3.0 protocol analyzer ready in a couple of months, which would postpone need for investors.
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The technical features of the products were the main selling points as well as the much lower price than competitors'.
This comes back to the same question... if your price is so much lower, why can't you raise it and give your distributors a decent discount?
No, can't be done. Lacking name recognition (Agilent, LeCroy and the others), why would you want to pay the same price for a lesser known brand. Would you buy Siglent or Rigel if the price was the same as Agilent/Keysight or LeCroy? I wouldn't think so.
Currently, my prices are about 30% lower than the lowest prices competitor and about 50% lower than most competitors. This is a common business problem: how to price the product such that engineering follow-on products is possible? The solution is often massive amount of marketing for mediocre products, commonly seen with American products (think cars) since high-cost manufacturing and labor costs. With lower-wage countries taking more and more of the highly engineered product development and manufacturing, it is only a matter of time before *all* jobs to these countries.
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I second Smokey's advice. Steve Jobs was a lying, scheming, double-crossing, egotistical unpleasant bastard, and that's the last thing you need.
Well, these character traits are what got him ahead, apparently.
shafting Woz along the way... Read how he bilked Woz out of his share of 500$ when he sold a game to Atari.
On the other hand. Jobs got things done. Not like Apple today. I bought an ipad Pro over a month ago. i'm still waiting to see the pencil ... under jobs this would have been unthinkable. He would have kicked his supply chain managers so hard in their collective assses they'd have bounced several times between the ceiling and the floor.
Yes, I know the Apple story well, have read Wozniak's book etc. It is sad but business is war. If you want to win you have to have an unfair advantage or simply be willing to abuse the troops to perform better than the enemy. I don't like it anymore than anyone else but what is the solution...?
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Dont really get it why you adore such a personality as Jobs so much you even start a thread in his name and want one in your company! It's an myth/illusion, you'r better out not employing a narcissist/asshole unless you are a narcissist/asshole your self and as such knows your partners mindset! You need a John Scully type slightely less of an asshole!
Easy for you to say since you live in a country where others are paying for your school, kids education, healthcare etc. You can sit on your rump in Sweden and still get all the same social services as someone killing themselves trying to get ahead. That's why so few are trying to get ahead. I know, I'm born and grew up in Sweden, moved to the US about 15 years ago. Here in the US, we have to work hard or we end up on the street.
Now, I hardly adore Jobs, I agree based on available information that he was a hard-core hustler and would have no patience for anyone standing in his way. Business is war. You either lose or you win. Take your pick. Calling me an *a******* because I'm asking where to find a driven business partner is hardly constructive, nor very polite...
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Here in the US, we have to work hard or we end up on the street.
I prefer that as well. Socialism is just so suffocating - look at European economies if anyone disagrees.
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I second Smokey's advice. Steve Jobs was a lying, scheming, double-crossing, egotistical unpleasant bastard, and that's the last thing you need.
Well, these character traits are what got him ahead, apparently.
shafting Woz along the way... Read how he bilked Woz out of his share of 500$ when he sold a game to Atari.
On the other hand. Jobs got things done. Not like Apple today. I bought an ipad Pro over a month ago. i'm still waiting to see the pencil ... under jobs this would have been unthinkable. He would have kicked his supply chain managers so hard in their collective assses they'd have bounced several times between the ceiling and the floor.
Yes, I know the Apple story well, have read Wozniak's book etc. It is sad but business is war. If you want to win you have to have an unfair advantage or simply be willing to abuse the troops to perform better than the enemy. I don't like it anymore than anyone else but what is the solution...?
Wow... Just wow... I hope you find the Steve Jobs like guy you are looking for. Sounds like you deserve him.
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Narcissist-run workplaces (and many countries as many/most politicians are NPDs) end up being a dysfunctional mess, and other companies {countries|communities} that aren't run by NPDs will leave them in the dust.
Stress causes major damage to health, too. For example, its clearly neurotoxic, it gradually shrinks the hippocampus and amygdala, leaving people unable to think clearly. So treating people like that is like cutting off your own nose to spite your face.
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I second Smokey's advice. Steve Jobs was a lying, scheming, double-crossing, egotistical unpleasant bastard, and that's the last thing you need.
Well, these character traits are what got him ahead, apparently.
shafting Woz along the way... Read how he bilked Woz out of his share of 500$ when he sold a game to Atari.
On the other hand. Jobs got things done. Not like Apple today. I bought an ipad Pro over a month ago. i'm still waiting to see the pencil ... under jobs this would have been unthinkable. He would have kicked his supply chain managers so hard in their collective assses they'd have bounced several times between the ceiling and the floor.
Yes, I know the Apple story well, have read Wozniak's book etc. It is sad but business is war. If you want to win you have to have an unfair advantage or simply be willing to abuse the troops to perform better than the enemy. I don't like it anymore than anyone else but what is the solution...?
Wow... Just wow... I hope you find the Steve Jobs like guy you are looking for. Sounds like you deserve him.
Wow? Ever played sports? Or been responsible for actually generating business? Or perhaps always been working for someone else, shielded from the reality of business? Hard work is unfortunately a reality. Whoever has the most will to win, mostly wins. I don't say that I would "abuse the troops" (I don't because I do all the hard work myself) but it is a fact that this is exactly what made Apple so successful. Without Jobs at the helm, driving his engineers hard, Apple would not have survived. Just see what happened when Jobs was forced out, leaving Sculley at the helm, the company was weeks away from bankruptcy when Jobs came back and whipped some efficiency back into the place.
Trust me, I'd rather take it easy, relying on someone else to have responsibility but that's not how reality works.
Edit: I'm just a lone engineer, competing with features and cost. I'm not a corporate type nor some abusive slave-driver. But I do know what the reality of business is. If one want to get ahead in business one must play hard. I'm not such a person, which is why the thread title is what it is. And I would NOT mind getting my behind kicked by a Jobs person to get things done. People are lazy by nature (including myself) and perform exactly to the expectations put upon them.
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Narcissist-run workplaces (and many countries as many/most politicians are NPDs) end up being a dysfunctional mess, and other companies {countries|communities} that aren't run by NPDs will leave them in the dust.
Stress causes major damage to health, too. For example, its clearly neurotoxic, it gradually shrinks the hippocampus and amygdala, leaving people unable to think clearly. So treating people like that is like cutting off your own nose to spite your face.
Yes, Russia left USA in the dust for sure. And Apple turned out to be failure under Jobs leadership.
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the trick is : never become personal. It is ok to yell at a person if he doesn't do his stuff on time. Calling him an idiot is a no-no though.
Some people need a good yell to kick em into action. Nothing wrong with 'venting' and getting all excited and worked up. Good brainstorm sessions always erupt in a shouting match ( but 'good' shouting' , as in excited or in defending ones idea.
you have to understand that in a professional setting it is never personal.
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the trick is : never become personal. It is ok to yell at a person if he doesn't do his stuff on time. Calling him an idiot is a no-no though.
Some people need a good yell to kick em into action. Nothing wrong with 'venting' and getting all excited and worked up. Good brainstorm sessions always erupt in a shouting match ( but 'good' shouting' , as in excited or in defending ones idea.
you have to understand that in a professional setting it is never personal.
I have yet to see such behavior in a professional office setting. My experience is that "educated" people usually have good manors but company owners, who may have taken another path to power, and cannot be fired, may have a disregard of proper etiquette. If an employee would behave in a manor that Jobs did then he wouldn't be employed for long. Best to put other pressures on to get the job done (tighter schedules, hints etc.). On the other hand, my neighbor is crazy and he has an engineering degree from a major university so there are all types everywhere, I suppose...
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With all due respect, please read the posts carefully before doling out undue criticism. The "greedy middle men" was a comment made by another poster, who said that he though investors didn't add value, seeing them as greedy. I, on the other hand, have repeatedly said that I greatly value the input from experienced investors, even ready to give up half of the ownership, knowing that the product is only a small part of the business. The "clown suit contest" comment was a reference to the dog and pony show most business owners put on in an attempt to hype their business in hope of attracting funding.
I did read the posts. The other guy may have used the term, however you referred to them as "unfortunately, sometimes needed". Starting out a relationship with a grudge is no way to start. I'm not just taking a shot at you because I am more on the business side than the engineering side, it's something you should keep in mind as you move forward. But let's put that aside for now....
You've gotten quite a lot of good advice in this thread. I work with a bunch of VC's in New England and I'm usually the guy they call when there is a technical side to a deal that nobody understands but they are interested in investing and want to know whether there is any real 'meat' there. Some things to consider...
-You may be uncomfortable with sales and business stuff... the idea of hiring someone (through salary or equity) to "just handle it" may sound appealing, but all you will be doing is moving those conversations and that work you are uncomfortable with from outside to inside and you will be dealing with it daily. A long long time ago at my first company I tried to do the same thing as you, except for sales. It just doesn't work, IMO.
-I don't know how accurate the "my margins are lower because of the development cycle" thing is, I'm not saying you are lying, I just don't know, but it definitely comes across as a red flag to an investor, basically admitting you'll always be a step or two behind. I think that is a question you need to come up with a really good answer to, for when you are in front of an investor.
-I totally disagree with folks who are saying an investor wants to take over or to eat you alive on equity, etc. An investor is never going to invest in someone they don't think is qualified or capable. It's like buying a fixer-upper of a home, which nobody would do unless they were hoping to get a better ROI. So you don't want to go in saying you need all sorts of help with marketing/sales/administration/etc because I think that is going to be detrimental. It's saying to an investor "I'm going to be a handful and take a lot of time and need a lot of questions answered" - and they are going to want a massive chunk of equity if they are going to be hand-holding.
-I very much disagree with the idea of "we can't compete on price because we don't have the name, so our prices are lower and our margins less". It's OK to be a low price supplier, but a small company as the low price supplier in an established market with big competitors? That's a bad bad place to be. You want to be a feature leader over others. You need to offer something they don't. One of my rules (and it's universal among the VC's I work with) is that the moment someone talks about how they will win on price.... that's an investment you just don't make.
Just some things to keep in mind. Again, I don't think you need a partner. Maybe an employee as some others said - maybe with a small equity position in restricted non-voting shares or something, but no way a 50/50 partner, especially not if your goal is to get investment from VC's in the near future.
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With all due respect, please read the posts carefully before doling out undue criticism. The "greedy middle men" was a comment made by another poster, who said that he though investors didn't add value, seeing them as greedy. I, on the other hand, have repeatedly said that I greatly value the input from experienced investors, even ready to give up half of the ownership, knowing that the product is only a small part of the business. The "clown suit contest" comment was a reference to the dog and pony show most business owners put on in an attempt to hype their business in hope of attracting funding.
I did read the posts. The other guy may have used the term, however you referred to them as "unfortunately, sometimes needed". Starting out a relationship with a grudge is no way to start. I'm not just taking a shot at you because I am more on the business side than the engineering side, it's something you should keep in mind as you move forward. But let's put that aside for now....
You've gotten quite a lot of good advice in this thread. I work with a bunch of VC's in New England and I'm usually the guy they call when there is a technical side to a deal that nobody understands but they are interested in investing and want to know whether there is any real 'meat' there. Some things to consider...
-You may be uncomfortable with sales and business stuff... the idea of hiring someone (through salary or equity) to "just handle it" may sound appealing, but all you will be doing is moving those conversations and that work you are uncomfortable with from outside to inside and you will be dealing with it daily. A long long time ago at my first company I tried to do the same thing as you, except for sales. It just doesn't work, IMO.
-I don't know how accurate the "my margins are lower because of the development cycle" thing is, I'm not saying you are lying, I just don't know, but it definitely comes across as a red flag to an investor, basically admitting you'll always be a step or two behind. I think that is a question you need to come up with a really good answer to, for when you are in front of an investor.
-I totally disagree with folks who are saying an investor wants to take over or to eat you alive on equity, etc. An investor is never going to invest in someone they don't think is qualified or capable. It's like buying a fixer-upper of a home, which nobody would do unless they were hoping to get a better ROI. So you don't want to go in saying you need all sorts of help with marketing/sales/administration/etc because I think that is going to be detrimental. It's saying to an investor "I'm going to be a handful and take a lot of time and need a lot of questions answered" - and they are going to want a massive chunk of equity if they are going to be hand-holding.
-I very much disagree with the idea of "we can't compete on price because we don't have the name, so our prices are lower and our margins less". It's OK to be a low price supplier, but a small company as the low price supplier in an established market with big competitors? That's a bad bad place to be. You want to be a feature leader over others. You need to offer something they don't. One of my rules (and it's universal among the VC's I work with) is that the moment someone talks about how they will win on price.... that's an investment you just don't make.
Just some things to keep in mind. Again, I don't think you need a partner. Maybe an employee as some others said - maybe with a small equity position in restricted non-voting shares or something, but no way a 50/50 partner, especially not if your goal is to get investment from VC's in the near future.
Thanks for the advice. I think we are on the same page. The biggest obstacle to increasing revenue is time to market in order to be able to take advantage of the product life cycle. I was lucky with my first product, which I estimate I started selling somewhere in the ramp-up of the cycle. It sold well for a number of years before newer technologies came along. My second product was technologically much more advanced (perhaps 7x more complex) but a market dud. Due to the complexity, it took too long and by the time it was completed, I missed the market window. I'm now on product #3, which will be introduced somewhere in the middle of the product/technology life cycle. Consistently, late to market, chasing the market, results in less revenue. It is quite obvious that more engineering resources are needed to get to market sooner. That costs money so investment would be needed or a big risk would be needed to hire on revenue. This is where a business person would be able to help out. More engineering resources without business guidance spells disaster if making a wrong product choice since a cash flow crisis would surely ensue. The same goes for more business staffing without more engineering resources; more negative cashflow without solving the time-to-market issue. This is why the title of this thread seeks a "driven business partner", who would complement my technical expertise.
Now, regarding product choices: I know that high-speed serial protocol analysis is an approximately 1 billion dollar business. Each major competitor has about 100 million revenue each. The minor ones have about 1-5 Million USD in yearly revenue. I know the USB protocol analyzers sold over the web are more or less consumer products so can be sold on price. With business contacts and experience strategy, other product choices could be made; military, government, other special equipment, etc. These are all skillsets that an engineer is not trained in so I still maintain that teaming up with a partner would be beneficial OR an investor would be willing to take a chance to put in funds to hire the right business skillset and THEN find additional markets and products that the technology know-how can take advantage of. As I mentioned earlier; it took me 20 years to be fully competent in Engineering and I assume the same applies to business professionals.
I see the whole thing as a bit of a chicken or egg problem...
Edit: I think what is needed is to find an investor that knows technology well enough to realize the value of the engineering knowhow available in me and the available products. A massive investment (20 years of consulting-level engineering experience, 8 years of hard-core every-evening, every-weekend product development, 2 years of full-time development, 6,000 pages of research notes in 16 huge binders, and around $500K invested) of engineering has gone into getting to this point. This is something that only a corporation normally would attempt but I ended up doing it myself as the challenge was worthy. The technology, products and knowhow have been proven via over 850 units sold, with a total revenue close to $500K USD. Distributors are in place in 10 countries on most continents etc. I turned down a $150K/year job working with these technologies since I figured I should be able to build something better and bigger in the form of a company around the technology know-how. That offer still stands if needed but before "going back = giving up" I want to dig a little deeper to see what traction I can get.
Definitely, there is intellectual property available that can be applied to many other fields in this 1 billion USD market. Not in the form of formal patents (which are not worth the paper they are written on unless one has money to enforce them in court) but rather in the form of the engineering know-how. All the information these days gets shuffled around in high-speed serial communications networks and all these networks are using protocol analyzers during their development. TVs use HDMI; computers use PCI Express, SATA and SAS, fiber, general networking, telephony etc - it's all high-speed serial.
Note that a lot of my time gets diverted to sales, marketing, emailing etc. Therefore, a person handling the business-side (hired or partner) is still my preferred solution so I can fully utilize my engineering know-how. Engineering is a narrow specialty skill and I assume that business is the same (within a certain market segment). Why is it always that a founder is supposed to have business savvy and get funding to hire engineers rather than the other way around? I think it is because investors most often don't understand technology enough to see the value, while a business savvy person can dazzle an investor much more easily with inflated projections that have (perhaps) little correlation with reality.
Based on feedback from Angels and VCs (YouTube and online), it is still a hit-and-miss business of finding a good investment. apparently, less than 10% of investments pay off, 80% go nowhere and 10% die quickly. Products and markets frequently change, while teams and founders remain. Therefore, I think "investing in people" is the key. Usually, this means a proven management (business) team but, sometimes, in the form of exceptional engineering (Seymour Cray comes to mind).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Cray
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Maybe a combination is the solution?
You need an extra engineer, so hire a guy that is 3/4 engineer, 1/4 salesman, do the engineering together, do the sales/marketing/business together.
Yes, that would be perfect but I can only assume that it will be a very mammoth effort to find such a person. I have thought about creating some kind of Internet-based collaboration, ...
Maybe base the search on archieved results? Someone who put something together, and sells it himself, just like you.
Then you know he is enough of a engineer, and enough of a businessman.
But it seems you want to stay the owner, and keep control over what happens.
Then it must be someone who is younger, I mean in age or in the mass of his archievements.
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A few more thoughts.
You're right about everything going high-speed serial. But this is not just a technical development, it has political aspects too. Have you read Bunny Huang's book 'Hacking the XBOX'? (He's released it free online.) Point being, one of the side effects of high speed serial interfaces, is they enable kinds of data-protection that weren't possible before, and there are many big players (hi MS, Intel, etc) who like this idea very much, and are actively steering in the direction of closed-box systems, by use of high speed serial (encrypted, or just hard to read by virtue of the frequencies involved.)
So, by producing protocol analyzers in this area, you are kind of making yourself an enemy of parties who'd rather such things were as little available as possible. Consequences: they may make things (technical and legal) difficult for you. Also, if you recognize you're engaged in work that has political implications, you can grasp opportunities there - if you are careful.
So, some companies want to use high speed serial to secure system data flows? OK, so there will by definition be many others who'd like to unlock them. There's a market for you, especially if your marketing makes that point.
The first XBOX was an MS experiment in implementing a closed computing platform, by relying on the non-observability of the LPC (very high speed) serial bus between the CPU and NorthBridge. It was part of their early work towards a closed PC platform, able to support MS ideas for a DRM-based OS, allowing MS to implement pay-per view (of their large film and music library holdings.) When Bunny cracked that system they had to rethink, and are still working on alternatives. Have you heard this new one:
http://investmentwatchblog.com/all-new-cpus-will-require-windows-10/ (http://investmentwatchblog.com/all-new-cpus-will-require-windows-10/)
ALL New CPUs Will Require Windows 10
(I don't know if this is believable. Needs confirmation.)
Point being, someone selling tools to see HOW they achieve such a thing (and combat it), might sell a lot of them in the right circumstances.
Along those lines, is there any chance you could do protocol analyzer products that were *very* cheap? Enough for mass market? In which case you could market them as teaching aids for experimenters, not just advanced tools for top engineers. Something you could sell through Maker outlets like dangerousprototypes.com, sparkfun.com, hackaday.com, adafruit.com, etc.
If you had working prototypes of something affordable with mass geek-appeal, then you could probably raise production and staff-hire capital via crowdfunding channels. While retaining 100% control.
Economics again. When I mentioned the potential for a new downturn aka GFC#2, you kind of handwaved indicating you know something's up but feel it won't be as bad as last time (2008.) You've also repeatedly (and accurately) pointed out that you have a vast investment of time, money and expertise sunk into your protocol analyzer business, and you feel it's high time you started reaping some rewards. Hence the partner idea.
Methinks the latter is causing some wishful thinking on the former. Which is dangerous. Things are more likely to be like this:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-19/why-slump-has-legs (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-19/why-slump-has-legs)
I don't know what you'd decide to do if you recognized that this time things could get far more grim than 2008. But I do think you should consider it more seriously than you apparently are.
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@TerraHertz: Recently I read an article that pirated games will be a thing of the past in about 2 years because the protection is getting too good to be cracked. Recent games take weeks to crack already.
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Easy for you to say since you live in a country where others are paying for your school, kids education, healthcare etc. You can sit on your rump in Sweden and still get all the same social services as someone killing themselves trying to get ahead. That's why so few are trying to get ahead. I know, I'm born and grew up in Sweden, moved to the US about 15 years ago. Here in the US, we have to work hard or we end up on the street.
Yeah, yeah, :blah: somewhat entertaining when certain (post Swedes) US citizens whatever vent their preconceptions
on other countries and in same sweep claims to be born in the same country but left because of it. Soon you will say
Polar Bears walk down the street here and your favorite meal is smorgasboard!
Why do you think people are paying super high taxes here have you already forgot your heritage? And no Sweden
are not a socialist country just pretending to be but in reality highly capitalistic but with high taxes and have always been
forgot that to? Maybe you should evaluate US for it's god sides instead of pointing out the obvious bad one's? No country
is heaven, well perhaps Norway are! HoHum ...well no they are firing oil worker en mass i see now!
Why condemn the very same country you move'd to only to parasite on their low tax system, if you dont like US you can
move back to Sweden where everyone are lazy and lives on others work you self proclaimed rhetorical bastard, i could say
but dont because it's not very polite.
Now, I hardly adore Jobs, I agree based on available information that he was a hard-core hustler and would
have no patience for anyone standing in his way. Business is war. You either lose or you win. Take your pick.
Calling me an *a******* because I'm asking where to find a driven business partner is hardly constructive,
nor very polite...
Yet you advertise for a Steve Jobs type in posts and thread header! :palm:
In the VC's business there is something called zombie companies, i let you figure ut.Your moving goal posts. I didn't say you
are a *a******* what i said was Steve seams to be an asshole according to the web and it's beneficial to be or have
narcissistic features to understand other narcissists else you might end up screwed. So again then, dont get it why you
want to get deliberately screwed by giving away 50% to an asshole while hailing assholes as a role model for success
just as the web article points out are not that's my point.
Your problem are your asking for a Steve Jobs while not being able to understand the magnitude of such personality to begin
with besides no Steve Jobs character would be interested in your small company with a specialized product on a narrow market
else then screw you off your money and leave you on the street to eat gravel. :-//
Somehow you seams to be stuck i the idea that highfly VC's is a golden solution but all your reference's so far of VC's are
YouTube and online not even face to face!? My tiny experience of "highfly VC's" are when they enter a company they often
tell founders to take a hike particularly during bubble building periods! Guess why? Once i was in R/D of a venture 24 company
and i was equally nasty/entertaining here as anywhere else including US! We had among many some US based VC's investors!
You have already got ton's of god advice's and also clear warning's from other people in this thread.
I throw you another obvious one like step out of your preconceived engineering shoes and step into the shoes of a decent
serious VC and scrutinize your self and your company and business plan,what flaws do you find and for which reasons would
you as a VC invest in your company?
"50% cheaper then others" is not going to work on a specialized market, there are always a Chinese dude who's cheaper!
Why is it always that a founder is supposed to have business savvy and get funding to hire engineers rather than the other way around? I think it is because investors most often don't understand technology enough to see the value, while a business savvy person can dazzle an investor much more easily with inflated projections that have (perhaps) little correlation with reality.
Based on feedback from Angels and VCs (YouTube and online), it is still a hit-and-miss business of finding a good investment. apparently, less than 10% of investments pay off, 80% go nowhere and 10% die quickly. Products and markets frequently change, while teams and founders remain. Therefore, I think "investing in people" is the key. Usually, this means a proven management (business) team but, sometimes, in the form of exceptional engineering (Seymour Cray comes to mind).
In your race for the "celebrity names" you could as well look into Raymond Kurzweil a dude who know his engineering skills
but also known for being a David v.s able to talk, Goliats into invest in his companies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil
Now, regarding product choices: I know that high-speed serial protocol analysis is an approximately 1 billion dollar business. Each major competitor has about 100 million revenue each. The minor ones have about 1-5 Million USD in yearly revenue. I know the USB protocol analyzers sold over the web are more or less consumer products so can be sold on price.
As Dave etc already suggested, simply go and pitch, pitch everywhere, dedicate 2 days a week for 2 moth's see what happens
then make the future route.
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I read somewhere that "only idiots argue on the internet" so I'm not going to respond further to some of the personally aggressive, antagonistic posts here. A few responders have actually kept on topic, recommending places where business contacts are made. I thank you for that. Some even PM'd and emailed me. Thank you. Going off on a crusade against how bad Steve Jobs was or this or that is perhaps understandable since this is an Electronics (hobby) forum. I will keep searching for a more business-like forum that discuss these topics. If anyone can recommend such a forum, I'd appreciate a pointer.
Thanks,
/John.
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So, by producing protocol analyzers in this area, you are kind of making yourself an enemy of parties who'd rather such things were as little available as possible. Consequences: they may make things (technical and legal) difficult for you. Also, if you recognize you're engaged in work that has political implications, you can grasp opportunities there - if you are careful.
So, some companies want to use high speed serial to secure system data flows? OK, so there will by definition be many others who'd like to unlock them. There's a market for you, especially if your marketing makes that point.
Well, any encryption would have to be made on a layer higher than the physical layer so would not affect a protocol analyzer. The physical protocols essentially deal with transporting packets, CRCs etc. If there is higher-level encryption, the packer data will be nonsense but the protocol analyzer will be able to determine whether the packets are correctly formatted.
Along those lines, is there any chance you could do protocol analyzer products that were *very* cheap? Enough for mass market? In which case you could market them as teaching aids for experimenters, not just advanced tools for top engineers. Something you could sell through Maker outlets like dangerousprototypes.com, sparkfun.com, hackaday.com, adafruit.com, etc.
If you had working prototypes of something affordable with mass geek-appeal, then you could probably raise production and staff-hire capital via crowdfunding channels. While retaining 100% control.
Not possible. Too much engineering go into these products and the market is too small. I tried Kickstarter to probe the interest. Flop.
Economics again. When I mentioned the potential for a new downturn aka GFC#2, you kind of handwaved indicating you know something's up but feel it won't be as bad as last time (2008.) You've also repeatedly (and accurately) pointed out that you have a vast investment of time, money and expertise sunk into your protocol analyzer business, and you feel it's high time you started reaping some rewards. Hence the partner idea.
Methinks the latter is causing some wishful thinking on the former. Which is dangerous. Things are more likely to be like this:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-19/why-slump-has-legs (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-19/why-slump-has-legs)
I don't know what you'd decide to do if you recognized that this time things could get far more grim than 2008. But I do think you should consider it more seriously than you apparently are.
Whatever happens in the economy will happen. I can't go and dig a bomb shelter in anticipation what might happen. 2008 is so fresh in everybody's mind that everybody is waiting for the next crash to happen. This is exactly why it will not happen. The market always does that the majority is not expecting. All the central banks over the world are sitting with their fingers on the "quantative easing" button, ready for whenever a down-turn comes. Last time nobody was ready and it took time to react - not this time.
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I will keep searching for a more business-like forum that discuss these topics. If anyone can recommend such a forum, I'd appreciate a pointer.
http://www.ycombinator.com/ (http://www.ycombinator.com/)
Seriously, that's *exactly* what it does. Sorry, I don't know why it didn't occur to me to mention it earlier. Old age perhaps.
They also run https://news.ycombinator.com/, (https://news.ycombinator.com/,) which is a tech/startup news forum, also very good.
I don't think people were insulting you, only questioning the wisdom of your ambition to entangle yourself with a Steve Jobs type personality. It became an argument when you insisted on jousting with views not in precise accordance with your own position, rather than just making a list of points raised that perhaps you should consider.
Edit to add:
So, by producing protocol analyzers in this area, you are kind of making yourself an enemy of parties who'd rather such things were as little available as possible. Consequences: they may make things (technical and legal) difficult for you. Also, if you recognize you're engaged in work that has political implications, you can grasp opportunities there - if you are careful.
So, some companies want to use high speed serial to secure system data flows? OK, so there will by definition be many others who'd like to unlock them. There's a market for you, especially if your marketing makes that point.
Well, any encryption would have to be made on a layer higher than the physical layer so would not affect a protocol analyzer. The physical protocols essentially deal with transporting packets, CRCs etc. If there is higher-level encryption, the packer data will be nonsense but the protocol analyzer will be able to determine whether the packets are correctly formatted.
Yes, of course, this is obvious. My point was that high speed serial physical layers are so difficult to tap into that very few hardware experimenters can see the data at all. Which means there is market potential. Think 'the Rigol of serial protocol analyzers'.
Along those lines, is there any chance you could do protocol analyzer products that were *very* cheap? Enough for mass market? In which case you could market them as teaching aids for experimenters, not just advanced tools for top engineers. Something you could sell through Maker outlets like dangerousprototypes.com, sparkfun.com, hackaday.com, adafruit.com, etc.
If you had working prototypes of something affordable with mass geek-appeal, then you could probably raise production and staff-hire capital via crowdfunding channels. While retaining 100% control.
Not possible. Too much engineering go into these products and the market is too small.
Mass market potential is constrained by hardware manufacture cost, not the amount of development/learning already invested.
I tried Kickstarter to probe the interest. Flop.
No possibility you framed the attempt poorly? Didn't market it well? Just one failed attempt and you give up that path forever?
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I read somewhere that "only idiots argue on the internet"
Well, dont argue on the internet then.
I will keep searching for a more business-like forum that discuss these topics. If anyone can recommend such a forum, I'd appreciate a pointer.
I don't think people were insulting you, only questioning the wisdom of your ambition to entangle yourself with a Steve Jobs type personality. It became an argument when you insisted on jousting with views not in precise accordance with your own position, rather than just making a list of points raised that perhaps you should consider.
Indeed, but i doubt John_ITIC are able to understand since he dont realize his way of argumentation
is his biggest enemy to success, i get the impression he want to hear what fit's his flawed ideas.
John ITIC argue in a similar way as the dude in i-want-a-engineer-for-10%-share thread! maybe they should join.
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" I think what is needed is to find an investor that knows technology well enough to realize the value of the engineering knowhow available in me and the available products"
This may not what you like to hear but technology contributes very little to the eventual success of a product, or an enterprise.
Because engineering talents are easy to replace. If you are selling yourself and your achievement so far as an engineer or engineering one, you have undersold yoursel
From what I have heard, you have identified a market niche, a demand that is yet to be met by other mkt participants, and you have a proven track record in this space marketing and engineering successful products.
And most of them all, you have had failures and you have lost money.
Those knowledge pieces are worth far more than what a lowly engineer can bring to the table.
So don't find that investor who appreciates your engineering talents instead, find that investor who appreciates all of you.
That way, you will get a lot more out of you.
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This may not what you like to hear but technology contributes very little to the eventual success of a product, or an enterprise.
This is very true. I always tell my customers that technology by itself is worthless. Someone needs to sell it in order to be worth something! There is a profit optimum around selling something which doesn't exist yet and get it made just in time once it is sold.
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I think your products are probably way too niche and specilaised for any "business" type person to have a clue about.
Your potential customers will be engineers like yourself, who'd rather talk to you than some sales person who doesn't know all the fine details.
It's probably an area where you have to offer something significantly better then the "usual suspects", as I'd guess that just being cheaper may not be enough. Someone developing this sort of stuff is most likely on a big budget and tight timescale.
If you could offer something that is in some way obviously better and/or quicker at getting the job done then the product should sell itself to some extent.
I'd agree with the earlier comment about exploring licensing - if there is an established test gear brand with a gap in their range that you could fill by producing something for them to sell under their name, then that would be the ideal situation as they already have the sales & marketing in place.
Not just test gear manufacturers - anyone selling silicon into this area (FPGA people?) may also have some interest in having their "own" protocol analysis solution tailored around their products or IP offerings, or integrated into their own tools.
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http://www.ycombinator.com/ (http://www.ycombinator.com/)
Seriously, that's *exactly* what it does. Sorry, I don't know why it didn't occur to me to mention it earlier. Old age perhaps.
They also run https://news.ycombinator.com/, (https://news.ycombinator.com/,) which is a tech/startup news forum, also very good.
Thanks. I checked and only for people in the Bay Area. I have a friend that got funded and he recently mentioned something about a local incubator. I will ask again to get some more information.
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" I think what is needed is to find an investor that knows technology well enough to realize the value of the engineering knowhow available in me and the available products"
This may not what you like to hear but technology contributes very little to the eventual success of a product, or an enterprise.
Because engineering talents are easy to replace. If you are selling yourself and your achievement so far as an engineer or engineering one, you have undersold yoursel
From what I have heard, you have identified a market niche, a demand that is yet to be met by other mkt participants, and you have a proven track record in this space marketing and engineering successful products.
And most of them all, you have had failures and you have lost money.
Those knowledge pieces are worth far more than what a lowly engineer can bring to the table.
So don't find that investor who appreciates your engineering talents instead, find that investor who appreciates all of you.
That way, you will get a lot more out of you.
I would not say I have lost money. I have gained experience and built products and know-how. One does not "lose money" when one goes to college, one gets educated. But I agree, there has been negative cash flow along the way.
Engineering talent can be replaced. Ownership of ready-developed technology cannot (cheaply) be replaced but will take a lot of money, know-how and time to create. So it has direct value for someone that can take advantage of it.
I can turn this argument around: There should be plenty of people with business experience (perhaps from working a corporate job 15 years) that would die to have ownership of IP and products that directly could be used for building a company. I would not underestimate the engineering contribution either.
Having that said; I know that technology is only a small part of business success. It is all about building business processes around the product. But the product is still needed or else there is nothing to build the business around. Both are needed. I have half and am trying to find the other half.
Edit: bad spelling...
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Your potential customers will be engineers like yourself, who'd rather talk to you than some sales person who doesn't know all the fine details.
It's probably an area where you have to offer something significantly better then the "usual suspects", as I'd guess that just being cheaper may not be enough. Someone developing this sort of stuff is most likely on a big budget and tight timescale.
If you could offer something that is in some way obviously better and/or quicker at getting the job done then the product should sell itself to some extent.
The gear from the major manufacturers is not necessarily better quality or have better features. But they do crank them out quickly with a big budget. They know the product life cycle is short so they don't put much work into good software. Larger manufacturers sell on reputation and that they support compliance testing etc. Small manufacturers compete with good marketing, but doesn't have much better features. I try to create the best products I can and "hope" to get a reputation at some point for building good gear. If I don't go bankrupt along the way...
I'd agree with the earlier comment about exploring licensing - if there is an established test gear brand with a gap in their range that you could fill by producing something for them to sell under their name, then that would be the ideal situation as they already have the sales & marketing in place.
Not just test gear manufacturers - anyone selling silicon into this area (FPGA people?) may also have some interest in having their "own" protocol analysis solution tailored around their products or IP offerings, or integrated into their own tools.
A major problem is to reach the right people within large organizations with such suggestions. Most such email requests go straight to the waste-basket since the gate-keeper doesn't understand and thinks it is spam.
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A major problem is to reach the right people within large organizations with such suggestions. Most such email requests go straight to the waste-basket since the gate-keeper doesn't understand and thinks it is spam.
True. A way to invest in these contacts (in my area), is offering internship to engineering students.
It will bring you in contact with students that will work exactly on the spot you want, and bring you in contact with the professsors that know where everybody landed.
This will cost you a lot of efforts and money, but for some it is really worth it.
... but technology contributes very little to the eventual success of a product, or an enterprise.
Because engineering talents are easy to replace...
Seen that before, where the company ends up with a row of products, nobody knows about anymore.
But engineering, indeed, was easyly replaced, one by one.
What customers thought about the company where nobody was even aware anymore of what they sold?
Completely not relevant to actual and future sales and business "success" of course.
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A major problem is to reach the right people within large organizations with such suggestions. Most such email requests go straight to the waste-basket since the gate-keeper doesn't understand and thinks it is spam.
Perhaps hiring a booth at some kind of convention / trade show could help to get more contacts. It is a long winded process but knowing the right people and thus creating contacts in large firms takes time.
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A major problem is to reach the right people within large organizations with such suggestions. Most such email requests go straight to the waste-basket since the gate-keeper doesn't understand and thinks it is spam.
Perhaps hiring a booth at some kind of convention / trade show could help to get more contacts. It is a long winded process but knowing the right people and thus creating contacts in large firms takes time.
Yes, time, that elusive variable keeps popping up...
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Perhaps you should have started earlier with broadening your network. Even in busy times I take time to 'network' so the contacts are there in case my regular customers get quiet..
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Some time ago ... I run into a book in a book store, and forgot what the book is, because it is not important - story is applicable to ALL books in a list like this
http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadershop/titleindex.html. (http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadershop/titleindex.html.)
I purchased it, red it in 2 days and made a one single discovery - what set all successful entrepreneurs and business men/women apart is that they 1. NEVER EVER need to read stupid books like this to be successful 2. Fact that I actually wasted 2 evenings of my life to find out what successful people do from a book means exactly that - I NEVER EVER was or will be one of them.
Let me extrapolate it further - if you ask how to find partner like Jobbs means that you never will, and if you do he/she will ignore you and what I am saying was not true you would have found one already!
"Excuse me Sir ... but if you have to ask the price it means you cannot afford it ;D" - does that ring the bell?
There must be some kind of philosophical law that explains this "phenomenon" of sorts.
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Nahhh you forget one thing: any problem can be solved by throwing money at it. If you hire someone with the right sales contacts anyone can create a succesful business. The biggest problem usually is getting the money but once you have that you are more than half way there.
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Some time ago ... I run into a book in a book store, and forgot what the book is, because it is not important - story is applicable to ALL books in a list like this
http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadershop/titleindex.html. (http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadershop/titleindex.html.)
I purchased it, red it in 2 days and made a one single discovery - what set all successful entrepreneurs and business men/women apart is that they 1. NEVER EVER need to read stupid books like this to be successful 2. Fact that I actually wasted 2 evenings of my life to find out what successful people do from a book means exactly that - I NEVER EVER was or will be one of them.
Let me extrapolate it further - if you ask how to find partner like Jobbs means that you never will, and if you do he/she will ignore you and what I am saying was not true you would have found one already!
"Excuse me Sir ... but if you have to ask the price it means you cannot afford it ;D" - does that ring the bell?
There must be some kind of philosophical law that explains this "phenomenon" of sorts.
successfull entrepreneurs / leaders are too busy making money. they have no time to write books.
Who knows, does. Who doesn't, teaches. still holds true
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successfull entrepreneurs / leaders are too busy making money. they have no time to write books.
Who knows, does. Who doesn't, teaches. still holds true
This was never true and isn't now. It was intended as a put down. Plenty of highly successful people have a desire to repay to society the massive contribution education made to their lives. Some do it in the form of teaching. That is not something to be ashamed of.
Very true. Some people actually enjoy teaching and prefer doing it rather than chasing money or prestige.
That said - I suspect it is generally true that those writing books about how to be a successful entrepeneur are likely just trying to be successful by selling books and not really interested in teaching.
BTW - I doubt Vincent (free_electron) really believes what he wrote since he himself has written several books! (http://www.siliconvalleygarage.com/published-works/) - likely very good ones.
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A major problem is to reach the right people within large organizations with such suggestions. Most such email requests go straight to the waste-basket since the gate-keeper doesn't understand and thinks it is spam.
Perhaps hiring a booth at some kind of convention / trade show could help to get more contacts. It is a long winded process but knowing the right people and thus creating contacts in large firms takes time.
Some trade shows also run talks/seminars alongside the exhibition. If you were to do a talk about protocol analyzers, which happenned to use your products as examples of applications, benefits etc. it may attract some interest from potential customers and/or potential companies wanting to get into the market.
Similarly, writing technical articles in the trade press may offer a similar opportunity. My guess is that trade publications are always interested in primarily technical (as opposed to sales) content - could be worth a try.
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A major problem is to reach the right people within large organizations with such suggestions. Most such email requests go straight to the waste-basket since the gate-keeper doesn't understand and thinks it is spam.
I have found that engineers are often/usually quite helpful towards other engineers (and overly antagonistic towards any type of sales/management person). I've also found it quite easy to get the name and email (and often phone) of people within organizations that would be your users. The names/emails/phone are often listed in technical presentations, press releases, datasheets, app notes and such which can be found online. Contacting them directly and bypassing the gatekeepers should prove fruitful.
Some YouTube videos with how-to's on your products which are also posted on your website will also help... especially if it's "how to use the new XYZ from ITIC to <insert common use case here>".
Don't forget to ask for the sale - always. So if the person you reach isn't the one you need to be talking to, ask them for the name/email/phone of the right person... done in a friendly way, engineer-to-engineer, I've had pretty much a 100% success rate in doing this.
Like I said - engineers trust (and want to help) engineers. Just don't belie that it's a sales call :)
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Nahhh you forget one thing: any problem can be solved by throwing money at it. If you hire someone with the right sales contacts anyone can create a succesful business. The biggest problem usually is getting the money but once you have that you are more than half way there.
Reminds me of the company where I worked around Y2K. Started there as employee #8, nice people, good niche product, small business mentality.
And then the owners did what you mentioned.
2 years later all 42 employees had to look for another job. The best ones already left before the explosion.
I would sign directly for a job the same as the situation of the beginning, and would refuse to earn 100K in the situation at the end.
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Money can keep mediocrity alive but when money is combined with incompetence and stupidity you just make failure more spectacular, louder and brighter nothing more. "BOOM!!!" with shit flying all over, Wikipedia articles and TV news like "XXX filled for chapter xx!!!".