Having laid into people pitching their ideas to investors and resource managers, I was challenged to come back with a blog about daft things investors do to provide some balance. Well, balance in this case is going to come from a chip on both my shoulders so let’s move into the shadowy and sometimes arrogant world of investment. A few dont’s and dont’s with the odd bit of personal experience thrown in…   more »

Something is a specialist skill that only a few people can do and gradually it becomes more widely available, cheaper and easier to use (no punchcards in computers now - only blue screens of death and sanctimonious Mac users to deal with). This article talks about the inexorable march of technologies and produsts from high cost, scarcities to being cheap and on your desktop etc.
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Here are the signs of how to spot if you are talking to a startup company that is doomed. Might be a bit harsh and an exageration but I bet I'm right almost all the time on this. Here is the first thing they say that should make you run out of the door screaming.   more »

Okay you've sold your idea to a big company for $1 a unit they fit it to..... and they make millions each year. Just before you start driving away in your Ferrari though, you realise they aren't building any units with your baby incorporated. What's worse, you can't get the idea back from them. You've been caught in the pay or play trap.   more »

One of the most interesting problems in a technology startup can be figuring out where to enter the value chain. This real example shows the thinking needed to maximise the return for your company.

An electronics company had a revolutionary component for mobile networks. Thinking traditionally - they would be sold to form part of an assembly made by another company that would be sold to a systems integrator who would deliver the network for a mobile operator.

The overall savings in a network rollout by using this product would be in the order of 100’s of millions of dollars – by allowing the removal or down-speccing of other systems.

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You may have the best idea in the world but if you can't sell it, you're not going to get very far. To sell it, you have to understand your target audience - investors. Now without going into huge reams of psychological detail, if I suggested they want to make huge amounts of money off your hard work then could we agree on that?   more »

This is really simple but works.  Think about the processes involved in going from innovation to product/feature delivery.  If they are supposed to work closely together then put them close together.  Is that it?  Okay not quite.

To maximise the interactions between different groups, try to increase the size of the physical interface between them.  I'd say that in English if I could. 

Maybe an example will help - doubt it but worth a try. 

If you have a development team and an industrialisation team say - then don't design the office so they are separated.  See if you can set it up so that as many people as possible are next to someone from the other department.  I don't mean mixing them up completely as you want each group to still function well on their own.  I just mean think about how you can create long borders between groups where colleagues from the different groups can talk.

© Copyright Richard A D Jones 2005

There is some simple wisdom about having customers. It costs 10 times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to sell to an existing one. Then, with a strange lack of gratitude, a happy customer will tell between 0 and 3 people whereas an unhappy one will tell more than 10 people of their negative experiences. These figures were created before the advent of email, Internet forums, blogs etc. so I can only assume the picture now is even more extreme.

As part of the cost of having customers, support can make a big difference to the profitability of companies like ISP’s, ASP’s, software companies – in fact most companies that are driving towards low revenues per customer. These companies need to focus on operational excellence and hence low cost customer support.   more »

Corporate venturing is a difficult area at the best of times. However, creating spin-outs from a weak parent can be fatal – no matter how good the new venture. I suggest you sit comfortably and don’t read on if you are of a nervous disposition.   more »

I was priveleged (along an intimate group of 1000 others) to hear Jack Welch talk about his career at GE. Despite criticisms of his job cutting programmes, he is someone I admire immensely for his intellect, focus on developing people and ability to cut through crap and business jargon to get to the heart of issues fast. Some of his simple principles from the night    more »