Maidsfield Blog - Partnering and Business Development

I thoroughly enjoyed Jerry Kennelly’s talk last night at the it@Cork Summer Event in Murphy’s Brewery.

In StockByte, Jerry established a clear vision and opportunity early on and went after it fabulously and whole heartily with great success. That is $135M worth of success when Jerry sold his companies last year.

With the vision at the very start and quickly establishing that they were ahead of the market, Stockbyte established themselves as market leaders and acted accordingly. StockByte were innovative on business model, marketing, delivery of their offering and collecting feedback from the market.

I really really liked:
1) how they marketed the ‘personality’ of the business to set them apart.
2) the constant objective to drive more streamlined scaleable business across the entire business
3) the fast response feedback loop to generate new product directions
4) the focus on high quality, high value and premium service at a relevant high margin price
5) the fast pace
6) the fun of it all, constant innovation coupled with constant business growth, there’s nothing better!

Well done Jerry.

This story and how Jerry delivers it should be bottled and used by Enterprise Ireland as one potential model in building an international successful business. BUT it’s definitely a lesson that it’s well achievable with the right mindset to start with.

I’m going back to work.

also see great write-up on the event at http://www.waveson.com/itcork-and-jerry-kennelly/trackback/

Listen to interview with Jeff, recently podcast by Tom Raftery on the IT@Cork blog…

Jeff Nolan is a Silicon Valley veteran who just recent moved on from SAP into a CEO position with Teqlo.

I’ve been a reader of Jeff’s blog for while and am looking forward to meeting with him and hearing his presentation at the IT@Cork Annual Conference on November 29th.

Jeff blogs about, among many other things, new business models for software companies, “Emerging Trends in Pricing and ROI”.

What Jeff has to say has implications for:

1) Software Product Companies
Should you continue to seek up front perpetual per seat type licensing deals or should you seek a recurring revenue model?

This changes the dynamic of your business significantly. It changes how you sell, who you sell to, the nature of your customer relationships, your support structure, your product development plans, your cashflows, etc……

2) IT Departments

As Jeff points out, Business Functions are buying solutions without consulting IT. They have their own budgets and require no IT infrastructure apart from a web interface SO they don’t need IT expert input in the purchase.

Where is the ‘Authority’ and ‘Power’ of the IT Department going?
Where are all the CIOs gone?

3) Financial Managers and Investors in the Software Industry

When big lump-sum up-front licence fees are gone, how does this affect your cashflows and working capital requirement to fund a growing business?

Software As A Sevice (SAAS) is happening at all levels of software to consumers, small to medium business and at enterprise.

Salesforce.com is an example at enterprise level and there are many more….

This post is in response to Joe Drumgoole’s post: “Is the Irish Software Association worth the price?” and on the ISA 2006 Annual conference

If you’re serious about scaling your business, then today’s ISA Annual Conference, was most definitely worth the price.

So is E800 worth the investment in becoming a member of the ISA?

From today’s event and on ISA brochure, the ISA represents the growing software business. So its not about where you are now, its about where you are going.

I thoroughly enjoyed the half-day event in the Dublin today.

Following Minister Michael Martin’s kick-off the programme started with analysts/investors views of the marketplace. We heard from Andy Malik of Lehman Brothers, Eric Hjerpe of Athlas Venture and ex-Siebel senior VP, Melinda Ballou from IDC and Sean Foley from Microsoft.

These were very practical presentations of what works and whats in flavour. We got great information on business and revenue models. (More on this at some other time)

By 11am, I was already overloaded with valuable information and with 5 more speakers to go. But what followed were 5 real Irish technology business leaders who have delivered great international business success. Fergus Gloster, Senior VP Salesforce.com, Garry Moroney, ex-Similarity Systems CEO, Pat Brazil ex Eontec/Siebel, Sean Melly CEO eTel and Peter Conlon CEO Xsil.

The conference and the structure flowed with themes presented by the analysts/investors being supported and compounded by real examples from the technology business leaders.

This was a real “Get Off Your Ass” event.

I’m a soon-to-be member of ISA, again.

Congratulations to Bernadette Cullinane, ISA Chair, and the ISA team behind todays event.

It does need to be discussed whether ISA is a national organisation and if it is assisting new business owner/managers or just experienced business people.

Regional industry organisations, like IT@Cork, should work with ISA in the regions to jointly drive the international growth and leadership agendas.

Thanks to Guy Kawaski for heads-up on recent interviews with Apple founder Steve Wozniak and other ex-Apple nobility.

It is interesting to see that Guy himself worked as an Apple Technology evangelist.

Steve Wozniak was and still is a techie hero. I remember regularly reading in BYTE magazine in the mid-eighties (I was in my teens) of the on-going developments at Apple Computer.

Apple has always typified the techies dream. The passion and pride for the innovative technology and products was powerful but often over-bearing.

In many cases this passion has made the company to be more product/technology focussed rather than market focussed. Its early success in the computing world created a great momentum in the company that it was hard to kill even with the many product/market blunders throughout the years.

Steve Jobs return to Apple with a seemingly more commercial focus that in his previous term provided a great boost. Its good to see Apple still pushing the innovation envelope and being commercially successful also.

I started my career developing on Macs. I still have one of the first Colour Mac II’s made, a Mac Plus and one of the first Laptops (luggables).

There’s a boom on the rise. Opportunities are ripe and fast. People are more positive. Corporate decisions are faster. Technology is back in vogue.

We’re Back and We’re ready

In the tech boom that ended in 2001, many bad technology investment decisions were made by corporates, owner/managers, techies and investors. The purse strings had been handed back to the doomsdayers - they were right and

by God, we not investing anymore stupid money in IT

It was right and just, to a point, But it did go to far. By world order, Techies were reduced in stature, influence and financial standing. The safe hands were called on, the Accountants, to reduce the financial risks.

but as usual in this scenario, they went too far and threw out the proverbial

Wheat with the Chaff OR The Tech Babies with their Bath water

BUT NOW, The Tech Babies are back and they were right the last time, somewhat!

This time, almost 10 years later, there is more of a balance between the accountants and the techies and the world has changed:

The world is now more tech friendly that 10 years ago -

If only we could divert at least 10% of property investment in Ireland to develop our techie companies ….

We’re Back, this time we’ve got safety pins

it’s been stirring for the past months on whether it was happening or not. Now it’s official…Amazon are establishing their European Service Centre in Cork.

see RTE’s article

This further copper fastens Ireland’s strength in securing the new economy multinationals.

Also with the recent announcement of Cork company DSI’s partnership with Amazon, Ireland is really showing it’s world class capabilities in the new economy in attracting such commitments.

Congratulations to the IDA, Minister Michael Martin and his team..

December’05, Youghal, Co Cork, Ireland

The first event of the new Enterprise Youghal industry organisation took place in the Walter Raleigh Hotel on Tuesday, December 6th, with a strong attendance of over 50 local business representatives.

The organisations purpose is to drive Enterprise Development within the Youghal region. The greater Youghal area has a population of over 50,000 people with many small businesses. Through enabling proactive business networking and structured support from the South Cork Enterprise Board, Enterprise Ireland and The Youghal Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise Youghal aims to encourage and drive business development in the region.

South Cork Enterprise Board secured Maidsfield Associates to assist in the establishment of the Enterprise Youghal working with Youghal Town Council and Youghal Chamber of Commerce.

some comments,

Do we send a letter first and then call OR do we call first and then send the letter?

Letters dont work, People dont read them

Direct Mail does work.

One letter rarely works. The idea is to get their attention. A simple letter is unlikely to do this. Two letters may do it, but it may take five, or more …..

In October’05, in promoting a full day workshop, I wanted to test the various direct mail methods and messages.

To one group of 70 companies that I hadnt worked with (with some companies I knew that i knew), I ran three post card size mailings or photos of clients and their endorsements of my services. On the back of the card stated the details of the workshop. The three cards hit the target group one day after another:

1) Monday they got a card of Tom Keane of Nitrosell.com,
2) Tuesday they got a card about John O’Hare of Azotel.com
3) Wednesday the card recieved details about my guest for the day, Cian Kinsella ex of CR2 and Kindle Banking Systems …

Did it get people to call me or visit my website and book online?

It definitely got noticed but it didnt get bookings without a follow-up call…….seeking feedback it seems my timing was out - there was simply too many free Enterprise Ireland seminars on at the time….its great to see EI doing so much…

Letters need to get their attention, either through innovative novelty, being hit multiple times or even to the point of being annoying or contraversal…

Never assume that one letter will work…

firstly see “What to for in 2006″ in the December Maidsfield Market Leader Newsletter mention of three things…

Blogging
Podcasting - see www.podleaders.com
and IT@Cork delivering greater value to it’s members

There is a significant pick up in the sector in the past year…. where is it going and how do we take best advantage of it

what other things should we be watching to help us in 2006?

Damien Mulley asked some very relevant questions to tease out my views on the Industry and IT@Cork and more…

see Newsroom.ie

I mentioned some of client companies in brief, Azotel, Decare Systems Ireland, Sigtec and Interactive Reporting. In the future, I will provide updated information on these and more tech companies I know of in the Munster area…..

Richenda, my wife, remembers when U2 played at Waterford Regional Technical College, now WIT, at a price of 50 pence per student. She didnt go, she was a bit young. Who was U2 then anyway? But no doubt they were great. Many people missed their opportunity to see this U2 greatness in the making.

How do you become great? It’s not by one great deed nor one great goal nor one great success. Many people rest on one thing of greatness and it fades.

I’m so lucky to regularly meet so many great people today in business in Ireland and further afield. I am always keen for these people to share their knowledge and experience with the industry, within an industry organisation such as it@cork for example.

The it@Cork annual conference is coming up and many great people are speaking and attending. do see www.itcork.ie for more information.

I am really looking forward to hear Jim Mountjoy speak. A great person indeed, both for his achievements and his contribution to the technology sector in Ireland. Jim doesnt speak in public very often and maybe curses the thought of it. No doubt his to-the-point approach will come across from the podium as much as it does across the table. If you dont know of Jim, just do a google and you’ll see.

Other great people speaking at the conference include Charles Handy, Robert Scoble, Joe Gantly and many more.

Great People will gather in the 100’s in Rochestown Park Hotel, Cork - November 30th - Book at www.itcork.ie

In your mind, Who are the great people in the Irish Technology Sector? Do we do enough to reward them for their leadership and contribution?