Mark Richer

Hi tech: A half-life

12-May-2006

Mark Richer

Hi tech: A half-life

12-May-2006

Oh dear…

“Nobody knows anything”

William Goldman

The numbers

26 years 1 misspent youth 1m air miles 3 startups founded 1 receivership 1 NASDAQ IPO 1 Cisco acquisition 0 days of work Care, but not too much

Overview

Cambridge 82-85— 24/20+— work somehow

Intelligent Software 85 Madge Networks 86-94 Calista 95-00 Codian 02->

Intelligent Software 85

6 months programming then… … a transit van at midnight Surprisingly, this was good

You can’t really tell if something is good or bad until much, much later. So chill.

Madge Networks 86-94

Token Ring LAN Adapters 5 people -> peak of 1,500 NASDAQ IPO in 1993 Only external financing 3Com in 89

Recruitment. Excellence. Patience.

Madge Networks aside #1

Early target was to clone IBM -> we supported IBM PC LAN -> first customer wanted NetWare… …and we were useless

Don’t argue with the customers.It is normally less work to just fix it.

Madge Networks aside #2

9900016-bit μP

MAC&

PHYLAN

128k DRAM

SystemInterface

PC

Calista 95-00

Interfacing to proprietary PBXs 12 people to 4.5 to 25 50/50 Partnership and not Market creation: good or bad?

Market creation – just say no

Calista aside

Voice mail interfaces 5/10 Telecommuting 3/10 or 10/10 Voice recording interfaces 9/10

Listen to the customers.

Codian 02-

Video Conferencing infrastructure 12 people to 60 $0m, $1m, $10m

No reruns.

Themes

UK ex-Cambridge R&D Global Sales Never be a UK/European company Start small, think big, believe Ownership No market creation Incremental development Incremental product lines

Recipe

1. Team

2. Product

3. Quick, cheap α/β

4. Try to sell

5. Listen. If near fix; goto 4 else goto 2

6. When saleable: recruit sales force, marketing, production etc

Thank you

Whatever you do…

shake the world a little and have fun

mark.richer@codian.com

recruitment@codian.com

Thank YouThank You