An Attempt at the Guy Kawasaki Model

Let me start off by saying I am a powerpoint junkie.  Well, impress junkie to be exact.  Aside from so mostly minor formatting issues, the open office equivalent to powerpoint is capable.  And it is free   I am a huge fan of telling stories through images and pointed dialogue and if I am not careful, I can get seriously sidetracked from work while thinking that I am working.  The majority of the presentations that I have made for ideabreaker are now obsolete, as the business has evolved regularly and with force.  Not to mention all of them but one were well over 60 slides.  So, as a preemptive experiment  David and I set out to do what for me has been completely impossible in the past:  A Kawasaki inspired presentation on ideabreaker.com.  I must admit that I suck at distilling information as I am a verbal pugilist who is much more comfortable conversing in paragraphs than sentences.  Thankfully David’s style is the exact opposite, swift and to the point.  Take a quick look at our 10-20-30 on ideabreaker and share your thoughts.

Please bear in mind that this slideshow is animated in its native form, and it would have required over 40 slides to achieve the same effect in slideshare, hereby negating the 10 slide model.

The Right Direction?

I recently had a real graphic artist:) take a look at our logo to see what he thought about it and what he could come up with.  His name is; get ready for this, its a long one: Vladislav Sergeivich Sitnikov.  Vlad is a great friend of mine and a very talented designer and D.J.   The problem with really talented people is that they are usually as busy as they are talented!  Thankfully after a few weeks of hustling, Vlad was able to give us a proof on a “new:” logo.  This is only a draft, but I really like the direction that he is heading with it artistically.  I like it so much that I have begun to attach it to every thing that has our name on it.  (The banner at the top of this page is on the way)  There is no doubt that this image is of a far greater quality and posesses much more visual depth than what we had.  The only question is: Should we stick with this theme, or scrap it all and start from scratch?  Suggestions anyone?

20 questions: The Conclusion

16. How do you scale?

As a hosted application available to anyone, scale will be managed through precise capacity planning and an intensely scalable architecture.

17. What is your sustainable competitive advantage?

Our initial competitive advantage will be our architecture and user interface. Our long term competitive advantages are enterprise adoption, highly extensible application framework, and barriers to entry for existing players.

18. What key hires do you need to make next?

The two positions currently on the radar are VP of Marketing and CEO.

19. In addition to capital, what else do you need to be successful?

As it is our intention to stay lean through first revenue, identifying and maintaining close vendor relationships is paramount.

20. Assuming you hit all your targets, who do you think would want to acquire you?

While there are a number of companies such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, HP, and IBM that would stand to benefit from acquiring us; we feel that this may not in fact be our best exit strategy.

Now.  Onto more entertaining things

20 questions continued. . .

6. Who is your ideal target customer?

Our primary target is medium to large enterprise that understands the value of embracing innovation at all levels of the organization.

7. How do you plan on reaching them?

Our initial plan is to focus on departmental use to gain entry. Our hope is that user evangelism and tangible returns will help expand our reach within the enterprise.

8. How do you make money?

Our revenue model is based on a subscription platform and augmented by industry specific consulting on innovation management.

9. What prerequisites do you need before you can start generating revenue?

To generate revenue we need a fully functional and thoroughly tested public beta

10. How much capital has already been invested?

$10,500

11. What’s your “skin in the game”?

To date we have committed capital and over 2200 hrs between 3 individuals over 4 months. We have quit jobs, liquidated assets, and passed on additional income and opportunities to facilitate the success of this venture.

12. How much capital do you need to get to first revenues? To get to breakeven?

We estimate $125k to first revenue with $350k taking us to breakeven and beyond.

13. What are you going to do with the $50,000?

We will continue to build our advanced User Interface around the basic application framework using an iterative task-centered design process.

14. What are you going to do with the 50,000 points?

We intend to leverage community talent for development/marketing efforts as well as invest points in emerging startups, as others have invested in us.

15. What are your goals?

Our #1 goal is to make a useful product that produces quality business results and that people love to use.

20 Questions:

As part of the public due dilligence process at VenCorps we were required to answer 20 questions relating to our business.  We have answered many of these 20 questions intriplicate at various junctures so the overriding feeling was that this would be easy.  However, like most of the other instances where we have had to broadcast information regarding our business, this would be an exercise in distillation.  Compressing pages and pages worth of text and extracting the essence thereof is no small feat.  Then to take that distilled information and remove all posible emmisions of jargon and buzz can prove to be an exercise in emmense frustration.  This is definately one of those situations where a projected hours worth of work, can quickly become 4 or more.

David and I deployed a writeboard with comparative versioning and went to town.  2 hours later we had our answers.  What makes this little story even better is that they are clear, concise, and effective.   While my techniques have always been effective in the eyes of myself and others; concise and clear have tended to elude me for the most part.  In my opinion it is always much more difficult to explain something in 3 paragraphs than in 3 sentences.  Thankfully I am slowly beginning to think differently.

Here are the first 5:

1. Why did you found this startup?

We have seen dramatic improvements in innovative efforts from the implementation of freeform idea management tools, but they fall well short when it comes to information management and execution. In almost every case, ideas that are fleshed out are either left in limbo or transferred only in part to more robust project based applications. We feel that this is not only inefficient, but unnecessary. Our vision for ideabreaker is a full lifecycle product for innovation management that supports both ideas and execution.

2. What problem does your startup solve?

Our product addresses both the inadequacies of idea management tools and the inflexibility and formalities of project management applications.

3. Who else agrees that this problem exists?

Based on an in depth review of user forums from our indirect competitors, we have ascertained that these products are not meeting the user’s needs. What is even more surprising is that the vendors have no intention of addressing these concerns. The feedback from the VenCorps community seems to validate this perception.

4. Who else is trying to solve this problem?

Firms that offer Project Management applications are not interested in adding ideation functionality to their products as this is not their focus. In fact, it is not even on their radar. These firms have recently begun to promote the collaborative possibilities of hosted applications but with limited purpose and strictly as an afterthought.

Idea Management companies are starting to add some limited features, such as task assignment and scheduling, but they do not seem to see the big picture. In addition, the core architecture of their toolsets does not lend itself to competing in this space.

5. How big is this market? How big can you get?

The business technology optimization market (BTO) surpassed 6 billion dollars in 2007 and has been increasing at a 21% compound annual growth rate. An in depth competitive analysis has revealed that best of breed players in both idea management and project management are gaining significant traction within corporate enterprise and emerging business alike. In fact, 72% of executives rank innovation as one of the top three strategic priorities according to the Boston Consulting Group. R&D Magazine found that 62% of respondents indicated collaboration as an important driver of innovation.

Pants and a Little Preperation

With the assistance of Aaron Henning; a great friend and trusted advisor of  4 years,  I set out to create a new video pitch for ideabreaker.com.  If you have seen the prior video then you understand what no preperation, no pants, and no pants can get you.  Our first effort was effective in relaying the basics  and  the feeling behind our product, but really fell short in several noticiable areas  In celebration of our sucess within Vencorps, we decided that we would refine our company’s logo, and produce a half-decent video as well.    Not much else to say on this particular post, but please note the usage of pants.

ideabreaker and the Big Show.

As I had previously posted a mere 7 days ago,  the ideabreaker team was invited to take part in the maiden voyage of VenCorps’ “community powered capital program”.  The competition began on May 15th and was set to close on July 1.  We received our invitation on June 23, 7 days before the conclusion of the event, and had quite an uphill battle ahead of us.

ideabreaker went head to head with numerous technology startups, many of which already possess market presence and have attained various levels of funding.  We were successful in painting a dynamic picture of our product and the community identified with our proof of concept and viability as a strong contender in the project management and innovation management space.  We have been rewarded for our efforts by attaining a place in the finals of this event which will conclude on August 1, 2008.

Spurred on in large part by the overwhelming support of the community,  we feel strongly that ideabreaker has an excellent chance of capturing this prize and the considerable support, exposure, and traction that will undoubtedly follow.   I wan’t to personally thank our team for thier hard work and long hours, our families for putting up with us for the last six grueling months, Spencer Trask for Funding this event, and the entire collective community at at VenCorp’s for thier insight, counsel, and support.

While we feel that we have just passed a significant milestone in bringing our young company to fruition, the real work is only beginning.  We are up to the task, and look forward to the challenge.

New Screenshots

These screens were taken on a mock project which loosely parallels our toolset development.  These employ usage of milestones, team assignement, tasks, voting, wiki, chat, and file upload/archive.  These 2 screens are of the same space with minute changes in the relationship and max item visible sliders.  More to come. . .

First screenshot(s)

Spurred on by the community at vencorps we have made the decision to upload some of our screenshots in order to satisfy the intense demand for information.  Bear in mind that nothing is set in stone, and this is a prototype, not at all ready for prime time.

This is a view taken from an overview page that Dave was working on.  It is really elementary, the space only contains a few items, but it is a first crack at part of our beloved UI.

More to come. . .

4:30 am and no pants

As refferenced in my last post, the ideabreaker team was invited into vencorps’ first round of startups vying for crowd-powered capital.  It has been an exciting experience, and we truly feel that our chances are good.  I shot a pitch video the same night that we recieved the invite.  I thought that throwing on a clean shirt and brushing my hairl would be a good start   I then proceeded to dismantle the chandelier in the dining room and build a less than decent lighting rig.  I placed a high-chair on the table, placed the camera on the high chair and went to town.  It must have really looked ridiculous from the outside, but I thought it was a sweet rig.  Anyway here are 2 minutes about our product complete with invisible pants and droopy eyes