WBF Wireless Wednesday, Auckland

6:00pm - 7:30pm
The Floating Pavilion, Halsey Street, Auckland Via

Event Description

Our traditional WBF monthly networking event continues.  Hosted at the Floating Pavilion from 6pm, this month, our special guest speaker is John O'Hara.  Many of you will already know John, and will know that this is an event not to be missed!

Writer of Commercialising Innovation, John O'Hara provides advice to New Zealand-based high-technology companies to help build their businesses and to define and implement successful export strategies, as a director or consultant. He has personally established, and grown to successful exits, four New Zealand-based technology businesses. He has also completed a number of offshore licensing agreements with major American and English companies and established successful joint venture companies in Canada and the United Kingdom. John is happily married with three teenage children, lives in the country just north of Auckland and is a recreational powered pilot and gliding instructor at Whenuapai in Auckland

Come along and enjoy the drinks (cash bar) and nibbles and allow John to educate, entertain and inform you as he speaks to the topic: Forget Picking Winners: Avoiding predictable disasters is much more likely to lead high tech start ups to financial success. 

John is an experienced speaker who will definately keep you on your seats, so come along and enjoy Wednesday 14th May from 6pm! 

Aenda: Network until 7pm, Guest speaker, John, from 7pm, and then continue with the networking from 7.30pm

RSVP by clicking on the accept button below, or email helen@wirelessforum.or.nz.

Synopsis:

If you are diagnosed with Cancer during your lifetime (as one in seven people will be) your long term chances of survival are much better than 50%.  However if you are a high tech start up your chances of surviving to 5 years are dramatically less, more like 15%. 

So why is the failure rate so high when most people building start ups are bright and energetic? In my experience there are four key areas you have to focus on and doing so successfully will dramatically increase your chances of survival. The four areas are Market, Team, Strategy and Cash. Note product is not one of them!

As a sweeping generalisation over the past 20 years or so that I have been working with kiwi tech companies I’ve noticed an important difference between them and their offshore (mostly US based) competitors. In most cases a kiwi company will build a product and then look for the market. The American company will typically find the market then build a product, a subtle but important difference. 

Knowing the market before building the product is a key attribute and helps keep the product development tightly focused. In contrast a product that is constantly evolving in search of a market is usually much more difficult and expensive to build and although often more feature rich is ultimately not usually as commercially successful as one built for a known market.

So what is the best way to understand a market? Google is a good start for an initial feel but the best way I have found is to go to the largest trade show you can find for your market and network with everyone you can. Trade shows give you in one location a microcosm of your total market. You’ll see competitors, customers, suppliers, consultants, media and all the other entities that collectively make up the market. You can attend your competitors seminars and presentations to see what issues they think are important and even better you can see how real world prospects relate to their features and presentations.

You can hear unbiased presentations from industry media on future trends and see how well these resonate with the market.  You can see who you might partner with or compete against and benchmark what you are planning with what they offer today and plan to offer in the future.

Which show? Usually the bigger the better. They are mostly held in Spring and Autumn and  a quick look under events at your competitors web sites will tell you which ones they are exhibiting at and if you see several competitors listing the same show thats a good indication you might want to attend that one.

The better you understand the market the more likely your tech start up will be as financially rewarding as you hope. The existence of competitors and the supply chain needed to form a market is a key validation that a market exists.

Looking then at Team, and again as a sweeping generalisation NZ high tech start ups are often over represented with technical experience and lacking sales and marketing experience along with financial expertise. This often leads to a high spend on building product and a low sales and marketing spend. 

A balanced team including people with sales, marketing and financial experience in building start ups in the same or a similar sector have a much greater chance of success.  

An advisory board or board of directors with proven experience is also a key way of reducing risk and helpful in establishing realistic strategies. A recent report by a UK analyst commented that lack of grey hair around the board table was a significant red flag for new technology companies. 

If you are establishing a a hamburger bar the business issues and processes are well known and defined. In contrast building a high tech start up you usually don’t know what you don’t know and the more previous experience you can draw on the more likely you are to be successful.

Looking next at Strategy choosing a strategy that has no chance of success is a huge tragedy. Most of the basic military strategies defined by Sun Tzu in the 6th century are relevant today. Past experience in having dealt with similar problems allows strategies to be devised for overcoming problems that can reasonably be anticipated. By not having this experience available in formulating strategies there is a high risk that even if the market opportunity exists 

Finally for any high tech start up cash is the oxygen that keeps you alive, managing cash wisely and avoiding running out at inopportune moments is a key skill to acquire.