Acuitive Update

As has been the Acuitive tradition for at least a year, I use the January Musing to provide an update on Acuitive and set a direction for the new year.  I will continue my Long Conversation About LAN Security in February.

Are you guys still consulting?  How’s business?  Why don’t you get a more important job and join a company? Why don’t you become a Venture Capitalist if you don’t want to have a real job?  How long are you going to continue to consult?  Are you going to grow Acuitive?

These are the kinds of questions I get all the time. And not only from my wife and kids, but lots of other people as well.  The answers to the above are: Yes.  Quite good.  We feel what we do is critically important. I don’t know anything about it and I don’t want to compete with the people who do.  For the rest of my working life.  Probably, as appropriate candidates emerge.

In other words, the Acuitive plan for 2005 is pretty much the same as it was in 2004 (which was the same as 2003, which was the same as 2002… pretty much all the way back to 1997).  That is, to help emerging high tech companies get from point A to point B faster and more efficiently.  Often that involves defining what point B is. And usually, a core component of that is defining the target product and/or market position.  

So that’s what we do.  We’re tremendously valuable when things are in flux and key strategic decisions need to be made that can make or break a company.  We’re less valuable when the plan is in place and execution is the major success factor.  So we move on to the next company in flux when such stability is achieved with-in our clients.  We view that as a form of success. 

However, even though our general strategy and reason for existence has stayed the same throughout the years, the company does continue to evolve.  In 2005, one of our objectives is to package some of the functions we perform repetitively so they can be executed on more efficiently. An example of that is a Market/Customer Validation service that Tom Garland and the late Roy Harvey (he’s still alive, but he left Acuitive) have been executing for a number of years.  This service defines a process for identifying target customers, engaging them in conversations, analyzing the resulting data, and using the results to drive business and product strategies.  Most start-ups do some of this, but usually in an ad hoc manner.  They also tend to ask only questions they want the answers to and “hear” answers selectively biased towards what they want to hear.  Our approach is much more structured, efficient, and scientific. Plus, since we do this all the time, are muscles are more trained.  And our objectivity and subject matter expertise is critical to the quality of the process.

So we’ve been spending some time improving our back end tools so we can expand our ability to deliver this service.  You’ll be seeing more about this on our web site some time early in 2005. 

I’m also in the early stages of floating a concept for a new service to VCs and early stage entrepreneurs.  Historically, what I’ve noticed is that Acuitive adds the most value the earlier we get involved with a team.  That allows us to shape the strategy as much as possible. However, often companies in a very early stage are just a couple of engineers working in their off hours, with no money to spend.   We selectively help such companies, but we have to be careful how much of such work we do because there is no cash coming in to keep the lights burning and the beer cold.  A large percentage of such companies never achieve escape velocity, even though they may be gestating some valuable ideas.  Many VCs view this as a useful Darwinian force. “If a team can’t figure out how to be resourceful enough to develop and cultivate a good idea until it is ready for funding, then maybe they deserve to die and make way for others.”    But I am not of that mindset. You could view Scarlet Fever or Polio in a similar manner, but I think we’re all glad that solutions were invented for those Darwinian forces.  If we could figure out a way to help such companies move forward just a little bit, it could result in a lot more valuable and de-risked investment opportunities for the VC community. 

So I’m trying to figure out a way advantageous to VCs for them to pony up a small amount of money to allow Acuitive to engage with such companies more often, to either true up the idea and make it ready for significant investment, or invalidate it and euthanize the idea.   I am tentatively calling this service “JumpStart.”  It’s largely just a formalization of a set of functions we have been doing for years already.  My initial tests with a small number of VCs have resulted in some good feedback which is allowing me to tune the structure. I’m convinced that we have a good idea here. If there are any of you out there who would like to hear this story, let’s talk. 

Lastly, one of the big changes for Acuitive going into 2005 is that we have added a new partner – Steve Farnworth.  I first met Steve a number of years ago when he was in the early stages of thinking about a strategy for NSE, which became Desana.  We stayed heavily involved with Desana (via Dave Logan) over a number of years.  We were hoping and expecting it would be a big win for us.  It didn’t turn out that way because the target customer set (ASPs) went away as the product was being developed.  So it goes, sometimes. But we always enjoyed our interactions with Steve.  At that time, Steve’s history was largely technical – research and product development.  But as a result of his role at Desana, and then in a number of roles after Desana, he got more involved in market strategy and business planning.  He has now grown and reflects the key characteristics we look for at Acuitive:

• Great guy.  Honest and forthright.

• Technical background.

• Smart (I like the type of partner who can talk rings around me about technology while I sit back and say “uh-huh, uh-huh” – appearing to have the slightest notion of what he or she is talking about).

• Desirous and capable of leveraging his technical background to provide services to client that are related to the technology, but aren’t strictly R&D.

So, as of January 1, 2005, he has joined the team. His past experiences at companies such as Symbol, Brocade and Desana are very relevant to many of our clients.  He has already helped us in a variety of storage (system and merchant silicon), wireless/mobility, and high performance computing deals.   We’re looking forward to a long and productive relationship with Steve.