I had breakfast with two of my ex-students from Singapore who were building a really interesting startup. They were deep into Customer Discovery and presented a ton of customer data on the validity of their initial hypothesis – target customers, pricing, stickiness, etc. I was unprepared for what they said next. “We’re going to do [...]
Filed under: Ardent, Customer Development | 22 Comments »
For those that know me, I’m kind of a “life is too short” kind of guy. I liked to fail fast, move on, and not look back. However, in catching up with the VP of Sales of Ardent last night, I was reminded one of the few times I did return for closure. National Supercomputer [...]
Filed under: Ardent, Family/Career/Culture, Technology | 17 Comments »
Never mistake motion for action. -Ernest Hemingway One of an entrepreneur’s greatest strengths is their relentless pursuit of a goal. But few realize how this differs from most of the population. Watching others try to solve problems reminded me why entrepreneurs are different. Progress Report Last week I happened to be sitting in my wife’s [...]
Filed under: Ardent, Customer Development, Family/Career/Culture | 38 Comments »
At Ardent we assembled an amazing group of talented engineers to build personal supercomputers to sell to scientists and engineers. (Context here.) The company failed. Getting Out of the Building Wasn’t Entertainment – Discovery and Validation Now that I was the master of the “facts” about customer needs in these specialized vertical markets, and with my team [...]
Filed under: Ardent, Customer Development | 12 Comments »
At Ardent we were building personal supercomputers to sell to scientists and engineers. (Context here.) While the last post was titled “You Know You’re Getting Close to Your Customers When They Offer You a Job“, this post should probably be titled, “You Know You’re Getting Close to Your Customers When You Offer Them a Job.” I [...]
Filed under: Ardent, Customer Development | 12 Comments »
In 1985 Ardent Computer was determined to create a market niche for personal supercomputers. To understand our potential markets, we started by analyzing the marketing literature from Cray Research then crisscrossed the country talking to prospective customers – scientists and researchers in advanced corporate R&D centers and universities – to understand their needs. A week might [...]
Filed under: Ardent, Customer Development, Marketing, Vertical Markets | 7 Comments »
As VP of Marketing at our new startup, the CEO literally threw me out of the building and told me not to return until I understood the market and could identify the key applications and customers for Ardent’s new personal supercomputer. (See the previous Ardent posts for context.) Supercomputers With the introduction in 1976 of [...]
Filed under: Ardent, Customer Development | 11 Comments »
Some of the most important business lessons are learned in the most unlikely ways. At Ardent I learned many of them with a sharp smack on the side of the head from a brilliant but abusive boss. Not a process I recommend, but one in which the lessons stuck for a lifetime. (Read the previous Ardent [...]
Filed under: Ardent | Tagged: Customer Development, Early Stage Startup | 43 Comments »
Last month on an east coast college tour with my daughter, I found myself in North Carolina for the first time in nearly 24 years. I had last been in Chapel Hill on a winter’s day in 1986, traveling with the VP of Sales of our new supercomputer startup, Ardent. We were on the University [...]
Filed under: Ardent | Tagged: Early Stage Startup | 9 Comments »
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