SAP, SAP, Wherefore Art Thou SAP?
SAP Founders 1988 — Klaus Tschira On The Left I’ve always had a warm spot in my heart for SAP. When I published my first (and thus far only) 700+ page book in 1994 (“Human Resource Management and Information Technology: Achieving A Strategy Partnership”), Klaus Tschira, one of SAP’s founders, became a big fan of my [...]
Mad Men and the UNIX Wars
I’ve been cleaning out my closets and finding some real gems. I came across my old ad portfolio a few days ago. With all the increasing tension between transparency and privacy and the role of Internet freedoms, it’s hard to believe there was once a time not too long ago that computers didn’t “talk” to [...]
“I just want to say one word to you. Just one word…” Elastics
My daughter is graduating college next week, and I’ve been thinking about all the advice this next generation will get from relatives and friends. In the 60s, Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate) received well-intentioned advice from Mr. McGuire, a family friend, to pursue the plastics industry. Plastics and U.S. manufacturing conjure up an image [...]
In The Early Days, Don’t Forget To Pay Yourself, Too
When I co-founded my first company, way back in the dark stretch between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, we got a terrible deal, from a dilution and valuation perspective. Yes, we raised $9m to get the company off the ground, but we had to sell just about everything to pull it off. The trade-off from [...]
Why Hiring From Your Direct Competitors Usually Doesn’t Work Out
The time will come when you are first tempted to hire someone from your competitor. They must know so many things we don’t. Have so many skills. It’s pretty tempting. People will tell you about the risks in litigation, trade secrets, etc. I don’t think any of those are necessarily a big deal or a [...]
Lenovo Yoga–Straight up With a Twist
I have been using a Lenovo Yoga laptop for a month and like it enough to report back on my impressions. This laptop replaces an Asus Zenbook Touch that I had been using and generally liked but in order to maximize the touch aspects of Windows 8 I found that having a touch screen simply [...]
Yes, this is a public shaming. Sorry. (Not really).
Really Microsoft? Did you just DM me TWICE? I will tolerate this from Russian spammers, porn stars, and the occasional life coach, but I will not sit quietly while you damage your brand @MSFTEnterprise. MSFT has always in the upper right “most likely to fail” quadrant for me with Social because the company has always [...]
The $64,000,000 Question: When Things Become Unstoppable
A little while back, a VC asked me what I thought of a prospective mid/late stage investment. I was/am reasonably familiar with this company as it is adjacent to EchoSign. My answer was, well, I’d probably pass — certainly at the valuation (12x+ ARR). I said the product was ooooold and the platform dated, the [...]
CeBIT Keynote on Rethinking Work
Last week I had the privilege of keynoting CeBIT in Hanover. The theme was “Shareconomy“. From the CeBIT website: A multistage screening process involving top executives from leading high-tech companies and user industries, international research institutes, and thousands of fans at the CeBIT Facebook fan page resulted in Shareconomy being selected for the CeBIT 2013 keynote [...]
Your Customer Success Team. Hire Early. And No Squishy Goals — It’s All About the Numbers.
If this is your first SaaS company, you may not have ever hired or built a Client Success team. This one isn’t nearly as risky as a VP of Sales, or a VP of Marketing hire. If you hire a great, experienced Client Success leader as your first hire here, and you like him/her, and [...]
