InverstorTech
Hadas Mendes
Last Few years
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What was missing? - BackWeb
• Market analysis
• Product defects (bugs)
• Higher costs
• Poor Timing (and positioning on time)
• Poor Sales training
• Poor cross functional approach
Where do we want to see ourselves in few years?
• Founders of new technology companies, which
provide sophisticated solutions for the personal
and business use, which manage to keep a
superior advantage on competitors and profit
its shareholders
Goals
• Discover of unique superior idea for startup
companies every 5 years
• Build a new product prototype within 1.5 years
after the discovery process
• ROI of 2 years – after development starts
• Obtain a 95% customer satisfaction
Goals – Cont.
• Increase Shareholder/Investors value by 20%
each year after the first year in the market
• Shorten the investor search of new products to
6 months
• Build a stable profile of inventions (to
different market segments)
Strategy - Ideas
• Continues searching for new discoveries
• Continue searching for feature improvement
and feature revisions for current products
Strategy - Marketing
• Keep assessing the Information Technology market
and its changing needs
• Clear market orientation with voice of the customer
built in, when developing the prototype as well as the
product itself and during the market launch
• Continue searching for market leverage of existing
products and on-the-way inventions
• Provide an accurate economical research on the
product attractiveness in the early stages of discovery
Strategy - Development
• International information and design
• Quick prototype for every new product suggestion
and test it with selected customers around the world
• Emphasis for quality execution during the whole new
product process
• Proper launch plan for the new product is developed
during the development process
• Test prototype in house before launching the product
• Pilot launch to the new product
Strategy - Other
• Obtain and updating a business analysis
• Build a strong “Go/No Go” points in the new
Product process
• Fast-Paces parallel processing during the new
Product process
• Cross Functional Team approach
• Build a well defined investor relationships
Initial Criteria
• Products needs to be IT related
• The estimated startup investment shouldn’t
cost more than 2M dollars
• The prototype as well as the initial market
research needs to be able to be developed
within 2 years of part time of team work
• Product should be followed the current
business portfolio
Initial Criteria – Cont.
• Product should be target to an existing and
attractive market
• At least one current company team member
should be familiar with the target market the
technology required for development
• Product should offer added value that does not
exist currently in the market
• Product has an interest for investors
Stage Gate Process
Stage 1 Stage 2
Discovery Gate 1 Gate 2
Scoping Build Business Case
Re-Assessment Gate 3
Stage 5 Stage 4 Stage 3
Gate 5 Gate 4
Launch Test and Validation Development
Post Launch
Review
From Discovery to Stage 1
Discovery Gate 1
Brainstorming: Is it IT related?
Idea Capture What is the estimate investment?
Scenario Generation How long would it take to develop the
Technology development first prototype?
direction How does the product go with the team
portfolio?
Is there anyone in the team familiar with
the market?
Is there any added value to the market?
How attractive is the market for the
product?
From Scoping to Stage 2
Stage 1
Gate 2
Scoping
Gentle Screen: Should we take the technical risk?
Preliminary market assessment Can we handle the requirements?
(attractiveness & potential) Can we find investors?
Preliminary technical assessment
(How long? What is required?
Do we have the resources?)
Legal patent and trademark
Preliminary business and financial
assessment
Internet search, Interviews, Consulting and
Research firms
Build Business Case
Stage 2
Build Business Case
•Build Product definition (user needs and wants study, benefits, features,
attributes)
•Competitive analysis (Do we have any? What is our added value?)
•Deep market analysis (size, trends, segmentation, positioning)
•Full technical assessment
•Concept testing
•Prototype development
•Build business plan
•Build an optional R&D/Marketing teams
•Investors Screening
From Business Case to Stage 3
Stage 2
If couldn’t find investors: Build Business Case
Go back to the business plan and try
to update it
Reassess the market, the technology,
the idea – why no one wants to
invest? Should we try to re-build the
plan and perform another investor
round?
Re-Assessment Gate 3
First - Decision if we should go
forward with the product
Second - Looking for investors
From Development to Stage 4
Stage 3
Gate 4
Development
Review the product development Fast-Paces parallel processing
(Do we have quality execution? (R&D, marketing)
Did we follow the requirements and Build a working model
definitions?) Design and perform customer
How do we stand with the financial tests
perspective? Should we look for more Build the product itself while
investors? following critical checkpoints
In house QA
Start building market launch plan
Update financial analysis
From Testing and Validation to Stage 5
Stage 4
Gate 5
Testing and Validation
Review test (QA & Market) results Field trials, Beta tests, final
Review financial position quality tests
Market tests
Financial analysis
From Testing and Validation to Stage 5
Stage 5
Launch
Financial review with and without the
investors (cost profits) Post Launch
Portfolio review Review
What was learnt? How can we improve it?
Next Steps
1. Invest time in the Stage Gate process:
– Make changes if needed
– Make sure that the team understand it
2. Define requirements:
– Task force: Are we missing critical team member to start
the process?
– Assess the available time - How many hours can we
spend on the product? How many hours can we spend in
each stage?
– Make some more changes to the process if needed by
requirements
Next Steps
3. Detailed design of the process
- Let’s make sure that we don’t fall to the same
mistakes!
4. Assign a process manager
5. Start brainstorming for new product
- Good Luck!
Questions?
The End