| Feedback: Two Similar Companies |
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| Category | | B2B Service | | B2B Service |
| First Mover | | Yes | | Yes |
| Customers at Exit | | ~50 | | ~50 |
| List Price | | ~$5,000 MRC | | ~$5,000 MRC |
| CEO Market Experience | | ~3 years | | ~3 years |
| CTO | | Me | | Me |
| Technology | | Server-based | | Server-based |
| CTO Market Experience | | None | | None |
Notes:
This table compares two companies for which I worked as CTO. Both companies
were first movers in their respective market categories. They charged about
the same about of money, and at exit, they had about the same number of
customers.
I had no experience in either market when I started. Indeed,
both were pioneers so no one really had any experience. The CEOs were
about the same age and had about the same experience in their respective
markets.
The technology was the same. In the first case, it was a custom built
server platform. In the second, it was web-based. But the deployment
platform was not a critical factor in the customer decision making
process, in the first or second cases.
It took me nine years to learn that I wasn't being effective at my
job with the first company. As you'll see on the next slide, my
approach to development was Waterfall, and was not in any way agile.
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