Startup Roadmap Workshop

Harvard innovation lab : Michael J Skok : Startup Secrets : Roadmap
Roadmap to Success
STARTUP
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MICHAEL J SKOK
Hi Harvard innovation lab
startupsecrets.com
@mjskok
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Harvard innovation lab : Michael Hi J Skok : Startup Secrets : Roadmap
Why are we here?
• Frequently asked questions:
– What is involved in a startup?
– What are the things I need to think about / learn to be
successful?
– Is my [idea / project / opportunity ] fundable?
– How do I pitch it to raise money?
And many more questions and frequently questioned answers!
• Startup Secrets as a series is designed to bring these
questions to life in practical frameworks and case
studies…
– So we designed this workshop as a Roadmap to Success
• and in turn therefore to the Startup Secrets series as a whole

Tonight’s Agenda – 3 things:-
1. Startup Secrets Roadmap
• Lead in to many Startup Secrets frameworks such as
– Getting Behind The Perfect Pitch
– Building a Compelling Value Proposition (next
week’s class)
2. Paula Long
• Secrets Revealed: Story of Equallogic
• If time, interview about Data Gravity
3. VIP case study - Neoclosure
• Class exercise to help them with their roadmap

Macro: Building an enduring
company…
Vision / Mission
Value
Prop
Enduring
Company
Startup
…
…
…
…

Dots?
Vision / Mission
Value
Prop …
…
…
…

Steps…
Ideation Confirmation Creation Validation Repeatability Scalability Profitability
Predictability

First step: roadmap
Increasing VALUE
But unlikely linear path!
Decreasing RISK

The roadmap to success…
• What will yours be ?
Increasing VALUE
Decreasing RISK
Pivots?
Ideation
Repeatability?
Predictability?
Scalability?
Validation?
Profitability?
Funding?
Creation

• Expect the unexpected…
Pivots?
Outlier
customers
Business Model
Reworking
Iterations
Funding
Mirage
The unexpected:
“near death”
experience
Team
Upgrades
Startup
Euphoria
Growth vs
Leverage?
Increasing VALUE
Decreasing RISK
(see article on LinkedIN [here])
Ideation
Repeatability?
Predictability?
Scalability?
Validation?
Profitability?
Funding?
Creation
RE-Creation!

• Expect the unexpected…
• Longer, harder, maybe ultimately, even bigger
Outlier
customers
Business Model
Reworking
Iterations
Funding
Mirage
The unexpected:
“near death”
experience
Team
Upgrades
Startup
Euphoria
Growth vs
Leverage?
Increasing VALUE
Decreasing RISK
Pivots?
Ideation
Repeatability?
Predictability?
Scalability?
Validation?
Profitability?
Funding?
Creation
RE-Creation!

A good first step…
• Some kind of ROADMAP to execute from
– Might take many forms for different audiences…
11
• like a Product Roadmap or Business Plan or Investor
Pitch Deck or even a Napkin Sketch!
– It will almost certainly be wrong!
– But it can’t be mindless, it needs to be mindful!
• So you have some straw man, or baseline to work from

START UP
SECRETS
MICHAEL J SKOK
Getting Behind the Perfect Investor Pitch
North Bridge Venture Partners
twitter: @mjskok mjskok.com

Perfect Pitch Checklist
• Example:
– Team
– Value Proposition
– Market Opportunity
– Go To Market plan
– Business Model
– Financials
13
But how are you going to make this
unforgettable and compelling?

What’s your story?

What’s your story?
• Two important parts
– You
– Story
• How they intersect
– What opportunity have you uncovered?
– Why are you uniquely suited to address it?

Example: Equallogic
Lots of “great” ideas..
Settled on Storage -
Since we were uniquely qualified to tackle the problem

Introducing Paula Long…
Paula’s story?
17

My story… and score board so far
Founder
Post-A
Founder
Seed
Post-B
CEO
VPP
VPP
Dir Eng
Dir Eng
Positive so
far
Traded in
1st Inning
Home Run
Bought
Called for Rain
Single
Sold

Macro: Building an enduring
company…
Vision / Mission
Value
Prop
Roadmap Enduring
Company
Startup
…
…
…
…

STARTUP
SECRETS
Building A Compelling
Value Proposition
MICHAEL J SKOK
twitter: @mjskok startupsecrets.com

Valueless Proposition
Build Ideas
Test
“If you build it will they come?”

Value Proposition
Gain Pain
Value
Prop
Evaluate Build
Define
Ideas
Problem
Solution
“If you build it will they come?” vs “If they come, will you build it?!”

EqualLogic – Value Proposition
Lots of “great” ideas..
Settled on Storage -
Since we were uniquely qualified to tackle the problem
Gain Pain
Value
Prop
Evaluate Build
Define
Ideas
Problem
Solution
“If you build it will they come?” vs “If they come, will you build it?!”

MVP: Minimum viable product
or Minimum Viable PROBLEM?
25

Problem?

If you want to build a billion dollar
business…
Start with a MULTI billion dollar problem

Data Storage…
Market:
Mid-tier Storage:
• $3B initial TAM
• 60% CAGR
Problem:
“Storage is drowning
under it’s own weight”.
Complexity and
business practices:
• Required scare skills
• Archean management
• Complex and expensive
to acquire

Storage Dilemma for Mid-Sized Enterprises
Enterprise-Class Pain Compounded by Limited Budgets & IT Resources
 Relentless storage demand
growth; low server and storage
utilization
 Deployment and management is
complex and disruptive
 Data back-up and recovery is
costly and error prone
 Buying storage is downright
painful; laden with professional
services and hidden software
license fees

Value Prop
For
Small and Med size companies that need to get a handle on data
storage management and growth
Who are dissatisfied with
Solutions that require huge amounts of time, money and Storage Gurus
to make work.
Our product is a
New type of Storage Area Network (SAN), designed for the IT generalist
That Provides
Automated storage, to do the heavy lift of configuring, managing and
growing storage. All features are include at no extra charge
Unlike
Traditional Storage Vendors who make money from complexity

Value Proposition – as a story…

After Before

Value proposition story
• Before…
– Deployment of SANs
took weeks
– With large cost
overruns
– Expensive skilled staff
to maintain, administer
– Ongoing management
headaches
• After…
– All the benefits of SAN,
with none of complexity or
costs.
– People feel in love with the
demo
– We setup a SAN during the
sales call (!)
– From box, to servicing data
in 30minutes.
– Any open with basic IT
skills could be a SAN
Administrator
– Storage manages itself
going forward
33

Examples, case studies
• PROOF of what you do uniquely well
• Articulate from customer viewpoint
– Tangible benefits
• Easily measured ROI?
• Short Payback period?
• Repeat purchase
• Articulate from your viewpoint
– How repeatable, scalable, sticky (low churn/high upsell) it is
(leads up to how you will make money from it later)
34

Dickinson Wright, PLLC
Unlocking the Full EqualLogic Value Proposition

Case Studies
Submit one on startupsecrets.com - feedback

Market opportunity

Market opportunity
• Broadening of problem statement to general market
– Business Pain
– Technology Need
• Why NOW ?
1. Market dislocations?
2. Forcing events?
3. Buyer Triggers?
38

Rapidly Growing Market Opportunity
iSCSI SAN is the Fastest Growing Storage Segment
Source: IDC, May 2007

Market opportunity
• Broadening of problem statement to general market
– Create a simple to deploy and buy Storage Area Network allowing
companies to achieve the benefits of storage consolidation
– Totally new storage architecture designed for storage automation
and scaling. Designed for IT generalists
• Why NOW ?
1. Large desire to move to Storage Area Networks, road blocks to
getting there
2. Storage Growth, Microsoft and then VMWare pushing customers
to SANs
3. Storage refresh and new projects
40

STARTUP
SECRETS
Company Formation Part I:
Culture, Vision & Mission
MICHAEL J SKOK
twitter: @mjskok startupsecrets.com

Vision & Mission
• How the market will evolve?
• How will you will lead it?
• What is your mission?
• SEE http://www.mjskok.com/event/vision-mission-culture
(Leads from and consistent with Market Opportunity earlier)
43

Check: Vision or Hallucination?
Visions and hallucinations look the same…
...until you try to realize them
Try to tell the difference early
Big visions may not be much harder to achieve than
smaller ones
From Startup Secrets workshop on “Have you got what it takes?”
Jon Hirschtick, founder Solidworks, Onshape

Summary: A good first step…
• Some kind of ROADMAP to execute from
– Might take many forms for different audiences…
• like a Product Roadmap or Business Plan or Investor
Pitch Deck or even a Napkin Sketch!
– It will almost certainly be wrong!
– But it can’t be mindless, it needs to be mindful!
• So you have some straw man, or baseline to work from
• Startup Secret: How do you balance Vision &
Execution?
– See the post on this on www.mjskok.com at
http://mjskok.com/resource/vision-vs-execution
45

Replacing Grey with a Photo
on Slides (in Slide Master):
Insert and place photo, then
change its “order” by clicking
“send backward” multiple times
until notch in lower left corner is
visible. You will need to delete
this grey block to view.
If photo is larger than the
slide’s live-area, reduce
the size or crop the photo. Photo
should bleed off right edge.
Startup Secrets
The EqualLogic’s
Roadmap
Paula Long
Co-Founder and CEO of DataGravity
Co-Founder and VP of Products and Strategy EqualLogic

An Entrepreneur’s and Investor’s Dream …
From Attic to IPO $1.4B Acquisition in 6.5 Years
November 5, 1007
Dell To Buy EqualLogic For $1.4 Billion,
Shakes Up Storage Virtualization Market
Lots of “great” ideas,
settled on Storage since
we were uniquely qualified
to tackle the problem
April 1, 2001
17 Purgatory Road
Mont Vernon, NH

Prologue
 First-time founders with limited executive experience
 Founded in a gloomy economic environment
 Challenging industry titans in a risk-averse industry
 Contrarian market focus
 Non-traditional approaches to product architecture
and business model
 Risky bet on an emerging standard

Most Experts Thought We’d Fail…
 Building a box
 Unproven Protocol (iSCSI)
 Using SATA disks in a storage array
 Storage moving to IB or 4GB FC
 Automation in Storage was not possible
 All-inclusive pricing model
 Mid-market focus
 Channel sales model
 Customer loyalty

EqualLogic’s Roadmap
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Sell company
NEWCO
founded

EqualLogic’s Excellent Adventure
Strongly positive
user & VAR beta feedback
Series A
financing
Series C
financing
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Series B
financing
New CEO
CEO replaced; Paula
named interim CEO
Paula
quits
100th
customer
Yet another
new CEO
FCS to Raytheon,
Fidelity and Amherst
Computer
NEWCO
founded

EqualLogic’s Excellent Adventure
Strongly positive
user & VAR beta feedback
Series A
financing
Series C
financing
Sell company
File S-1
Storage Magazine
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Series B
financing
CEO replaced; Paula
named interim CEO
major customer
crisis
New CEO
Paula
quits
100th
customer
Yet another
new CEO
Sales VP replaced
CFO replaced
2nd delay of major
product release
1st quarterly sales decline;
don’t know why
Paula agrees to
stay on as VP of
Products
FCS to Raytheon,
Fidelity and Amherst
Computer
NEWCO
founded
New CFO and
Sales VP
#1-ranked
midrange array
VPE quits

Ingredients to Build a Successful
Enterprise Company
Ingredients
 Large Addressable
Market
 Radically Simplify or
Remove High Value
Tasks
 Change the Business
Model
 Incent VARs to Sell
Your Product
 Happy Customers
 Great Team
• Multi-Billion dollar
Market
• Enabled IT Generalist
to be SAN/Storage
Experts.
• Removed barriers to
Scale Storage
• All Inclusive Software
Licensing.
• No Array Left Behind
• Excellent Margins
• Protect Deals
• 98% Customer
Satisfaction
• Multi-Billion dollar Market
• Turning storage from a
container to an assets
• Enable IT Generalist to
surface insights from their
data
• Tightly integrate the
solution into a companies
business processes
• Allow Partners to have a
business conversation with
the buyer
• Protect Deals
• Enables Resellers
• Goal : 98% Customer
Satisfaction

You Own It…
 Adherence to vision
 Built what was necessary, not necessarily what would
be fun
 Unwavering commitment to customer and partner
success
 It is about making money
 You must relentlessly and ruthlessly test, tune and
(only then) scale your business model
 Create a culture that doesn’t vibrate through the
inevitable ups and downs

Welcome Neoclosure
55
Grace Teo and Kavita Raghavendran

Neoclosure: magnetic seams
Value Proposition:
• Very discreet & sleek function; Looks like a fabric seam
• Faster than zippers, and requires less hand function
• Quieter than Velcro, and self-aligning
Mission: Give designers a new way to incorporate accessible
fabric openings/closures into products without compromising
aesthetics

Let’s help Neoclosure with their
Roadmap…
• Value Prop?
• Vision / Mission?
• Describe the road you see ahead (market evolution)
• How you imagine your journey? (milestones, tangible
steps?)
• Class: what do you think?
57

Neoclosure roadmap?
Increasing VALUE
Decreasing RISK

What are you missing?
How much of this is incomplete or missing?
• Team
• Value Proposition
• Product
• Go-To-Market
• Business Model
… and many others

Incomplete stand outs are better than
complete stand ups!
• We looking for outstanding:
– People
– Technology or other disruption
– Market opportunity
• One outstanding of the above literally stands out vs. all good, but
none great
• We don’t expect complete
– Team
– Product
– Value prop
– GTM plan
– Business Model
• Entrepreneurs don’t need all the answers!
– Self aware, listening, leaders…

Do you have the right questions?

What questions should
Neoclosure be asking?
How could he/she get help?
(Not just answers?)
63
Mentorship article: Want the Gift of
Mentorship? 3 Skills for Mastering the Art of
Mentorship

What else are you missing?!
How much of this is incomplete or missing?
• Team
• Value Proposition
• Product
• Go-To-Market
• Business Model
… and many others
MONEY? See “Funding Strategies To Go The
Distance”

Stages - investment
Ideation Confirmation Creation Validation Repeatability Scalability Profitability
Predictability
Increasing VALUE
Decreasing RISK
See: www.startupsecrets.com/resources/funding-strategies

Complete Startup Secrets Workshops
1. Startup Roadmap
2. Building a Compelling Value Proposition
3. Company Formation 1 - Vision, Mission,
Culture
4. Company Formation 2 - Hiring
5. Game Changing Business Models
6. Go To Market 1: Strategy
7. Go To Market 2: Tactics
8. Getting Behind the Perfect Investor Pitch
9. Funding Strategies to go the Distance
10. Turning Products into Companies
11. Have You Got What It Takes?
Full descriptions of all
can be found at:
www.startupsecrets.co
m

Upcoming Workshops
See http://mjskok.com/events for details and sign up
• 10/15 - How to Be Mentored DONE!
• 10/30 - Startup Roadmap DONE!
• 11/5 - Building a Compelling Value Proposition
• 11/20 - Company Formation 1 - Vision, Mission,
Culture

Sign up at …
www.startupsecrets.com
mjskok.com
@mjskok
/mjskok
linkedin.com/in/mjskok
bit.ly/mjskok-google
bit.ly/mjskok-youtube

Thank you…
Paula Long, Data Gravity
69
and Grace Teo and Kavita Raghavendran, Neoclosure

Thank You!
STARTUP
SECRETS
#startupsecrets
MICHAEL J SKOK
startupsecrets.com
@mjskok

Startup Roadmap Workshop

Startup Roadmap Workshop

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