Not Only Luck.
An essay by John Melonakos

Super Successful Companies in Technical Computing Tools

A few days ago, Sam Altman put up another powerful post on super successful companies. I have talked about his ideas on this blog several times in the past, and he is one of my favorite startup bloggers.

In this post, I take his points and talk about how they apply to technical computing:

  1. They are obsessed with the quality of the product/experience.
    • Build a great installer. Focus on documentation. Make it easy to get started. Have a great website and easy downloads.
  2. They are obsessed with talent.
    • Focus on culture. Focus on internally training team members. Make your startup the best place in the industry to be at the cutting edge. Provide opportunities to grow. Always be hiring.
  3. They can explain the vision for the company in a few clear words.
    • Most technical computing companies stink at this. Adapt the message to the audience; don’t just have one canned statement. Dumb down or smart up as necessary. But be clear and concise.
  4. They generate revenue very early on in their lives.
    • Nearly all technical computing startups fail here. They either get grants or raise VC money. When those run out they typically die. We have always focused on customer revenue and have done better than past comparable startups as a result. I can name a dozen other “startups” that have tried to do the same thing as us in our space and died for failure to generate revenue.
  5. They are tough and calm.
    • Obvious
  6. They keep expenses low.
    • Heavy-hitting, government-lab-selling, raise-a-gazillion-dollar startups are dead in technical computing software. The environment and market do not support them.
  7. They make something a small number of users really love.
    • Absolutely. That’s why we focus on our product forums so much. They are an awesome place for customer advocates!
  8. They grow organically.
    • Yes!
  9. They are focused on growth.
    • Yes!
  10. They balance a focus on growth with strategic thinking about the future.
    • Yes!
  11. They do things that don’t scale.
  12. They have a whatever-it-takes attitude.
    • Don’t hope for some tradeshow coverage. Don’t pine for big sales. Focus on doing useful things with people actually doing work.
  13. They prioritize well.
    • Yes!
  14. The founders are nice.
    • Yes!
  15. They don’t get excited about pretending to run a startup.
    • Haha, many romantic notions exist about running startups. Avoid those.
  16. They get stuff done.
    • Build stuff and sell stuff. That’s it.
  17. They move fast.
    • Apply current startup best practices to the stodgy market. Release fast, release often, and iterate!

I highly recommend adding Sam to your RSS feed.

What are your thoughts about factors differentiating successful technical computing companies from unsuccessful ones?

 

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