StartUp Strategy Formation

Start up Strategy Formation

· Situation: Netcell Corporation, a Storage Processor Company, had a single product and was running out of money. They needed a solid 3 year strategy to attract round B - VC funding (show them how to grow to a $100M in sales).

Problem: The single product had some older features and needed to be positioned properly for the current market. Having only one product concept was also a drawback to investors and an real expansion strategy was needed.

Solution: We analyzed the situation and defined new opportunities, which supported the segmentation analysis. We defined a technology roadmap to address larger markets. We defined new product requirements to make the vision more focused.

Benefit: Netcell was able to raise $13.7M in venture based funding from the new business strategy.

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Situation: Morpho Technologies, a High-End Parallel Reconfigurable DSP Company, had a few products defined and was running out of money. They needed a solid 3 year strategy to attract round C - VC funding (show them how to grow to a $100M in sales).

Problem: The company was captured by a single customer and needed to show prospective investors they could appeal to multiple segments of the market. The single market they were serving, with a customer, was the IP licensing for 3G basestation market.

Solution: We conducted a complete market segmentation analysis from a "blank sheet", and were able to define a new technology roadmap for management, after a first and secondary research effort. We prepared a weighted ranking decision tool to determine the best ROI per segment. The key determinants supported market segments where Morpho could leverage their parallel DSP IP Cores (SetTop video/audio codec products, 3G Handsets products, 3G Base Transceiver Station, Pico BTS (WiMax), 3G WWAN PC Card and Media Processors/H.264, and other segments ...) and it grew to more than 30 segments.

Benefit: The final analysis enabled a reduction in the number of segments to match their level of investment. This gave Morpho the core material to completely re-write their business plan for round B funding (they are still implementing this plan).

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Situation: Maui Semiconductor a pre-funding fabless semiconductor company, needed to develop a fundable business plan.

Problem: Maui did not have a solid product roadmap, a marketing plan or sales plan. They asked me to be one of the founders.

Solution: We interviewed the executive team and wrote the Product, Marketing and Sales portions of the plan. We defined new products and product strategies for the 3 year roadmap.We attended ZigBee standards meetings to confirm the product roadmap, and co-developed a unique patent pending in the ZigBee space with Engineering to support the funding effort. We set up and conducted key customer meetings to establish critical endorsements. We provided portions of the VC slide presentation for several versions of the business plan.

Benefit: We presented to the VCs for funding with the CEO. We helped the CEO with an extensive VC funding effort.