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Authorised & Regulated by the Financial Services Authority Slide 1
Product Management – who cares?! A VC speaks
Alex van Someren
General Partner
Amadeus & Angels Seed Fund
Slide 2
Alex van Someren – My product history
• Acorn Computer (1980-1984)
– BBC Micro, Acorn Electron
• Capricorn Consulting (1984-1989)
– Publishing ERP system– Autocue Teleprompters– Direct-drive laser printer
interfaces
• Aleph One Ltd. (1989-1992)
– ARM3 CPU upgrades• Three generations
– Intel PC virtualisation products• 286, 286SX, 386SL and 486DX
• ANT Limited (1992-1996)
– Ethernet NICs– Fresco Web Browser– Marcel email client– Oracle NC Network Computer
• nCipher plc (1996-2007)
– nFast: Cryptographic accelerator– nForce: Hardware Security Module– nShield: Secure Execution Engine– netHSM: Network Security Device
Slide 3
IN THE BEGINNING…
Slide 4
Start-ups: More Product, Less Management
• In the beginning, it’s about a Vision– The Founders believe they have a Solution
to a Problem– Customers with the Problem buy into the
Vision– The Product is an instance of the Vision– If the Product is Good, then the Customers
will come, and they will buy it
Slide 5
Start-ups: More Product, Less Management
• More Product variants are demanded• The Market shifts• The Product may, or may not, remain
market-ready• This is where a Product Manager is good...
Slide 6
More customers, more problems!
For each Product
pand, given a number of Customers C, the number of Opinions about the product’s features will be O, where:
O ≥ C + 1
the number of demands for product Variants will be V, where:
V = P * O
and the number of potential support Problems with the product will be P, where:
P = p * V C
It’s not real maths – be cool
Slide 7
Start-ups don’t usually have PMs
• What are the signs that you might need to add someone/something ?– Market complexity
• Understanding and communicating segmentation
– “Controlling” Engineering• Harnessing and directing IP
– “Controlling” Sales• Taking a strategic view beyond the next
sales quarter
Slide 8
PRODUCT MANAGEMENT & PRODUCT MARKETING
Slide 9
Product development: the Official Version*
• Identifying new product candidates• Gathering the Voice of customer• Defining product requirements• Determine business-case and feasibility• Scoping and defining new products at high level• Evangelizing new products within the company• Building product roadmaps, particularly Technology
roadmaps• Developing all products on schedule, working to a
critical path• Ensuring products are within optimal price margins
and up to specifications
* This means I got it off WikiPedia
Slide 10
Product marketing - the Official Version
• Product Life Cycle considerations• Product differentiation• Product naming and branding• 7 functions of marketing• Product positioning and outbound messaging• Promoting the product externally with press,
customers, and partners• Conduct customer feedback and enabling (pre-
production, beta software)• Launching new products to market• Monitoring the competition
Slide 11
NCIPHER PRODUCT STORY
Slide 12
Building value through product evolution
SPEEDSPEED
Performance
SECURITYSECURITY
Performance
Key management
FLEXIBILITYFLEXIBILITY
Performance
Key management
Application security
SOLUTIONSSOLUTIONS
Performance
Key management
Application security
Solution delivery
+ + +
+ +
+
1996 2004+Company lifetime
Slide 13
nCipher product portfolio
nFast netHSM
Increases throughput of encryption and digital signatures
Offloads processing from host computer
Provides scalable, high-availability operation
Multiple devices can load-balance; fail-over capability
“Plug & Play” support from Microsoft, Netscape, Apache
Network-attached HSM
Validated to FIPS140-2 Level 3 standard
Capable of hosting application software
Secure, shareable, scalable, interoperable
Reduced deployment costs
Centralised administration
Cryptographic Accelerators
nShield
Secures crypto keys, accelerates crypto processing
Validated to FIPS140-2 Level 3 standard
nCipher Security World™ has potentially infinite storage capacity
Support for multi-user activation (e.g. “safety deposit box”)
Optional SEE for custom application delivery
Hardware Security Modules
nForce
Secures keys and speeds cryptographic processing for web servers
Supports up to 1600 SSL sessions per second
Security validated to US FIPS140-2 Level 2 standard
Approved for US Government use
Industry de facto standard for banks
Secure Web product range Network-attached hardware security module
NETWORK OEMs SSL WEB SERVERS DIGITAL IDENTITY (PKI & AUTHORIZATION)
Slide 14
Nine year product roadmap
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
* March 03First FIPS 104-2 cert* April 01
CodeSafe /SEE
* Nov 00nFastnForcenShield Branding
* Dec 06miniHSM
* Oct 01nFast800(BRCM)
* Feb 07PCIe
* Oct 03netHSM
* Aug 05nForce Ultra(Britestream)
July 08Thales Acquisition
Slide 15
A PRODUCT MANAGER SPEAKS
Slide 16
The value of PM
Ed Wood, Thales e-Security* says PMs:• Make decisions
– Provide transparent logic: e.g. because this, we’ll do that next
• Communicate across boundaries– Engineering from Mars, Sales is from Venus
• Champion the Product– There’s value in someone actually giving a damn
about the thing– ‘Passion’ is a cliché, but I contend every successful
product has someone who ‘cared’ somewhere whether called PM or not* The views are Ed Wood’s, not Thales’, and he wants to keep his job please KTHXBI
Slide 17
PMs prevent innovation being stifled
• Good PM is about nurturing innovation in a business, wherever it might come from
• PM could stifle it, but it should support it irrespective of source, internally or externally
Slide 18
PMs get in the way of “just building stuff”• The Product or Service needs to be
created, and actually delivered to the market.– When the proposition is simple and the
need unambiguous this is ‘easy’– When you need to refine & focus, when
Version n+1 of ‘stuff’ is not immediately obvious, you may need someone to specifically consider issues
• So PM should help build the right stuff
Slide 19
A VC SPEAKS
Slide 20
Open Innovation – the modern view
Our current market
Our new market
Other firm´s market
External technology insourcing
Internal technology base
External technology base
Stolen with pride from Prof Henry Chesbrough UC Berkeley, Open Innovation: Renewing Growth from Industrial R&D, 10th Annual Innovation Convergence, Minneapolis Sept 27, 2004
Internal/external venture handling
Licence, spin out, divest
Slide 21
What a VC looks for…
• Seed (pre-Product)– not expecting any PM at all, only
passionate Founders• Early-stage (pre-revenue)
– some PM function might have been added• Growth-stage (revenues)
– PM function definitely in place• Late-stage (profitable)
– Mature PM across the organisation
Slide 22
THANK YOUAlex van Someren (with the hard work courtesy of Ed Wood)