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War Stories: Always -- always! -- check the demo
Thursday, August 03, 2000 By Dave Nelsen, CEO, CoManage
I'm standing on a stage in a huge auditorium in Atlanta. I'm clutching a glass statue high overhead as the audience applauds. I want to shout, "James Cameron, eat your heart out! I'm the king of the world!"
On this day in early June, my company, CoManage, has just won the most prestigious prize for new software at the telecom industry's largest annual trade show. You might say it's the Oscars for geeks. And, like an actor who has just garnered his first golden statue and is bombarded with scripts, I know CoManage must be braced for an onslaught of interest from the tech community.
But a mere two months before, this outcome seemed virtually impossible. The highs and lows of launching a high-tech product in a fiercely competitive market can make your head spin. The past two months have had a lot to do with strategy, luck, perseverance and Michael Jordan's next-door neighbor.
Yes, I mean the Michael Jordan, the basketball star.
Jump back to early April. I'm in Chicago with Craig Eckert, our VP of business development, and Adam Boone, our corporate relations manager.
We're on a combination press/consultant briefing tour.
Founded in 1998, CoManage Corp. makes software systems to manage and monitor telecommunication networks.
This is the strategy part. In early April, we're still a full six weeks away from the first public announcement of our first product, a telecommunications software system.
But, in the technology industry, it is incredibly difficult to be heard above the din of ferociously competing companies. Long before we actually intend to make any public splash about our product, Craig, Adam and I are on the road to talk to the telecommunications press and technology industry analysts and consultants around the country.
It's only the second day of the tour and already we have met with top editors of two of the most important magazines in the telecom field. In each meeting, I describe the background of our heretofore-unknown software company, present a detailed description of our product and then demonstrate the product on my laptop computer.
Now it's time to deliver this presentation to two important consultants, one of whom offered to host the meeting at his home in a tony Chicago suburb. As we pull our rental car into his development, we're momentarily lost and take a wrong turn. The road dead-ends at a driveway blocked by a massive iron gate, with a huge "23" mounted on the bars. Beyond the gate, the drive slips from view into immaculate landscaping of what must be an opulent estate. Since we're focused on getting to our meeting, none of us makes the connection: Chicago ... somebody rich associated with the number 23 ....
Luckily, our destination is right around the corner. We park the car and are ushered into the consultant's palatial house. Five minutes later, we're seated in a comfortable dining room in the rear of the house. Through floor-to-ceiling windows, we take in the view: a broad deck and pool bordered in the back by a wall of dozens of stately, mature pine trees.
"Michael put in those trees last fall," the consultant mentions casually. "He does like his privacy."
Michael? It clicks ... Chicago ... number 23 ... an opulent estate. Of course -- Michael Jordan.
The level of success that this consultant had attained began to sink in. We knew he was important, but you don't reach this level and get to be Michael Jordan's neighbor if you're anything less than tops in the field.
This is the part about luck. And by "luck," I mean bad luck. What happens next is one of those moments you replay in your mind again and again for weeks.
I launch into our standard demonstration on the laptop computer. Our software normally runs on very high-end servers, the kind of powerful devices that sit in the heart of vast telecommunications networks. But it also usually runs flawlessly on a small, portable laptop, which is perfect for demonstrations on the road.
But not today. Today, the laptop freezes three minutes into the product demonstration. Our software simply stops, as the laptop slips into a cyberspace coma.
As I see this happen, I keep talking about the product, hoping the laptop will revive itself. The two consultants, leaning close to study the software in action, begin to notice that the screen has not changed in some time.
I lamely start punching buttons at random, hoping to spur a computer equivalent of a jump-start. No response.
"I'm afraid my laptop decided to take a little siesta," I say. I laugh nervously. Craig and Adam laugh nervously. The consultants sit back, their expressions unreadable.
Words can't express the emotions I feel at this moment. You spend two years building a start-up from nothing but an idea. You craft a business plan. You convince venture capitalists to place big bets on you. You convince people to leave secure positions to join you on a wild ride with no clear end. You have dozens of families counting on your employees to keep putting food on the table. But it all comes down to this moment, sitting in front of two important consultants, two plugged-in guys whose opinion of the product will ripple far through the telecom industry. As you might guess, it's not the best time for your software to seem to crash. I feel like I've been walking the high wire without a net, and I just looked down.
After a few moments of embarrassed small talk about "finicky laptops," Craig has started up his computer, with another copy of the software. This time, the demo goes without a hitch. But the damage - whatever it may be - is done. The consultants are very polite and make some upbeat comments about the product. But they are hard to read. What would they say about us to the rest of the world?
I discover later that the laptop crashed because some software I downloaded the night before conflicted with something already installed on the machine. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the stability of our product. But I couldn't take back what happened in that crucial demo.
Now fast-forward to June and Atlanta.
The last two months have been a breakneck exercise in perseverance. As we launched our product, I gave the demo literally dozens upon dozens of times, often three to five times in a day, in cities all over the country. I demoed the product to anyone who would listen -- journalists, analysts, consultants, potential business partners, potential customers. If anyone with any connection to the industry showed the slightest hint of interest, we were on a plane to meet them. After the apparent debacle in Chicago, I jumped right back up on the horse.
And now all the evangelizing is worth it.
A few weeks before this major trade show, SUPERCOMM, we learn our product has been named a finalist for the show's top award for best new telecom software. There are 160 tech companies from around the world vying for only five awards in this competition. We're a little start-up from Pittsburgh, launching our first product. For us to receive this kind of honor against the cutthroat competition of well-established companies from Silicon Valley and Boston would be unheard of.
But our strategy of evangelizing about our product, of talking to anyone and everyone, of persevering at our lowest point, has paid off. There is major buzz out there about CoManage, and the telecom industry is starting to learn of the little start-up from Pittsburgh.
In true Oscars-style, the awards ceremony is attended by people from nominated companies, but no one knows who will win the five coveted telecom awards. As suspenseful minutes tick by, the judges finally reach the last category - the software award.
The awards host says dramatically: "And the winner of our final award this morning ... is .... CoManage Corporation's Integrated Service Manager."
A minute later, up on the stage, I'm framed by glaring spotlights and dwarfed by two three-story-tall video screens flashing our company logo. I wish the entire company could be up here with me, because those people -- the developers and quality assurance engineers toiling away their weekends, the marketing and sales staff constantly trumpeting about us, the administrative and IT people who make it all hold together -- they're the ones who made this happen.
I know I'll always remember this moment. And I know I'll always remember one of the most important lessons of this crazy ride, with its highs and lows and exhilarating rushes in between:
Always check the demo before the presentation.
Sanjay Chopra of Online Choice says managing growth is managing people
Marcus Ruscitto of Stargate on not losing your focus while you diversify
Henry Wang of iventurelab.com on the 5 Ps of Pittsburgh start-up success
Tom Hayes of eSpotMarket on pinching pennies
Yitz Francus of e-Cruise on surviving the struggles
Michelangelo C. Celli of CommerBuilder.com on the value of true networks
Astro Teller of BodyMedia on how Pittsburgh almost lost his business
Sanjay Chopra of Online Choice on finding investors sometimes means finding yourself.
Dave Nelsen of CoManage on the physical challenges of managing in the New Economy
Opinion: We need the best and brightest (5/21/00)
Pursuing the new American dream (11/28/99)
Have a question or comment about War Stories, or have one of your own you want to tell? Contact Ken Zapinski, New Economy columnist, at kzapinski@post-gazette.com.
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