Disruptive Tendencies

Fathers, sons, brothers, husbands…

This was the blog I was going to write, with much introspection, after having just seen “Warrior”, a much more thought-provoking movie than many would give it credit for on its face. I had it half-written in my head, as I walked back to the hotel from the theatre.

Then I got back to my home away from home this week, a condo in Toronto, and got a note from one of my best friends’ brother, telling me that my friend had just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I am sitting here with tears pouring down my cheeks at this news.

There is a lot of shit in this world. This week, a first year student at Acadia drank himself to death, playing a drinking game with liquor instead of beer. It could have been my son. Debbie’s uncle Harvey, a good man in his own right, was also diagnosed this past week with pancreatic cancer. People get sick. People die.

Good people. People we know. Fathers, sons, brothers, husbands and friends….

As they say in Africa, “Hasa Diga Eebowai”!

My friend epitomizes the French phrase “joie de vivre”. He always has, and he always will. More importantly, and to paraphrase Tennyson, he is a part of all he has met. His joie de vivre is contagious and has infected all those with whom he has crossed paths. As college roommates and best friends, I can’t tell you how often he would bring a smile to my face. You couldn’t be sad around him. He is the rare individual who could, singlehandedly, lift the mood of an entire room (or bar or party).

My friend is a father, a son, a brother, a husband and a friend to many. He has given so much of his energy to lifting the spirits of those around him, but now it’s time for him to allow those near him to reciprocate. Let your children, your parents, family and friends energize you. Do not lose the joie de vivre that makes you, you.

Your friendship means more to me than you’ll ever know.

Je t’aime fort, mon ami.

Martin

 

Big Ideas: There If You Look

In today’s New York Times, Neil Gabler bemoans, “Ideas just aren’t what they used to be.”

He goes on:

“Once upon a time, they could ignite fires of debate, stimulate other thoughts, incite revolutions and fundamentally change the way we look at and think about the world.”

One can’t argue that a “Big Idea” would have these characteristics. One can debate whether they are as rare as Mr. Gabler laments.

Humans transcending biology. Immortality. The Singularity.

If this isn’t the mother of “Big Ideas”, I don’t know what is.

No one could dispute that Ray Kurzweil’s books have ignited fires of debate, incited revolution, and have fundamentally changed the way we look at and think about the world.

Much of what Kurzweil discusses in his books, in his TED Talks and in “The Transcendent Man”, is humankind’s propensity to extrapolate linearly, and that exponential growth rates are beyond our ability to grasp, which he refers to as “The Law of Accelerating Returns”. He spends a lot of cycles plotting growth rates to log curves to prove his point that advances in technology have been growing at exponential rates. He goes on to suggest that there is no reason to expect this to change, the implication being, of course, that change is happening at an accelerated rate that few grasp.

Ray deserves credit for putting stakes in the ground and for the transparency with which he supports and defends his predictions. By estimating the computing power of a human brain and projecting Moore’s Law, he tells us that in 2020, a $1000 computer will have the equivalent processing power of the human brain. This is different than a computer becoming indistinguishable from a human. That won’t happen until 2029, when a computer with Strong AI becomes the first to pass the Turing Test.

But for Kurzweil, it’s not just Moore’s Law and exponential growth of compute power (although it is perhaps that best known example). His Big Idea comes from connecting the dots across multiple disciplines, which he has coined “GNR”, a convenient acronym for Genetics, Nanotechnology and Robotics/AI.

Mr. Gabler, there are Big Ideas out there. You’ve just got to look for them.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

About.Me/martin_suter

 

Derivative Works: The Battle Over Purple Play-Doh

One of the most contentious areas in licensing negotiations is in the area of ownership of derivative IP. The most effective articulation of the issue that I have seen was by Jill Riola, a highly capable licensing attorney working at Carlton Fields in Orlando. During negotiations with a team of attorneys from a Fortune 500 firm that was licensing our IP, she brought it back to first principles:

·         We own our IP (blue Play-Doh)

·         You own your IP (red Play-Doh)

·         We are granting you the right to create purple Play-Doh, using our blue in combination with your red

·         But you do not own purple Play-Doh, because by definition, purple must contain some blue.

Furthermore, when viewed this way, all of the terms contained within the licensing agreement, including restrictions on Field of Use, royalty rates, etc., apply for all shades of purple Play-Doh.

We could get down in the weeds and occasionally lose sight of the issue, so it was amusing to watch how Jill would bring it back to first principles. “If it’s blue Play-Doh it’s ours…You own all of the red you can develop, but if it’s purple, you don’t own it, and you owe us if you sell any.”

Agree on who owns what Play-Doh upfront, and the specifics of the agreement will be much easier to draft later.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

martin.suter (at) iplicensing.net

Play-Doh is a registered trademark of Hasbro, Inc. Its use herein is strictly to illustrate a legal concept. No endorsement by Hasbro is expressed or implied.

 

Conflicting Goals in Asymmetrical Deals: Market Exclusivity

How many people have considered that Microsoft is, at its core, a licensing company? Or that the entire PC industry owes its existence to a licensing deal, the non-exclusive license to IBM for MS-DOS in the 80’s? How different a company would Microsoft have been had they signed an exclusive licensing deal? Chances are that it wouldn’t still be around. Bill Gates certainly wouldn't have become the richest guy in the world. As a licensing guy, I can only speculate on whether it was IBM's negotiating naivete or Microsoft's chutzpah that led to the deal being structured as it was.

Having sat on both sides of the table on various occasions, I have frequently found myself in a position where I’ve been able to help get to consensus because I understand where the conflicts may be and have been able to work through them.

Licensees almost always contend that they require some form of market exclusivity for competitive advantage. “Why would I sign a deal with you today if, tomorrow, my competitors can do the same thing?”

Licensors are thinking the exact opposite, “I can’t put all my eggs in one basket? I want to capture as much of the market opportunity as is possible, not be limited to a fraction of it.”

Perhaps even more importantly, what is the impact on the company’s potential for a liquidity event for its investors? Remember, once you’ve granted exclusive rights to a 3^rd-party, that prevents not only you, but any acquiring company, from pursuing that space. This may take a whole category of company off the list of potential acquirers at a later date. Try explaining that one to your investors!

So how do you reconcile these two positions?

The “need” for market exclusivity can often be a catalyst for M&A discussions, especially if the technology being licensed is the core franchise around which you’ve begun to build the company, or if the breadth of market exclusivity on the table prevents you from extracting value in other markets. But once again, these can be tricky waters to navigate. A technology acquisition requires you to consider valuation through a very realistic lens. The acquiring company will do an estimated build cost (# of person years x fully loaded cost per person year, around $200K per), and then offer a multiple based on their assessment of the value of time-to-market and your IP position, typically 3X-7X. As the inventor/entrepreneur, you need to be very realistic about their ability to get close enough to replicating that which you’ve built. Pride can get in the way, but do you really believe that Microsoft/Qualcomm/Oracle/Cisco engineers couldn’t do it?

If M&A discussions aren’t an option, then, in most cases, non-exclusivity should be the preferred path. One of the things, that the licensee doesn’t want to happen, is to invest its time and resources creating demand for a key feature, only to have a competitor come in and erode their margins selling the same widget at a reduced cost. A concession, that can help address this, is a form of price protection (MFN clause). In this type of clause, the licensor will agree to not license for less in comparable deals. The concept of comparability is key here. The consideration must be for similar product types, in similar quantities over a similar time period. If a subsequent licensee is pays a lesser royalty rate (or other form of consideration), a reduction in royalty rate will be accorded to the original licensee as well.

So, you’ve now heard that M&A is not an option at this time and non-exclusive rights aren’t either. Under what conditions can exclusivity make sense? My answer is twofold: Money solves a lot of problems, and that it is possible to tightly constrain the scope of a license, thus preserving your ability to license to others or for an acquiring company to practice in any field but the restricted field for which you’ve granted exclusivity.

How do you constrain the license grants? By placing boxes around the grants…I’ll explain more next time.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

martin.suter (at) iplicensing.net

 

IP Licensing – Gut Check Time!

So you’re now thinking that licensing makes sense as a means of accelerating the time-to-market and monetizing your leading-edge technology. You’ve identified the gorilla as well as the chimps in your space, and managed to get the attention of at least one of them. They’ve probably begun posturing and now they’re coming to the table to discuss terms. For most companies, this is a classic “Oh shit!” moment.

As I blogged previously, before you agree to sit down, it is imperative that you have established clear guiding principles. Your internal stakeholders must understand, talk through and agree to a position on the major issues. These are the “non-negotiables”, and can help prevent bad decisions from being made in the heat of a negotiation. Each of these must be taken seriously, as getting them wrong can have a huge impact on valuation and even exit potential.

Issues to lose sleep over

·         Exclusivity vs. non-exclusivity

·         Derivative works

·         Field of Use, Territory

·         Indemnification

·         Consideration (cash flow, NPV, etc.)

Each of these merits its own discussion. As my plane is now on final approach, I’ll have to get to these in future blogs.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

 

Before Taking the Licensing Plunge, Consider These 3 Things

If I had to impart any words of advice to a company that is seriously looking at licensing as a go-to-market model, it would be the following three things:

1.       Understand all of the implications of a licensing strategy, including its impact on valuation and potential liquidity events for the shareholders;

2.       Develop guiding principles outside of the deal;

3.       Assess every deal through a strategic filter.

The first of these is critically important and requires the full buy-in from the Board and investors. Don’t assume that they automatically appreciate what these are. Licensing has implications for valuation and exit potential, and while the benefits are many (focuses scarce resources on core technology development, time to market, leverages existing channels to market, non-dilutitive cash inflow, etc.), the risks are also real. But many of these risks can be partially or wholly mitigated by a rational approach to the deal, and it is incumbent on you to show them how.

Which leads us to the second imperative: Develop guiding principles outside of the deal. Get the Board to sign off on these and empower you to negotiate the deal within the deal framework that’s been discussed. The last thing you want is the Board “helping” you to negotiate a deal in real-time or proffering opinions at the eleventh hour. Given the implications of a bad deal, there are certain things that will not be negotiable. These may be dealbreakers, but it’s far better to know going in where you have the support of the Board and often, this makes for easier negotiations. At worst, you can cut bait.

Lastly, every deal should be looked at in a strategic context. Does it make sense to grant any rights, even non-exclusive, in the Field of Use that is likely going to be the driver for a liquidity event? Granting rights in niche markets is very different than granting rights in a core market.

In future blogs, I’ll discuss some of the issues that are worth losing sleep over.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

 

Fight or Flight? Why Big Companies Do Deals

I love the web and am constantly amazed at what one can find or learn from others skilled in the art.

I recently came across a very interesting piece in Marc Andreesen's blog: "The Moby Dick Theory of Big Companies", in which he suggests that "There are times in the life of a startup when you have to deal with big companies." He then builds a very interesting metaphorical case for SmallCo as Captain Ahab and BigCo as Moby Dick. It's an entertaining and enlightening piece, but I will endeavour to go a few steps further and try to delve into the psychology driving the players in this game.

Marc makes some interesting points about a BigCo's behavior being inexplicable when viewed from the outside. He suggests that there are some many moving parts and agendas, that the dynamic of decision making is highly unpredictable. While I tend to agree at a macro level, it's my experience that people (and a company is an aggregation of people) will react most predictably to fear. I think it was Intro to Psych class where we are all introduced to the concept of "Fight or Flight" and that it applies equally to business psychology.

SmallCo's are used to talking about the opportunities created by their disruptive technology: new markets, huge revenue, vast market share, value creation. This is a natural side effect from their creating business plans and pitching investors on how compelling the opportunity is.

Once they've convinced themselves and their investors that the opportunity is huge, they will often go out and try to convince one or several BigCo's of the same thing. Getting funding or landing a whale require different stories, but usually SmallCo re-uses their investor pitch in trying to get BigCo's attention. You may get nodding heads in meetings and even hear that they agree with your assessment of the opportunity, but all too often BigCo inertia takes over and nothing happens.

I first experienced this in a big way shortly after being recruited from a start-up into the Disruptive Technology group at Nortel in Q3/2000. MeshNetworks had just emerged from stealth mode with a classic, highly disruptive story that had the potential to impact many incumbent technologies and R&D programs in the wireless space. Nortel was heavily invested in 3G, having made a major UMTS bet, and I was advised to identify a new market opportunity created by this emerging technology rather than positioning it as a disruptor to 3G. So, I began the exercise of focusing on a net new commercial opportunity that this technology could enable for Nortel. It was a billion dollar opportunity in 3-5 years, yadda, yadda. I got the nods in meetings and the "Atta boy" from my boss at review time, but there was no sense of urgency to act.

Frustrated by this, and deciding to win big or die trying, I spoofed a news story using the San Jose Mercury News banner and inserting quotes from John Chambers and industry analysts. The banner read: "Cisco Leapfrogs 3G and Goes Right to 4G; Acquires MeshNetworks for $400m". I then printed off my mock-up and put it on the fax machine, sending it around internally. Within 5 minutes, my phone began to ring - "Holy shit! What the hell just happened? How could we have let this happen?!?"

Basically I then told them that we have a do-over, that this didn't really happen (yet). But I then asked whether this was a version of the future that we were prepared to accept. If so, not acting was a reasonable course of (in)action. If we couldn't contemplate this version of the future, then we needed to act urgently.

What did I takeaway from this?

BigCo's are largely risk averse. Status quo rules the day and that having a team of singles hitters internally is easier to manage than going to the free agent market and bringing in the guy who will either hit it out of the ballpark or go down swinging. Unless that home run hitter is also talking to another team in your division, which could lose you more games. The threat of him landing with a competitor usually changes the way in which you look at his availability as well as what you're willing to pay to get him on your team. It's the competitor pre-emption premium.

Winning vs. not losing. Opportunities or threats. Two different ways of framing the discussion.

After 20 years of dancing with 800lb gorillas, or hunting the great white whale, my experience is that BigCo action is catalysed more often from perceived threats than from potential opportunities. My hunch is that this is an 80:20 relationship, although I have no quantitative data to support this.

What happens inside companies when presented with a perceived threat? The Fight or Flight instinct kicks in. Corporate DNA is pre-disposed to fighting (they don't call it "competition" for nothing), while fleeing is anathema to most BigCo's. Status quo is not an option when under threat of attack.

You've decided, for whatever reason, that you're going to go hunt the big white whale. You've got a disruptive technology, well it's called disruptive for a reason. Change the lens through which you have them view you. Build your story around the threat to their status quo and you are more likely to get them to act with a sense of urgency.

But be careful what you wish for. You might just end up harpooning the whale and you then have to answer the "Now what do I do?!?"

That's my .02!

Martin Suter

 

In Dealmaking, Patience is a Virtue

The corporate DNA in most large companies is such that getting to signed paper can often be a lengthy business development process. Early stage companies have agility built into their DNA. Reconciling these two extremes can be extremely challenging. The pay-off can be significant, and as I previously blogged, may help to bring in money to the company at key inflection points in a company’s development.

Two deals that I have been involved with highlight both ends of this spectrum. In 2000, I negotiated a deal with Microsoft for Netware to Active Directory migration tools. Notwithstanding the 2+ years building relationships, creating mindshare and credibility internally, once the decision was made by Microsoft to ship “their own” tools, it took a matter of weeks to get to signature. Obviously, this deal didn’t come out of the blue, as the groundwork we had been laying was critical, but the deal itself was virtually frictionless.

The second is probably more representative of what it takes to get a deal done. While at MeshNetworks I began the dance with Motorola in Feb. 2003. Mesh had done a good job of building visibility and mindshare as a company with an emerging, potentially disruptive technology. Motorola Ventures, its internal VC group, identified Mesh as “interesting” from an investment and potentially from a strategic perspective. What began as a nominal equity investment with an optional second tranche in the mid-seven figure range slowly began heating up.

In March, we began a technical due diligence and validation process with Motorola’s emerging technology group, which was a great thing, as they floated above the product groups that are nose down trying to get existing products out the door. Supporting this effort consumed hundreds of person hours, in addition to travel costs. Throughout this process, we needed to continually justify to ourselves, to our Board and investors that this was worth doing.

By summer, we had come through most of the technical evaluations and began to push for a commercial discussion. Some posturing around deal terms began, which required a real gut-check to convince ourselves that this remained worth doing. In late September, we got down to more substantive discussions and by late November, had a non-binding MOU. Getting from there to signature took a further 4 ½ months of page turns in rooms full of Motorola Legal and business folks, but finally on April 9, 2004 we had a deal.

This process brought us much closer to Motorola, during which time they had an in-depth look at us. It also gave us the chance to better understand how Motorola was structured, and more importantly, where there was strategic alignment across the portfolio. On December 21, 2004, 750 days after we began to dance and nine months after the licensing deal, we closed an M&A deal with Motorola.

Was it worth it? Absolutely.

That’s my .02

Martin Suter

martin.suter (at) iplicensing.net 

Asymmetrical Licensing as a Go-to-Market Strategy

In my last blog, I described some of the real challenges facing start-ups that need to get a technology to market. Of course, there are categories of companies for which the front-end load of R&D costs to productise is lower (e.g. software vs. hardware), however the challenges of funding the commercialization of a product are relatively common across all categories.

Frequently, a start-up may attract seed funding on the basis of the team, an idea, and a vague view of some massive, future market opportunity. For this, the founders give up a big chunk of the company, and embark on delivering a proof-of-concept. This critical milestone is typically the trigger mechanism for another round of funding designed to get the company closer to product and customer traction. Ideally, this proof-of-concept is leveraged into customer/partner/market interest, with sufficient “buzz” to secure enough money at a reasonable valuation, so the founders and the seed guys aren’t crushed.

The problem, is the disconnect between where the company’s really at in the eyes of new investors (“So you've got no product, no customers, limited market proof points...but we DO like you”), and the eyes of the company and the seed guys (“Hey, this stuff really works. You should be blown away by the technical accomplishment”).

So, therein lays a challenge. Facing massive dilution from new investors, likely alongside liquidation prefs, other onerous terms and a promise to hold additional funds in reserve to ensure later financing is available, the early stage guys and the founders face a difficult decision. Lose control of the company to later stage investors in order to get to revenues or...What other options do they have?

An important option that remains, IMO, largely misunderstood, is the licensing of technology to an 800 lb gorilla as a non-dilutitive means of generating revenues and helping you to monetize your technology. Frequently, their strengths are your weaknesses: money, customers, sales coverage (direct and channel), manufacturing/supply chain relationships, global support, brand, etc. Trying to displace an 800 lb gorilla that is intent on maintaining market share on your own, is like me trying to budge a sumo wrestler. It ain’t gonna happen.

However, if you think about what you bring to the table when viewed thru the eyes of the big guys: innovation, agility, de-risking of technology development, competitive advantage and time-to-market, all of which are worth something to the right partner. Their motives may be offensive (moving into a new market with a disruptive technology to displace an incumbent), or defensive (preserving dominant status in beachhead markets with next generation technology). In either case, knowing where the hot buttons are will be key to getting to the negotiating table.

Structured correctly and presented with conviction, technology licensing can be a means to generate early revenues, get market traction and acceptance without requiring a massive shareholder dilution post-proof-of-concept.

What do these deals look like? What are the issues? Stay tuned…I’ll get to that soon.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

 

Go-to-Market Challenges for Start-ups

A very real dilemma facing the majority of early stage, pre-critical mass companies is how best to commercialise their technology. Most companies grossly underestimate the time and expense to first productise and then again to commercialise their IP. Depending on the physical form factor of the “product” to be commercialized (i.e. software vs. hardware vs. semiconductors), the cost of productisation may be in the tens of millions of dollars.

But this is what engineers do; they build. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. But taking an “If we can build it, they will come” view of the opportunity is dangerous and naive. Getting product to market is exceedingly difficult; often more so than building the product in the first place. Companies present rosy market forecasts to their potential investors, but building up a sales force and a channel that is adequate for coverage and sales capacity to get anywhere near most projections is very expensive and time-consuming.

How much quota are the reps going to carry? What’s a reasonable ramp? If it’s an evangelical sale, it’s unlikely that any rep will get anywhere near quota for at least 18 months. What is the per rep revenue number that you expect to bring in? What headcount do you need to support this...Marketing to create programs and demand generation, Finance to manage a growing payroll, along with accounts payable and receivable, Customer Service and Technical Support to scale to the projected number of customers required by the projections, etc.

What is the market window? If it takes 2-4 years to build a highly functioning sales channel, what percentage of the market opportunity has already passed?

Lastly, young companies almost always underestimate the stickiness of vendor/supplier relationships, especially if they’ve got a component that they’re trying to embed in someone else’s device. Imagine how difficult it is to sell into a risk adverse industry like the automotive industry, where their product roadmaps extend beyond 15 years, while yours are lucky to extend 15 months. Security of supply, financial stability, and corporate longevity are just three, of many, considerations that a start-up must contend with in order to close a sale of this type.

Next, I’ll talk about IP licensing as a go-to-market strategy.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter