Clunky Flow

Brendan Lally ( Lally logic. What does an Irishman know? lallylogic.startitup.net.) sent me a link to this classic post by Guy Kawasaki.  Guy’s always a great read, but what with everyone talking about the Framework 7 Programme right now and looking out for potential academic research partners, there couldn’t be a better time to revisit this post.  Thanks Brendan.

Concise and to the point Guy identifies 3 commonly held beliefs that don’t translate well from research organisations to entities focused on commercialisation…

There are three key flaws in most attempts to commercialize technology via a startup. First, organizations think that starting a successful company is easy and that the hard part—that is, the research—is already done. The truth is that it’s not easy to productize technology and to start a company; if it were, these organizations would do it themselves.

Second, [organizations think that] patents are worth a lot of money. Patents are nice—in particular, they impress parents—but they don’t make customers buy a product. They could valuable if your company is successful and has enough time and money to litigate against infringers, but no startup’s mantra should be “patent, sue, collect.�

Third, [organizations think that] the value of technology is directly related to the number of man-years (not to be sexist) it took to develop it. What’s more likely is that the longer it took to make something that hasn’t been turned into a product, the less it’s worth. It’s debatable whether technology developed in a cost-plus environment by cost-plus scientists can thrive in a market-driven market.

 

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