With summer rolling in, my itch to sail started getting stronger. I put out the word on to the Kirby25 fleet that I was looking for a ride at regattas. I got a call from Problem Child within 15 minutes of posting my note on the forum.
I drove up to Ottawa on the Friday night before the regatta to set up my tent and catch up with the other sailors in the fleet. I kept up my tradition of bringing a charcoal bbq and grilling my dinner.
We were expecting a lot of rain for the weekend, but the weather held up with a nice breeze and no rain. We packed in 7 races on the Saturday...a lot of work! The most I remember doing in one day in previous years was 5. I'd sailed with Problem Child before so we were familiar with each other. I gave them some tips about sail trim and race strategy and we did fairly well overall. We almost got a first on one race, but we made two extra gybes and gave the race to the fastest boat in the fleet. The last race of the day was pretty hairy with four boats coming together at the finish line. There was some bumping of boats and a protest, but it was all in good fun. Needless to say, I was pretty tired by the end of the day.
We woke up Sunday morning to a misty rain and no wind whatsoever. The race committee called off the race at 11am and I packed up my tent and drove home to Kingston early.
It was nice to be back racing again. Looking forward to doing more over the summer.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
My Big Business Idea
Well, I started the MBA program with an entrepreneurship mindset and a big idea that I thought I could pull off by the end of the program. Unfortunately, while people generally like my idea, it hasn't really caught any momentum and my priority right now is finding a job so I can feed and house myself.
In any case, I'll put my idea out here and see what happens. If someone takes the idea and runs with it, so be it.
Basic Idea
Working in mechanical design and process engineering for 9 different companies, I have a broad perspective on how engineering departments use their design software and manage their data. I see four major pain points: software licensing, data management, sourcing of new suppliers or customers, and information sharing.
Mechanical engineering software is really expensive and can cost up to $20,000 per year for one workstation depending on what features are needed. If you have a design office with about 20 engineers, this can add up to a significant overhead cost.
Another consequence of modern mechanical design software is the amount of data generated. This data, usually in the form of solid models, drawings, FEA results, jigs and fixtures, and test reports have to be kept track of and stored somewhere. When you different software packages creating these different engineering objects, and different people using these packages, it gets tricky trying to store and manage the different bits of data. Different companies have approached this problem in different ways, but the basic problems persist: data duplication, server maintenance and growth, and ongoing development of a custom data management system. This also adds to overhead costs.
Sourcing new customers/suppliers and information sharing relate to time costs and are difficult to quantify. Developing a new business relationship with a new customer or supplier really has to do with building up trust with them. One way to build trust is to share financial info that gives a glimpse into the health of the company and the quality of the management. D&B has made a business out of this kind of reporting for over 100 years. This info reduces the time needed to decide on doing business with a new company, and hence, overhead administrative costs.
Another time costs associated with finding new customers and suppliers is the amount of time needed to find them. An ebay type online market would work. mfg.com and alibaba.com are working to fill this space. They're both great sites, but I think they're missing integration with 3D CAD systems.
Information sharing is a difficult thing to pin down as a cost. Not everyone can look at an engineering drawing and understand the shapes and mechanisms being depicted. Having a solid model where people can look at from different angles and show how the mechanism would work is invaluable and makes meetings run smoother. Having a CAD workstation devoted to a meeting room is not a good cost to have. There where different approaches to managing this problem in my experience. Creating a movie file of a flyby and animated kinematics was the easiest and least costly solution that I came up with. But overall, you can reduce design review meeting times significantly by having a solid model that you can manipulate easily.
So to solve these issues, I came up with the idea of tying in an engineering software package with a web portal. The engineering software package would consist of a CAD system for modelling, a FEA package for stress analysis, and a CAM system for programming CNC machines. The web portal would be there for business functions: Data Management, Credit Reporting (tying in with ERP systems), an Online Market, and a 3D parts catalogue for easy part sourcing. The software package would be free and the web portal would have a subscription fee.
Here's the latest powerpoint slide deck that I did. The idea still needs to be massaged a little more and I need to work on my pitch. There's not much point in putting more work into it though unless I can sell the idea to a potential customer.
I've targeted a previous employer for the idea pitch, but I'm not sure if I'm proceeding with this yet. I want to put together a focus group of my former colleagues and peers to see if my assumptions are correct. I haven't approached them about it yet, but I might making some noise about it in July.
In any case, I'll put my idea out here and see what happens. If someone takes the idea and runs with it, so be it.
Basic Idea
Working in mechanical design and process engineering for 9 different companies, I have a broad perspective on how engineering departments use their design software and manage their data. I see four major pain points: software licensing, data management, sourcing of new suppliers or customers, and information sharing.
Mechanical engineering software is really expensive and can cost up to $20,000 per year for one workstation depending on what features are needed. If you have a design office with about 20 engineers, this can add up to a significant overhead cost.
Another consequence of modern mechanical design software is the amount of data generated. This data, usually in the form of solid models, drawings, FEA results, jigs and fixtures, and test reports have to be kept track of and stored somewhere. When you different software packages creating these different engineering objects, and different people using these packages, it gets tricky trying to store and manage the different bits of data. Different companies have approached this problem in different ways, but the basic problems persist: data duplication, server maintenance and growth, and ongoing development of a custom data management system. This also adds to overhead costs.
Sourcing new customers/suppliers and information sharing relate to time costs and are difficult to quantify. Developing a new business relationship with a new customer or supplier really has to do with building up trust with them. One way to build trust is to share financial info that gives a glimpse into the health of the company and the quality of the management. D&B has made a business out of this kind of reporting for over 100 years. This info reduces the time needed to decide on doing business with a new company, and hence, overhead administrative costs.
Another time costs associated with finding new customers and suppliers is the amount of time needed to find them. An ebay type online market would work. mfg.com and alibaba.com are working to fill this space. They're both great sites, but I think they're missing integration with 3D CAD systems.
Information sharing is a difficult thing to pin down as a cost. Not everyone can look at an engineering drawing and understand the shapes and mechanisms being depicted. Having a solid model where people can look at from different angles and show how the mechanism would work is invaluable and makes meetings run smoother. Having a CAD workstation devoted to a meeting room is not a good cost to have. There where different approaches to managing this problem in my experience. Creating a movie file of a flyby and animated kinematics was the easiest and least costly solution that I came up with. But overall, you can reduce design review meeting times significantly by having a solid model that you can manipulate easily.
So to solve these issues, I came up with the idea of tying in an engineering software package with a web portal. The engineering software package would consist of a CAD system for modelling, a FEA package for stress analysis, and a CAM system for programming CNC machines. The web portal would be there for business functions: Data Management, Credit Reporting (tying in with ERP systems), an Online Market, and a 3D parts catalogue for easy part sourcing. The software package would be free and the web portal would have a subscription fee.
Here's the latest powerpoint slide deck that I did. The idea still needs to be massaged a little more and I need to work on my pitch. There's not much point in putting more work into it though unless I can sell the idea to a potential customer.
I've targeted a previous employer for the idea pitch, but I'm not sure if I'm proceeding with this yet. I want to put together a focus group of my former colleagues and peers to see if my assumptions are correct. I haven't approached them about it yet, but I might making some noise about it in July.
More about Bootstrapping
Here's a good write up about bootstrapping. The info there isn't mind blowing or anything that you couldn't find elsewhere, but the author puts it in blunt and simple form. Really good stuff.
The Ottawa Network
The Ottawa Network has events every now and then to get entrepreneurs around Ottawa to get together and discuss business topics. I went to the last one this spring, held at the Code Factory, to see if I could meet some people that could lead me to a job with a small startup company. I didn't get any solid job leads, but the discussion was really interesting.
The topic had to do with bootstrapping your business. The tree panelists were in full agreement about external funding: there is none. There are some VCs that are still investing, but only after a business is demonstrating revenue growth. Angel investors have been hit hard by the economic recession and are finding safe havens for their money. The only good way to raise funding for your business is by generating customer revenue. Basically, sell your idea to someone before you even spend a dime developing it.
Practically this means identifying your target first customer, meeting with them, and explaining that you can solve their problems if they explain them to you. At this meeting, your job is to sell them the idea using a presentation. If they like it, you can then start talking about a deposit to begin the work and subsequent funds to continue as the project progresses. But until you have a first customer committed, there's not much point in doing any work or spending any money.
Apart from that, I met some interesting people doing some interesting things. One guy in particular started a website called careerseer.com. It's basically a search engine for job postings for the Ottawa tech sector. It mostly has to do with the software industry, but there may be some postings that are more business related.
It's too bad I only went to one of these networking events. I knew about them when I was still in the MBA program, but never went to one for various reasons. I should pass on the info to the new class, especially the new ventures club members.
The topic had to do with bootstrapping your business. The tree panelists were in full agreement about external funding: there is none. There are some VCs that are still investing, but only after a business is demonstrating revenue growth. Angel investors have been hit hard by the economic recession and are finding safe havens for their money. The only good way to raise funding for your business is by generating customer revenue. Basically, sell your idea to someone before you even spend a dime developing it.
Practically this means identifying your target first customer, meeting with them, and explaining that you can solve their problems if they explain them to you. At this meeting, your job is to sell them the idea using a presentation. If they like it, you can then start talking about a deposit to begin the work and subsequent funds to continue as the project progresses. But until you have a first customer committed, there's not much point in doing any work or spending any money.
Apart from that, I met some interesting people doing some interesting things. One guy in particular started a website called careerseer.com. It's basically a search engine for job postings for the Ottawa tech sector. It mostly has to do with the software industry, but there may be some postings that are more business related.
It's too bad I only went to one of these networking events. I knew about them when I was still in the MBA program, but never went to one for various reasons. I should pass on the info to the new class, especially the new ventures club members.
Night Shots
I was up late one night. The moon was bright and it was windy with some clouds blowing by. I went out to take a few pictures around the Kingston township. I was using 15 second exposures on ISO 50. It's a little tricky taking night pictures with an old digicam with a small screen, but these turned out ok.
Monday, June 08, 2009
CanadaBrainstorm.ca
Ever since finding about the Brainstorm Ubuntu site, I've had an idea of building a similar website, but for people to exchange ideas on how to improve Canada. I've been watching the news about Canadian politics for a while. I got discouraged at watching elections and how some issues dominate the campaigns. The central campaign issues, like same-sex marriage or public funding for religious schools, have little to do with the national interest of our country, but are really specific. It's a neat marketing/campaign trick by clever strategists to come up with a hot-button issue that everyone has an opinion on and that deals more with belief and cannot really be debated based on logical reasoning. These polarizing issues pretty much divide the voters into for and against sides pulling otherwise undecided voters into one political camp or another. Larger issues such as foreign policy, international competitiveness, inter-provincial trade, and environmental policy get drowned out by the media hype around the single polarizing issue. The end result is that we elect governments based on personal beliefs and ideals rather than a reasoned evaluation of their policies and platforms.
So one way to combat this problem is to define the issues ourselves in some sort of grassroots movement independent of any political party. So during campaigns, when political parties talk about what they think Canadians want, we have some sort of record that contains ideas brainstormed by the population for the kind of country that we want to live in. Political parties can then be evaluated based on how closely they match with the idea repository. These ideas also need not be limited to the realm of public policy. Private industry leaders can also take notice and work to fill a demand in an area that they see an opportunity in.
In any case, looking for a job is a time-consuming process and I need some other way to feel like I accomplished something. So I built CanadaBrainstorm.ca using Drupal and the IdeaTorrent package from the Ubuntu people. The basic premise of the site is as follows:
Great innovative ideas for improving Canada are exchanged between people everyday. However, the majority of these ideas never reach public policy makers and industry executive-level decision makers.
A method for storing and evaluating these ideas is needed so that the best ideas can be accessed by political and industry leaders. These ideas can then be acted upon and brought to reality.
Anyone can create an account, log in, and contribute an idea or vote on one. I'm trying to publicize the site through facebook and personal emails. I'm hoping that some people will be keen on the idea and the site will generate some momentum. I have a section about me with links to my resume and this blog. Hopefully, some sort of job lead will come out of it as well.
I've included a link in the side bar. Please spread the word about the site and get involved!
So one way to combat this problem is to define the issues ourselves in some sort of grassroots movement independent of any political party. So during campaigns, when political parties talk about what they think Canadians want, we have some sort of record that contains ideas brainstormed by the population for the kind of country that we want to live in. Political parties can then be evaluated based on how closely they match with the idea repository. These ideas also need not be limited to the realm of public policy. Private industry leaders can also take notice and work to fill a demand in an area that they see an opportunity in.
In any case, looking for a job is a time-consuming process and I need some other way to feel like I accomplished something. So I built CanadaBrainstorm.ca using Drupal and the IdeaTorrent package from the Ubuntu people. The basic premise of the site is as follows:
Great innovative ideas for improving Canada are exchanged between people everyday. However, the majority of these ideas never reach public policy makers and industry executive-level decision makers.
A method for storing and evaluating these ideas is needed so that the best ideas can be accessed by political and industry leaders. These ideas can then be acted upon and brought to reality.
Anyone can create an account, log in, and contribute an idea or vote on one. I'm trying to publicize the site through facebook and personal emails. I'm hoping that some people will be keen on the idea and the site will generate some momentum. I have a section about me with links to my resume and this blog. Hopefully, some sort of job lead will come out of it as well.
I've included a link in the side bar. Please spread the word about the site and get involved!
Thursday, June 04, 2009
MBA: Last courses and the end of the program
It's been a while since I last posted and the memories of the courses are fading fast.
Managing Innvation
Managing innovation was taught by Lib Gibson. She's also an adjunct professor at the Rotman school of business in Toronto. She presented some interesting concepts in terms of how to create business environments to encourage the flow of ideas. Much of what we discussed can be found in Peter Drucker's book Innovation and Entrepreneurship. We also discussed how disruptive innovations work, how to protect your company from being blindsided by disruptive innovations, and some interesting topics from TED.com. Overall, I really enjoyed this course.
The Tricolour Venture Fund
This was the highlight of my MBA academic experience and was run by Elspeth Murray, Peter Gallant, and John Molloy. Queen's has a Venture Capital Fund closely associated with the Parteq Innvotions, the technology commercialization entity for the university. We were split up into three teams and provided with a list of 9 different new ventures who are looking to secure funding to help their businesses grow. The first phase of the course was to do an initial investigation of the companies and decide on which companies to do a deep investigation and due diligence work to evaluate the investment potential. The second phase involved the due diligence work on the companies we selected through extensive meetings with the new venture entrepreneurs and management, and detailed research of the technology, market, and competitors. The companies we evaluated included:
My team evaluated Xuuk, a fledgling start-up company that developed eyetracking technology for measuring how many people look at a sign and the length of time that each person looked. Really neat technology. The small management team had done a lot of work with the small amount of funding that they received up to that point. We recommended investing but our recommendation went to the investment committee who decide on the actual investment. This was a fun course that involved a real project with real companies and making an investment decision with real dollars. It wasn't just an academic exercise. I really liked it and it inspired me to seek work within the start-up area with VCs and on the government policy side. Unfortunately, the state of the VC industry is bad right now and work prospects are not good.
Marketing of New Ventures
By the time I started this course, the end of the program was in site, the weather was starting to get nice again, and my motivation for course work was incredibly low. I was the only student from Queen's to take this class, the other four students in the course were exchange students. I kind of liked it because of the small size and the company tours that we had. We checked out Mitel's technology incubator in Ottawa called Wesley Clover. We also did a live project to develop a marketing strategy plan for the Westbrook Golf Club in developing a new sports complex on their land.
The final days of the program were spent saying goodbye to classmates who were going on exchange, the exchange students who were with us for a few months, and a big party where we all wore white t-shirts and signed each other.
Over the last month or so, a group of us welcomed the incoming class (2010) and passed on some of the culture of the program, lessons that we learnt, and survival tips. We sent them on a scavenger hunt around town and threw a party for them. It was interesting to see them starting the program and wondering how we looked at this point last year. They're going to have a great year.
Convocation happened on May 26th at Grant Hall. It was a nice ceremony that started off with bagpipes. It was nice to meet the parents of classmates and introduce mine to some of my closer friends. It was fun, but also a little bit sad. It officially marked the end of our MBA experience and an end to one of the best years I've had to date.
Managing Innvation
Managing innovation was taught by Lib Gibson. She's also an adjunct professor at the Rotman school of business in Toronto. She presented some interesting concepts in terms of how to create business environments to encourage the flow of ideas. Much of what we discussed can be found in Peter Drucker's book Innovation and Entrepreneurship. We also discussed how disruptive innovations work, how to protect your company from being blindsided by disruptive innovations, and some interesting topics from TED.com. Overall, I really enjoyed this course.
The Tricolour Venture Fund
This was the highlight of my MBA academic experience and was run by Elspeth Murray, Peter Gallant, and John Molloy. Queen's has a Venture Capital Fund closely associated with the Parteq Innvotions, the technology commercialization entity for the university. We were split up into three teams and provided with a list of 9 different new ventures who are looking to secure funding to help their businesses grow. The first phase of the course was to do an initial investigation of the companies and decide on which companies to do a deep investigation and due diligence work to evaluate the investment potential. The second phase involved the due diligence work on the companies we selected through extensive meetings with the new venture entrepreneurs and management, and detailed research of the technology, market, and competitors. The companies we evaluated included:
- Skymeter - a gps technology company
- Shoeboxed.com - a digital receipts company
- iPeak Networks - an internet technology company
- SciSense - a medical device company
My team evaluated Xuuk, a fledgling start-up company that developed eyetracking technology for measuring how many people look at a sign and the length of time that each person looked. Really neat technology. The small management team had done a lot of work with the small amount of funding that they received up to that point. We recommended investing but our recommendation went to the investment committee who decide on the actual investment. This was a fun course that involved a real project with real companies and making an investment decision with real dollars. It wasn't just an academic exercise. I really liked it and it inspired me to seek work within the start-up area with VCs and on the government policy side. Unfortunately, the state of the VC industry is bad right now and work prospects are not good.
Marketing of New Ventures
By the time I started this course, the end of the program was in site, the weather was starting to get nice again, and my motivation for course work was incredibly low. I was the only student from Queen's to take this class, the other four students in the course were exchange students. I kind of liked it because of the small size and the company tours that we had. We checked out Mitel's technology incubator in Ottawa called Wesley Clover. We also did a live project to develop a marketing strategy plan for the Westbrook Golf Club in developing a new sports complex on their land.
The final days of the program were spent saying goodbye to classmates who were going on exchange, the exchange students who were with us for a few months, and a big party where we all wore white t-shirts and signed each other.
Over the last month or so, a group of us welcomed the incoming class (2010) and passed on some of the culture of the program, lessons that we learnt, and survival tips. We sent them on a scavenger hunt around town and threw a party for them. It was interesting to see them starting the program and wondering how we looked at this point last year. They're going to have a great year.
Convocation happened on May 26th at Grant Hall. It was a nice ceremony that started off with bagpipes. It was nice to meet the parents of classmates and introduce mine to some of my closer friends. It was fun, but also a little bit sad. It officially marked the end of our MBA experience and an end to one of the best years I've had to date.
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