M&M sorting machine

[mbpark]

TW,

You should go to business school these days. They have an entire curriculum based upon innovation and startups. I took one of those classes. It was taught by a former Ensoniq executive. We went over what made Commodore succeed in detail (the engineering team there was all ex-C= engineers who designed the C= 64). We talked about how to properly finance companies, and how to determine the success or failure of a product. We also talked about how being an entrepreneur is serial, and how most ventures will fail. We also talked a lot about sensitivity testing and pivots.

There's many reasons why to invest, and why not to invest in product development. While I cannot stop some MBAs from opening their mouths, and in class I really wanted to do that a lot to a certain few, there is solid logic and reasoning behind it.

It's a different place than what it was 10-20 years ago. MBA-based thinking before was not focused on creativity, innovation, or strategy. It sure is now.

I am 48 credits into my MBA at Temple. 6 more to go then I become yet another MBA in IT.

[tw]

Originally Posted by mbpark

We went over what made Commodore succeed in detail (the engineering team there was all ex-C= engineers who designed the C= 64). We talked about how to properly finance companies, and how to determine the success or failure of a product. We also talked about how being an entrepreneur is serial, and how most ventures will fail. We also talked a lot about sensitivity testing and pivots.

Bigger Commodore story was why it failed. A famous bumper sticker read, "Will Rogers never met Jack Tramiel." Tramiel learned enough to realize electronics were replacing mechanical office equipment. So he did try to advance with the times. But he had two problems. One was an ongoing war with his primary investor Gould. The other was his finance dominated management style where only he could approve any expensive greater than $1000. Innovators could not be trusted.

Tramiel appears to demonstrate what happens with age. He became more entrenched; enhanced his micromanagement style. This resulted in Atari's downfall. A shame really since Atari's intent was to do something similar what PlayStation and Xbox are doing today. Those promises never happened.

What is sensitivity testing and pivots?

What or who does this course cite as the current innovators of our time? And why?

[mbpark]

TW,

The whole reason for Commodore's success was that they could make computers more cheaply than anyone else. They did in 4 chips what other companies did in 6. Because they owned MOS Technologies, they were vertically integrated and could make their own chips, further driving down the costs. They also cut costs by not investing in development or training programs for their resellers, instead offloading much of it to third parties, thereby cutting the costs even further.

Very low costs of goods sold and lowered selling and general administrative expenses (you can't expense many of these programs per unit). That's exactly why Commodore succeeded. They were beyond cheap when it came to production and offloaded everything to dealer networks. Ensoniq was (mostly) the same way.

Commodore was competing on price with several companies at the time, and was selling in the middle of a video game crash.

They failed because they kept that mindset when companies were buying computers by the truckload, and instead of investing in what the market wanted, which was a better support model and IBM compatibles, they kept pushing out the same ten year old chips on incompatible platforms, and made no investments or development in selling to businesses or higher than bottom dollar consumers. Dell, Compaq, and others cleaned their clock there, while the resurgent video game systems took out the low end.

The best examples of innovators were:

Intel, who has constantly reinvented itself over the years with chip design as processes changed.
Apple, who also reinvented themselves and acquired NeXT as part of the process.
Dropbox, who used analytics to test out product features and offerings
Google, who develops and constantly evaluates new product offerings

Definitions:

Sensitivity Analysis = conducting small tests of new product offerings on select communities to determine probability of success/failure
Pivot = When one takes a look at the original mission of the company, notices that it will not succeed as intended, and redirects it in a different, hopefully more successful, direction

If you want to stay in touch....Facebook. I hardly use this anymore and get UT and classicman on my feed anyway there.

Originally Posted by tw

Bigger Commodore story was why it failed. A famous bumper sticker read, "Will Rogers never met Jack Tramiel." Tramiel learned enough to realize electronics were replacing mechanical office equipment. So he did try to advance with the times. But he had two problems. One was an ongoing war with his primary investor Gould. The other was his finance dominated management style where only he could approve any expensive greater than $1000. Innovators could not be trusted.

Tramiel appears to demonstrate what happens with age. He became more entrenched; enhanced his micromanagement style. This resulted in Atari's downfall. A shame really since Atari's intent was to do something similar what PlayStation and Xbox are doing today. Those promises never happened.

What is sensitivity testing and pivots?

What or who does this course cite as the current innovators of our time? And why?

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by mbpark

If you want to stay in touch....Facebook. I hardly use this anymore and get UT and classicman on my feed anyway there.

Aaaaand I've just unfriended you on FB

As I am going to be doing soon to all ex-Dwellars.

Dance with the one that brung ya.