The HP Way of applied to start-ups, 50 years later

My long time at HP has been immensely rewarding but it is time to say goodbye. I had the chance of working alongside many smart and dedicated people, from employees in field offices, engineers in product divisions and scientists at HP Labs . I am proud I help launch at least 6 new businesses that impacted positively the lives of millions. These ranged from geographic expansion in Africa, Europe and Middle-East, developping healthcare, clinical information or telemedicine systems, helping to deploy the first mobile networks and support broadband telecommunication services and in recent years piloting mobile multimedia applications. In recent months I had the chance to meet again former colleagues around the world from all these periods and it is great to reflect on our team contributions.

So, why do I leave ? The answer is that it is for the same reasons I joined and stayed on despite two other career temptations : passion for new ideas and great people. Now, I believe that experience of the HP Way will apply even better to technology start-ups than it can to corporate multinationals. The HP Way was formulated by David Packard in 1957 . He summarized it in an exchange we had the last time we met in 1995 in Geneva :

Claude : it has been an honour for me to work at the Company you founded
Dave : not at all, it has been an honour for me to have employees like you serving at my Company

It was just another practice of the HP Waythat Dave described in his book published the same year. The following quotes are very relevant 50 years later and remain benchmarks for young entrepreneurs :

...an egalitarian, decentralized system that came to be known as 'the HP Way.' The essence of the idea, radical at the time, was that employees' brainpower was the company's most important resource....

... nothing has contributed more than the policy of management by objective. MBO is the antithesis of management by control .... it refers to a system in which overall objectives are stated and agreed upon, and which gives people the flexibility to work in ways they determine best for their own areas or responsibility. It is the philosophy of decentralization in management and the very essence of free enterprise.

In more detail, the HP Way included the following 7 corporate objectives

1. Profit. To recognize that profit is the best single measure of our contribution to society and the ultimate source of our corporate strength. We should attempt to achieve the maximum profit consistent with our other objectives.
2. Customers. To strive for continual improvement in the quality, usefulness, and value of the products and services we offer our customers.
3. Field of Interest. To concentrate our efforts, continually seeking new opportunities for growth but limiting our involvement to fields in which we have capability and can make a contribution.
4. Growth. To emphasize growth as a measure of strength and a requirement for survival.
5. To provide employment opportunities for HP people that include the opportunity to share in the company's success, which they help make possible. To provide for them job security based on performance, and to provide the opportunity for personal satisfaction that comes from a sense of accomplishment in their work.
6. To maintain an organizational environment that fosters individual motivation, initiative and creativity, and a wide latitude of freedom in working toward established objectives and goals.
7. Citizenship. To meet the obligations of good citizenship by making contributions to the community and to the institutions in our society which generate the environment in which we operate.

I noted earlier my thoughts on Bill Hewlett’s approach to product innovation in a 2008 blog and history details are posted here. There is also a lot to learn from HP's founders bottom-up engineering approach. Not always 1st to market with an idea, but definitely adding added value in price/performance or usability. To discuss this, I intend to invite Chuck House, an HP alumni from these early day to present his new book in my region of Switzerland. And I can't help recall that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak among others were HP alumni, who learned from these principles and expanded beyond.

So with these lessons from the past, I look forward to my next big thing, a meaningful entrepreneurial activity helping start-ups in Switzerland, on EPFL and beyond as business angel investor and interim management. And I will keep one foot in the mobile communications world as part of my support to Mobile Monday Switzerland.

Surfing the Mobile web, Barcelona

Surfing on mobile web at MWC2010
One more time I attended the mobile industry annual party. It's been over a decade by now, good time to measure the change since 2000 - most of the promises have been held : subscribers grew 10X, smart phones exceed 50% of shipments, bandwidth is finally there with 3G bundles and first LTE deployments live, mobile web nearly ubiquitous (Ovum estimates : 95% of traffic is data, 60% of which HSPA). Not everybody in the industry was partying tough : Google has entered the game, opening the show while Nokia and HP were quietly exited the main exhibition to organize side parties. Overall, business and climate was cold and rainy in Barcelona this year. In summary :

Money and innovation is moving to applications.
Cloud and web players dominate the battlefield.

Money and innovation is moving to applications.
Innovation could be seen mostly at the edge. I attended the Mobile premier awards (MPA) masterminded by Rudy de Waele where 11 out of 49 start-up nominees were awarded prizes by the 500-audience and official judges. Layar won two awards for their augmented reality platform, Taxipal and PercentMobile won awards from the MoMo community and audience respectively. At the Fira, I spent some time in Hall 7 was re-named App Planet, featuring a start-up App Garage and developer workshops. I supported there a HP Labs project Friendlee nominated for an RCS innovation award. The start-up meeting from Finland and Israel organized by FinnMob and IMA was great. At the forefront of user experiences, augmented reality was demonstrated by 20 start-ups at a showcase organized by Vodafone, and PEREY Research & Consulting. VCs were attending these applications events including Accel Partners (check Rich Wong's pres at MPA) , Endeavour vision, Bluenove, Blumberg Capital, Sofinova Ventures . One VC advised on applications in adjacent industries : "these opportunities will exceed those of LTE infrastructure; find them by following your passion". This view is reflected in the drop of VC investment in traditional telecoms in 2009 : $1.6 billion, down 33% from 2008 and only peanuts were served at start-up parties ;-)
On the operator side, 24 of GSMA members anounced the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC), an open industry platform for mobile app developers to reach a market of 3 billion subscribers. They endorsed standards from the The Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) group created by Asian operators in 2008 including SDK, widgets and BONDI . On the vendor side, Sony Ericsson announced their creation platform for facilitating user generated content.

Cloud and web players dominate the battlefield.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s keynote, - timidly read from a script as is if uncertain how to address legacy telco audiences- emphasized “Mobile First” strategy, featuring Flash and speech recognition : "the job here is to create magic" . 60,000 handsets running Android system are shipping/day (20 million this year). One Android device I previewed with Allen Prohitis is HP's Airlife 100 smartbook anouncing a 10" touch screen, Qualcomm's Snapdragon-3G chipset and 12 hours battery - interesting departure from Win7 within the HP Mini family. HTC announced 2 Android handsets : the HTC Legend and HTC Desire.
What was the industry reaction ? Nokia's CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo responded with a partnership with Intel to release Meego, the union of 2 Linux platforms – Intel’s Moblin and Nokia’s Maemo . OPK modestly stating "the MeeGo platform is set to revolutionize computing" but you will have to wait : a baseline in March for Intel Atom and N900 but other devices later in the year.
Which wave should a developer surf on, in the Android, Chrome, Maemo, Windows ocean ? Symbian Foundation just launched Symbian^3 an open source platform and a developer forum. And Microsoft announced its Windows Phone 7, a complete new release. Chip vendors such as ARM, Qualcomm, TI will also edge their alliance bets. I am a fan of BONDI, a smaller initiative for the mobile web which aims at reducing mobile browser fragmentation by releasing W3C-compliant widget APIs as the application run-time for mobile devices. They released version 1.1 at MWC on a number of different O/S including Android. And Opera announced Mini 5 beta is support to Android, complete with newest features that had been late to arrive.

MIT's entrepreneurship example, February, 2009

Massachusetts Institute of Technology February 25 - 26, 2009

A sign of hope during the current financial crisis comes from the recent study from "Entrepreneurial impact: the role of MIT" which analyzes the economic effect of MIT alumni-founded companies and its entrepreneurial ecosystem. The report was supported by Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation wand notes that if the active companies founded by MIT graduates formed an independent nation, their revenues would make that nation at least the 17th-largest economy in the world. and with a less conservative estimate of their annual world sales would equal $2 trillion, producing the equivalent of the 11th-largest economy in the world. Herve Lebret of EPFL has posted comments on this survey.

MIT and EPFL Innovation eco-systems

I wanted to see first hand the impact of soft skills on innovation, such as MIT Venture Mentoring Service, started in 2000 by Sherwin Greenblatt, vice president of the MIT Alumni Association, and former first employee of Amar Bose. I attended a workshop organised by its director Jerome Smith and operations manager Roberta McCarthy,(contact).

• "We house a portfolio of activities where academics (faculty, students) interact with the business community (entrepreneurs, investors, managers, lawyers) on a frequent basis.
• We work to assure that the business community sees the university as welcoming, easy to interact with, a source of new ideas (and deals) and an opportunity to contribute
• Experienced investors (angels, venture capital) brings more than capital : board guidance, executive talent, connections to partners... and is wonderful source of role models and mentors"

Lita Nelsen, head of MIT Technology Licensing Office

The key is the collaboration between professionals.
"a venture is more likely to thrive when an idea, a good business plan and an entrepreneur are matched with proven skills and experience; highly qualified mentors find it compelling and rewarding"

Jerome Smith, co-director MIT VMS

MIT VMS currently counts 140 mentors (56% with an MIT background) mentoring 98 active ventures (582 served to date). I recorded part of a panel discussion where MIT VMS mentors and start-up mentees share their cooperation experience.

Some VMS Mentors :

• Kathleen (Kathy) Huber, founder/CxO Pico Innovations, Ohia Networks Silver Beech Networks, IronBridge Networks; consultant at First founders
• Stan Bryant, former Admiral, US Naval Academy
• Connie Stack, currently co-founder ConRoy Corp.
• Jerry Socol, former CEO of 5 companies:Filene’s, J. Baker, Buy-Rite Designs, Brandstamp, Fun Designs; currently consulting at Socol group
• Josh Kowitt, founder of founded ResFridge at 18, Collegeboxes, named Top 30 Entrepreneur by Inc., blogs here
• Stephen Smith, founder Optas, manager at Dendrite International, Dun and Bradstreet, and Thinking Machines.

... and their VMS mentees - entrepreneurs:

• Tom Ricciardelli, founder SelecTech, (manufacturing injection molded products using recycled plastic.)
• Ben Vigoda, founder Lyric Semiconductor signal processing computation in CMOS, blogs here
• Joshua Feast, founder Cogito Health, speech technology applied to behavioral and mental health research.
• Alan ...(MIT'05 chemistry), entrepreneur

... more comments from MIT VMS participants:

Entrepreneurs

• Tom Ricciardelli : if you feel confused, reach out; mentors give me guidance I can trust; when I started, they helped me get my head together and distill what was best; you own the decision but confidence from a mentors makes a difference; you get back results from such a great team; the team is great at figuring out what works; they were always positive, al lot of genuine enthusiasm; it brings unexpected results, worth its weight in gold.
• Ben Vigoda : mentors are like free sandwiches; they are not all in business for making money; they are my impartial sounding board; mentors give non-judgmental enthusiasm.
• Joshua Feast : I felt supported; it helped me to avoid making mistakes; I think of the Lyric Semiconductors all the time, even in the bathroom; I can make 6:00 am calls; there is nothing you can loose
• Alan (?) : do it at the ideation phase; they gave me business insight; the network has made a huge difference - almost 100% comes from VMS; they have no vested interest; be honest with them, admit, listen to them; they support you , not the company; it gave me to move forward.

Mentors

• Alec Dingee, mentor : when we started, fast response to needs ensures the best reputation, we soon had 50 applicants; we don't try to judge whether a start up idea is ridiculous or a breakthrough - we educate entrepremenrs when their idea is plausible and they are committed.
• Sherwin Greenblatt : we get a moral commitment from participants to give back when they succeed but we have not yet collected funds
• Kathy Huber : I felt it was a honor to be admitted to interviews.
• Stan Bryant : treat people with respect; treat differently people to get the best out of them; treat them like they want to be treated (rather than the way you want to be treated)
• Connie Stack : Steve Smith is phenomenal; I am learning too; people chemistry takes time
• Jerry Socol : I try to get at the level of other mentors, the bar is set high; the more you put in the more you get out; be blunt, people are born to be flexible.

Other start ups

We met other MIT start-ups founders an could give them a 1-minute feedback :

• Jason Galvain, founder Artaic, custom mosaic art using robotic precision manufacturing.
• E la carte, content for touchscreens and mobile tablets in restaurants to order and pay from the table
• Istobe Management
• Doug Bright, founder, Istobe, customer analysis software for multi-channel retailers
• Kim Blair, founder iclub and Motus: sports and gaming motion capture and visualization
• Jerome L. Ackerman co-founder Skelscan, MRI technology for diagnosing osteoporosis and other bone diseases.
• Josh Kanner, co-founder Vela Systems, mobile construction project management software
• VSpace, 3D audio processing for teleconferences, using stereo to locate participants around as in a face to face meeting.
• Zac Warren, co-founder Warren Light Craft , light carbon kayaks.

Mobile world congress wrap-up

Mobile world congress, Barcelona, February 17-19 2009
A few notes on from the biggest mobile communications show of the year.

• Innovative start-ups are still coming out
• New user experiences in personal communications
  
• Tapas-enabled networking strong as ever

Innovative start-ups at Mobile peer awards
The other side of MWC, at Palau Musica, I sat on a jury panel with other industry colleagues :
Peggy Anne Salz, of MSearch Groove, Carlos Domingo, Telefonica R&D, Ariel Efrati, Venture Investments, James Whatley, from Spinvox. Mobile Peer Awards complements GSMA's Global Mobile Awardsbecause it focuses on early-stage startups and more informal reviews. You save 500 euros but you'll miss Jamie Cullum at the price giving ceremony. Both awards are nice however. We had an interesting debate after hearing pitches from "emerging start-ups" on communications, content, advertising business models and new devices. Here are some comments on our selection :
PopCatcher from Sweden got our jury award: their pitch is that mobiles should get fresh music every day freely and legally. How many of you have downloaded music last week without checking the rights? Well PopCatcher will listen radio for you, record it and split it into songs in your collection automatically. Our jury debated quite a bit whether that would please the record companies and their layers but anyway we liked having a TiVo of radio. Here is their value proposal:

fring from Tel Aviv won the MoMo community award : 500,000 new users per month worldwide deserves an applause. fringsters talk, chat, and interact with online communities (Facebook, Skype®, MSN®, GoogleTalk, Twitter, and Yahoo!) And fring have done operators deals such as 3UK, Mobilcom. That could have been our jury's choice as an "investor", but we decided that our vote would not add so much value to an already existing success.

Unkasoft Advergaming from Madrid won the audience award: they develop in-games advertising on top of popular video games - they really look at advertising from an end-user usability perspective and have business agreements with Microsoft and others; Perhaps the most important was the fun pitch that Jaime Lanchares, founder and CEO did on stage. This could give ideas to other entrepreneurs.
Aradiom from Istanbul, they provide a portfolio of mobile solutions developed using their own application environment - proven with 400K users; but our jury failed to detect the unique differentiation.
Getjar Networks Lithuania: we all love Getjar's appstore with 10,000 free mobile applications and over 20 million downloads per month; but with so many app stores around our jury foresaw some clouds ahead.
Keynetik from Washington DC: they provide motion SDK and applications for accelerometer enabled mobile; the jury had doubt about the success of the business model, but I like the “rock'n scroll" demo they have on done for the N95.

Mobintech A/S from Copenhagen: the company delivers display glasses to watch live Mobile TV; our jury missed a unique mobile proposition and a differentiation with competitors.
Soonr from Silicon Valley: they offer simple, secure cloud computing file management (35 types) across device (including iPhone, PCs and net printers) and networks, targeting SMB in particular; the jury agreed it's a great value but perhaps in risk of commoditisation.
In the start-up category, with a different jury team, Babajob.com took both community and jury awards on the Monday night’s Mobile Peer Awards in Barcelona.
Babjobs.com from Bangalore : is job website and mobile portal dedicated to connecting informal sector workers - cooks, maids, drivers, guards, etc.- and employers to India ; it's great to see applications that encourage development and economy !
GSMA Mobile innovation global awards
Mobile innovation global award competition took place over the year. The winners are :
Cootek, China won the champion title: software keyboard to accelerate typing a super-charged T9
Intivation, Netherlands : solar panel charger on the back of handsets for developing countries
Mobile Nordic, Norway : mobile CLI including directory search, SMS previews
WorldMate, USA a travel itinerary management application with mobile alerts

New user experiences in personal communications
It's not really new but 7 years after MMS launch, the industry tries to deliver platforms from what users want (sharing with friends using phone address book and social network contacts). I liked the [5] user trials feedback presented during the GSMA RCS workshop, the cross-device demo by Victor Donselaar of Movial and Aude Pichelin from Orange who serves as RCS chair and announced some more cross-operators trials. Why would it succeed this time ? RCS has 60 companies involved, mobile IM adoption in BRIC countries exceeds 10%, mobile social networking exceeds 20% in the youth segment. But of course their are challenges : Nokia partnership with Skype, new solutions as Voxmobili' s social address book on Google's Android, Sony Ericsson's silence on RCS handset release dates.


Tapas-enabled networking strong as ever
Yes, I also love Barcelona tapas and side events : Swedish beers was crowded, Bel Chica GoMo News blender party with Benna Roberts full of insider information, Nokia party intimate and I got the chance to meet nice professionals like Sonia Jain of Bluegiga (just after she told "OPK" all about their brand as viewed by young women and certainly we avoided discussing Bluetooth access solutions). And coming-out of the sauna at Hotel 1898 to attend TechCrunchTalk panel on mobile eco-systems featuring Mike Butcher and Peter Vesterbacka was fun. See you next year at the same place...