The best way of starting a company is to be given the IP after someone else has paid for all the development. That is what happened to Dr Andy Harter in 2002 when the AT&T Lab in Cambridge closed down and he and and colleagues formed RealVNC – software that allows you to see and interact with desktop applications across any network.
“Downloads grew from hundreds to thousand to millions, until there were well over 100m copies out there all free.” By 2004, people were ready to buy and the commercial version was released – sounds like the usual business model of free then pay. Turnover is £2million with profits of just under 50%.
Dr Carter makes the interesting point “It’s good in many ways not having VCs as we do things in our own way, but it’s bad in a way, to, because there is no one putting the pressure on you; so we have had to do it ourselves. I changed the business two years ago from being a life-style company, which it could have carried on as forever.”
It is still a Passive Equity Company without investors and I wonder if the 35+ staff all have shares. With Professor Andy Hopper in the Chair, it will not stay still for long. Will he have a Gulfstream soon? It will be interesting to see what Business Plan Resource they use.
Website: Great calls to action and very clear – even Grant Dain, internet marketing Cambridge, would approve, I think.
Autonomy is another company which seemed to have an immaculate conception – never quite sure who paid for the developement costs.
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