Something Ventured Page #7

You're doomed.

They fail for

all kinds of reasons.

If it's struggling,

you probably should just get out.

Well, we hated to give up, you know,

and hated to admit defeat.

It was always traumatic.

You get personally involved

in these companies.

Everybody's heartbroken.

It's tough to lose money.

Losing money

is not a good thing!

Programs are instructions

to the computer...

that can be recorded

on floppy disks or cassettes.

In the early '80s,

a new kind of company...

began to attract

attention in Silicon Valley.

These programs

are called software.

A Data Quest report says there are now

27,000 software programs on the market,

with a new product being

introduced every 11 minutes.

Dick Kramlich had been listening to endless

pitches from software entrepreneurs...

in his office at

New Enterprise Associates,

a venture firm he'd co-founded

after leaving Arthur Rock.

One day, an entrepreneur

named Rob Campbell marched in.

I was out always

looking for money.

And I was flying from

Boston to California,

and I was sitting in the back of

the plane in the cheap seats,

where entrepreneurs

are supposed to sit.

And I noticed half the people on the

plane had their briefcases open,

and they had overhead

transparencies.

And they were thumbing through

'em' and they were marking'em up.

That really was kind of the genesis

of "Why PowerPoint?"

I liked the way Rob was doing this,

and I was really impressed

with PowerPoint.

You see' you sort of automate

a very cumbersome process,

and when you see it,

you know it!

It's just that this goes

right through your bones.

So, we started funding it.

Dick Kramlich's firm provided Rob

Campbell's company, named Forethought,

with an initial round of funding

to develop this new software.

But while the Forethought team

was working on PowerPoint,

the company was giving its

venture capitalists cause to worry.

Any new business seldom does what's

written in the business plan.

And we had

a multitude of problems.

Limitations of

the operating system.

Months invested in trying-

Couldn't develop it.

Engineering was delayed.

They were all "R" and not much "D."

Decision on acquiring File Maker-

Our largest distributor

went into Chapter 7.

So the bankruptcy judge is

now selling our products off.

Campbell's company was burning

through its investment money fast.

He approached Kramlich and his partners,

looking for another infusion of cash.

Rob came in and did a presentation'

talked about File Maker,

talked about what the presentation

product was going to be.

N.E.A. had hired a-a new, um,

partner, and he didn't like us.

He didn't like our company.

I don't think he liked me.

And then my other partner got up

and said, you know,

"Basically, you have one product

where you pay too much in royalties,

and the other one which is not gonna work,

so this isn't worth it.

Dick, we're saying no."

And I said, "No more money?"

He said, "No more money."

Despite his partner's doubts,

Dick Kramlich wasn't ready

to let PowerPoint go so easily.

My mother used to say,

"Don't ever underestimate Dick.

'Cause if he takes on a challenge,

he's going to get it done."

I said, "You know, this presentation

product is really a pretty good product."

So I said, "Would you all mind

if I did it myself?"

And they said, "Well,

you can do what you want to do.

It's not gonna be a conflict, just so long

as we don't have to put any more money in."

So I called my wife, and I said,

"Pam, um, stop work on the house."

I said, "I'm gonna fund

this company myself."

We would never do

what Dick did. Never.

There's so many potential

problems with a venture,

that if you have a serious partner, a good

partner, who says, "I just don't see this"-

How can you proceed?

As a matter of policy, we wouldn't

permit that in our place.

Well, he asked permission.

Well, we would say no.

Then there wouldn't be PowerPoint!

Good.

I remember telling Dick.

I said, "Dick, you did not make a mistake."

I thought it would be a million-dollar

product right out of the chute.

And, instead of a million dollars out of the

chute, I think we had two and a half to three.

It was much better

than what I had hoped for.

And so, I was thinking this was

enough to validate a public offering.

I think Dick would have liked us

not to be acquired.

He said, "You know, we really don't have the

structure in this company to be a public company."

You know, I was nervous

about access to capital.

He said, "Actually, we've been

approached by Microsoft.

And they have a presentation product,

but it's not nearly as good as PowerPoint.

And they would like to acquire us

and kill their own project."

I said, "If that's the way you want to go,

it's okay with me."

Another one of my greatest mistakes,

of which I have many,

is when Microsoft did the acquisition,

they wanted to do it all in stock.

So I was, like, "Oh, you know,

Microsoft stock has way too much risk.

They could dump their stock

on us at their peak!"

So we did an all-cash transaction.

And don't ask me to calculate what that

cost all of us. It's too-It's too hurtful.

Money don't get everything,

it's true

What it don't get, I can't use

I want money

That's what I want

That's what I want

That's what I want

That's what I want

That's what I want

That's what I want

That's what I want

The facts are, in Silicon Valley,

probably 40 % of the companies

that are financed...

change presidents in 18 months.

I mean, I always tell the young C.E.O.'s,

you're gonna work hard,

and you're gonna, you know,

if you're lucky,

you're gonna be successful,

and your company's gonna get big.

And then you're gonna get fired.

Firing people is always

the hardest for me.

That's a gut-wrenching

thing to do.

If they gotta go, they gotta go.

I'd rather find the right people

and back them,

uh, than find the right idea

and have to change the people.

Well, nobody plans to do that,

but those are the facts.

So, I operate from the principle

that-

Give him his shot. Help him as much

as we can. Hope that he makes it.

If he doesn't make it,

off with his head

and on to the next guy.

In 1984 Cisco Systems

was a two-person company-

The husband-and-wife team

of Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner.

Cisco was a typical start-up.

It was certainly

run out of our house.

A number of very illustrious companies

I think have that distinction.

Through Cisco, Sandy and Len

were early evangelists...

for what would one day

be called the Internet,

but which, in 1984, was really just

a jury-rigged network of computers,

used at universities

and in the military.

Cisco's product

was called a router.

And it solved a very big problem.

It allowed all kinds of computer systems to talk

to each other easily for the very first time.

This opened the door to the

development of an online world.

It was a desperately-needed

product.

But... no one would finance Cisco.

We tried from the very beginning

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes