categories
HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 7)
Dramatic changes in the market had forced major fiber optic giants like Lucent into tough decisions. The market also proved to be volitile and unpredictable. Nortel, in desperation, offered Finisar its optics business. SM: Nortel had interest in survival. JR: Yes. We spent two weeks in Ottawa trying to figure out how we could assume
Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 6)
A very interesting discussion of the dramatic times during the late 90’s and the early 2000 timeframe. Read on. SM: What were your sales pre-IPO? JR: I think in the ’98 period they were probably $30M. Our fiscal year 2000, which is when we went public, was $67M. In January of 1999 the IPO market
Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 5)
Among the many amazing feats Jerry has accomplished with Finisar, one of the most impressive is how the company was able to grow and develop without the assistance of outside funding. SM: All of this you were still doing without outside money; it was still a bootstrapped company? JR: Still a bootstrapped company. SM: Wow,
Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 4)
A key strategic victory for Finisar was facilitating the fiber channel stadard to utilize multimode fiber and shorter wavelengths. Here Jerry discusses how Finisar was able to do this, a feat which leading experts at the time said was impossible.
Turn Around Series: Jerry Rawls, Finisar (Part 3)
To support the company initially, Finisar relied on providing consulting services. It’s a very common way that companies bootstrap themselves. I have done it myself. SM: What kind of Consulting did you provide? Like System Integrators? JR: Well, actually, the first customer would be Raynet themselves, but we would have to get others soon enough.
The Path to Entrepreneurship
I went to Stanford on Wednesday to give a lecture to a class of 60 students at the Department of Management Science and Engineering. The course was “Creativity and Innovation”, taught by Professor. Riitta Katila, who invited me to speak about Entrepreneurship. It was interesting for me to observe what’s top-of-mind for a cross-section of
The Case for IPTV in India (Part 2)
By Dharma Kuthanur, Guest Author [Part 1] Broadband prices are steadily declining and already very much within the reach of the middle-class. Today, basic broadband services start as low as $5-6 per month; these often include a cap on total download volume and unlimited use packages are priced at much higher levels ($20 & up).
Concept Arbitrage: Navteq
As I wrote the Navteq piece, it struck me that the entire address data and mapping services category is a great one for India, and ripe for a Concept Arbitrage. A personal anecdote. Every time I visit India, and I go to visit relatives in North Calcutta, I wonder how on earth would I navigate
