Mediaware Solutions From Concept to Sale. Who am I? David Keightley Australian-American Born Buffalo NY, grew up in rural USA –Cancer treatment planning.

Mediaware Solutions From Concept to Sale

Who am I?

• David Keightley Australian-American

• Born Buffalo NY, grew up in rural USA– Cancer treatment planning software– Aerospace (GPS, COBE) systems

• Moved to Australia in 1984– 6 months CSIRO Contract– 4 years Prime R&D Communications Systems– 10 years CSIRO Visualisation– 12 years Mediaware (2 of them at GD-AIS)– 4 months Founder ecoSpectral (new company)

What I’ll talk about• Broad Mediaware History

• Marketing/Product History

• Sales Strategies

• Key Issues– Founders– Structure– Vision/Products– VC vs Organic Growth– Lessons Learned

Before we get started

Thanks to:• CSIRO for their backing in the early days• Our staff (all of them)• My thanks to John Lilleyman and Ken Tsui• Our board of directors and investors (Epicorp

and Brian Bergin)• Sun Microsystems USA for co-marketing funding• Sun Microsystems Australia for early support • Our customers• NICTA

Broad History (pre-Mediaware)

• Media processing group at CSIRO in 1995

• Built unique tools to dissect, navigate, search, disassemble and reassemble MPEG streams.

• MPEG selected as TV standard

• Focus on compressed domain analysis tools

• Early success with MPEG-1

• Competition for technology within CSIRO led to pressure to spin-off

Broad History• Business plan and legal groundwork done,

then proposal put by founders to CSIRO.

• Mediaware Solutions Pty Ltd registered in Jan. 1997

• Partnership work in progress (Sun Microsystems in USA and Australia)

• Web based (WebFlix), SDK and desktop based tools defined in business plan

Broad History• Yr 0 - .3 In living room for 1st 3-4 months got angel funding• Yr .3 – 4.5 Moved to small office in Dickson/Started defence

work with DSD (cash positive). (3 – 8) (formed informal board)• Yr 4.5 took on BITS incubator funding and moved to Black

Mountain. (cash positive but wanted investment for marketing)• Yr 5 hired CEO, board restructure• Yr 6 Keightley moves to USA to staff Mediaware Inc.• Yr 10 Decision to sell, company sold in late 2007 to GDAIS• Yr 10/11 Economy crashes in USA • Yr 11/12 best year in sales for Mediaware (40+) people

Sales/Marketing strategy• Contract to get cash flow and refine IP• Begin replacing IP• Begin product development with staff hired on

contract• Branding active with press and web announcements• Build relationship with USA Sun for broadcast and

Media markets (years showing at NAB, and more)• Become participant in NIMA/NGA’s MISB• Become partner/competition to contractors • Build broadcast products with defence income• Beat contractors or sell to them

Defence Customers (sample)

– Defence Signals Directorate– General Dynamics– SAIC– Lockheed Martin– Raytheon– Northrop Grumman– NGA– General Atomics

Broadcast Customers (sample)

– Turner (CNN)– Bloomberg– Pathfire– CBS– ABC– Prime TV– PBC– Various cable companies

From Day 1

• Founders:– Fundamentally good people– Complementary skills (form a basis)– Strong driven individuals– Issues:

• Equal power has some issues• No clear leader

– Still talking

Structure• Early advisors/mentor can be useful • Board composition/structure was OK, we had

no domain experts. • Having good investors critical; we did OK• Investors want success. Give up power to gain• Protect your role and ownership The company

may outgrow you• Founders lost power, key decisions were felt to

be made before board meetings by investors and CEO.

Vision/Products

• Vision must be clear (MWS not clear enough)• Vision must be shared (MWS OK here)• Products must fill a niche, ours did but

– Design was weak (clarity of specification, GUI ability)– Too many products

• nature of the market?• too many markets? (defence, broadcast, archive)• Only one guy in the customer’s face in early years

• Technology: best in the world.

Lessons

• Branding: critical. Find a way to get brand recognised in a positive powerful way

• Quality: it must work• Support: if it doesn’t work it’s fixed fast• VC vs Organic growth

– Control– Earnings expectation

• Capability: Solve a real problem. Make someone’s life better and more exciting.

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