Insights and musings about customer service and managing a SaaS software company.
Archive for the ‘Venture Capital’ Category
May 5, 2010 by Yuval Brisker
As creatures of habit and pattern – there are some patterns that we, people, recognize, but many that we don’t. And though these patterns may stand out to others, we ourselves may be oblivious of them. Maybe we are even in denial of them.
Why? A way of keeping us from being exposed to too much information, a protection mechanism from things we don’t want to know or just because we move around our world not always 100% aware of everything we do…
At the end of the day - it doesn’t really matter because the patterns are there and they can be harnessed for the greater good.
So when Irad and I started TOA Technologies with the goal of solving what is commonly referred to as ‘the cable guy problem’ (or customers waiting at-home from 12-4 or all day for some kind of appointment without knowing when it will actually happen) we thought that, if we could only identify those patterns and connect we could use them to help solve this daily but incredibly annoying and costly problem.
Our assumption was that even in the most dynamic environment – like a field operations environment – there will always be behavior or “performance patterns” that could pretty easily be recognized and documented, ultimately help better plan, schedule and manage the work-day of the many field service people out there. We thought that by identifying these performance patterns and building a mechanism to communicate them, we could help the companies be more predictive and respectful of everyone’s time. By being able to identify specific performance pattern of the specific people who provide the services or goods – we came to the conclusion that we could accurately predict when an appointment would happen and how long it would take. We could then offer up that information to all the stakeholders in the appointment – the planners, the managers and supervisor, the dispatchers but most importantly to the Customers.
Two weeks ago – after a long 6-year gestation period the US Patent Office finally recognized the uniqueness of our idea and the spefic combination of methodologies and technologies that we combined to solve this problem and awarded us a Patent Number 7,693,735 . The first of many.
I want to thank Irad here for the great work he did in steering this to completion. Though the concepts and the composition of the patent is/was ours jointly, the last two years of negotiations and execution was Irad’s alone. Thanks!
Since we got the patent I have been saying that I now know for sure that those who get a patent deserve a patent. Either because they were truly geniuses who came up with something completely and radically new or because they had the perseverance and the conviction to believe that what they had was unique and fought for it without compromise. In both cases the award is honestly due.
April 22, 2010 by Yuval Brisker
Today Irad and I are at Intel’s Software and Services Day. Intel is our largest shareholder.
We had the privilege of hosting Paul Otellini, Intel’s CEO. I am attaching a picture of Irad explaining TOA to him. Paul, like most people, ‘got’ what we do in less then 60 seconds! He told us that he’s looking forward to his next ‘Cable Guy’ appointment…as long as that Cable Guy is powered by TOA (and Intel…). 
It’s inspiring to be here at this event in the heart of the Valley with the other software providers that Intel invested in like Zend, Panorama Software and Perspective Pixel.
Irad and I are energized from being part of this group and getting a peak at some of the world’s most cutting edge technologies.
October 31, 2009 by Yuval Brisker
Its always interesting to read Fred Wilson. A VC who seems to forever have a fresh take on his business, on the world around him, never losing the sense of wonder and at the same time looking at things critically.
I have been reading his blog for over 6 years….pretty much when he started writing it, and when I set off on this phase of my professional life. His words, thoughts, ideas, experiences have been a beacon of thoughtfulness, education and enlightenment in the process of building this business. His diligence over the years, his total dedication and discipline in sitting almost EVERY single day and writing something interesting, actually made a difference in my life. Whether he’s written about the business, technology, family life, his family’s travel, food, politics and music – his sharing this his “Living in Public”, as he calls it, (citing a film he invested in about blogging and social networking) has definitely enriched my life and my thinking in ways that it’s impossible to account for.
This steadfastness is admirable and I am bringing up his blog and its affect on me because he most always seems to write something that resonates, that provokes me to think. Today he wrote about something that as entrepreneurs we think about a lot. The exit. But he wrote about it, as usual, in a fresh way.
He called it Slow Capital, because it’s about recognizing that businesses like people, are very different from each other. Some burst onto the scene and make a point and are sold in a year; some take years to incubate and become ‘who they are’. Knowing which to push and which to cultivate over time seems to be part of the art of investing wisely. And indeed Fred writes this post as an homage of sorts to Warren Buffet and actually mentions him. Believing in taking time to build a business and in the potential of time to enrich it is the core notion of what Irad and I are doing here. Thanks Fred, you have a place of honor in the blog roll on the right here…Number 1.
