four failures and one hit

© 2015, iText Group NV, iText Software Corp., iText Software BVBA© 2015, iText Group NV, iText Software Corp., iText Software BVBA

4 Failures and 1 HitBruno Lowagie @ Tech Startup Day, March 12, 2015


Maturity

My first experience as an entrepreneur (1982-1986)

© 2015, iText Group NV, iText Software Corp., iText Software BVBA

Tech Startup Day — Bruno Lowagie @bruno19703

Lessons learned after failure #1

Find out what people need

Show people what they need

You need to scale if you want to be successful


Timing

The Belgium Applet (1996)




Technology needs time to mature

Ideas need time to mature

Engineers are usually bad at marketing their ideas


Market

PERL Server Pages (1998)




Perl: what we do ourselves, we do better

Don’t waste time if nobody is interested

Don’t copy what already exists (ASP, JSP)


Passion

[email protected] (2000-2002)



Lessons Learned after failure #4

It’s OK to look up to successful people

It’s not OK to try to copy what they do

Do something you’re passionate about


Be Innovative!

Bringing PDF to the Web with iText



Fighting the FUD

Open source is not documented

The IP of open source isn’t clear

Open source isn’t backed by a company


Focus and discipline

Book (2006), IP review (2007), Company (2008)



Lessons learned

Document your product from the start

Document your IP from the start

Create a company from the start


Be disruptive

Eventually, you’ll win…



Conclusion

If you have built castles in the air,your work need not be lost;that is where they should be.Now put the foundations under them.

Henry David Thoreau, “Walden; or, Life in the Woods” (1854)

four failures and one hit

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