Category: Business

Thinking… about a new business

Its been over 4 months since my last contract finished and with Covid spreading throughout the world we are in lockdown here in Hungary. It could be sometime till I get a new contract one feels.

I’m not one to sit idle for long so I’ve kicked off a number of ideas to see what may come of them.

Starting can be tough and although I’ve started researching, prototyping and thinking whether it will result in a new business is anyone’s guess.

Since moving to Hungary I have worked for GRAPHISOFT SE, and then subsequently started my own Consulting Business. While I’m working for myself from the consulting point of view, it is still for other people’s businesses and deep down I feel I want to build something of my own.

As I’ve been investigating I’ve started to think about what I would want a new business to look – maybe it’s a weird place to start, but based on past experience there are some things I have strong feelings about.

I’ll explore my ideas in a series of posts, and update this post with links as I continue.

Running 1,000km

Today I passed 1,000km running for the year!

This has been a target a couple of times in the past but for one reason or another it’s taken till now.

I had never really thought too much about running a distance over a long period of time but years ago I read this post and though the concept sounded relatively simple of running 3km/day – which I translated to be 6km every two days.

Aside from the actual running, the great thing about a goal like this is how you break down a goal in to smaller steps with their own targets: 500km in 6 months, 84km / month etc.

Breaking it down helps you focus on the short term while knowing the long term will take care of itself, it also allows you to celebrate the little achievements along the way.

Obviously not all goals can be easily broken into the same repetitive steps but the concept still holds.

The B1M

If you haven’t come across this website and YouTube channel then you’re missing out.

Fred Mills and the team put together great quality videos about construction. They take a look at both current projects and also historic projects from around the world.

In 8-10 minutes they provide great bite-sized videos with great footage and informative commentary.

I highly recommend signing up!

BIMobject

I’m back in Malmo as I begin a contract with BIMobject. I think this is my fourth visit over the years and I expect over the next few months I will make a few more. Its mid-spring so the days are already lengthening

BIMobject are embarking on a number of new initiatives and I’m involved to help teach the team about recurring revenue business models and explore opportunities across the BIMobject technology landscape.

It’s been great reconnecting with Ben who I first met at a GRAPHISOFT conference back in 2001. While Ben is Australian he has been living in Sweden the whole time I’ve known him.

I haven’t brought my running shoes this visit but based on what I can see out from the window of my hotel room I’ll have to bring them when I next visit.

There are a number of new buildings since I first visited including the University of Malmo which is right across from my hotel.

North America Subscription

I’ve been working at GRAPHISOFT for over a year now and it is great to see the launch of ArchiCAD Subscription for the North American markets.

This is one of the major projects I have been working on since taking up my role here in Budapest.

Following on from both the success and learnings from introducing ArchiCAD Subscription in New Zealand we’ve developed a comprehensive Webshop and Subscription Offering.

Unlike other vendors we believe in offering customers choice and to that end the Subscription Licensing is not a replacement for our perpetual licenses but rather another purchase option.

As we round in New Zealand a certain portion of the market will finds the month to month payments far more affordable and we’ve also introduced an annual option which is cheaper then the monthly option.

A long Sunday

It’s amazing what can be accomplished in a single day! I started the day climbing Mt Manaia (Whangarei, New Zealand) with friends and thanks to long-haul travel and timezones ended it eating seafood at Fishermans Wharf in San Francisco.

I’m in San Francisco attending the Subscribed Conference hosted by Zuora to learn from both the company and its customers about their platform and plans for the future.

I really enjoy San Francisco having first visited in 1997 shortly after joining Cadimage and it was great to get out for a long walk from Market Street across to the Wharf (via the Apple Store) and then a cable-car back to the hotel.

Signing off from Cadimage – 20 years

Following on from the press release regarding the sale of Cadimage to Central Innovation, today I signed off from Cadimage after 20 years and a busy week. The fact this coincided with ArchiCAD 20 is a pure coincidence and I apologise for the repeated use of 20 in this post!

Auckland – Monday

We started the week with the Auckland ARCHICAD 20 Launch which included the news of the sale of Cadimage. The breakfast launch was closely followed by the signing of all the paperwork related to the business sale and then a celebratory drink with the Central Innovation team who were in town for the day.

New Plymouth – Tuesday

As mentioned in an earlier post, the ArchiCAD 20 Signature Project is the Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth. So on Tuesday we chartered a plane to take a dozen of our long term customers down to visit the building and present ArchiCAD 20 inside the centre.

It was a great day for flying and great to connect with customers who have been using ArchiCAD over my last 20 years.

Wellington, Christchurch, Queenstown – Wednesday/Thursday

Wednesday / Thursday we quickly jumped around the country for more ArchiCAD 20 launches.

Friday – Cadimage Sign Off

Today was a humbling experience as the team shared a number of items and videos about my time at Cadimage. It was a great afternoon with both past and current members of the Cadimage Team including Murray the founder of Cadimage.

As a present, the team had arranged a physical representation of the Cadimage ‘C’ which is absolutely amazing.

Still able to demo ArchiCAD!

When I first started with Cadimage I helped launch ArchiCAD for Teamwork (ArchiCAD 5.1)

20 Years later I am proud of the fact that this week I could still travel the country and demo ArchiCAD – I haven’t done it every year but at least I still know my way around the product!

Signing off

20 years is a long time for someones ‘first job’ but I have had an amazing journey from a fresh university graduate to managing director, I am immensely proud of what both I and the entire Cadimage Team have achieved over the last 27 years in business.

Business truly is all about People, I’ve been fortunate to work with a group of absolutely amazing people and will remember my time fondly.

Also without customers there is no business. Many of my customers over the last 20 years have also become great friends.

I’ve had a wonderful journey, it’s now time for a new direction.

Thank you all.

Central Innovation acquires Cadimage Group

AUCKLAND, 1 AUGUST 2016 – Central Innovation Ltd and Cadimage Group Ltd has announced an agreement in which Central Innovation has acquired 100 per cent of the assets of Cadimage Group and Cadimage UK. This action is intended to advance Central Innovation’s mission to become a leading provider of design and workflow solutions to the manufacturing and AEC sectors in Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ).

The acquisition combines the strengths of both organisations to create a comprehensive suite of OPEN BIM solutions in A/NZ. The range of solutions includes best of breed software ARCHICAD, DDS-CAD and Solibri of which Central Innovation is the exclusive distributor across A/NZ.

Chief Executive Officer of Central Innovation, Max Piper, said, “with the joining of Central Innovation and Cadimage we can leverage the strengths of both teams to create complete solutions for customers across the AEC market in Australia and New Zealand.”   

“Cadimage Group has over 27 years in New Zealand and Central Innovation has 25 years of service in Australia to AEC customers. By combining these two great companies, we are essentially placing the final puzzle piece and will be able to go to market stronger than ever.”

“This really is a great step forward for both companies,” said Cadimage Group Managing Director, Campbell Yule. “For us we have found a company that values and understands our business and customers. This deal ensures that our existing team and solutions offering will continue to expand.”

– Ends –

About Central Innovation 

Central Innovation sources, builds and advises on world-class design process solutions to the manufacturing and construction industries. We have over 25 years of experience advising our customers on optimising their design, processes and systems by using the world’s most capable design and modelling software, run on the highest performing hardware, utilising the best people. We enhance this with exceptional technical expertise, specialist consulting, on-going training and education plus access to our specialist recruitment team. 

We are the parent company to Intercad and GRAPHISOFT Australia. Both are leading resellers in their vertical markets of CAD 3D software solutions. We are also Australia and New Zealand’s only licensed reseller of the DDS-CAD product suite. The IC3D suite of specialist software and hardware products is also part of Central Innovation. 

About Cadimage Group 

Cadimage Group distributes, develops and supports a range of design and performance evaluating software for architects, engineers and construction companies that enhance design capability and reduce risk and cost. Established in 1989 as a CAD Bureau, Cadimage Group has evolved into a customer-focused sales and support organisation in the AEC industry to distribute a wide range of products including ARCHICAD, Artlantis and Solibri Model Checker, as well as developing and exporting its own software.

Ten Types of Innovation

On Monday night I attended a joint Deloitte Private / Callaghan Innovation presentation by Larry Keeley.

Larry was an excellent presenter with deep knowledge and a number interesting well researched examples.

The key message was:

Modern innovation is more about elegant integration than invention…

Larry suggested that most recent innovations are not new products per se, but more integrations of a number of existing products in new and innovative ways.

Larry has been researching Innovation with his team for a couple of decades and during this time they have developed the Ten Types of Innovation – the Discipline of Building Breakthroughs.

tentypes

I first came across these Ten Types in the earlier Doblin Model of Innovation and while the principles remain the same the updated model is, in my opinion, far clearer and easier to use.

Most companies spend too much time in the middle (orange) cells focusing on the product, without spending time working on the other areas. A simple rule of thumb for the model above is to focus on five of the ten types, with at least one from each colour – refer to their website for a full run down on each section.

Larry illustrated which areas a number of both NZ and International companies are working on with what one can only describe as some disturbing results for some of NZ’s up and coming companies. That said, the model helps point out where these companies are lacking and is the perfect starting point to review and improve from.

Overall it was a most enjoyable presentation and I am sure Larry’s other New Zealand presentations have been equally well received.

Flounders Club

On Wednesday night I was invited to speak at the Flounders Club.

The theme for the night was Pricing and Revenue Models and as the oldest company there I was the last to speak so was wondering how much I’d have to add to the topic after hearing from Dale from Weirdly and Vaughan from Vend.

As it turned out while we were all on the same page, we had all got there in different ways. This in essence sums up pricing in my mind – experiment, experiment experiment.

Dale explained how they had continued testing different pricing and even updated what service they actually sell (though not as a result of changing the product).

Vaughan talked about Negative Churn as the holy grail for a SaS business and how to set about achieving this – or at least trying to.

I talked about the history of our Cadimage pricing over the last 10 years and how we recently moved from a perpetual model to a SaS model.

Overall it seemed that the biggest questions for the night revolved around the assumptions required to get a SaS business started.  All three of us were asked the question in different ways but ultimately the message was, you have to make some assumptions (and various rules of thumb were suggested) and then you just need to get started, experiment and evolve. The more you get into it the more you can tweak your original assumptions.