Adambyte… Why it Failed
In early nineties I got afflicted with start-up fever and decided to start a company… so I went to Comdex and methodically went through every aisle of all three huge halls to see what was the next revolution going to be…
One product line which was promising was Laptops… and there you had one dominant computer… the Apple Powerbook… The Powerbook was a real computer… while all other had limited capabilities…
The other development was with video presentation software… although quite a large amount of storage was needed…
By adding these two developments I decided to explore the possibility of selling a storage box for the Powerbook… and Adambyte was born…
After preparing a business plan… and checking the technical feasibility
Off I went to Boston at an Apple show to do some market research… The show was split in two sites… and there was a shuttle bus… which took fifteen to twenty minutes… I spent most of the day in the shuttle bus… doing about eight round trips… and every time I was sitting next to someone else… all of them Apple users… and I had their devoted attention for twenty minutes… the reaction was enthusiastic… insufficient storage was the main drawback of the Powerbook…
With that positive reaction I was convinced to start the company… I raised some money from private investors… and a larger amount from my savings… and we built a product… the Adambyte Powerbox…
The big problem I had was under capitalization and consignment… I succeeded in securing an order from a large distributor for two hundred Powerboxes (at $2,000 each)… but the payment terms was 30 to 45 days after they sell the Powerboxes… and they would return the unsold Powerboxes…
With such terms it was impossible for me to secure a bank loan… but I had one more card to play… Corporate Account…
Tandem Computers were interested in my Powerbox to give to their sales force for them to use when making a video presentation… they needed over one hundred Powerboxes…
On the day I was scheduled to finalise the order… I received a phone call from the purchasing manager… where he informed me that the company put a freeze on capital equipment… by orders of the Chairman…
When I heard that I decided to pull the plug on Adambyte…
In early nineties I got afflicted with start-up fever and decided to start a company… so I went to Comdex and methodically went through every aisle of all three huge halls to see what was the next revolution going to be…
One product line which was promising was Laptops… and there you had one dominant computer… the Apple Powerbook… The Powerbook was a real computer… while all other had limited capabilities…
The other development was with video presentation software… although quite a large amount of storage was needed…
By adding these two developments I decided to explore the possibility of selling a storage box for the Powerbook… and Adambyte was born…
After preparing a business plan… and checking the technical feasibility
Off I went to Boston at an Apple show to do some market research… The show was split in two sites… and there was a shuttle bus… which took fifteen to twenty minutes… I spent most of the day in the shuttle bus… doing about eight round trips… and every time I was sitting next to someone else… all of them Apple users… and I had their devoted attention for twenty minutes… the reaction was enthusiastic… insufficient storage was the main drawback of the Powerbook…
With that positive reaction I was convinced to start the company… I raised some money from private investors… and a larger amount from my savings… and we built a product… the Adambyte Powerbox…
The big problem I had was under capitalization and consignment… I succeeded in securing an order from a large distributor for two hundred Powerboxes (at $2,000 each)… but the payment terms was 30 to 45 days after they sell the Powerboxes… and they would return the unsold Powerboxes…
With such terms it was impossible for me to secure a bank loan… but I had one more card to play… Corporate Account…
Tandem Computers were interested in my Powerbox to give to their sales force for them to use when making a video presentation… they needed over one hundred Powerboxes…
On the day I was scheduled to finalise the order… I received a phone call from the purchasing manager… where he informed me that the company put a freeze on capital equipment… by orders of the Chairman…
When I heard that I decided to pull the plug on Adambyte…
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