15.390: Cachet aka Akamai Opportunities in the Internet Age

The Team One Professor, One PhD student, One Sloan 1 st year, and several advisors Very Technical and very Academic? Very smart, driven and aggressive? Not much market knowledge. Good domain knowledge getting better every day.

The Idea Big, hairy problem to solve. Current solutions expensive and inadequate. Not a technology looking for a problem.

The Opportunity Who are the customers? What will we sell them? What is our clear value proposition? What is the optimal business model? How do we size the opportunity?

Opportunity Assessment Talk to experts and stake-holders. Talk to customers. Look at the current market and size what exists today. Take the leap to estimate the size of your market segment both top down and bottoms up.

Sizing the Market Cache team looked at current hosting and isp market They looked at current systems players serving the market They established boundaries for their market segment They established comparables for their company. They used comparables data to estimate their revenue based on units shipped, pricing, and costs associated with building the products and the business.

Development of the Plan There is no substitute for knowledge of the customers, market, and competition. Start with the hypothesis that you are on to a major market opportunity. Prove the hypothesis. Make sure you have the back-up data and solid assumptions.

The Competition Know your enemy well. Choose your competitors carefully. Define your market segment. Establish the rules of engagement.

Cache Lessons Learned Why did Cache lose out in the $50k competition? Did it matter? What lessons can we learn from Cache’s experience? What did Cache do in its early stages to lay the groundwork for the success of Akamai?

Cache Success Factors Team Technology Product/Service Market Positioning Funding Execution