Cadman Chui
Cadman Chui
Serial Entrepreneur, Marketing Leader
Cadman is a serial entrepreneur always engaging the market with new ideas. He was part of the core team that drove the success of PlateSpin as just one of his career achievements. Cadman is best known for his product management and product marketing prowess as well as his ability to build strong teams that commit to the success of whatever project they undertake.
InsideSpin asked Cadman the following questions about his views on entrepreneurs seeking excellence:
What traits do you most value in a business leader? Do you find these traits often, or are they rarely found?
It is extremely difficult to find a complete set of leadership traits in the right combination in any one person, especially for the role of CEO. Most leaders have a set of characteristics unique to them and the match isn’t perfect between them and the organization. However in start-ups, the organization over time typically moulds itself to suit the leader’s strengths (and weaknesses) and a culture begins to form. There are a set of common traits that I do find work well in my experience:
- Willing to accept input and evaluate all perspectives before making decisions
There are a couple of kinds of leaders out there: The ones that know exactly what they want to do and tell you to do it in dictator like fashion, and the ones that consult their direct reports for their viewpoints before making a decision. Usually the latter is more effective because of a couple of reasons; (i) it makes the team feel like they’ve been given the opportunity to be heard, and (ii) it can get a good idea out of the group that may not have been thought of by the leader on his own. Sun Tzu said that positive outcomes are certain when all possibilities are considered and planned for. I believe the same is true today in the business world, without considering all alternatives, and the ROI for each, the optimal decision is not usually made.
- Ability to develop strategic plans and culture and drive it through the organization
Some leaders are unable to think strategically, but are excellent at communicating tactically. Other leaders are able to put together excellent strategic plans, but are unable to get their lieutenants to follow through with them because they can’t translate the strategy to action. It is rare to find a leader with the combination of both. Additionally,fundamental values of the company should be communicated effectively so that *everyone* from the top to the bottom of the organization understand and act on those values at all times.
In my early career at DataMirror they had a few values that management communicated quite effectively – one of those values was “Do it Fast, Do it Right”. Meaning – doing it right is important, but doing it fast and getting it done is more important. That instilled a culture of urgency that spread throughout the organization. Another value was “Spend Wisely” – again, everyone in the company was made to understand that every penny saved effectively increased shareholder value, and since everyone was a shareholder, it meant that saving money was good for all employees. “Spend Wisely” didn’t mean “Don’t Spend” – it just meant that everyone should maximize the value of DataMirror’s spending power.
- Proactive vs. reactive
Some leaders are proactive, others are reactive. Reactions are necessary sometimes, especially when the competition is instilling FUD – Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt on your potential customers about your products. However one can easily be lulled into reacting to each and every competitive situation that arises out in the field. Instead, the good leaders I’ve worked with re-evaluate their strategy rather than react rashly. If nothing has changed in the market, and the strategy remains the most prudent thing to do, then they stay the course. This helps everyone maintain focus on the overall plan and goals of the company rather than get distracted by minor issues that unavoidably arise from time to time.
At PlateSpin, we had competitors throwing all kinds of stuff at us all the time – we could have easily become a reactive organization, distracted by all the competitive pressures, but Stephen Pollack held our vision and strategy constant and in the end all those pressures just turned out to be harmless noise.
- Market driven approach
- There are 3 different approaches when it comes to evolving the product line:
- Customer Driven – concentrate on the customer and you’ll have a complete product
- Market Driven – concentrate on the market need and fill that need if the ROI is worth it
- Vision Driven – innovative, often ‘revolutionary’ approaches or technology
The best leaders often have a good balance of all three of the above areas. Customer driven product enhancements to keep customers happy, pragmatic product lines that bring in the revenue, and an over-arching innovative products that have the potential to create its own market in the future and keep the interest of analysts and strategic partners.
At PlateSpin in 2006 our cash cow was PowerConvert, but we added PowerRecon and were working on PowerOptimize. All were stand-alone products and generated revenue on their own, yet when used all together could create an over-arching product super-set that could revolutionize the data center. We had all the elements of customer, market, and vision driving the company`s products.
- There are 3 different approaches when it comes to evolving the product line:
- Ability to admit mistakes and correct them
In my experiences in corporations and even playing in the stock market, it is often better to put aside ego, recognize a mistake and change direction rather than “argue with the market”. Often costs can be minimized and resources redeployed to more profitable activities. A good leader knows when to give up and ride the next horse. As they say in the stock market trading floors, “It’s ok to be wrong. It’s not ok to stay wrong.” In my analysis and experience of the stock market you can be wrong more than 35% of the time, and still make a really decent double digit or even triple digit return. This is only possible by putting ego aside, being able to admit mistakes, and taking the necessary action to correct them. Although some may view that the stock market isn’t a fair direct comparison to everyday decision making at a company, all decisions at the corporate level are investment decisions and should be given a defined time limit to figure out they worked or not. I’ve seen companies time and time again continually burn money year after year on products that don’t sell. Had mistakes been admitted and losses cut, those funds could have been instead invested into other profitable product lines, or put into new product development initiatives.
- Hire people that are better than you
When I started at PlateSpin I was a one man army – product manager and marketing guy. I did all the jobs, but was spread so thin I risked doing them poorly as we expanded. When it came down to hiring a team, I went and found the best people I could. Many managers and executives get wrapped up in job security issues, refraining from hiring people that sometimes know more than they do in particular areas. Do the opposite, hire the best people you can find, the best of the best, without regard to whether they’ll climb over you from a career perspective. Let their roles expand, let them take control if they are capable – and give them credit for their work. In the long run the people that work for you will excel, and as a result will make you, their leader look great.
- Consistent personality and values
I’ve worked with leaders that have been each been aggressive, moody, unpredictable, and calm and I can tell you that calm and predictable is the better way to go. It is difficult enough to deal with changing market conditions, shareholders, investors, stakeholders, partners, and staff, your employees don’t need a leader whose personality changes day by day. Although emotions are obviously one of the hardest things to control (my direct and aggressive tendencies get the best of me sometimes), I have observed that being calm and in control tends to also have a calming effect on the people that work for you, something I learned from Stephen Pollack at PlateSpin. I remember when he would leave the office for a couple of weeks for business travel and all hell would break loose when we were growing at a frantic pace. As soon as he got back everything returned to calm serenity. I wasn’t sure how the dynamic worked exactly but his calm presence was measurable. Decisions he made were always on logic, and not on emotion, and people followed him. In fact I don’t remember a single incident when Stephen had “lost-it” on anyone. We called it Stephen’s “Xen” effect. (no pun intended – for those virtualization enthusiasts).
You started at PlateSpin as VP of Product Management as well as Marketing, was there a transition from a technology-focused Product Management strategy (building the product) to a market-focused one?
I would say that there often needs to be an equal weighting at the start between product management and product marketing, at least from a philosophical perspective. This is mostly because the founders are more likely to be product management oriented (or at least technically oriented). In the case of PlateSpin, I was also the guy in charge of marketing at the time so that helped create the blend that was needed for our early success.
Can you talk generally about how you think growing technology companies should approach this issue?
Growing technology companies can usually achieve more efficient cost of sales by putting appropriate investments in marketing, rather than investing in cold-calling to bring in leads and prospects. In fact my philosophy is that if marketing is doing its job effectively, sales should never have to cold call at all to uncover opportunities. This, of course depends on the industry and the market, but I find that it is usually easier and cheaper to get prospects pounding at your door, than to have to go out and get them through brute-force methods like cold-calling. This was true of PlateSpin during its first three or four years as the market emerged, plenty of leads to work on as a result of successful demand generation campaigns.
From a product management perspective, I am an advocate of always asking: “If we build it, will they come?” – If product management consistently asks itself this simple question, it will lead to analysis and research that will lead to a higher probability of success when the product is launched. That, of course, requires input directly from the market, in the form of customer, prospect feedback in addition to ‘gut’ feel and intuition that most founders would say they have.
Organizationally, I believe Product Management should reside neither in Marketing, or Development. If a product manager falls under marketing, they end up being biased into doing a lot of communications style work. If a product manager falls under development, many times they end up project managing release schedules at too much of a tactical level.
Which operational function(s) do you think startup companies need to focus on in their first year of operation (and why)?
- Product Management
- Marketing
- Development
In that order, especially in the software industry. In a startup often the CEO or founders act as product managers, whether they’re called that or not. Have great product management and you’ll save a lot of money building the right thing with fewer iterations.
I put marketing next in line because it is better to have an ok product with strong marketing, than a wicked product with weak marketing (just look at aspects of Microsoft's success). Have enough of a marketing machine, position correctly, and it will make all the difference in the world. I would even put marketing ahead of sales because it’s just cheaper to get customers to come to you than cold-calling people one-by-one. However it does depend on the industry. A partner and I started a company called CrispAds.com when blogs were all the rage. It was an ad serving network, no different from any other ad serving networks in existence. We didn’t differentiate through technology, we differentiated through marketing. All we did was position it as a “blog advertising network” and catered specifically towards the niche market of blogs. We built a good profitable business and sold it to a U.S. based firm a year later. So you can succeed with a mediocre product with strong marketing. But if you have BOTH a superior product *and* strong marketing... nothing can stop you.
What's the biggest reason why startup technology companies fail to achieve their goals?
I would say most startup technologies fail to achieve their goals because they wait too long to get a product out to market. I’ve seen too many companies try to “get it perfect” and burn through all their cash building the wrong product. Instead, I would employ an iterative product approach to developing product, investing just the right amount to get a usable product out there, but not so much that you paint yourself into a corner.
Who have been some of the mentors in your career that helped define your traits of excellence? What characteristics did you adopt of theirs? How important was it to have a proper mentor and would you recommend someone starting out formalize that relationship with someone?
I don’t believe that a formal mentor is necessary. I’ve learned a few things over the years just by observing the leaders around me. I worked for a guy named Bill at DataMirror and Cybermation. He had a good management approach of trusting my judgement early in my career. I used his hands-off leadership style and his “hire people that are better than you” approach and used that experience to build an all-star marketing team at PlateSpin.
I learned a few things observing at PlateSpin as well. The iterative product approach used by Stephen Pollack was something that I always believed in and I actually got to put that approach into practice. I’m still trying to emulate Stephen’s “Xen”-like approach to everything (o.k. pun intended this time).
