Eric jackson story
From Anything Goes Wiki
Eric Jackson's Story
TIMELESS
Intention
I intend to help people create their future.
Beliefs
I believe people have trouble creating the future they want.
I believe there are two main reasons people have trouble:
- They don't know how to tell what future they want
- They don't know how to connect their choices and actions today to future outcomes
I believe that people need other people to deal with the first reason.
I believe that people need tools to deal with the second.
I believe that the main need is for tools that help when
- There is too much information to deal with
- It's too hard to follow the chain of events
I believe I can build such tools
In 2005 I spent 2 weeks on a plane every night and visiting 2-3 customers every day all over the U.S. My excuse was to share our product roadmap, but I spent most of each visit just listening to them talk about their businesses - what they did, how they came up with it, why it was important, and how our product helped them do it. It was so much fun to listen to the passion that came out as soon as they had someone interested in hearing what they were doing. That trip is one of the most memorable experiences of my career.
My People
My people are ready to take risks to achieve their dreams.
My people are ready to work hard to achieve their dreams.
My people are smart.
My people are smart enough to look for ways to be smarter.
CONTEMPORARY
Over this past year I got to help Keith at Advanced Composting Systems and with Deb and Kate at Smudge Ink by creating a tool to let them make cash flow projections more easily. It's been fun to see their excitement both about avoiding the tedious hours preparing them manually and about having the power to play out different scenarios easily as they plan and make decisions. With Smudge Ink, I'm now giving them the ability to project out inventory order needs as well, which will let them solve a big frustration they've had.
My People
My people are entrepreneurs who must guide their ventures through change.
My people are entrepreneurs who want to make sure they stay true to their dreams for their ventures.
My people are entrepreneurs who want to make smarter choices.
My people are entrepreneurs who want to understand and manage their operating risks.
Intention
My inventions intend to let people see the consequences of choices they make.
My inventions intend to help people identify the risks they face.
My inventions intend to help people understand how they can mitigate those risks.
My first invention is FutureOps.
FutureOps intends to help people project their cash flow and other resource requirements.
FutureOps intends to help people identify the impact of decisions on cash flow and resource needs.
Beliefs
I believe that tools available for small businesses to project cash flow are terrible.
I believe that many entrepreneurs who want to manage cash better don't because it's too hard.
I believe that if a cash flow projection tool made the process of generating cash flow projections easy, more entrepreneurs would do it.
I believe that building realistic cash flow projections is fairly easy with the right tools.
I believe that such a tool must read needed data automatically.
I believe that such a tool must fit how the entrepreneur's business actually operates.
I am a model builder. Most of my career as a software designer and developer has directly been linked to modeling and simulation - of turbulent flow, chip manufacturing, and business processes. But even beyond that, the way I approach solving any problem is to try to find or construct a model of some thing that would solve it. Sometimes that's finding the right metaphor and the metaphor becomes the model. Sometimes it's as mundane as an actual mathematical model.
Invention
FutureOps gives entrepreneurs a realistic cash flow projection with the push of a button.
FutureOps reads the data it needs directly from their accounting, CRM, inventory systems, etc.
FutureOps projects cash flow around the way their businesses actually operate, which is different for manufacturers, construction companies, wholesale distributors, etc.
FutureOps lets entrepreneurs use relevant business knowledge, for example, the payment behaviors of their customers.
FutureOps helps entrepreneurs make common decisions that depend on or impact cash and other resources.
FutureOps lets entrepreneurs set up scenarios to see how outcomes depend on their decisions and assumptions.
OTHER STORIES
In the mid-nineties I developed a tool that used simulation to automatically do optical proximity correction (OPC) of computer chip designs to improve their manufacturability. My best customer was Mario at LSI Logic. He was passionate about improving LSI's design process using OPC and, because he was so serious about making it happen, he made me contend with the incredibly hard and incredibly interesting problem of making the tool fast enough and easy enough to use to be practical. That experience was a formative for me - it informs how I think about the problems I undertake and has taught me always to start from the question of what will make a solution actually usable.
At XOsoft Leonid (CEO) and Gil (VP of Marketing) constantly built and used models to understand, test and project the business, using tools that ranged from sophisticated spreadsheets for cash flow and revenue projections to probability trees worked out on paper to test likely outcomes of different strategies. At Lab Escape, Trevor has done the same for cash flow, and he and I together have made model-building a standard part of our conversations with OEM customers to help everyone focus on building a win-win deal.
Notes
Question: how does it feel to use it?
