Adjust your course, incrementally

In 1993, I was a Co-Founder/CTO of a company called FuturesNet, a network for the Futures and Options Industry. Bill Clinton was sworn in as the 42nd President, ATF raided the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, TX, where 4 agents and 5 Davidians died. Rodney King testified at a federal trial that eventually led to Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell receiving a 30-month sentence for violating Rodney King’s civil rights (Black Lives Matter). Intel shipped the first Pentium chips, President Clinton announced his “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, and Al Gore hadn’t invented the internet yet. My, how times have changed - at least in the technology world. 

At FuturesNet, we were engrossed in developing a 4 disk install set of software that allowed the Futures and Options industry to communicate via a bank of dial-up modems. In 1993, modem speeds just reached 9600bps; we thought we were flying. We created a platform of services from email to quickview attachments to a database of information on traders. Interestingly enough, the most utilized piece of the software was uploading a file to our server and allowing others to see the file from their computer.

In 1994, I attended the Comdex convention in Las Vegas attempting to identify the latest technologies that we could leverage in the FuturesNet platform. The Keynote speaker was Bill Gates. As he went through his speech about the future of technology (his philodox persona coming across strong and confident), he announced that the Internet would never amount to anything and everyone should put everything they had into the Microsoft Network. Upon returning home, we discussed whether or not we should do this. Of course this was Bill Gates - who better, at that time in history, to take advice from? I will say that, for awhile, we thought long and hard about how we could utilize the Microsoft Network. Hindsight being 20/20, thank goodness we dragged our feet a bit, because one year later, never admitting that he was wrong or had miscalculated the power of the internet, Bill Gates stood on the same stage and told us that he was throwing his company, Microsoft, into supporting, enhancing and profiting from the internet. He called the growing phenomenon “the internet tidal wave”. In 1995, we were still utilizing a 4 disk install set. We had three major Futures Exchanges (NY Mercantile Exchange, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and the London Financial Futures Exchange) along with Smith Barney and a series of boutique firms all utilizing the FuturesNet Network to communicate. 

Side note, I told you in the last blog that my dad worked for me for 20 years after he retired. During the FutureNet time, he was the tester. Before we would release any updates it had to get past dad. We used to say, if it could pass the Nick Test, it was solid to release. He had an uncanny ability to hit a series of keys or click on something randomly in the most unlikely order and crash the software. When I would ask him “What made you click and hit in that order,” he would reply, “I was just curious what would happen if I did?” Oh to understand how the mind of a 65-year-old works? That’s a story for another time.  

After some investigation of Bill Gates’s announcement and the internet tidal wave that was coming, along with a brief “pull the chute” moment, we decided to make a major change and put the FuturesNet Network on the internet. This was going to require a major overhaul of the platform while learning new development tools. We joined the Microsoft development team, and they were basically throwing things against the wall to see what stuck. Over the next year, we moved all our technology into this new and exciting platform called the internet and for a while after that, we were the darlings of the Futures and Options industry, speaking on panels, sharing our experiences, even consulting other companies that were thinking about jumping on the internet. But when you make hasty decisions that force you to build while driving 120 mph in a rainstorm, it’s hard to see what’s in front of you and soon you’re feeling every bump in the road because things are starting to fall apart. Suddenly you look up and you see the wall right in front of you, but it’s too late. We weren’t just trying to overcoming the technology issues that arose from a new platform. The real problem we didn’t see coming was that this was 1997, and everyone thought the internet was free; they didn’t understand why they had to pay for our services, which is something we missed because we changed direction too far and too fast. Struggling through a painful year, we were forced to rethink things.  

We would like to say that we had a vision on a mountain top, but the reality is that it was while sitting at a conference room table with a 6-pack that the idea hit us. As I mentioned earlier, the one piece of the FuturesNet platform that most were utilizing was the ability to upload a file from their PC to our servers and get to it from any PC with a web browser. We knew we needed something unique so we decided to strip the file storage technology from the rest of the platform and just focus on that. Everyone thought the internet was free, so we decided to embrace that theory. We called the new venture FreeDrive. A free 20mb storage drive (which we later increased to 50mb) on the internet to store and share your files. FreeDrive.com was the forerunner of what we know today as web-based storage. 

As FreeDrive began to pick up steam, we vowed: no more drastic changes, small incremental changes. We learned that every time you make a major change and/or change direction too quickly, it’s basically like doing a reboot. It’s hard to alter your brand and even harder to keep your employees believing and trusting that you know what you’re doing. Over the next 18 months, we continued to market and enhance the technology. We even had enough users that we could generate revenue through ads. As fate would have it, while in Las Vegas for a conference, we crossed the one million users mark. As we celebrated this huge accomplishment, none of us realized what lay in front of us. The hockey stick curve had begun. After hitting the one million mark in 18 months, we hit the two million user mark in only 13 weeks. Three million users 11 weeks later. Four million users 10 weeks later, and the trend continued until, by early 2001, we had reached 18 million users.

During that time, we stayed true to our commitment to make small and calculated adjustments. We took time to step back, see what was working and what wasn’t working. Focused on our direction and staying firm to our foundation, while at times adding a block here or a brick there. Truth be told, some worked and some didn’t, nothing wrong with that. The difference this time was that, when we chose to make a change, it was small and incremental. The result? Changes that didn’t work, didn’t hurt us as much financially or with our employees. In the early days of FutureNet, although we had an initial idea, we reacted instead of planned, and we made major decisions that took us in a completely different direction. This caused our users to lose credibility in the company and probably just as important, our employees lost confidence in our ability to lead. Too many major changes can cause a whiplash effect, which then leads to the deer in the headlights look. Everyone becomes paralyzed waiting for the crash. 

In the fall of 2001, we sold a majority interest to EMC, EDS, and Motorola. By 2003, there were 28 million users signed up for the service. My time at FreeDrive had come to an end. Eventually, FreeDrive was sold to AOL. Since then, I have focused on coaching business owners/management, and for the most part, I helped them to be successful and grow their businesses. The key was always making small tweaks to get them where they wanted to be.

Thanks for reading. As always, I welcome your feedback and I am always open for a call to discuss.

#Growyouremployees #Incrementalchanges #Appreciation