It has been an interesting week of polar opposites.
Today, I will tell you why I believe Blue Bean is a company to watch, starting with the first of three video interviews (the last two will not be shared publicly).
Blue Bean’s founder, Fabrice Saporito, is an industry veteran. From BCG and Coupa, with a stop as CEO of Sievo and many more senior positions in our industry, he knows the ropes, so to speak, and is refreshingly willing to talk frankly. It is quite a shift from the young, very bright, but unapproachable CEO I wrote about earlier this week.
I won’t waste any time going into an elongated review and assessment of our discussion and why Blue Bean is a company to watch. It comes down to one statement by Saporito that demonstrates he gets it: “We are problem solvers first and technology providers second.”
Instead of creating a solution and looking for a problem to solve, the Blue Bean solution is an extension of the CEO and his team’s experience and expertise. Now, you may think that this diminishes the role or importance of technology, but it does the exact opposite.
Proof of Concept
The Blue Bean team is well into the proof of concept phase, and they expect to seek Series A funding to create scalability in the near to medium future. At this point, they are not ready to be on my Top 10 Analyst List, but they are definitely on my radar screen, and as a practitioner, they should be on yours as well—although my reasons are somewhat different from the good Doctor Elouise Epstein’s.
In short, Blue Bean is definitely on my “Watch List.”
An Unexpected Insight
Conversations with emerging and established solution providers are an opportunity for me to expand my industry knowledge. However, I sometimes come away learning a little bit more about myself. Yes, I may be turning 65 in July, but I am smart enough to know that I “ain’t smart enough now” (or, for that matter, ever).
This past year, I have been lamenting in these pages my decision to sell my company in 2001 for $12 million. A lightbulb went off when Fabrice talked about seed funding and transitioning to Series A funding.
When I started my company, I didn’t seek seed funding because I had an established and growing revenue stream that I could tap into to improve my business. Rather than going to market to look for an existing solution, I decided to “build one out” myself—emphasis on the words “build one out.” Of course, it had been beneficial that I had been in the high-tech industry since the early 1980s, so I was familiar with taking an agent-based approach to problem-solving.
It was also fortuitous that in solving the problems of process understanding involving multiple stakeholders within and external to the enterprise, I developed a theory called “strand commonality.” As a result, my development war chest was further augmented by funding from the government’s Scientific Research & Experimental Development program over several years.
The Fork In The Road
With a well-established proof of concept—having profitable cash flow and government funding goes a long way to proving the viability of your vision—I decided not to seek Series A Funding. The reasoning behind this decision is that I am a bit leary of VC investors. However, building a profitable company in the seed stage is very different from managing a company through the A, B, and C series of funding. In short, I was a problem-solver first and foremost, and I felt that I had taken my company as far as I could.
So, I sold my little company to a bigger publicly traded company. By the way, I did not enjoy being a senior executive with that company for various reasons. While I will not bore you with the details here, forging a more aggressive and expensive development path that was more about scalability than problem-solving wasn’t my thing.
Back To The Poles
Once again, this week, I had two great, albeit different, conversations with an ironic twist.
The younger CEO talked about tech and being the only player in town with his type of technology. On the other hand, the seasoned veteran of the technology world CEO spoke about the importance of solving problems first and that technology was an extension of that focus rather than the driver.
I enthusiastically love technology – always have and always will – which is why I have an equal, although different, enthusiasm for the young CEO’s company. However, a big part of that enthusiasm is linking implementation to tangible outcomes, and the only way to do that is to solve a problem someone wants to solve first and then introduce technology as an enabler.
The above thinking is why Blue Bean is on my Watch List – they are problem solvers instead of product pushers.
30
Procurement Insights
Betting On Blue (Bean)
Posted on June 25, 2024
0
It has been an interesting week of polar opposites.
Today, I will tell you why I believe Blue Bean is a company to watch, starting with the first of three video interviews (the last two will not be shared publicly).
Blue Bean’s founder, Fabrice Saporito, is an industry veteran. From BCG and Coupa, with a stop as CEO of Sievo and many more senior positions in our industry, he knows the ropes, so to speak, and is refreshingly willing to talk frankly. It is quite a shift from the young, very bright, but unapproachable CEO I wrote about earlier this week.
I won’t waste any time going into an elongated review and assessment of our discussion and why Blue Bean is a company to watch. It comes down to one statement by Saporito that demonstrates he gets it: “We are problem solvers first and technology providers second.”
Instead of creating a solution and looking for a problem to solve, the Blue Bean solution is an extension of the CEO and his team’s experience and expertise. Now, you may think that this diminishes the role or importance of technology, but it does the exact opposite.
Proof of Concept
The Blue Bean team is well into the proof of concept phase, and they expect to seek Series A funding to create scalability in the near to medium future. At this point, they are not ready to be on my Top 10 Analyst List, but they are definitely on my radar screen, and as a practitioner, they should be on yours as well—although my reasons are somewhat different from the good Doctor Elouise Epstein’s.
In short, Blue Bean is definitely on my “Watch List.”
An Unexpected Insight
Conversations with emerging and established solution providers are an opportunity for me to expand my industry knowledge. However, I sometimes come away learning a little bit more about myself. Yes, I may be turning 65 in July, but I am smart enough to know that I “ain’t smart enough now” (or, for that matter, ever).
This past year, I have been lamenting in these pages my decision to sell my company in 2001 for $12 million. A lightbulb went off when Fabrice talked about seed funding and transitioning to Series A funding.
When I started my company, I didn’t seek seed funding because I had an established and growing revenue stream that I could tap into to improve my business. Rather than going to market to look for an existing solution, I decided to “build one out” myself—emphasis on the words “build one out.” Of course, it had been beneficial that I had been in the high-tech industry since the early 1980s, so I was familiar with taking an agent-based approach to problem-solving.
It was also fortuitous that in solving the problems of process understanding involving multiple stakeholders within and external to the enterprise, I developed a theory called “strand commonality.” As a result, my development war chest was further augmented by funding from the government’s Scientific Research & Experimental Development program over several years.
The Fork In The Road
With a well-established proof of concept—having profitable cash flow and government funding goes a long way to proving the viability of your vision—I decided not to seek Series A Funding. The reasoning behind this decision is that I am a bit leary of VC investors. However, building a profitable company in the seed stage is very different from managing a company through the A, B, and C series of funding. In short, I was a problem-solver first and foremost, and I felt that I had taken my company as far as I could.
So, I sold my little company to a bigger publicly traded company. By the way, I did not enjoy being a senior executive with that company for various reasons. While I will not bore you with the details here, forging a more aggressive and expensive development path that was more about scalability than problem-solving wasn’t my thing.
Back To The Poles
Once again, this week, I had two great, albeit different, conversations with an ironic twist.
The younger CEO talked about tech and being the only player in town with his type of technology. On the other hand, the seasoned veteran of the technology world CEO spoke about the importance of solving problems first and that technology was an extension of that focus rather than the driver.
I enthusiastically love technology – always have and always will – which is why I have an equal, although different, enthusiasm for the young CEO’s company. However, a big part of that enthusiasm is linking implementation to tangible outcomes, and the only way to do that is to solve a problem someone wants to solve first and then introduce technology as an enabler.
The above thinking is why Blue Bean is on my Watch List – they are problem solvers instead of product pushers.
30
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