Thanks and good night.
Let’s get right to the “cut” as a trusted colleague would cite. After fifteen years, I have resigned from New Dawn Technologies, the company that I helped build with Thomas P. Higgins, to focus on B2B and private sector opportunities. I have professionally achieved everything that I have set out to accomplish at New Dawn, in the market and to stay longer would be a disservice to New Dawn employees, customers, partners and our new parent company.
Today is a happy day for all including me, New Dawn employees, our supportive parent company, the Daily Journal Corporation (DJCO), and the court and justice market. Why is a resignation a positive and planned event? Read on.
When we created New Dawn in 1999, we set out to create a company that would outlive both of us and not merely support a lifestyle. Both Tom and I knew that we would leave New Dawn at some point in the future and strategically lived a culture for continuation. In order to provide some context on this extraordinary organization a little back-story on New Dawn first before I share a few of these ideals.
Often achieving revenue growth of 30% or more per year, we grew a two person start-up into a $10M+ a year, enterprise level, industry leading software, SaaS and services company. We were named one of the 5000 fastest growing private companies five years in a row (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012) in the nation by Inc. Magazine. Today, our flagship case management software product, JustWare, is used in over 380 courts and criminal justice agencies around the world.
In 2012, working closely with Cascadia Capital, an amazing and market focused sell-side investment banking firm, we marketed New Dawn to over 30 companies and negotiated a strategic, all cash sell. In alignment with his lifelong business associate Warren Buffet, who stated, “It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price”, these achievements cited appealed to the investment acumen of Charlie Munger, the Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and current Chairman of the Board of the DJCO.
DJCO has been in process of evolving from a legal publication business to providing innovative technology solutions to the government sector. The New Dawn purchase was timed perfectly with this transformation and Mr. Munger’s and DJCO’s Vice-Chairman and Director, J.P. Guerin’s savvy marketable security investments allowed for a mutually beneficial acquisition.
After selling New Dawn, I was retained to serve as the President and in fiscal year 2013, a high performance executive and management team surpassed any prior year’s revenue amount and EBITDA margin.
Choosing the DJCO’s offer to purchase New Dawn was partly based on a core value and cultural alignment with what we built, an alignment with many of the tenants of Berkshire Hathaway’s approach to acquisitions, and much of the rich philosophies that are outlined in Poor Charlie’s Almanack. This read was presented to New Dawn executives during M&A discussions and was often used as a guide throughout the past year. It has been a professional highlight over this past year to engage with the brilliant minds of Mr. Munger and the DJCO board.
I am pleased to say that after a year of working with DJCO executives, and staff in our sister companies Sustain and ISD Technologies, I can claim that the combination of these three firms offer a powerful and compelling business proposition to the market, each sharing many of the same cultural values that allowed New Dawn to have years of success. DJCO’s available capitalization and plans for the future will provide stability, growth and vision for our combined employees, customers and partners, and provides a competitive and unique offering to the courts and justice marketplace.
This success story would only be possible by building a company that is far more valuable and successful as a collective whole, rather than based on the value of any one individual. To build a company that stands the test of time, adds value to the market and is a productive contributor to a technology business unit we had to live a culture to support continuation. Including;
- Attain and retain tenured employees. I recently had the opportunity to attend a conference and listen to Ari Gesher, a senior engineer and Engineering Ambassador at Palantir Technologies speak on Preparing for Catastrophic Success. Palantir Technologies has rapidly grown, offers solutions to public safety agencies and is a significant player in the “big data” industry, distilling large amounts of information for government clients such as the CIA and FBI, and more recently big businesses. Having burgeoned since 2004 from five people to more than a thousand, Mr. Gesher discussed how it is vital to devote 50% of your time in a hyper or rapid growth company to finding and retaining the best employees. They are the foundation to success. Hiring and retaining the wrong people is essentially like building a house on a faulty foundation. It is vital to attain and retain tenured employees that are motivated based on your mission, retained because of your culture and not entirely motivated on how much money they make. If your employees are only with you for the money, you have already lost. New Dawn employees are the best in the business. I have learned so much from many of them, they are committed to a vital social mission, and will provide many years of continued success to New Dawn and DJCO.
- Push decision making down to front line resources. A successful hyper or rapid growth organization can only succeed with a culture of allowing your front line staff to make decisions based on the vision and goals set by the executive and management teams. Celebrate and support each employee’s correct decisions, and positively coach them when they make wrong decisions. A culture of top down decision making is a recipe for stagnation.
- Always hire employees that are smarter than you, and don’t be threatened if they might one day take your job. This philosophy allows me to turn over my President functions to a long tenured, committed employee who has successfully served in numerous cross division functions, and is already considered a leader within New Dawn. He was my first Senior Account Executive hired, he was New Dawn’s first product manager and will bring passion and commitment to the position. New Dawn will formally make the announcement very soon. I wish him many years of success.
Over the next couple of months I plan on spending time with family, assisting New Dawn and DJCO in leadership transition, assisting a talented, local start-up as a board of director member (making $1.00 per year, thank you), and starting my search to either work for a company that shares as many core values as New Dawn has or starting another company.
So with a stable and committed group of professionals that I am proud to call peers and lifelong friends at New Dawn with a very bright future, I look forward to new opportunities and endeavors and wish all at New Dawn and DJCO the best in its next chapter.
This dog food isn’t half bad.
It may not conform to the rules of writing, however to not define the term “eating your own dog food” at the beginning of this post may confuse the reader to think that this blog is about the nutritional benefits of our new dog food Yummy Puppy Munch provided by our Canadian subsidiary New Dog Technologies. Therefore, if you believe the self-definition community of Wilkopedia the term “eating your own dog food” is described as;
“Eating your own dog food originated from television commercials for Alpo brand dog food actor Lorne Greene would tout the benefits of the dog food, and then would say it’s so good that he feeds it to his own dogs.”
“In 1988, Microsoft manager Paul Maritz sent Brian Valentine, test manager for Microsoft LAN Manager, an email titled “Eating our own Dogfood” challenging him to increase internal usage of the product; from there, the usage of the term spread through Microsoft, as chronicled in the book Inside Out: Microsoft In Our Own Words. The phrase became slang during the dot-com craze of the late ’90s, and is used most commonly in reference to technology companies.”
So how does this apply to New Dawn Technologies? Let’s start at the beginning and hopefully I can keep the history short.
Since the foundation of the company we have internally believed in the principals that we preach to our customers; the legacy of any agency, court, or company resides in the data stored in their case management system or CRM (customer relationship management) software.
Since 1996, commercial CRM software was implemented at New Dawn to track all customer, prospect and partner contact, to detail and document support cases, and served as a repository for all customer and prospect documents and files. This information was the collection point where customer metrics, resource accountability and project tracking was delivered to staff, department managers and to C-level executives.
As we have evolved and migrated from one commercial CRM program (Goldmine) to the next (Sage CRM) we have been conscious to spend sufficient planning time to ensure that this important data asset was migrated to each new system.
In 2006, we were proud (or at least I was, more on that later) of the fact that every department in the company from sales, marketing, development, quality assurance, accounting and services utilized the same CRM for all functions. A customer record provided a global view of contact information and daily transactions from an accounting, support, project management or sales perspective.
The core values of New Dawn Technologies have led our team members to some amazing initiatives. New Dawn’s core value on Individualism encourages employees to passionately share and implement new and innovative ideas, even if those ideas cut against the grain.
This ideal is typically the catalyst for many brilliant and market changing ideas at New Dawn, however free thinking and innovative initiatives that swell from the floor can be divergent from the vision of the executive leaders. However, emotionally intelligent leaders quickly realize the sooner they embrace the passion and innovation of their team members, the quicker that these ideas can actually be the accelerator of their original vision. If you hire smart and autonomous talent, let them be smart and autonomous.
Shortly after the start of 2007 one of New Dawn’s most passionate team members orchestrated a positively motivated coup in the development department. Led by former Microsoft employee Glenn Thimmes, the development and quality assurance department succeeded from the Sage CRM union and began using our very own JustWare (dubbed internally Evolution) for all development and quality assurance case tracking based on the following justifications;
- JustWare exceeded Sage CRM in case and customer relationship tracking.
- Any enhancements that Glenn and his team made would be conducted after hours in order to not delay customer development projects.
- In order to benefit all JustWare customers any enhancements that we needed in Sage CRM would be more logical to be made in JustWare.
- By “eating our own dog food” we would experience all of the benefits and items for improvement in JustWare thus allowing us to increase our overall knowledge of JustWare, provide relevant improvements and ultimately attest these benefits to prospects and customers.
Glenn described the “eating your own dog food” era during his tenure at Microsoft and how it allowed for employees to evangelize the Microsoft products that they create and ultimately use on a daily basis.
Upon further discussion with President and CEO, Thomas P. Higgins, we thought that this friendly coup may be a great opportunity to get more benefits than drawbacks. We decided to encourage the use of JustWare under a few guidelines;
- One code base. New Dawn has an amazing track record of providing a highly focused and personalized per-market case management solution by using one powerful and flexible code base. It is our strength in the market and the techniques and strategy that we manage this single code base is envied by partners and competitors alike. If we were going to take advantage of enhancements that the team made, they had to add value to the entire code base, not split off and become its own code base. One upgrade script had to not only accommodate our entire customer code base; it had to accommodate our internal system. At the core of case management software the features and benefits of any great program are quite similar to a commercial CRM product. Our customers have the same requirements that we have for relationship tracking, document generation, batch printing, calendar and event management, report and metric creation, powerful business rules, statistical dashboards, document scanning and routing and much more. Evolving our use and requirements of our internal JustWare solution would naturally evolve the functionality of JustWare for our customers.
- Hosted in our data center. We allowed JustWare to be used internally only on the condition that it was hosted in our secure, off-site data center in Salt Lake City and used externally over the web. If features and functionality were needed to benefit New Dawn and our customers, everything had to be designed to operate efficiently over the web. We would experience firsthand, a hosted solution.
Under this direction New Dawn followed the path of many of our customers. We conducted several data conversions, per department screens and dashboards were constructed. Usability enhancements were made that benefited all JustWare customers, and those employees who traditionally were removed from JustWare such as accounting and front office staff were able to experience the software program that pays the bills.
A sense of ownership and pride has occurred that allows everyone to rally around the software product that is used by thousands. A peer relationship to our customers has allowed for some amazing improvements, advancements and usability modifications.
Under these conditions Glenn and his team embraced the use of JustWare internally, and has spread the evangelism of JustWare to other departments. Currently all departments are using JustWare for internal functions, with the Sales and Marketing department slated for implementation next year.
Under most conditions I would traditionally counsel against an “eating your own dog food” initiative when implementing software. I typically recommend leaving it up to the professionals and use your development resources to focus on revenue generating tasks, however under the guidelines that have been put into place, we are those professionals, and now can personally attest to the full body taste of JustWare.
– See more at: http://newdawn.com/2009/10/03/this-dog-food-isnt-half-bad/#sthash.0uAyGeXI.dpuf
Government Incorporated: Is now the time?
I am a consummate optimist and in today’s current market, optimists are an endangered species. In my fifteen years of working with state and local government in delivering software solutions that increase productivity, now more than ever, government is being forced to make some tough decisions and I am ecstatic for the future of government.
Judicial and public safety agencies are cutting back employees and being forced to exhibit private sector behavior; and I am excited to witness the change.
Before the posts start flooding in on how the services offered by government and running more like a business are conflicting principals, or critics to the brutally honest nature of this message, or the argument about the negative aspects of the private sector (the banking industry? Bernie Madoff? AIG?), just hear me out.
I am obviously biased in my recommendation that introducing technology to government can reduce long term cost, reduce personnel, and even increase revenue; but government moving towards business principles is a good thing.
For those opponents that believe that government moving toward private sector principals will lead to a path of corporate greed, I simply cite that the overwhelming majority of small and medium private companies that our economy is based upon are like New Dawn Technologies; ethical and make up the framework of our economy. They reinvest back into their overall operations, retain employees based on performance and are not providing grossly inflated executive compensation packages.
Ask my wife about our grossly inflated executive compensation package, I am sure that she will agree that we have to budget like everyone else, have no access to a private corporate jet and the greatest testament… has anyone seen my commuter car that I drive every day to work?
Without mentioning the specific customer, I was asked, “How quickly can we implement JustWare, because we are going to start letting employees go?”
The customer is implementing arrest filing interfaces that would eliminate all manual data entry. Data entry currently manually performed will now be completed with an electronic interface and data entry errors will be eliminated. In the past with a project like this, those employees would be shifted to different responsibilities, now they face the possibility of losing their jobs. They also justified the purchase of JustWare because it was less expensive than paying in-house development staff to re-write their mainframe software program. What is wrong with this picture? I say nothing.
The harsh reality is that technology and innovation is good for government in reducing expense, reducing payroll dollars, reducing benefits and retirement costs. Kiosks are replacing airline employees, same principle. Although using the airlines as the pinnacle of innovation and a model of capitalism isn’t the best example, another post on that later.
SaaS (software as a service) is quickly becoming a mechanism for the private sector to reduce hardware and software costs. It is eliminating the requirement to have additional IT resources to manage software. Sounds great right?
JustWare, New Dawn’s flagship case management software solution is not only available as an on-premise solution (installed on local servers) it is now available as a SaaS solution. This allows criminal justice agencies to eliminate the need for additional servers, eliminates database software purchases and even reduces resources that manage the infrastructure. However, nine times out of ten, JustWare is being installed on local servers for the following reasons (and yes, I am paraphrasing);
1. “Although I conduct my personal banking online, I don’t trust technology or the Internet to securely store case information, so I would prefer that our case data is stored on our local servers that are located in an unventilated closet, that sporadically gets backed up, and by the way, numerous and potentially unknown employees have the server password. Yes, I am really paraphrasing, and no offense to the vast majority of government IT departments who don’t operate in this environment; there are however those criminal justice agencies that operate as described.”
2. “I can’t have you maintain my server, what will my IT resources do?”
The private sector is rapidly adopting SaaS in comparison to government. In time, government will follow, but now is the opportune time for SaaS in government to reduce expense.
During the post 9/11 economic slowdown, one of New Dawn’s customers commented that because staff was being let go due to county budget cutbacks, there was no way that they could operate with the same level of service without technology; specifically JustWare. This is good for government, and ultimately the economy.
Small business and technology companies have to closely watch the bottom line, keep payroll dollars in-check and drive revenue and profitability upward; now government is being forced to follow the same model.
I have provided just a few of many examples of how technology in government reduces the expense side of the income statement, what about the revenue side?
I recently was onsite at a prospect demonstration and the decision maker was asking a series of questions regarding the company, how long we have been in business, company stability, and how many employees we had and then the administrator asked a question I had never been asked. “What is your budget?”
“What is New Dawn’s budget?” I replied. I was actually speechless, and didn’t know how to initially answer.
I quickly realized that the administrator has never had to think about how much money they are bringing into the office, they have always just spent money. So his equivalent to total sales, revenue, or net income is his budget.
No fault to the administrator, they have an annual budget of what they can spend and that is what they do, they spend, they don’t earn. They do provide a valuable service, but don’t charge for any of the services provided. They have always looked at one side of the accounting equation, and the revenue side is likely handled at the very top of the county.
A wave in government is occurring where revenue mechanisms are being implemented with solutions provided by vendors like New Dawn. The San Antonio Municipal Court charges private attorneys for FTP access to moving violation records. The court has valuable data worth purchasing by private attorneys, who then cold-call those cited to provide legal services. It is a win-win scenario, and allows the court to act more like a business.
New Dawn’s JustWare and JusticeWeb solutions provide revenue enhancement capabilities for criminal justice agencies allowing online web payments that charge an additional convenience fee to the payee. This allows payments to occur online rather than at a cashier window. Other solutions charge credit card fees to attorneys for access to e-discovery via the web instead of paper or discs that traditionally would be picked up in person. Other revenue tools include participant fees for diversion, integrated accounting solutions that allow fees to be allocated directly to the hot-check diversion division, or court technology fees for each offender citation.
All of these technical innovations put more money in the pockets of the justice agencies, at the expense of the offender or the interested party. What is wrong with that? Again, I say nothing. It is all about convenience and saving time, both guiding principles of capitalism and innovation.
So with some innovative shifts in governmental thinking, technology infusion, and smart administrative navigation through this slowdown I look forward to answering questions such as “What was your EBITDA in 2012?” from future decision makers with a smile.
– See more at: http://newdawn.com/2009/03/29/government-incorporated-is-now-the-time/#sthash.iyyF9BUu.dpuf
Here we are back at the beginning
Several years ago (actually going on almost 15) two friends began a venture in a one-room office. We stared at each other across the desk and brainstormed on everything from marketing and sales tactics to new features and functionality for the software product we were developing. Our conversations ranged from what we should name the product (JustWare becoming the ultimate winner) to when we should hire another person to lighten our load. The closeness, the conversations, and agility our small company developed during that time made us realize that we would always need to be close to our employees if we were going to make this company work. With that in mind, we made it a policy that, no matter what, executives would sit in and work out of the same cubicles as our employees. We have also tried to not tie employees’ seating arrangements to their departments. Sales resources sit by project managers and marketing staff sit by support staff. The accidental conversations that form from these mixed up arrangements have led to many marketing campaigns and product enhancements. It has also created a team mentality among everyone.
And, here we are back at the beginning. New Dawn now has over 60 employees and we are in an amazing office space. The problem? We ran out of cubicles. Now while we wait for our new cubicle order to arrive, the two of us (Thomas P. Higgins, President and CEO) and myself (Frank A. Felice, VP of Sales and Marketing) share a cubicle. Tom works out of our office in Denver and travels to Utah every other week. While he is here, we share a cubicle, stare at each other across the space, and brainstorm about running our no longer fledgling company.
It is fun to remember where we came from and realize that out of necessary closeness great ideas and innovation blossom.
– See more at: http://newdawn.com/2009/02/23/here-we-are-back-at-the-beginning/#sthash.vvSjq9T5.dpuf
veryance. 