ENTREPRENEURS NEED PATIENCE, TIME.
‘ You just keep showing up every day’
It’s remarkable how many ways entrepreneurs find to give back after they sell their business; many commit to community and philanthropy. But Calgary entrepreneurs Nancy Knowlton and Dave Martin have taken it to a new level.
In 1987, the husband- and- wife team founded Smart Technologies, the producer of digital, interactive whiteboards that went public in 2012 in an $800-million IPO. After taking a break to recharge, the couple, now in their 60s, went back to work in 2014 and launched Nureva, which develops new video and audio technologies that facilitate collaboration and teaching.
Smart was a hard act to follow: after a sluggish start, its sales grew at an annual rate of 35 per cent for 13 years. Why jump back into the fray now, at an age when others might retire? Knowlton and Martin say it’s their way of giving back. Not by contributing to good causes, but by bringing innovation to schools and businesses, creating high-paying jobs and generating tax revenues for needy public coffers.
“Why would we waste our time putting our feet up and looking out the window?” asks Martin, Nureva’s chief technology officer. “What if we invested instead in a similar technology company that can utilize the knowledge and commitment of highly qualified people to create value and innovative brands?” Martin believes Canada needs more global, midsize tech companies. “Nureva is on that trajectory,” he says. “We’re trying to create a model for other Canadians.”
Nureva got its start from a real- life demonstration of the power of Knowlton and Martin’s network. In 2014, two years after the couple stepped down from Smart, that company decided to transfer its R& D unit from Ottawa to head office in Calgary. Faced with the choice of moving or looking for new jobs, some Ottawa employees called their former bosses to see if they had any anything on the go. Knowlton and Martin had been eyeing new opportunities in collaborative communication, so they considered this a sign that it was time to go all in.
“We felt fortunate to have such a strong core of people willing to work with us again,” says Knowlton, Nureva’s CEO. Using their own capital, the couple hired nine former colleagues in Ottawa and launched Nureva to transform the analogue world of flip charts and sticky notes.
Nureva (nu = new, rev = dream, va = go) offers two related innovations. The first product, Span, combines projection technology and software to leave digital whiteboards in the dust. Span lets people write, share and display interactive information across walls and windows, a digital canvas up to 40 feet wide. The cloudbased software captures all iterations of an idea, from the first Post- it note to the final specs. As the system integrates with PCs and mobile devices, remote workers can now feel fully part of meetings and brainstorming sessions.
“We wanted to develop a differentiated idea from what Smart was doing,” says Knowlton. “So we thought about making large wall space interactive. With a Smart board, you can have unlimited numbers of pages of information, but really only one page can be seen at a time.”
The second product spun out of the first. Knowlton and Martin believe that meeting rooms and classrooms are all becoming more dynamic and collaborative. Instead of one person dominating conversation, meetings are now mobile and interactive, with individuals moving around as they take turns leading the discussion. Today’s conference microphones, largely unchanged over 20 years, can’t capture audio from so many locations. So Nureva’s R& D team developed Microphone Mist, an audio- capture system that uses 12 microphones and sophisticated echo- cancellation software to provide clear, crisp sound from anywhere in the room.
Prior to Mist’s launch in June, annual revenue ran at about $ 2 million — somewhat underwhelming for a company with 100 employees. But Knowlton and Martin are taking things in stride. A basic Span module costs US$ 15,000, plus software — so sales hinge on live demonstrations and trials. Knowlton and Martin believe the pace will pick up. A reseller in India just made his first sale, to a major corporation, after six months of trying. “Now he has a reference customer,” says Martin. A U. S. school that had been piloting the technology is now preparing an RFP — and it wants 12 systems, not one.
Nureva is hoping for a faster start from Mist, a more easily understood product that costs US$ 3,000. Within a year, Knowlton and Martin expect Mist revenue to far outpace those of Span. “This will be a good opportunity for people to get familiar with us,” says Martin. “That will turn their attention to new ways of doing things” — and perhaps encourage them to buy Span.
“What we learned at Smart Technology is patience,” Martin says. “You just keep showing up every day. You listen to your customers and try to figure out what the right thing is to do. That, plus time, is going to allow you to be successful.”
They also learned one other thing at Smart: the cost of outside capital. Smart had brought on early-stage investors, including IT giant Intel, who were itching for an exit strategy and pushed for the IPO. As board directors, these investors also pressed Knowlton and Martin for a succession strategy. In the end, Martin says, “there were elements of mutuality” in the founders’ decision to step down.
This time around, Knowlton and Martin are self-funding Nureva, and intend to keep it private. They may delegate their management duties, but they want to control the firm’s destiny. “As a private company, you’re not being challenged on every decision,” says Knowlton.
“Patience is one of our best traits.”