Almost Perfect

W. E. Peterson

http://www.wordplace.com/ap/index.shtml

A great read (for a free book)!

This book reminds me of High Stakes, No Prisoners : A Winner's Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars..

Chapter 1 was kind of bleak so you have an inkling how the book will end.

Chapter 2 – Interesting how they started compared to other startups at that time. They were ahead of their time with the venture fund raising anyway. Also interesting that they are clearly Mormon (which I didn't know).

Chapter 3 - Likened the lack of business overseeing engineering as children pretending to grow up.

“Running a company, however, did not require proficiency tests, a college degree, or any relevant experience.”

“Writing software in assembly language is somewhat analogous to baking from scratch rather than using a mix.”

“We had no systematic way of deciding what features went into a particular version of the product, but many of the improvements came from the suggestions of our customers, who were constantly calling with requests for more features.”

I find it interesting that no one liked the name wordperfect. It was chosen by deafult because all the other names were already trademarked!

Chapter 4 – Learned there is more to a software company than having a good piece of software.

The thought of being sued was a little frightening to me, because I did not yet realize that lawsuits, like deadbeats, were a normal part of doing business. I did not understand that a successful company was bound to have at least one or two lawsuits against it at any one time.

We changed the date of the software on the diskettes inside the box, but we left the outside of the box the same, a practice known in the industry as slipstreaming. This was a controversial solution, but our bad reputation disappeared. We learned that perception was more important than reality. Our software was no better or worse than it had been before, but in the absence of the new version numbers, it was perceived as being much better.

We quickly learned that no matter how many improvements we might

make to a new version, if we took something away, we would have many unhappy customers.

Our advertising was still homemade, and our public relations was not very good. We still did not know how to makes friends with the writers from the press.

Chapter 5 -

Our most difficult crisis at the time was maintaining good communications inside the company.

We learned a lot about the dynamics of communicating around a dining table. We learned that a luncheon with more than eight people was generally unproductive, because it led to multiple conversations that were usually off the subject. Six was generally the best number for getting work done. A round table was better than a rectangular one. If a rectangular table was the only choice, it was always better to sit in one of the middle seats if you wanted to be involved in the discussions.

Meanwhile, software customers were coming to the conclusion that any protection was too much of an inconvenience. … Dropping the copy protection was a good decision.

We should have used more of our resources to improve WordPerfect, but back then we were preoccupied with offering a family of products, and shedding our one-product-company label.

The failure of SSIData taught me two painful lessons: ideas should

be shared so others can improve on them, and no one, including myself, is infallible.

Chapter 6 - Great analogy to a kindom (King, Prime Minister and Knights) and how each type is great at their job but may not be at another's job.

We could have saved ourselves a lot of headaches by concentrating on fewer products.

Chapter 8 -

It was somewhat unusual for a software company to let the programmers decide the future of its products. We were, however, a company founded and owned by programmers, where programmers were treated with an extra measure of respect. The marketing department was used primarily to sell products once they were developed, and only rarely did it get involved early enough to perform the traditional marketing role of identifying a need and defining a product to fill that need. At times this put us in the position of developing solutions before we identified problems, but it was hard to be

too critical of the programmers when the company was so successful. To their credit, the

programmers tried very hard to listen to our customers and to those of us in the marketing

department. The programmers were smart and thoughtful and very good at protecting the best interests of the company. At times, however, they were prone to manipulate some of the data they received to fit what it was they wanted to do.

The first step in our battle campaign was to hold a marketing boot camp. For the first time we had formal training for all salespeople who worked at the home office.

Next, we brought in our 35 reps from around the country for the week of October 26 and showed them 5.0.

Chapter 9 -

Selling one hundred million dollars worth of software was easy compared to the trouble we had fulfilling Alan's promise to take everyone to Hawaii.

To add to our pressure, we were offering free updates to anyone who purchased 4.2 after the official 5.0 announcement at COMDEX. We did this to prevent our 4.2 sales from falling in anticipation of the new release. The offer worked, and our February and March sales were more than ten million dollars each. Unfortunately, the offer was going to cost us $1,000,000 for each month we were late.

Fixing customer support was not as easy as fixing our buggy software. It was not hard to figure out why morale in the department was so low. Not only were the operators

paid poorly, but they were treated as if they were second class citizens.

If I ever start another business, I will have all employees sign a contract requiring them to come to work with a good attitude. If they decide one day they do not like their jobs or they do not want to be cheerful, then they will agree in advance to an immediate termination without notice, without severance, and without receiving any accrued vacation pay. Life is too short to spend it with the dissatisfied.

Chapter 10 -

In February, as was a tradition, we invited a few representatives from our largest accounts to come to Deer Valley to ski with us and tell us how we were doing.

I explained to the new hires a little of the company's history, its purpose, a little of what it was we did, and how we were different from other companies.

I should have taken a lot more time to explain how the company did its work and what people could expect. Too many people, especially young college graduates with no other job experience, came to work with the wrong expectations and some bad habits.

They [salespeople] were given one month of training before going out into the field and were brought back to Utah for training twice each year. … we wrote the first rep handbook, which explained the purpose, objectives, and duties of a rep. We experimented with different salary schedules, none of which included a commission, and made sure that the reps were given regular evaluations.

Chapter 11 -

WordPerfect Corporation was not intended to be a social club for the unproductive. While other companies might condone many personal or social activities at the office, ours did not. Things like celebrating birthdays, throwing baby showers, collecting for gifts, selling Tupperware or Avon, managing sports tournaments, running betting pools, calling home to keep a romance alive or hand out chores to the children, gossiping or flirting with co-workers, getting a haircut, going to a medical or dental appointment, running to the cafeteria for a snack, coming in a little late or leaving a little early, taking Friday afternoon off, and griping about working conditions were all inappropriate when done on company time. Even though these activities were condoned by many businesses across the country, we felt there was no time for them at WordPerfect Corporation.

WordPerfect Corporation was also not an arena for political games. A good old boy network method of trading favors inside the company to get things done was frowned upon. Kissing up, back stabbing, and seeking for power and position were inappropriate. Making decisions by compromise, the politician's favorite tool, was not acceptable.

Finally, WordPerfect Corporation was not a "New Age" company. We were neither employeeowned nor a democracy.

Peter Drucker's book The Practice of Management

Chapter 15 -

If I had to do it all over again, I would have tried to find a way to either run the company officially, with the full support of Alan and Bruce, or shift some of my responsibilities to others. I took myself and my job too seriously. I held on to my opinions so strongly that I always put myself in a position where I had to shoulder too much of the blame. Someone had to say no, but it should have been someone else some of the time.