#cpusage

[mattwallington]

Launching CPUsage at Techcrunch Disrupt SF 2013

Another early September is over, and with it another Techcrunch Disrupt SF is in the bag.  The battlefield stage presenters, show floor companies, press and investors have all gone home.  The last of the stage setup and show floor furniture has been moved out on large trucks.  San Francisco was returned in (almost) the same condition it was left.

CPUsage was given a huge opportunity by being chosen among twenty-nine other early stage companies to launch our flagship cloud platform-as-a-service product on stage in front of approximately three thousand investors and technical press, with thousands more on live stream. 

You are probably asking: “What?! A cloud B2B service was selected as a TC Disrupt battlefield presenter?”  If so, you are right.  We don’t match the typical profile of a TC Disrupt company.  They tend to trend more towards B2C, mobile apps, internet startups - Flashy products targeting millions of consumers that will pay little to no money per user.  CPUsage is targeting a segment of cloud computing referred to as High Performance and High Throughput scale computing.  Success for us isn’t millions of free visitors to our website but instead a market with a much fewer number of customers but a much larger spend per customer.

So how did it go?  Well, we didn’t win.  We didn’t even make the final round – But we knew we wouldn’t.  It wasn’t a win for Techcrunch but it was a huge win for CPUsage.  The goal going in was general awareness and customers.  We walked away with a list of interested customers bigger than we can currently handle.  First world problems I guess.

Big thank you to Techcrunch.  We are grateful for the opportunity we were given.  A huge thank you to my team who put in all they possibly could (and then some) to make this happen!

[mattwallington]

What Does it Really Mean to Pivot Your Startup?

The buzz phrase of the year seems to be “pivoting your startup”.  I’ve found that like most buzz phrases it gets overused a lot.  Some founders use it to refer to a new business strategy or area they are looking to expand the company into in addition to the current business.  Others decide to scrap the previous model and go after more lucrative prospects.  The remaining crowd uses it as a way to say their business is falling flat on it’s face but they can’t bring themselves to admit that directly to their investors.  Yikes! Startups are (or at least should be) very fluid.  Now, It’s not generally wise to completely change your core branding, product, design, or business model based on what a single person tells you (even if it is someone from that famous investment firm that you’ve idolized for so long).  Trust me, it’s easy to get caught up with that.  You have been living and breathing your company since you first started it and nobody know’s it better than you do.  But don’t let pride get in the way either.  Many people who give you ideas have had experience building a startup from the ground up.  As a cofounder it’s your job to take in all of the data, ideas, skepticism, facts, and opinions and make the best decision for the company to move it to the next level. Pivoting is something that should happen regularly based on informed decisions.  I don’t know of many startups that landed an exit on the EXACT business model that was conceptualized before the initial seed investment.  Change is necessary to survive. i can tell you first hand at CPUsage our core vision has not changed much, however we’ve learned so much over the past year and a half and our approach to fulfilling our vision has changed dramatically for the better.  The product we have developed targets a much bigger and more lucrative market than we were originally going after.  We’ve had more time to learn what our customer’s pain points are and build a product that solves them. Keep things fluid!  Don’t be afraid to make slight changes on a regular basis to keep the company running in the right direction.  Your stakeholders (customers, employees, investors) are depending on you to shape and guide the company on it’s path to success.  Don’t forget to have fun in the process.

[babsonoel-blog]

CPUsage

Industry: Infrastructure-as-a-service

Company Description: CPUsage is a technology startup that offers infrastructure-as-a-service (cloud computing) through the harnessing of unused processing power from idle computers. Customers come from Life Sciences, Financial, Animation, and Engineering industries.

Project Description: CPUsage faces a unique challenge of marketing to customers as well as to its suppliers. CPUsage suppliers are computer owners (individuals or organizations) who are willing to lease their idle computer time for a reasonable compensation. 

CPUsage customers are organizations in need of computer power to run powerful analysis/simulations etc.

Project Deliberables:  Milestones can be measured in terms of various deliverables which will comprise the full marketing plan, to name a few –

-          Target supplier/customer identification

-          Incentive plan for the supplier

-          Marketing Strategy for the suppliers

-          Sales strategy for the customers

  Ideally, the team will have regular check-ins and mini-presentations that cover specific elements of the marketing plan.

[paul-russell]

CPUsage pays you for your idle computer

From Stacey Higginbotham @ GigaOM, on CPUsage:

The eight-month-old startup wants to pay folks so it can harness their idle compute time to sell to corporations. CEO and co-founder Jeff Martens estimates an average user donating four hours of compute time every day could score about $10 a month.

I remember discussing a very similar idea to this with Andrew Savory what must have been 11 or 12 years ago now. Like most of my ideas, I did nothing with it. Proof positive that without execution, a good idea is worthless.

I hope the CPUsage does well. My only concern (other than the name, which personally I think lacks polish) in this day and age is that I think less and less people have spare CPU cycles these days. We're all using mobile devices and laptops that are only really on when we use them. Don't get me wrong, I know there are still lots of cycles going spare up and down the country, but I wonder if the pool is shrinking rather than growing.