Mercury Swan Consulting offers several services to companies in various stages of evolution including:
Pitching to potential investors or venture capital companies
A common mistake that founders make when pitching their companies to investors or venture capitalists is to focus uniquely on their "grand vision" of long term company evolution. Often this type of pitch lacks a pragmatic explanation of what can be realistically achieved in the current market and investment climate. Mercury Swan Consulting helps companies to say the "right things" by simplifying and focusing the company pitch to something that is tangible and relevant. More than once we have been able to help morph a company's original, but ineffective, pitch into something that is easy to explain to investors without giving up on the grand vision of what your company could become.
Making introductions to new partners, new customers or investors
Mercury Swan Consulting can help you get in touch with the right people such as prospective partners, potential customers or investors. Mercury Swan Consulting can also help to facilitate the meetings by participating in initial discussions around company or product strategy and direction. Because of Mercury Swan Consulting's extensive years of experience in the area of technology/company scouting, your company will have immediate credibility with prospects. Even just listing one of us as a senior advisor on your company's website will make your potential partners, customers or investors more interested in what you have to offer them.
Technology Strategy and Business development
The right product portfolio and product evolution direction will allow you to more easily attract (big) customers and will make your company a more attractive acquisition target. Mercury Swan Consulting can help in developing an enhanced product road map and a better set of products that more effectively use the technology that is at the core of your company.
High level product architecture
Because of our extensive technical background Mercury Swan Consulting can participate in high level product architecture discussions with your CTO, chief architects or VP of engineering. Mercury Swan Consulting is able to create a "bridge" between what the technology can do or be made to do versus what it is that your (potential) customers need it to do. Mercury Swan Consulting can help to create a fine balance between business needs and technology needs. For example, for one company Mercury Swan Consulting developed a proof of concept demo to highlight the benefits and advantages of the product.
Technology scouting and technology trend monitoring
Large companies grow by acquisition. Finding the right company to acquire, one that matches your corporate culture and fills your technology gaps, can be a challenging task. Our CEO's 10 year experience of being the leader of the Symantec Technology Scouting group is at your disposal to help keep you abreast of the latest technology trends for the next 3-5 years. With this service, you will be informed and kept up to date as to what new technology developments are ongoing in the market.
Technical Due diligence
Another skill our CEO acquired during his tenure at Symantec was the ability to very quickly investigate the technologies being offered by a company in order to see what really makes them "tick" and compare their technologies with similar technologies offered by other companies. This service is primarily aimed at (large) companies looking to do an acquisition, potential investors or venture capital companies, but it is also useful in case your company wants to see how their technology is perceived and positioned with respect to competitive offerings.
From Europe to the Valley or from the Valley to Europe
Our CEO offers unique insights into both the European and North American technology markets. Because he spent part of his career in Europe and part of it in Silicon Valley, Hans can offer his expertise and experience to help your company create a bridge between these very different markets. This service is aimed at helping companies to adapt their product portfolio and product roadmap to align with the needs of the target market that they wish to enter.
Expert witness for patent lawsuits
Our CEO can be hired as an expert witness. His expertise areas cover: server virtualization, cloud computing, storage technologies, security and open source. So if you need an expert witness then please contact us.
Intellectual Property strategy
Every company, even a start-up, needs an Intellectual Property (IP) Strategy program. Patenting your core technologies not only makes the company more valuable to investors (and potential acquirers), but it also protects you from frivolous and time consuming lawsuits. In the US you can easily spend one to two million dollars on legal fees just to prove that you didn't infringe on someone's patents when being sued. The simple truth is that if you have your own patents then you are much less likely to be sued for patent infringement. Our CEO has many years experience with Intellectual Property strategies while he was a member of the Symantec patent filter committee. In this role he decided which of the many technologies invented should be patented to provide optimal protection and benefits to the company's business.
Contact us if you want us to help you to figure out which of your technologies should be patented and we will explain how to make the whole process most efficient and effective.
Feel free to contact us.