TOPICS COVERED:
- New to the Cogniom Investor email updates? Click here to get caught up!
- INDUSTRY IMPACTS: Corona Virus Updates
- TECH UPDATE: TANDM v4 near release!
- FINANCE UPDATES
- MARKET RESEARCH SUMMARY
The past three weeks have had a massive impact from Corona Virus globally (as I’m sure everyone is aware). I wanted to send out an email to our investors to update everyone on the measures we are taking to adapt.
Industry Impacts: Corona Virus Updates
It’s very interesting to see how our calls with potential customers have suddenly become very polarized. The Corona fears have split a lot of people into two camps. 1) Needing a study built urgently and start to drastically reduce inefficiencies and costs or 2) those without any pain or awareness and not really taking any action yet. That said, we’ve had a jump in studies coming across my desk — one of which asked for a direct quote this morning. So there’s definitely action getting generated from the current situation on both sides of the fence.
During customer interviews with Big Four consulting firms, I had a partner tell me that Time and Motion and Lean for them went out of “style” in the last 10 years because the economy has been doing so ridiculously well. They had been focusing the last few years on their efforts on how to create better “customer experiences” as their strategy focus since about 2012. Consultancies have also tended to shift their services to be completely quantitative collections from system logs and surveys whenever possible to limit their staff requirements of physically taking data manually. It makes sense from a cost cutting measure, which is probably why the missing qualitative inputs from interviews and observations led to the customer and employee experience studies they were doing. I think we are seeing a new shift in our economy which will lead to 1) hospitals overrun with too many patients and too few resources while simultaneously we will have 2) hotels, flights, tourism, restaurants, clubs, and most events cancelled from lack of customers (or possibly being temporarily illegal to operate within social distancing restrictions) for the foreseeable future. So the pendulum will likely swing back into cost cutting and time saving measures for lots of industries – now with a massive urgency.
I’ve narrowed a list of 24 potential customers types down to our 7 most likely. While the Corona Virus pandemic will be quite tragic, I believe we may be able to help a lot of people prove the need to go digital, automate, and transform rapidly wherever possible to stay afloat. I can’t wait to show you everything we have been working on this month — I have no idea what the future holds, but I think this new economic environment could be a blessing in disguise if we are able to play our cards right.
Tech Updates:
1) TANDM version 4.0 is on its way! Multi-observed studies for watching multiple stations or areas at once. Great for patient flow in operating theaters or different “cycles” of repeated workflows happening on a recurring assembly line.
2) Bryce 2.0 has officially arrived in the form of Cogniom’s first newborn arrival!
The proud Daddy is currently on paternity leave, but before Bryce left he was able to create an Excel importer that will form the basis of our new API functionality. This is allowing us to pull data in from any system and transform it into TANDM-like timings and useful data without the need of a person physically hitting buttons out on location. We’ve already used it to pull in the timings and data from an alarm call system to see how many pages are going out to nurses in an Aged Care facility and where the longest visits usually occur as a trend! In layman’s terms, TANDM is now able to bring in historical data from any system we export from!
Finances:
We’ve been working really hard on our projections (lots of COCA and LTV research) to make sure we’re on track and taking the new Corona virus economy into consideration. We’re going to be looking at ways we can extend our runway and for the time being, operate under the assumption that for now at least – all future investments will likely come to a halt. Additionally, because of social distancing, I have asked everyone to start working remotely from home and use Slack and Zoom for chats and video conferencing together. I’ll still be communicating with potential investors that exist in our pipeline, but I think the record low stock prices may prove too enticing for private investors to pass up at the moment. Just all the more reason to try and turn a profit earlier…Game On!
Sales and Marketing:
I’ve been reading a LOT to get ramped up in this space. One of my favorite books thus far has been “Sell More Faster: The Ultimate Sales Playbook for Startups” by Amos Schwartzfarb. I even got to meet him over a video chat last week to thank him in person for his help. I’ve been overhauling our entire marketing and sales process since then with additional suggestions from a master marketing consultant, Samantha Pickering as well as our Cogniom early Investor, Chris Hewson. Working on social media automations and defining a clear message to each customer segment has helped Zoe revamp our executive summary (link: https://docsend.com/view/ghgwejr). We’re also revamping the website and putting into motion a massive email and social media campaign with blogs and posts referring to our new TANDM marketplace. The TANDM Marketplace will help start a lot of conversations for businesses in peril looking for assistance to adjust to a new economic landscape.
I expect that we will see a lot more disruption and upheaval in the coming months as Corona virus continues to affect people globally. However, a startup’s superpower has always been staying agile enough in changing times to use it as a benefit.
So that’s our wrap up for now, we’re living the typical start up dream of working from the garage again, but it’s still business as usual. Lucky for us, we have decent internet! So if you want a chat to pass the isolation time or if there is something we can help you with, then please reach out. Until then, we wish you all virtual hugs, good health, (and plenty of toilet paper!) during this turbulent time.
