Monday, October 16, 2000		Article

Diary of co-founders of Rools.com

The thing about running a dotcom is keeping your mind on the job. Our sole aim is to get our service up and running. As former management consultants, we have seen lots of businesses struggle to change, grow or deliver because they are actually trying to do too much.

The problem for us is fame. The increased Rools’ profile means more companies are approaching us with a view to partnership: during the last week alone two US firms have approached us.

The first was a Nasdaq-listed company providing online business banking services. They are planning to move into Europe next year and were seeking partners. Although there did appear to be some potential "synergies", we agreed that it was too early for both companies to talk about a formal relationship.

The second was a company that operates interactive services for teenagers. Their objective was a little different, although this was not immediately obvious.

Despite their opening suggestions of "marketing alliances, content distribution and opportunities for sharing core technology," the bottom line was they were running out of cash and saw us as a means of securing survival. Thanks, but no thanks.

Of more interest are the tentative inquiries from firms considering licensing our technology for use in their own applications, from online knowledge exchanges to third party hardware sales. Businesses are interested in our solution for real time processing transactions online. It might mean early revenue for us — and that, surely, can’t be bad?

Well, yes and no: it presents us with a bit of a dilemma. At the moment, our technology is the unique selling point — we have used the best software to develop and support it, including Oracle, Java and a Web-based administration tool from RCLSoftnet.com.

The worry is that if we license out the software it will not be unique. Unlike with the other approaches mentioned, however, we feel that licensing opportunities are worth taking to the next stage.

This sort of distraction — making money when we didn’t think it was possible — is something we really don’t mind.

— By arrangement with The Guardian