Business Evaluation

In May 2001, we were hired by Allen & Company to evaluate their portfolio company Interactive Video Technologies (IVT). At that time, IVT was raising a new round of venture investment and Allen & Company was deciding if they would participate. Our evaluation was used to support their investment decision.

During our evaluation, we conducted meetings with senior management, engineering, operations and marketing. We also interviewed one of IVT's early beta customers. Our evaluation many areas affecting the company direction and their ability to achieve their stated goals.

In technical areas, we examined the product technology, software architecture and user experience. We interviewed technical team members and management, evaluated infrastructure, robustness, scalability and shipping process. We also looked at the product feature set and compared it with other products in search of unique competitive advantage in sufficiently large markets.

Our evaluation report was well received at Allen & Company and used to support their investment decision. Allen & Company also gave the report to senior management at IVT and that lead to our direct involvement as strategic consultants to IVT.

This initial report highlighted certain problems and weaknesses with IVT's strategy and their ability to execute on that strategy. We were hired by IVT to further investigate these issues in more detail and make recommendations for improving IVT's prospects.

Our focus for this follow-in investigation was IVT's product positioning, general business model, infrastructure and customer adoption process. We made specific, practical recommendations that improved IVT's ability to find unique competitive advantage, run their server infrastructure smoothly and provide a satisfactory level of service to their early customers.

In addition to directly advising IVT, we also assisted them in working with Mainspring IBM Consulting on a major strategy project. Mainspring was hired specifically to focus on IVT's competitive positioning in depth. We monitored the Mainspring project, provided an independent opinion and generally improved the efficiency of this process.