Elemental Technologies - Case Study Example

Elemental Technologies Case Assess Elementals progress from their founding to the time the B case ends. The fact thatBlackman and his former boss, together with two other former colleagues, founded the company meant that they knew what they were doing and that they were good at what they did. Since they left a company, which lead in its field with amazing sales, showed that the team was confident of its success. Their backgrounds were software engineering, integrated circuit designing and chip designing, which showed that they had what it took to succeed in the industry.

The team had set its sights on the development of compression and transmission technologies, which is useful in the next generation of digital entertainment devices with high capabilities (The Seed Investment Dilemma 1). The four had a good vision and their plans had so much potential. In the beginning, the team was struggling so much that it almost started up within Pixelworks as a “skunk works” unit. However, they never gave up and the team started working on its new architecture. Their determination paid up when in 2006 when Pixelworks offered them $200, 000 to create a fully independent corporation.

Things started looking up for them. Moreover, the team thought that the investment would signal that they had they had their former employer’s blessings and that there was no intellectual property risk. This investment went a long way in helping the team since the development of hardware required cash. In 2006, the hardware specialists (Blackman and West) decided to set out on their own together with Rosenzwieg, (a software authority). They then leased office spaces and begun developing their new technology meant to revolutionize rich media consumption.

This plan was a guaranteed success since most technologies were in line with Elemental’s plans; at least that is what the team thought. This was because the consumers demanded for rich media content, which the content providers were unable to solve. Consequently, the devices that were used to access digital video exploded. The team was sure that in terms of market opportunity, they were definitely going to make it big time (The Seed Investment Dilemma 4). The company then set up meetings with top venture capital firms and was confident that they would receive funding within six months.

Nevertheless, this was not the case. The venture companies doubted whether there was room in the technological world for Elemental’s envisioned architecture. This is because it seemed unlikely that people would buy add-on processing cards to install into their computers. The biggest mistake that Elemental made was being overconfident. Instead, the team should have conducted thorough market research to find out what really the consumers wanted while considering all aspects. Despite the fizzling of their plan, the Elemental team was still determined to find a new challenge that they could address together.

Instead of going into new technological domains, the company decided to return to digital video, an area they were familiar with (The Seed Investment Dilemma 6). West then left the company and the company decided to take a software approach. After taking the software path, Nvidia, a graphics chip giant, became of interest to Blackwell. Elemental demonstrated its work to Nvidia and the managers were impressed. This paid up and in 2007, they got their first angel investment and Nvidia invested $5000 for a stake in the company.

The fact that investors and a big company like Nvidia believed in elemental meant that the work the team was doing was promising. Despite their technology, Badaboom, having great reviews, once again this technology did not prove a viable commercial product (The Nvidia Investment 6). This was mainly because users requested for more functionality, which Nvidia wanted incorporated. Elemental then decided to do business with Intel since they saw the incorporation of several functionalities being unreasonable.

This, Elemental shifted all its resources to internet video processing. This move might have been a big mistake since by fall 2009, the team had not booked a single sale for their internet video processing servers. This again showed that there was something wrong that the company had been doing all along.2. What do you recommend Sam do at the end of the B case?Sam Blackman should look at all the moves they have made since the company’s inception to find out why the ventures have not been successful despite the innovations being new to the market.

He should also conduct thorough market research to find out what really the consumer needs instead of aiming to create better products that nobody else has thought of before. Sticking with Nvidia might be a better choice since their relationship had been productive.Works CitedDann, J. Elemental Technologies: The Seed Investment DilemmaDann, J. Elemental Technologies: The Nvidia Investment