ENTREPRENEURSHIP

A personal (& subjective) story

Yan-David Erlich
Rice 00 (CS, ECE)
RATE Presenter, 2000

SOME FACTS

You need to be young

You need to have an idea before you start
You need to be an engineer
You need to have already demonstrated success
You need to have a team
You need to have a determined business model
You need to have proprietary IP
You need to know your market size

You need to already know VCs / funding sources

If all of these needed to be true,

the following companies
wouldnt exist:

20 YEARS AGO

NOT ALWAYS THE MOST DIRECT PATH

Microsoft

Google

IT TAKES GRIT

March 12, 2007

March 12, 2007

ITS A ROLLERCOASTER

THE STATS

Raised 500K from angels

4 employees at max size
Pivoted once
Company existed for 18 months
Sold to iSkoot Qualcomm
Modest exit
Some tech survives inside QCOM

Raised $6M from venture

26 employees at max size
Pivoted once
Company existed for 24 months
Sold to LinkedIn (pre IPO)
Good outcome
Survives as InPages

Raised $1M from angels

8 employees at max size
Pivoted once
Company existed for 15 months
Liquidation / Shutdown
100% loss of capital
Survives in our hearts

ABOUT PARSABLE
We replace legacy paper-based workflows with
a digital collaboration app for industrial teams

Trusted By
Category leaders in Oil & Gas, Consumer
Products, Industrial Manufacturing, and
Logistics

Funded By
The top tier investors behind Google, Amazon,
LinkedIn, Uber, Genentech, Citrix, Box,
DocuSign, and many others

Backed By
Strategic investments from venture groups of
the worlds largest companies, in addition to
being customers

WHY IT MATTERS
KNOWLEDGE WORKERS

Information
Services

Finance

Real
Estate

Professional
Services

INDUSTRIAL & FIELD WORKERS

Leisure

Energy

Manufacturing

Construction

Logistics

Life
Sciences

DIGITIZATION ISNT ENOUGH

Healthcare: Proportion of Patients not Receiving Recommended Care
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
-

Healthcare

Apprenticeship

Paper Charts

Digital PDF of Paper

Charts

EHR

Collaboration / Checklist
Manifesto

Industry
Evolution

Apprenticeship

Paper Procedures

Digital PDF of Paper

Procedures

Digital Data Entry

+ Central Database

Collaborative Execution

Current Digitization Efforts

Source: The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, by Atul Gawande

1. DIGITIZE PROCEDURES

Author procedures in a simple web interface, no

coding required

Add fields for operators to collect data including

signatures & rich media

Share up-to-date best practices on the fly & with

ease

See the history of each procedure with change &

revision tracking

Embed reference manuals and diagrams for easy

access and training

2. EXECUTE & COLLABORATE

Resolve issues quickly with multi-media chat

between relevant stakeholders

Deliver training through embedded specs &

reference material

Perform remote inspections using hi-res photos &

videos

Adapt to deviations for jobs in progress using your

digital library of procedures

Seamlessly transition between online, offline, or

low connectivity environments

3. ANALYZE & IMPROVE

Get a live report of all participants, deviations,

chats, signatures & timestamps

Instantly generate customized reports and audits

of completed or in-progress jobs

Take advantage of 3rd party analytics by

integrating with our real-time API

Use your newfound data to continuously improve

everything from start to finish

JOBS DONE RIGHT, EVERY TIME

Product Video
https://www.parsable.com/productvideo

UP-TO-DATE
INSTRUCTIONS

MULTIMEDIA
COLLABORATION

EFFORTLESS DATA
CAPTURE

Give workers accurate, step-by-step job

instructions they can view and check off
on their phoneseven in areas with
poor or no Internet access.

Collaborate with colleagues and supply

chain partners through live step by step
chats and in-context photo, video and
audio sharing.

Capture and confirm data in real-time and

eliminate transcription and other related
errors.
.

CUSTOMER CASE STUDY

Schlumberger is reducing non-productive time by 10x

Schlumberger is working
with Parsable to develop
and deploy a digital
solution that allows us to
author, execute, and
monitor standard work
instructions across our
global operations.

CEO-driven initiative to reduce NPT by 10x, and create & share institutional knowledge
before the great Crew Change
Parsable chosen as the collaborative platform for implementing Standard Work

Create SW by collaborating among authors, SMEs, and reviewers

Enable instant feedback loop for the first time between content owners and executors
Collaboratively execute SW while discovering and responding to real-world exceptions
Enable real-time cross-supply chain collaboration for the first time, among business units and
with external suppliers

En route to NPT reduction, leading indicators of success include the percentage of jobs
executed using Parsable, and degree of procedural adherence
Parsable is in use globally by four Field Services business units so far

Value Creation

Asset Utilization

Final # of
Global Users

$100 M
Annually

+ 100%

50,000

LESSONS ALONG THE WAY

Be really thoughtful about who you choose as co-founders

Team & culture matter most. Spend time on them, even early
Its a rollercoaster: learn to temper your own psychology
It takes grit. Your successes thus far have been easy in comparison
Take advice, but not too much. Exceptions rule
Its a disease. Warning: you may never want to get a regular job again
Celebrate the wins. Its a journey

TWO (MIS-ATTRIBUTED) QUOTES

If youre going through hell, keep going.

Raised 30M from venture & corporate
> 40 employees
Pivoted once
Company exists for for 3 years
Rest of the story remains to be written

TWO (MIS-ATTRIBUTED) QUOTES

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back
concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary
truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:
That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence
moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never
otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the
decision, raising in ones favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and
meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed
would have come his way.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it
now.

Raised 30M from venture & corporate

> 40 employees
Pivoted once
Company exists for for 3 years
Rest of the story remains to be written

THANK YOU