Howard Anderson x The Yankee Group | Battery Venture Capital | Educator
Differentiating hype from opportunity in a rapidly changing technological marketplace.
For Howard Anderson the future lies in the hands of young bright minds and the marrying of innovative technologies. As early as 1970, he had founded the Yankee Group, an independent technology and consulting firm analyzing companies in the high tech industry. He then founded Battery Venture Capital in 1983, a global, technology-focused venture capital and private equity firm that has raised over $4 billion investing in 350+ high tech companies, primarily communication-based technologies.
As an investor in high tech, Anderson stresses the importance of, “Finding the application of the technology. You can either look for a need and try to find the solution or you can look at a technology and see where it applies”.
The capacity of technology is evolving rapidly with the introduction of hype machines, cloud computing and artificial intelligence. However, Anderson stresses the importance of evaluating companies for funding by assessing three key factors:
Management: Are there people who are invested and capable of growing the company?
Uniqueness of Product/Service Offering and Protectability
Market Growth/Market Leader Potential: Is there growth potential in this market? Will this company be one of the top four companies in the industry?
“Sometimes you have to think, and a partial solution right away is better than the perfect solution two days too late. Partially some of this is street smarts. Do you know how to get out of a difficult situation? How do you overcome confrontation? Is it possible to find a different common enemy and where you and the two protagonists can solve it together and come to some kind of negotiation? Or when do you take a firm stand?”
Anderson takes an active role in mentoring the next generation of entrepreneurs and changemakers. He has taught at Harvard Business School, MIT, Dartmouth, Duke, Indian School of Business, Technion University of Israel, and Skolkovo Innovation Center. He emphasises to his students the necessity of acknowledging adversity and tackling it with strategic action and teamwork. His courses are case-study based, and seek to provide students with valuable problem-solving tools and experience working proactively on their feet and on teams. He highlights that adversity defined as “insufficient time, insufficient money, and insufficient information” when making a decision is formative pressure. Currently a professor at Brown, he is seeking to initiate an experiential education summer program which would give students team-based entrepreneurial experience, leveraging their diversity of skill-sets to solve real-world problems.
“I always bet on youth. Youth will make some mistakes that more seasoned people won’t, but not that many. You learn lessons. Youth has the ambition to do things that haven't been done or they can do things that once proved that they don’t work that now do work”
Fun Facts: Fedex was founded as Federal Express Corporation in 1971, by 28-year old Memphis, Tennessee native, Fredrick W. Smith. Smith originally outlined his idea for an overnight delivery service as a Junior at Yale University.