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Another one bites the dust

I'm all for Kiwis creating, developing and commercialising hi-tech products.

What I'm not so in favour of are companies that go off half-cocked without doing any sensible market analysis or who woefully over-estimate the value or potential of their own products or services.

Sadly, far too many Kiwi tech startups fall into that half-cocked category and, as we've seen with the Martin Jetpack and a raft of other failed ventures, not doing your homework is a fantastic recipe for failure.

Well it seems that yet another Kiwi tech enterprise has bitten the dust of failure.

I'm talking about the NZ drone company wannabe Altus Solutions who, coincidentally, got funding from NZ Trade and Enterprise -- another perfect example of how government is woefully incapable of picking winners in the hi-tech arena.

Just as the Martin Jetpack got $900K of taxpayers money, Altus Solutions also got a good old suck on the taxpayer's teat and utlimately failed.

The media first reported the huge "potential" of this company and its products back 2015, claiming that they'd secured a foothold in the US market.

Cue Tui's ad.

Today however, we read that Altus Solutions has gone into liquidation.

Part of me says good on them for "giving it a go" but another part of me says "what the hell were you thinking?"

Now I know first hand just how easy it is to get caught up in the excitement of a new industry and think you've got a world-beating product. However, before I throw money at such a venture, I do my very, very best to be a nay-sayer. I go to great lengths to look at the "worst case" scenario. I research all the possible competition, their backers, possible new tech that would invalidate or damage my own business case and generally I try to find good reasons NOT to proceed.

Far more often than not, those reasons are easy to find and valid.

In the case of the Martin Jetpack, even a schoolboy could have seen that it was never going to be a viable commercial product and that it was simply a personal dream boosted by a good story and the chance for a few VCs to make a quick buck.

In the case of Altus Solutions, once again it was easy to see that there was nothing that made their craft a superior solution to anything else that was or might appear on the market.

They had a CO2-powered ballistic parachute. Big wow!

The reality is that ballistic chutes are still more of a concept than a reality. There are still companies pitching ballistic chutes but when put to the test, they seem to fail almost as often than they actually work and in the safety game less than 100% reliability is just not sufficient.

The other oft-overlooked issue is marketing.

Sure, you can build a website and load it up with fancy images, specifications and perhaps even a video or two but, as we all know, that makes you just another tree in a forest of similar websites. Your online presence is an essential part of the total marketing program but when you're selling enterprise-level equipment, there are far more critical (and expensive) elements than just some HTML on a server somehwere. This is where many fledgling NZ hi-tech enterprises fall down.

The drone market in particular is intensely competitive and has a number of exceptionally well-funded players who already have such a level of critical mass that it becomes all but impossible for a small startup to create even the smallest niche.

Given that Altus Solutions had no real point of distinction (despite their parachute claims) and were woefully ill-prepared to competefrom a marketing perspective, the outcome we've just seen was always going to be on the cards.

I really wish that those who try to bring what they believe to be clever new hi-tech ventures to the market would be far more self-critical and instead of only focusing on how great they and their offerings are, spend more time trying to come up with valid reasons why they might not succeed.

And a word to government... stop throwing taxpayers' money at ventures which are doomed right from the start. You do not have the necessary savvy to pick winners from losers (I've done a *far* better job over the years) and instead of this ludicrous approach, why not create a level playing field with over-unity tax credits that mean the failures don't actually cost taxpayers a single red cent?

With the need for us to stimulate a knowledge-based (hi tech) economy even greater than ever in a COVID-19 world, I'd really like to see government stop being the dickheads they have proven to be and instead, create an environment where everyone has a fair go and receives the incentives needed to promote success.

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