Word: wavesmith
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Robert Dalias was convinced he had a better mousetrap--a new kind of switching device that U.S. telephone companies seemed eager to buy from his start-up company, WaveSmith Networks. But as the telecom crash washed over his customers and prospects, one after another canceled or postponed orders. His venture-capital investors started making nervous noises. So Dalias looked abroad for help. Despite having a meager track record and no multinational distribution channels, the CEO landed his first big sale, to NetOne Systems, a leading tech distributor and systems integrator based in Tokyo, and that success helped Dalias close...
This is not, of course, how things are supposed to work. Start-up companies normally seek to establish themselves in a local market before expanding abroad. But with U.S. customers on their backs in such industries as telecom, more start-ups like WaveSmith are finding their first foothold abroad, especially in Japan and Korea. Those countries haven't escaped the global tech collapse, but their governments and companies continue to spend, especially on broadband Internet access and third-generation wireless technology. But as always in global business, connections count...
...becoming a venture capitalist, Feinstein had been vice president of marketing in charge of global sales at New Oak Communications, a maker of Internet security devices that is now part of Nortel Networks. Through his contacts, Feinstein was able to entice the business-development director of NetOne to visit WaveSmith at its Acton, Mass., headquarters for a demonstration of its new multiservice switch. The product, which transmits data, voice and video in a carrier's central office, piqued the interest of the Japanese because it cost half as much as competing switches and was twice as efficient. After six months...
...helps to have a partner in the export market you have targeted--whether a distributor, equipment manufacturer or systems integrator--that knows the vagaries of the market and has relationships with your potential customers. WaveSmith's partner in Japan, NetOne, is part of a telecommunications keiretsu, a network of businesses that own stakes in one another. NetOne used WaveSmith's product in NTT Communications' telephone-equipment offices nationwide. It is now integrating the technology into the Internet and telephony systems of other undisclosed Japanese companies. This has expanded WaveSmith's Japanese customer base almost overnight. About a fourth of WaveSmith...
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