Russell Beattie

So, just about everyone I knew back in the late 1990s wanted to start a cool company and I was no different. I tried, and failed miserably. Mostly because I had no idea what the flying fuck I was doing and I was trying to market an idea and not a product. I've got lots of ideas... so does everyone else. Didn't stop me from sinking $10+k into it over a year or so before I gave up and cut my losses. Anyone want an 6'x6' banner with that logo on it? Maybe 30 or so left over t-shirts? (Beafy T's) Business cards? While you're at it, could you call the state of California and appologize for those missed franchise fees?

From my business plan (which I just dug out of it's zipped and archived grave:

Executive Summary

# The Avedia name was derived from "Audio/Visual Education" and when pronounced, "Avedia" rhymes with "media".

# Avedia Inc, was created to address the need for corporate training and education. It will provide tools to both play and create online multimedia presentations containing information such as how-to's, policies and other corporate knowledge. Additionally, Avedia.com will be an online community where consumers will be able to view free multimedia tutorials and seminars created by Avedia, Inc. or they can create their own presentations for viewing by others.

# The Avedia Presenter and Presentation Builder will be Java based applications created using the latest in Java technology. The multimedia files will be able to reside on a common web server without the need for additional hardware or specialized server software.

# Avedia will derive revenue from a variety of sources including Software Sales, Banner Ads, Sponsorships, Professional Services, Affiliate Programs, Custom Classes and online "Live" training.

# By the year 2002, IDC expects the Web-based IT Training market to exceed $5.5 billion. This represents only a fraction of the overall Web-based learning market. Just last year, 78% of all corporate training was still delivered by an instructor. According to IDC, within the next three years, almost half of all training conducted worldwide will be delivered via computer. Web-based learning will undergo the most dramatic growth in this evolving market.

# A variety of competitors are already converging on the web-based training market including DigitalThink, Ziff-Davis University, Learn2.com and Alive.com. Avedia will differentiate itself from these competitors by providing free online tutorials and easy to use applications for users to create and view their own presentations both online and on internal corporate intranets.

# Russell Beattie is the President, founder and sole member of all corporate positions. He has spent the last five years as a technology consultant to Fortune 500 and internet companies.

Vision/Mission

Avedia, Inc. wants to make it easy for people to learn something new.

Streaming multimedia is finally becoming mainstream and there are exciting new applications that use this technology, one of the most important being online education and learning. Corporations in particular have a specific need to inexpensively train their employees in the skills and knowledge they will need as we enter the 21st century. Avedia, Inc. was created to address this need

Avedia's website will be a repository for training and educational presentations; providing free, easy-to-use tutorials created by professionals and experts in their fields of expertise. We will also create and sell the tools that users will need to create educational materials of their own for use in their corporation, or for public use on the Internet.

Avedia sees itself becoming a leader, not only in the online educational market, but in the Internet streaming multimedia market itself. This larger market is heading for rapid growth as streaming technologies advance, faster computers become the norm and bandwidth becomes greater for individual users.

Market Overview

According to market research company International Data Corp. (IDC), research, 96% of corporations have an Intranet, but only 15% are using them for training. To a great extent, the corporate infrastructure is already in place for enterprise online learning systems. However, inside the corporation, network bandwidth is being underutilized and both corporations and consumers still face the reality of 28.8 kbps speed connections in remote offices and homes.

Corporations that wish to use their infrastructure for training purposes will be looking to easily deploy and manage online learning to users throughout the enterprise without client-side download. The Avedia Presenter will be in the form of a light Java Applet and stream audio/visual information over as little as a modem connection.

Additionally, broadband solutions are rapidly coming into the home as well as cheaply priced multimedia computers- a perfect combination to provide multimedia presentations to the average consumer looking to learn more skills. And there will be ever more of those users looking to learn online; According to IDC the days of the Internet rush aren't over yet as the number of people connected to the Internet will mushroom from 150 million today to 500 million in 2003.

The Avedia website and Presentation Builder will be attractive to those users who want to use the web for learning but don't want to have to try to gather and read all the information themselves. Even though some recent reports have the trend of Internet use going towards entertainment instead of this type of educational site, according to Forrester research, after email, the second most popular activity on the web is for research purposes. Forrester also reported that as users use the web more, they are attracted to more productive areas and shy away from fluff or entertainment.

The Avedia website will provide multi-lingual presentations to capture the growing world-wide Internet growth trend. According to Forrester Research, much of the growth that occurs in the coming years will occur outside the United States. In the next 2 years alone, the U.S. will for the first time account for less than half of the Internet usage. Avedia wants to be able to capture markets outside of the English-language-only web.

According to research by IDC, Web-based learning growth will explode in the coming years. By the year 2002, IDC expects the Web-based IT training market alone to exceed $5.5 billion. This represents only a fraction of the overall Web-based learning market.

Just last year, 78% of all corporate training was delivered by an instructor. According to IDC, within the next three years, almost half of all training conducted worldwide will be delivered via computer. Web-based learning will undergo the most dramatic growth in this evolving market.

Under pressure to utilize their computer infrastructure for training, companies are deciding whether to build or buy content to fulfill their training needs. The majority of purchasable content is in the IT software category which represents only a fragment of all content needs. As a result, companies are struggling to migrate their existing content to the Web and becoming more dependent upon creating their own Web-optimized content.

Total dot-com bullshit. I had no idea (I still don't) about what it takes to start or run a company or make money from an idea like this ("banner ads?!?"), but it's amazing at how YOUNG I seemed, even though it's only a few years later. WOof. That presentation is a mind trip. I'm saying shit on there that's ridiculous, to say the least. No wonder no one funded me.

Anyways, I thought of this because of the amazing resemblence to the company that Macromedia just bought called Presedia which I just read about it on Marc's blog. Wild. Brings back lots of memories. It's nie to think I was trying to get stuff like this going years ago and now it's a cool bit of news when someone actually accomplishes those goals. At least I was on the right track (and had sorta the right name. ;-) ).

-Russ