so I’ve spent 35 years of my life trying
to disrupt a single specific market
software market for computer-aided
design software or CAD software as we
call it I’ve worked in this field since
I was literally a teenager and along the
way I’ve started three different
companies in CAD software my first
company premise you’ve probably never
heard of my second company SolidWorks I
started in 1993 with the goal of
disrupting the CAD marketplace in
providing a new solution to CAD users
around the world and we succeeded in
doing it SolidWorks I think truly
disrupted the market and over the 20
years almost 20 years I was there
SolidWorks rose to have millions of
users create billions of dollars in
revenue and billions of dollars in value
and most importantly I think it have
improved the way that millions of
products around the world have been
designed and manufactured and that’s
most the most gratifying part of the
disruption but after 20 years at
SolidWorks
I could see that the market was ready
for a new generation of disruption and
so I left and I started a new company
called on shape with the goal to once
again disrupt the CAD market and do
something good for the design teams of
the world this time built on cloud web
and mobile technology to respond to the
needs of modern product design teams now
I’m not sure everyone knows too much
about CAD software some of you do and
some you don’t but you’ll you’ll kind of
infer along the way what it’s about
so I’m here today to talk to you about
how to think like a disruptor to fit the
theme of the day of disruption what have
I learned in my 35 years in the CAD
market about how to think what kinds of
thinking processes do disruptors use
what have I used and what have the
companies the many other companies I’ve
seen I’ve been a board member and
advisor at many other companies and I
like you I’ve observed some of the
biggest companies in the world that
disrupt markets too and I’m trying to
bring all that to bear to inform me this
morning in talking to you about what I
see as the ingredients to thinking about
thinking like a disruptor
I’ll organize my comments in the three
aspects of thinking about disrupter
disruption one needs identification how
do we find problems and needs in the
world to ideas and solutions and three
execution because it’s not enough to
have an idea you have to have to
actually go and build it so let’s start
with needs great disruption solves needs
or problems in the world and the thing I
want to tell you about needs is they all
come from people to see needs and
problems in the world
you don’t look at technology you look at
people my father told me as a kid he
said John no matter what you do in life
you must learn to deal with people and
think about people and he was so right
because even though so many of the
disruptions I’ve been part of in so many
of the ones that you might be thinking
about are driven by technology for sure
the problems that we solve are always
people problems so to think like a
disrupter you have to become almost like
a radar scanning system of emotions and
reactions of people starting with
yourself and your own experiences as a
consumer of products as a user of
services but also observing the other
people around you and so my motivation
to start SolidWorks was not only about
CAD technology or the emerging Windows
PC it was also driven most strongly by
looking at CAD users I would visit users
and I’d see them using the old
generation of software and sometimes the
users would tell me how happy they were
with the software they didn’t say they
were having problems but I could see the
problems they had so consumers users of
things sometimes don’t even know
sometimes they’ll complain but sometimes
they won’t complain they’ll just live
with the problems they have and talk
about a matter of factly a disruptor
thinks about those I thought about those
I would watch them using the system and
they they’d show me how easy something
was but it took 21 steps and they had to
write down notes on a piece of paper I’m
like that’s not that easy or they talk
about how affordable it was but I could
see it cost a lot of money and so I
could see in them a need for for
software that was
easier used that was less expensive and
that was really motivating to me in
starting SolidWorks with on shape same
thing I’d visit 20 years later I was
visiting SolidWorks users and I’d see
that as teams had become distributed
worldwide the old-fashioned Windows
software the software I had built 20
years ago was no longer so easy anymore
there was constant problems with license
codes and installs and service packs and
upgrades the expense of the software
which twenty years ago it seemed like a
like affordable was now very expensive
to users and sharing data was really
hard they were trying to send files all
over the world now something we had
never imagined when we built SolidWorks
I saw an opportunity to solve these
problems but only if we would start from
scratch and use the latest in cloud web
and mobile technology and that led me to
leave SolidWorks and start all over
again
with on shape you know maybe it may be
crazy to try again to disrupt the same
market but indeed that’s what I’m that’s
what I’m doing that’s what I’m trying to
do and we think we’re in the middle of
disrupting it again at on shape we’ve
gotten a good start and and it’s coming
along nicely so it starts with user it
starts with understanding needs needs
you feel yourself and needs you observe
and other people in the world second key
way you need to think like a disrupter
is when it comes to seeing ideas and
solutions so you have a feeling for a
problem in the world now you have to
come up with a solution
okay sure we all know to be creative and
looking for solutions but I want to talk
to you about a few other things one is
to be curious in the world be curious
about learning about things and what I
want to tell you is particularly to
learn about things that don’t seem to
matter okay things that don’t seem to be
important to any particular problem at
hand but just in your gut feel
interesting go ahead and spend time
learning about them it was key to me in
starting SolidWorks that I had spent
years prior to SolidWorks playing with
playing with windows-based pcs the new
Windows operating system in PC
and I say playing with because at my
business that I was working in an old
CAD company I would explain to people
how interesting these things were and
the PC and Windows and they’d say John
why are you playing around with that
that stuff doesn’t matter in our market
you know and what I learned in my own
experience is of course it turned out to
matter a lot because today almost all
professional CAD runs on Windows PCs but
at the time in 1993 you know and some of
you are some of you weren’t even born
yet
you you you you really this is the
advantage of being older by the way when
you’re older you get what we in the CAD
business called a perspective view on
things and you can see that just as just
as 20 you know 20 years ago people
everyone was using UNIX workstations and
today you’re gonna look at me like UNIX
workstations you know what are those you
know and someday one of you will be up
here giving a talk like this and you say
Windows PCs and people go Windows PCs
what are those you know and so anyway
the point is I was playing around with
these Windows PCs a lot of disruptions
are a combination of a problem plus a
technology that didn’t matter until it
did okay so Windows PCs didn’t matter to
the CAD market until it did all right
and we see this in in in other stories
like like uber which has been mentioned
a couple times today you know mobile
phones and GPS they didn’t matter the
taxi industry until they did you know
internet search you know an internet
search engine that didn’t matter to the
newspaper business did it until it did
so if you worked at a newspaper and you
were fooling around with internet search
engine people would say why are you
doing that well it turns out Google of
course redefined the entire market for
ads and greatly disrupted not just
newspapers but all of ad-based
publishing models you see it over and
over again with on shape I had spent
years before really thinking about
starting on shape I spent years
experimenting playing around with open
source software with web
web browser HTML and JavaScript with
learning about internet speed why was i
learning about internet speed I don’t
know it didn’t seem relevant to the CAD
business but I was interested in it okay
so don’t be afraid to learn about things
that don’t matter and I encourage all
you to go out and pick something that
doesn’t seem to matter to anything
you’re doing but just interest you it
doesn’t have to be technology either you
can spend time you know you can go to a
crafts fair on Saturday morning and see
someone making something and ask them
what are you doing what where did that
come from what tools are using what’s
new in your world be naturally curious
all the time and you may find that you
develop ideas for disruption that
involve tying something that doesn’t
matter to a problem that you see in your
world
another thing about idea generation that
I want to emphasize is don’t be afraid
of bad ideas too often where we’re
trying upfront – to think that oh I came
up with an idea but it must be really
bad I’m looking for the good idea so we
think of bad ideas and good ideas as
being opposite ends of some spectrum and
mediocrity in the middle I’m not
implying I’m mediocrity I’m just saying
you know what I mean there’s kind of
natural thinking that a bad idea a good
idea I don’t see the world that way I
think bad ideas live in the same
neighborhood as good ideas and they both
live very far from mediocrity you know
what I mean so like like think of it
like a giant hoop earring or something
bad ideas and good ideas success and
failure are like metastable states that
our neighbors from each other and I
think some of the worst ideas I’ve ever
had are very close to some of the best
ideas who ever had you know and so so
get comfortable with brainstorming about
lots of ideas and don’t worry if they’re
good or bad some of the great
entrepreneurs in history have had a lot
of bad ideas Steve Jobs you know who
built the great products at Apple he had
also built the next computer which many
of you have never even heard of go look
it up and I heard someone tell me that
after next immediately after next
he would go lecture at Stanford or
something and the students would be very
uninterested in almost laughing about
what he had done and instead of seeing
his obvious grade
potential another way to put it is I
think visions and hallucinations look
the same until you try to build them you
know you know I mean things that you
you’re sure are the way the world is
going to be and things that turn out to
be mirages they look and feel the same
so get comfortable in that zone
generating lots of ideas don’t worry
about deciding upfront which are the
good or the bad ones like I say I had a
first company that I built and we didn’t
end up it wasn’t a failure but it wasn’t
a huge success we didn’t disrupt the
world but the idea looked and felt very
similar to the ones for SolidWorks err
on shape so don’t be afraid of thinking
of crazy ideas then finally I want to
talk to you about execution too too
often people just stop at seeing a
problem and thinking of an idea and they
don’t go and execute to be a disruptor
to think like a disrupt a disruptor you
have to shift into execution gear which
is very different than just thinking
about it okay
sometimes the the obstacles can appear
impossible in starting SolidWorks people
told me you’re building an entire new
CAD system this was excuse me in 1993
and I’m like yeah we’re gonna build an
entirely new CAD system people thought
it was crazy so so what did I do I got
started building it you know I didn’t
have funding yet I went to year with no
funding by the way I just built it in my
home with some co-founders and we took a
step we started we said let’s get
Windows running let’s get some of the
basics running let’s get a prototype
running okay and we started moving we
weren’t waiting for someone else to do
something we weren’t finding excuses why
not to do it to this day I’m convinced
that many other people probably saw the
same opportunity for SolidWorks they
probably had the same views I did about
the Windows PC being the future of CAD
but they didn’t act on it and the
and people say oh you’re you’re you know
you had a great vision for SolidWorks or
something I tell people I think the
vision was obvious I think if we me and
my co-founders get credit it’s because
we decided to do something about it
same with on shake this time around it’s
a huge job we’re undertaking and it
takes years as I think Whitney said
earlier about how you have to be patient
in the early days as he come up that
curve you often have to have a lot of
perseverance to get through it we did
with SolidWorks we did with on shape and
now we’re getting the rewards of it in
the market as people use the product and
and tell us great stories about how
valuable it is to them this persistence
to execute that I’ve seen in my career
and I’ve seen in other disruptors this
ability to stick the stick-to-itiveness
to execute that is sort of at odds in
some ways with the with the kind of
creativity that I just talked about in
the idea phase or the radar scanning of
the needs and problems identification
phase and so to some degree as a
disrupter you have to be flexible enough
to one day be thinking of wild ideas and
user needs and then enter into this long
struggle of building your product and
it’s usually a struggle that’s normal
it’s usually a rollercoaster ride that’s
normal you know Ben Horowitz who’s Marc
Andreessen is partner he he talks about
this in his book the struggle most
entrepreneurs most disruptors go through
the struggle know that it’s normal when
you’ve done it before you can say it’s
kind of like being on a thrill ride the
first time it’s wild the second time you
say okay I know I know I’m gonna get a
little sick as we go up and down the
rise and fall that’s normal the other
thing I want to tell you about execution
is don’t worry about being first okay
too often we worry oh I don’t want to
start working on this because because
someone else is already doing it don’t
worry about that look at the great
examples in the world like like look at
Facebook anyone remember MySpace before
it I mean people thought MySpace what’s
that yeah
was the social network but Facebook came
up I mentioned Google search but was
Google search the first search engine
no there was AltaVista which looked like
it owned the market
the iPod ok the iPod those of you are
old enough do you remember before the
iPod existed there was the Rio the Rio
mp3 player was very popular I mean I
know you younger people don’t know this
but so don’t worry you don’t have to be
the first but you do have to be ok you
do have to take a step and execute and I
always say if you I can’t if you try I
can’t guarantee that you’ll win and be a
disrupter but I can guarantee that if
you don’t try you won’t win ok I can
guarantee if you don’t try to build your
disruptive idea you won’t build it you
won’t wake up one morning fire oh I was
asleep it doesn’t work that way
so in closing I’ll tell you that I hope
I’ve shared a few lessons a few thoughts
about my 35 years in the CAD market and
my years of observing other disruptors
about finding needs and problems about
coming up with ideas and solutions and
about then going and executing and it’s
my sincere hope that that many of you
try to execute on your own disruptions
in the world and that many of you will
probably experience like I did perhaps
one that doesn’t work out as well but
hopefully many of you will experience as
I do one that truly does become a
disruptive success in the product of
you’re thinking like a disrupter thank
you
to disrupt a single specific market
software market for computer-aided
design software or CAD software as we
call it I’ve worked in this field since
I was literally a teenager and along the
way I’ve started three different
companies in CAD software my first
company premise you’ve probably never
heard of my second company SolidWorks I
started in 1993 with the goal of
disrupting the CAD marketplace in
providing a new solution to CAD users
around the world and we succeeded in
doing it SolidWorks I think truly
disrupted the market and over the 20
years almost 20 years I was there
SolidWorks rose to have millions of
users create billions of dollars in
revenue and billions of dollars in value
and most importantly I think it have
improved the way that millions of
products around the world have been
designed and manufactured and that’s
most the most gratifying part of the
disruption but after 20 years at
SolidWorks
I could see that the market was ready
for a new generation of disruption and
so I left and I started a new company
called on shape with the goal to once
again disrupt the CAD market and do
something good for the design teams of
the world this time built on cloud web
and mobile technology to respond to the
needs of modern product design teams now
I’m not sure everyone knows too much
about CAD software some of you do and
some you don’t but you’ll you’ll kind of
infer along the way what it’s about
so I’m here today to talk to you about
how to think like a disruptor to fit the
theme of the day of disruption what have
I learned in my 35 years in the CAD
market about how to think what kinds of
thinking processes do disruptors use
what have I used and what have the
companies the many other companies I’ve
seen I’ve been a board member and
advisor at many other companies and I
like you I’ve observed some of the
biggest companies in the world that
disrupt markets too and I’m trying to
bring all that to bear to inform me this
morning in talking to you about what I
see as the ingredients to thinking about
thinking like a disruptor
I’ll organize my comments in the three
aspects of thinking about disrupter
disruption one needs identification how
do we find problems and needs in the
world to ideas and solutions and three
execution because it’s not enough to
have an idea you have to have to
actually go and build it so let’s start
with needs great disruption solves needs
or problems in the world and the thing I
want to tell you about needs is they all
come from people to see needs and
problems in the world
you don’t look at technology you look at
people my father told me as a kid he
said John no matter what you do in life
you must learn to deal with people and
think about people and he was so right
because even though so many of the
disruptions I’ve been part of in so many
of the ones that you might be thinking
about are driven by technology for sure
the problems that we solve are always
people problems so to think like a
disrupter you have to become almost like
a radar scanning system of emotions and
reactions of people starting with
yourself and your own experiences as a
consumer of products as a user of
services but also observing the other
people around you and so my motivation
to start SolidWorks was not only about
CAD technology or the emerging Windows
PC it was also driven most strongly by
looking at CAD users I would visit users
and I’d see them using the old
generation of software and sometimes the
users would tell me how happy they were
with the software they didn’t say they
were having problems but I could see the
problems they had so consumers users of
things sometimes don’t even know
sometimes they’ll complain but sometimes
they won’t complain they’ll just live
with the problems they have and talk
about a matter of factly a disruptor
thinks about those I thought about those
I would watch them using the system and
they they’d show me how easy something
was but it took 21 steps and they had to
write down notes on a piece of paper I’m
like that’s not that easy or they talk
about how affordable it was but I could
see it cost a lot of money and so I
could see in them a need for for
software that was
easier used that was less expensive and
that was really motivating to me in
starting SolidWorks with on shape same
thing I’d visit 20 years later I was
visiting SolidWorks users and I’d see
that as teams had become distributed
worldwide the old-fashioned Windows
software the software I had built 20
years ago was no longer so easy anymore
there was constant problems with license
codes and installs and service packs and
upgrades the expense of the software
which twenty years ago it seemed like a
like affordable was now very expensive
to users and sharing data was really
hard they were trying to send files all
over the world now something we had
never imagined when we built SolidWorks
I saw an opportunity to solve these
problems but only if we would start from
scratch and use the latest in cloud web
and mobile technology and that led me to
leave SolidWorks and start all over
again
with on shape you know maybe it may be
crazy to try again to disrupt the same
market but indeed that’s what I’m that’s
what I’m doing that’s what I’m trying to
do and we think we’re in the middle of
disrupting it again at on shape we’ve
gotten a good start and and it’s coming
along nicely so it starts with user it
starts with understanding needs needs
you feel yourself and needs you observe
and other people in the world second key
way you need to think like a disrupter
is when it comes to seeing ideas and
solutions so you have a feeling for a
problem in the world now you have to
come up with a solution
okay sure we all know to be creative and
looking for solutions but I want to talk
to you about a few other things one is
to be curious in the world be curious
about learning about things and what I
want to tell you is particularly to
learn about things that don’t seem to
matter okay things that don’t seem to be
important to any particular problem at
hand but just in your gut feel
interesting go ahead and spend time
learning about them it was key to me in
starting SolidWorks that I had spent
years prior to SolidWorks playing with
playing with windows-based pcs the new
Windows operating system in PC
and I say playing with because at my
business that I was working in an old
CAD company I would explain to people
how interesting these things were and
the PC and Windows and they’d say John
why are you playing around with that
that stuff doesn’t matter in our market
you know and what I learned in my own
experience is of course it turned out to
matter a lot because today almost all
professional CAD runs on Windows PCs but
at the time in 1993 you know and some of
you are some of you weren’t even born
yet
you you you you really this is the
advantage of being older by the way when
you’re older you get what we in the CAD
business called a perspective view on
things and you can see that just as just
as 20 you know 20 years ago people
everyone was using UNIX workstations and
today you’re gonna look at me like UNIX
workstations you know what are those you
know and someday one of you will be up
here giving a talk like this and you say
Windows PCs and people go Windows PCs
what are those you know and so anyway
the point is I was playing around with
these Windows PCs a lot of disruptions
are a combination of a problem plus a
technology that didn’t matter until it
did okay so Windows PCs didn’t matter to
the CAD market until it did all right
and we see this in in in other stories
like like uber which has been mentioned
a couple times today you know mobile
phones and GPS they didn’t matter the
taxi industry until they did you know
internet search you know an internet
search engine that didn’t matter to the
newspaper business did it until it did
so if you worked at a newspaper and you
were fooling around with internet search
engine people would say why are you
doing that well it turns out Google of
course redefined the entire market for
ads and greatly disrupted not just
newspapers but all of ad-based
publishing models you see it over and
over again with on shape I had spent
years before really thinking about
starting on shape I spent years
experimenting playing around with open
source software with web
web browser HTML and JavaScript with
learning about internet speed why was i
learning about internet speed I don’t
know it didn’t seem relevant to the CAD
business but I was interested in it okay
so don’t be afraid to learn about things
that don’t matter and I encourage all
you to go out and pick something that
doesn’t seem to matter to anything
you’re doing but just interest you it
doesn’t have to be technology either you
can spend time you know you can go to a
crafts fair on Saturday morning and see
someone making something and ask them
what are you doing what where did that
come from what tools are using what’s
new in your world be naturally curious
all the time and you may find that you
develop ideas for disruption that
involve tying something that doesn’t
matter to a problem that you see in your
world
another thing about idea generation that
I want to emphasize is don’t be afraid
of bad ideas too often where we’re
trying upfront – to think that oh I came
up with an idea but it must be really
bad I’m looking for the good idea so we
think of bad ideas and good ideas as
being opposite ends of some spectrum and
mediocrity in the middle I’m not
implying I’m mediocrity I’m just saying
you know what I mean there’s kind of
natural thinking that a bad idea a good
idea I don’t see the world that way I
think bad ideas live in the same
neighborhood as good ideas and they both
live very far from mediocrity you know
what I mean so like like think of it
like a giant hoop earring or something
bad ideas and good ideas success and
failure are like metastable states that
our neighbors from each other and I
think some of the worst ideas I’ve ever
had are very close to some of the best
ideas who ever had you know and so so
get comfortable with brainstorming about
lots of ideas and don’t worry if they’re
good or bad some of the great
entrepreneurs in history have had a lot
of bad ideas Steve Jobs you know who
built the great products at Apple he had
also built the next computer which many
of you have never even heard of go look
it up and I heard someone tell me that
after next immediately after next
he would go lecture at Stanford or
something and the students would be very
uninterested in almost laughing about
what he had done and instead of seeing
his obvious grade
potential another way to put it is I
think visions and hallucinations look
the same until you try to build them you
know you know I mean things that you
you’re sure are the way the world is
going to be and things that turn out to
be mirages they look and feel the same
so get comfortable in that zone
generating lots of ideas don’t worry
about deciding upfront which are the
good or the bad ones like I say I had a
first company that I built and we didn’t
end up it wasn’t a failure but it wasn’t
a huge success we didn’t disrupt the
world but the idea looked and felt very
similar to the ones for SolidWorks err
on shape so don’t be afraid of thinking
of crazy ideas then finally I want to
talk to you about execution too too
often people just stop at seeing a
problem and thinking of an idea and they
don’t go and execute to be a disruptor
to think like a disrupt a disruptor you
have to shift into execution gear which
is very different than just thinking
about it okay
sometimes the the obstacles can appear
impossible in starting SolidWorks people
told me you’re building an entire new
CAD system this was excuse me in 1993
and I’m like yeah we’re gonna build an
entirely new CAD system people thought
it was crazy so so what did I do I got
started building it you know I didn’t
have funding yet I went to year with no
funding by the way I just built it in my
home with some co-founders and we took a
step we started we said let’s get
Windows running let’s get some of the
basics running let’s get a prototype
running okay and we started moving we
weren’t waiting for someone else to do
something we weren’t finding excuses why
not to do it to this day I’m convinced
that many other people probably saw the
same opportunity for SolidWorks they
probably had the same views I did about
the Windows PC being the future of CAD
but they didn’t act on it and the
and people say oh you’re you’re you know
you had a great vision for SolidWorks or
something I tell people I think the
vision was obvious I think if we me and
my co-founders get credit it’s because
we decided to do something about it
same with on shake this time around it’s
a huge job we’re undertaking and it
takes years as I think Whitney said
earlier about how you have to be patient
in the early days as he come up that
curve you often have to have a lot of
perseverance to get through it we did
with SolidWorks we did with on shape and
now we’re getting the rewards of it in
the market as people use the product and
and tell us great stories about how
valuable it is to them this persistence
to execute that I’ve seen in my career
and I’ve seen in other disruptors this
ability to stick the stick-to-itiveness
to execute that is sort of at odds in
some ways with the with the kind of
creativity that I just talked about in
the idea phase or the radar scanning of
the needs and problems identification
phase and so to some degree as a
disrupter you have to be flexible enough
to one day be thinking of wild ideas and
user needs and then enter into this long
struggle of building your product and
it’s usually a struggle that’s normal
it’s usually a rollercoaster ride that’s
normal you know Ben Horowitz who’s Marc
Andreessen is partner he he talks about
this in his book the struggle most
entrepreneurs most disruptors go through
the struggle know that it’s normal when
you’ve done it before you can say it’s
kind of like being on a thrill ride the
first time it’s wild the second time you
say okay I know I know I’m gonna get a
little sick as we go up and down the
rise and fall that’s normal the other
thing I want to tell you about execution
is don’t worry about being first okay
too often we worry oh I don’t want to
start working on this because because
someone else is already doing it don’t
worry about that look at the great
examples in the world like like look at
Facebook anyone remember MySpace before
it I mean people thought MySpace what’s
that yeah
was the social network but Facebook came
up I mentioned Google search but was
Google search the first search engine
no there was AltaVista which looked like
it owned the market
the iPod ok the iPod those of you are
old enough do you remember before the
iPod existed there was the Rio the Rio
mp3 player was very popular I mean I
know you younger people don’t know this
but so don’t worry you don’t have to be
the first but you do have to be ok you
do have to take a step and execute and I
always say if you I can’t if you try I
can’t guarantee that you’ll win and be a
disrupter but I can guarantee that if
you don’t try you won’t win ok I can
guarantee if you don’t try to build your
disruptive idea you won’t build it you
won’t wake up one morning fire oh I was
asleep it doesn’t work that way
so in closing I’ll tell you that I hope
I’ve shared a few lessons a few thoughts
about my 35 years in the CAD market and
my years of observing other disruptors
about finding needs and problems about
coming up with ideas and solutions and
about then going and executing and it’s
my sincere hope that that many of you
try to execute on your own disruptions
in the world and that many of you will
probably experience like I did perhaps
one that doesn’t work out as well but
hopefully many of you will experience as
I do one that truly does become a
disruptive success in the product of
you’re thinking like a disrupter thank
you
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