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Mass Media Coverage: Business2.0/CNN Story: 5 Ways to Start a Company (without quitting your day job)

Our Company

We embrace the global technology infrastructureDC CyberCom was established in 1995 and provides outstanding management consulting counsel and/or direct intervention to technology startups. Our specialty is ramping up or turning around high growth (usually technology) startups.  Our clients particularly value our inate ability to quickly access their present state of business and recommend a clear course of action for improvement using the latest globalization flatteners and smart business models to maximize profitability and shareholder returns.

Our Track Record of Results

WD is a $4B public HDD companyAs Vice President & Acting Chief Operating Officer of Fortune 500 technology giant Western Digital's Silicon Valley Connex/SANavigator subsidiaries, we led a turnaround and an explosive sales increase from a $2mm to an $80mm run-rate in 8 months, resulting in the split and cash sale of the subsidiaries to Adaptec and Brocade, along with producing a competing bid from IBM over $110mm.

Northrop Grumman is a $31B public technology companyWe have managed existing operations of large Fortune 100 companies (Northrop Grumman) and startups, turned around troubled companies in the High Tech, Computer, Internet, Entertainment, Consulting, and B2B verticals, and started up 12 ventures that provided over $180mm liquidity to investors. We occasionally step in as an Angel Investor for startups that have over $1mm in revenues.

UCLA is an elite public university*  Having founded Technology Innovators’ Forum at UCLA Extension, its' case studies show how frustrated engineers & programmers can start the next Google or Microsoft without capital. A book based on the forum is being written.

Gerson Lehrman is the dominant private research firm to hedge funds.*   As a Senior Technology Industry Analyst and Top 5% Leader for Gerson Lehrman Group Councils, we consult to over 6000 Hedge Fund institutional clients on issues of hardware inventory, pricing, demand, TAM, costs, & technology. Held previous similar roles at Standard & Poors - Vista Research and JP Morgan - Primary Insight.

Our 25 years of inside operations experience as CEO, COO, & VP makes us a favored consultant on the entire technology sector to top money managers, institutions, hedge & mutual funds, startup firms, and vc's.

As different as these examples are, collectively they do a better job of explaining who we are than anything we could say about ourselves.

Our mission is ambitious:  to help clients make lasting and substantial improvements in their performance. As you explore this site, we hope you get an insight into the enormous resources – people, knowledge, and capabilities – that we have committed to our clients and to the members of our firm.

go back to the topWhat We Do . . . and How We Do It                                                       

We value clear-headed thinkingSince 1995, DC CyberCom has helped business leaders address their greatest challenges, from reorganizing for long-term growth to improving business performance and maximizing revenue. While we have earned a reputation for having a certain "mystique," there is no mystery to how we serve our clients. We apply a handful of core principles to every client engagement.

go back to the topDriven to Make a Difference

We are nimble and efficientWhether they are advising clients on core strategy, developing their own skills, or contributing to their communities, our consultants bring their extraordinary talent and drive to every situation. We attract individuals with outstanding character, a sharp analytical mind, and the ability to work effectively with people at all levels in an organization.

Consultants come to us with rich experiences and work alongside managers at top companies on industry-shaping work. We are proud that they are acknowledged to form an exceptional talent pool, and that our firm enjoys broad appeal as a place for talented people to grow.

go back to the topCommitted to Client Success

a Hard Disk Drive (HDD)As consultants develop professionally, they become more involved with the leadership of our firm. There are three dimensions of leadership that we consider especially important:

       Client leadership.  Focusing on the whole client organization and its most critical issues; providing counsel to CEOs and other executives. 

       Thought leadership.  Contributing to the firm's intellectual capital through research and knowledge development. 

       People leadership.  Taking responsibility for the performance of client service teams; mentoring and having impact on the careers of others.

go back to the topMajor Skill Sets Include:
 
*       Corporate Systems & Strategic Planning

*       Outsourcing & Cost Reduction

*       Product, Technical, & Corporate Marketing

*       Balance Sheet/Margin Improvement 

*       Organizational Development

*       Leveraged Business Models

*       Software Product Innovation

*       Liquidity Event Planning

*       Executive Coaching

*       Change Management

DC CyberCom Services for Signed Private Clients:  

*         Market Positioning & Channel Development

*         Customer, Advisor, & Investor Introductions

      Customer Sales Calls and Closings

*         Access to our Powerful Keiretsu Network of a Dozen Fellow Startup                Clients and their contacts

*         Business Strategic Planning & Product Roadmap Development

*         Financial Planning

*         General Consulting and Advice

*         Capital Raise Preparation & Presentation Services


*        Capital Raised for the Company

*         Complimentary Access to Short Term Revenue Gigs so you can keep                     your startup going


Client Profiles We Seek

Since we work intimately with each client company by leveraging our network of powerful contacts with our groudbreaking lean "CURRANTS" business model, we believe the shareholder value delta that we add is commensurately rewarded only with equity, with our sharing in the success that we create for you. This is where we part drastically with other consultants who are only interested in you for billable hours and their own cash flow needs. Because we are fortunate to have succeeded in the past, we have no such cash flow needs to impair our loyalty to you. We do not believe in taking cash from startups who can least afford it.

When you sign on as an invited private client, our number one goal is to help you get profitable customers that increase shareholder value. Everything else is secondary.

We seek startups in software and web businesses with high net margin business models with nearly-complete products/websites that are the best in their respective markets that need scaling to the next level. Founders must be willing humble themselves by implementing the sound advice of an experienced 12-time entrepreneur who has done it before.

For ventures that do not have sufficient revenues to employ us full time, we work strictly for equity as outside consultants, while more mature ventures may qualify for us to step in full time as CEO for a salary and equity.

If your firm fits these selected profiles, we would like to hear from you.

go back to the topWhat We Believe

a storage networking switchIt should be no surprise that serving clients is at the core of our mission. But we also hope we're creating a place where talented people want to work. The way we articulate our mission and values reflect these dual ambitions and is the bedrock of our firm. As Daniel Curran, our managing director, notes, "Our values aren't quasi-religious virtues but rather a set of interlocking and mutually reinforcing choices."

go back to the topAdhere to the Highest Professional Standards

In all our work we adhere to the professional standards clients expect from a trusted counselor. By imposing high standards on ourselves – for confidentiality and independence, for example – we have earned trust and confidence from our clients.

go back to the topImprove our Clients' Performance Significantly

We get to work right awayWe aim to help the executives of leading companies and organizations make significant improvements to their overall performance by tackling their most challenging issues.  We do so by taking a top-management perspective, bringing innovations in management practice, and building our clients' capabilities.

go back to the topCreate an Unrivaled Environment for Exceptional People

We have exceptional people and provide them with opportunities for personal and professional growth that they can find nowhere else.  Our aspiration is an inclusive, supportive environment that balances individual opportunity with care and respect for all colleagues. This is not a firm of leaders and followers; it is a firm of leaders who want the freedom to do what they think is right. 

go back to the topWhere We Started

technology is making the world "flat"When Daniel Curran founded DC Cybercom in 1995, he could not have imagined the reach his small firm would eventually have.  Many years later, the firm has grown into a global force serving the world's largest companies in the Fortune 500.

Dan had an established practice in strategic planning when he discovered several lean startups that thrived with no outside capital infusions. His new pull 'CURRANTS" business model introduced to working engineers and scientists at UCLA Extension pioneered a new way to start and grow technology companies without the distraction of constantly seeking funding.

And through the years, his original mission has remained the same: to help clients make distinctive, lasting, and substantial improvements in their performance and to build a great firm that is able to attract, develop, excite, and retain exceptional people.

go back to the topOur Consultants

Dan Curran, our leaderDaniel Curran, Managing Director, is a serial CEO-for-hire with 25+ years experience running rapid growth startups, as well as large high tech companies Western Digital and Northrop Grumman Corp. Along with 3 top engineering school masters’ degrees from Illinois-Urbana, USC, and Penn State, he is skilled in change management, communications at the executive level, organizational development, marketing, strategy development, product planning, cost restructuring, corporate P & L, profit improvement, benchmarking, competitive intelligence, and executive coaching in high tech executive roles at the IT customer, hosting services provider, systems integrator, and software and systems vendors.  

He founded and now leads UCLA Extension’s Technology Innovators’ Forum, a course which fosters market-responsive, profitable high-tech startups that do not require outside capital.

Dan has greatly improved every company he has worked with, evidenced by turnarounds and explosive sales increases up to 4000%. A high burn-rate Western Digital subsidiary was in need of immediate sales traction and divestiture. Dan decided to split the company in two, pare back the burn-rate, revise the product roadmap, and deploy mostly VAR channels while seeking VC funding and sale of the divisions. This resulted in the cash sale of both companies to major thriving competitors Adaptec/Snap & Brocade in 8 months.

go back to the topOur Colleagues

Here's a small part of our networkWe are fortunate to have worked with or learned from these truly distinguished colleagues in past projects:

Industry

Executives from Technology & Entertainment


Larry Boucher, Founder & CEO, Adaptec, Auspex, & Alacritech, and author, SCSI standard 

Sam Palmisano, Chairman & CEO, IBM 

Chuck Haggerty, former Chairman, Western Digital

Matt Massengill, former Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Western Digital

Steve Duplessie, Founder and Sr. Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group

Henry Samueli, Chairman, Founder, & CTO, Broadcom, and Elected Member, National Academy of Engineering, Benefactor, UCLA Henry Sameuli School of Engineering

Jim Davidson, President, Hitachi Data Systems

Pat Martin, former Chairman & CEO, StorageTek (now Sun Microsystems)

Kent Kresa, former Chairman & CEO, Northrop Grumman, and Elected Member, National Academy of Engineering 

Roger Werner, President and CEO, Fox Speed Channel (Speedvision), former CEO, ESPN, Outdoor Life, & Fox Sports Networks, and former EVP of the ABC Television Network

John Langley, CEO, Langley Television Productions (COPS)

Chris Karzag, former Director, Brocade Communications Systems

Serge Shats, Director, Oracle Corp., & former Director, Symantec/Veritas Software

Tom Clark, Director, McData Corp. (now Brocade Communications)

go back to the topAcademia

colleagues at elite universities


John Bardeen, 2-time Nobel Prize Winner in Physics for Discovery of the Transistor and the Theory of Superconductivity, former Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and Elected Member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences

Arnold Beckman, former Chairman and founder, Beckman Coulter, Inventor, pH meter, National Inventors Hall of Fame, Recipient, National Medal of Technology, Presidential Citizens Medal, National Medal of Science, and Public Welfare Medal-National Academy of Sciences. Chemical Engineering Alum of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and Photo Chemistry Alum of CalTech. $40mm gift established the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as the largest and most ambitious university-based multidisciplinary research facility in the United States

Nick Bambos, Professor, Electrical Engineering & Management Science, Stanford University

Wyatt Rory Hume, UC Provost and Executive Vice President - Academic and Health Affairs, and former Executive Vice Chancellor, UCLA

Paul Gray, Provost, UC-Berkeley, former Dean of the School of Engineering, Professor, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, and Elected Member, National Academy of Engineering

Rich Newton, Dean of the School of Engineering, UC-Berkeley, Professor, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, and Elected Member, National Academy of Engineering

Dave Hodges, former Dean of the School of Engineering, UC-Berkeley, Professor, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, and Elected Member, National Academy of Engineering

Matt Tirrell, Dean, College of Engineering, UC-Santa Barbara, Professor of Chemical & Materials Engineering, and Elected Member, National Academy of Engineering

Fred Leckie, former Chairman, Department of Mechanical and Environmental Engineering, UC-Santa Barbara 

go back to the topVenture Capital

some of the most respected financiers


Forest Baskett, Elected Member, National Academy of Engineering, and New Enterprise Associates

Scott Sandell, New Enterprise Associates

John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Matt Howard, Norwest Venture Partners

Leonard Green, Leonard Green & Partners

Michael Moritz, Sequoia Capital

Guy Kawasaki and Bill Reichert, Garage Technology Ventures

Barry Eggers and Jake Seid, Lightspeed Venture Partners

Jorge Sperling, Altos Advisors

Chris Baldwin, Charles River Venture Partners

Shirish Sathaye, Matrix Venture Partners

Tony Daffer and Monica Gullikson, Crescendo Venture Partners

Ned Carlson, Schwab Soundview Venture Partners

John Goodrich, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

                   © 1995-2009 by Daniel Curran. All rights reserved.

 
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