"So You Built It and They Didn't Come. Now What?" by Jackie Bassett Answers the Question Every CEO and Venture Capitalist Asks

At a recent Venture Capital event in Washington D.C., one attendee quipped "We have to take the Dot Com lessons and be a lot smarter than we were back then." Jackie Bassett, CEO of BT Industrials, Inc. had already taken action on that sage and written a book "So You Built It and They Didn't Come. Now What?" recently published by Authorhouse. Eleven CEO and VC's from Paypal to HP to Netscreen Security tell all.

Washington, D.C., (PRWEB) March 13, 2006 -- At a recent Venture Capital event in Washington D.C. one attendee quipped "We have to take the Dot Com lessons and be a lot smarter than we were back then." Jackie Bassett, CEO of BT Industrials, Inc. had already taken action on that sage and written a book "So You Built It and They Didn't Come. Now What?" recently published by Authorhouse.

Today the barriers to starting a company are almost too low and that can seduce an entrepreneur to build without truly thinking the idea through to its rightful conclusion.

·It’s just full speed ahead – of the competition even when there isn’t any.

·It’s millions of investment dollars spent on a product with no customers yet.

·It’s build it and they will come…

Well what if they didn’t, and you’re the CEO?

You’ve burned thru several million dollars of Venture Capital funds, replaced the VP of Sales three times, added 17 more features that each round of salespeople you hired (and fired) insisted their prospects must have before they would buy, then didn't. Now What?

The book includes true stories of Netscreen Security, Jill Stelfox of Defywire, Tom Wheeler of Core Capital, Tom Kenney of Verve Wireless & Paypal, Ed Marram of Geo-Centers now SAIC, Michele Perry of Sourcefire, Brien Morgan of Lerota Capital, Rick Stamberger of Smartbrief, Bill Atalla of Tristrata, Babak Pasdar of Igxglobal and Steve Crummey of Sentito Networks. Each candidly shares their own Now What moment and each had gone on to great success.

If there's one critical success factor that every start-up must have it's this: Build a product that customers are already looking for. Now for those who are obsessed with "being first" because they believe that's the only way to "win big", you can certainly ignore that factor and build your vision. Just be fully prepared to fund the gap. Have you really built that kind of extreme marketing budget into your margins?

Winning big by being first isn't about having the idea before the customer does. It's about being the first to truly fix the compelling problem your customer wants fixed. Again, it's build a product that customers are already looking for.

Another critical success factor start-ups tend to forget in their fervor to build the next killer product is: The only real customers are paying customers. Webhits, Trade Show leads, white paper downloads, demos and Free Trials are not real customers. The best time to ask people to pay for your product is before you've built it. If they won't rethink your product.

If it's truly compelling, they will. Perhaps not millions, but that's fine as you really couldn't manage that many anyway.

But those much-coveted early adopters will prepay, if you have the product right.

Indeed, we have to take the Dot Com lessons and be a lot smarter than we were back then. It's available at: www.authorhouse.com , Amazon and all the major online bookstores.

About BT Industrials, Inc.

BT Industrials, Inc. specializing in Corporate Security Awareness. She was one of the first 100 employees at Netscreen Security; which started in 1997, successfully IPO'd in 2001, then was acquired by Juniper Networks in 2004 for $4Billion. She started her career in Investment Banking at State Street International and holds an MBA with a concentration in Entrepreneurship from Babson College in Wellesley, MA.

She works with CEOs and Chief Security Officers of Global 500 companies at the BOD level to design and deliver Corporate Security Awareness Programs:Beyond the Sarbanes-Oxley checkmark. As subject matter expert she is regularly introduced to emerging security technologies and guides start-up companies to find - who really does want what they've built. www.btind.com

For press inquiries please contact:

Jackie Bassett

BT Industrials,Inc.

(703)485-0282

# # #