{"id":100,"date":"2005-12-15T16:20:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-16T00:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.regnordman.com\/2005\/12\/15\/geoffrey-hansen-and-reg-nordman-founded-rocket-bui\/"},"modified":"2007-02-12T15:07:56","modified_gmt":"2007-02-12T23:07:56","slug":"geoffrey-hansen-and-reg-nordman-founded-rocket-bui","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.regnordman.com\/2005\/12\/15\/geoffrey-hansen-and-reg-nordman-founded-rocket-bui\/","title":{"rendered":"Geoffrey Hansen and Reg Nordman founded Rocket Bui…"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
\nGeoffrey Hansen and Reg Nordman founded Rocket Builders Canada Ltd. in 2000.
\nIts objective: advise technology-based companies on how to recognize and
\nbuild upon market opportunities.<\/p>\n

With the so-called tech bubble bursting, “People up and down the coast were
\nphoning me, saying they needed help to focus on revenue,” said Hansen, who
\nwas then employed with the Ventures West firm’s Western Technology Seed
\nInvestment Fund. “So I called Reg,” who had parlayed a UBC mining
\nengineering degree into numerous hardware-and software-industry jobs, “and
\nsaid: ‘There’s an opportunity here.'”<\/p>\n

One of the first things the pair did, though, hardly involved rocket
\nscience.<\/p>\n

Vancouver, like many other communities, was awash with techies wondering
\nwhat had hit them. Hansen and Nordman’s response was to order beer and
\npretzels and invite the reeling geeks to weekly gabfests.<\/p>\n

Their sessions drew 15, then 30 and, by 2004, up to 60 attendees before a
\nreviving tech economy reduced the frequency. But when Hansen and Nordman
\ncalled another get-together at the Roundhouse Community Centre Nov. 30,
\nalmost 150 folk turned up.<\/p>\n

They’ll likely get an attentive crowd from the investment community Jan 12,
\nwhen they present their annual Ready To Rocket report on B.C.-based private
\ncompanies they believe will capitalize on growth in the
\ninformation-technology sector.<\/p>\n

The do is by invitation, but an inquiry to www.readytorocket.com might get
\nyou on the list.<\/p>\n

Firms on the 2005 list ran from Air Games Wireless Inc. to TAP Solutions
\nInc.<\/p>\n

Calling it North America’s only such predicted list, Nordman said 10 of the
\n25 are often partnered with Microsoft in some way. In a break with pattern,
\nthough, only one of last year’s 25, PureEdge Solutions Inc., was acquired by
\na larger firm (IBM). Usually, he said, three firms rated by Rocket Builders
\nare snapped up.<\/p>\n

Rocket Builders’ mainline business, though, is to help clients make money.<\/p>\n

The risk that entails, of course, is taking assignments from outfits that
\naren’t making any.<\/p>\n

“We have now minimized the number of worthless stock certificates sticking
\nto our walls,” said UBC graduate mining engineer Nordman, 56, who has a
\nthree-decade record with hardware and software firms.<\/p>\n

Such risks notwithstanding, Hansen and Nordman needed only two years to pay
\nback the $200,000 seed capital their firm’s anonymous “angel” furnished in
\n2000. They have operated on cash flow since.<\/p>\n

Rocket Builders has two typical types of clients, Nordman said. “One:
\nrevenue falls, sales leads fall, sales decline. Two: brand-new product, new
\nmarket, and they want to get to revenue quickly.” The ideal, though, is
\n“three years old, with over $1 million in revenue, maybe eight employees,
\nand they want to get to $5 million in two-plus years.”<\/p>\n

As for that final step, “We are very familiar with how engineers fail to see
\nmarketing opportunities,” Hansen said.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, the first two titles in a six-book project the two have
\nlaunched are: How a Company Can Develop a Marketing Ploy and Business For
\nEngineers.<\/p>\n

They hope to self-publish the series with all the irreverence and
\npromotional brio of author and marketing guru Seth Godin. “But let’s put it
\nin perspective,” said Nordman, “We still have our business to run, and it
\ntakes money to buy whisky.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, they are still buying beer and pretzels and prodding a
\nonce-sputtering local industry back into orbit.<\/p>\n

Book reviews for the business side of the technology industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Geoffrey Hansen and Reg Nordman founded Rocket Builders Canada Ltd. in 2000. Its objective: advise technology-based companies on how to recognize and build upon market opportunities. With the so-called tech bubble bursting, “People up and down the coast were phoning me, saying they needed help to focus on revenue,” said Hansen, who was then employed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,7,8,4,13,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnordman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnordman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnordman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnordman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnordman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnordman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnordman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnordman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnordman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}