How to Decide Which Idea to Pursue with David Brussin

Presenting in a normal approachable way, David Brussin spoke to the group today about his experiences as a CTO at TurnTide and ePrivacy Group. David is a serial entrepreneur, author and recognized leader in information technology and security who often blogs and speaks on the subject. He is currently the Founder and CEO of Monetate, Inc.

David recounted his story, sharing his insights on how he and the ePrivacy Group CEO (our next speaker) spent time brainstorming ideas, patenting many of them, and then deciding on which one to pursue. He spoke about their first product and the chicken and the egg dilemma they faced with the adoption of new technologies.

The evening continued by sharing how they changed course and focused on their anti-spam router. Ultimately, they were able to spin that off into a new company-- TurnTide. The TurnTide launch highlighted a creative approach to testing a new market; in this case an early press release proved the answer and gave them the confidence to delve further into the product release schedule.

David also discussed how well the product sold itself during Demo Day when they unplugged the TurnTide router from a live server and was able to show the audience how rapidly email spam increased on the server until they plugged it back in to show it drop back to earlier levels. Live demonstrations also blew away their first customer who saw a similar drop early one morning as the system came online. He also offered his own insights as an investor and added to a list of risks which an entrepreneur should try to eliminate for potential investors.

Thank you, David.