Stop me if this story sounds familiar: Hank Fish created a database of material properties and made it easy to use, for engineers to find the material specifications they needed. Hank had an audacious thought: why couldn’t the database become the Yahoo of the materials industry? Let engineers such the database for free, and base revenue on advertising as well as spinoff projects.
So goes Chapter 9 of
Midas Marketing by Rob Slee, published in March of 2009. In the analysis of this case study, Rob Slee reveals that the database is
MatWeb.com and Hank Fish is really Henry Bass. I was honored to be highlighted in one of 20 chapters in Rob’s latest book, focusing on Marketing at the small-business-but-big-thinker level, at what he calls the dawn of the Aggregation Age. This is a follow up to his
Midas Managers book, discussing new companies in the Conceptual Age (post 9/11/2001).
Rob will be presenting a Midas seminar at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center on September 22nd, and he has recently opened
a Midas Institute at Virginia Tech , addressing the fact that private business generates the majority of the US economy, yet most schools teach management, finance and operations for public companies. Both of his recent books are great case-study books, the rare breed of book that does a small business owner good, while at the same time can be read cover-to-cover in a weekend (and you can still cut the grass, play ball with your kids, and catch a movie). Digesting it and applying it might take a little longer. But it was inspirational, even if I admit to reading the centerfold chapter first!
