Part 2 of the five-part series profiling Verific’s loyal customers is an interview with Andy Ladd, CEO of Baum, a startup based in Concord, Mass.
- Part 1: Fierce Loyalty to Verific’s Value
- Part 2: Marrying Expertise to Avoid Redoing What’s Already Been Done
- Part 3: The Silent Partner
- Part 4: Good Partnership on All Levels
- Part 5: Going the Extra Mile
- Part 6: Verific’s Value Explained
Marrying Expertise to Avoid Redoing What’s Already Been Done
Sometimes, it takes a disappointing relationship to fully appreciate one that adds value.
That’s what Andy Ladd realized after his previous EDA startup became a Verific customer in 2007. Andy worked at the Massachusetts-based company supporting users as the director of the technical sales field organization. Initially, the company integrated with a hardware description language front end product from a third-party vendor based outside the U.S. Turnaround time for timely bug fixes created many issues with end users.
In 2007, management felt a change was needed so it reengineered its front end to support Verific. After a successful integration, Verific’s front end was installed and the company was happy with the results. After all, Verific’s sole focus is on front end technology, and almost immediately, Andy’s customers got updates more quickly and technical sales was able to respond faster with fixes for their end users.
When Andy joined Baum in 2017, the engineering group was developing its own language front end, not the best use of Baum’s limited resources in his estimation. Andy quickly convinced the group to focus on its core strengths –– power analysis and power modeling –– and leave the language front end to Verific, leveraging Verific’s core strength. “If we continued on the path to develop our own front end, it wouldn’t be as robust as Verific’s and it would have required much more support from our engineers, taking away time they could be spending on Baum’s power analysis and modeling technology,” maintains Andy. Not only that, Verific understands the importance of being responsive.
During a recent Design Automation Conference (DAC), Baum had a technical issue from a user in Korea that needed a resolution quickly. One of its engineers logged the issue into Verific’s online request form. In no time, one of Verific’s engineers who was at DAC was at Baum’s booth to discuss a solution.
A great product, good support and a flexible business model are characteristics that make Verific special. Verific’s startup program gives new companies a way to focus on their strengths. The flexible program ramps up to accommodate a startup’s needs and can be adjusted to the startup’s situation without being tied to investment revenue. This helps as a small company, with limited R&D budgets, build its business. The flexibility carries over to licensing products, so a company only invests in what it needs. For example, Baum doesn’t support all the languages supported by Verific and is not required to pay for unused language support. If user demand requires an additional language, it can be added on without difficulty.
Baum, like so many other companies that work with Verific, values the relationship. Verific is enabling companies with limited resources to jump start their product development. For Baum, the combination of what it’s good at with what Verific is good at marries their expertise to avoid redoing what’s already been done.
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To learn more about Verific’s Parser Platform, send email to info@verific.com or call (510) 522-1555.