FISNA

Paul Powers came to FISNA through an unconventional path. With a law degree from the University of Heidelberg in Germany specializing in intellectual property law, he was writing a dissertation about the biggest problem technology would face: IP protection for 3D digital assets. "We went through this with digital assets. We went through this with images. But we adjusted the market adjust. We have iTunes. We have Netflix. When it comes to 3D, the problem is that no one can really protect an electric property." This insight led him to realize that to track 3D intellectual property, the system would need to actually understand what 3D models are and how they relate to one another—a capability that didn't exist in the market at the time.

Paul and his team created technology that could identify IP theft by truly understanding 3D geometry. When they launched FISNA in 2016 and showed it to companies, something unexpected happened. Customers came back saying: "Well, that's great and all. But my god, we could use this in engineering. We could use this and just see if we can manufacture something. Because it's all pattern recognition, basically." This pivot from IP protection to an engineering productivity tool completely reframed the business. The company spent most of 2018 focused on proving the technology with large aerospace and manufacturing companies, deliberately staying small and avoiding aggressive sales efforts. "We were primarily focused on not adding on too many small, smaller customers at the time because our concern was since we were so small, our support staff was our development staff."

Paul's first customer came through direct sales at the IMTS trade show in Chicago. "We did. So we actually paid money for it to have a booth there set up. And, you know, being a new company with new technology that's not really paralleled by anything else, they weren't even sure where to put us. So they kind of put us the wrong aisle. But I ended up working out OK too." The early customers were a mix of large enterprises he'd been cultivating over months and smaller companies that moved faster through the sales cycle. For these early adopters, Paul offered discounts: "some of them who started off really early, they got a little bit of a deal. We paid a little bit less, but now things are starting to normalize."

The strategy of being selective about customers until August of the interview year paid off. "And then after August and September, we said, OK, now we can open up the channels now, we can actually start to have the sales happen. And so we started recruiting for our sales." The company's typical customer is an enterprise with 50-500 engineers or designers. At $2,500 per user per year, a company with 50 seats would pay $125,000 annually. The value proposition is compelling: "we did some studies on what we were saving the average customer. We saved the average customer $37,440 per user per year that they're with us. But the average cost per user is going to be $2,500. So it's a 15 to 1 ratio of savings to cost." By the time of the interview, FISNA had ~50 organizations using the platform (including free beta users like NASA Space Camp and Purdue University with 300,000 and 1,400 users respectively), with roughly 15 paying customers and essentially zero revenue a year prior.

FISNA is burning capital to scale, having raised $2M from high-net-worth individuals in equity financing. With 15 team members all based in Ohio, Paul is targeting growth to 100-200 additional paying customers in the next year and projecting $5M ARR by the end of the following year. The company is deliberately staying lean on the sales side after just hiring sales staff two months prior to the interview, and Paul is considering venture debt for a larger Series A round planned for May. "We've finished up everything that we would consider seed this 2 million and then now we're looking probably doing a larger raise around May that'll be more of a series A type race. And for that we are considering doing it."