During the mid nineteen-nineties, three Belgian doctoral students, Harry Flores, Stephen Douglas and Ian Moore, became interested in industrial applications for neural network technology. In 1999, encouraged by the prevailing positive financial technological climate, and supported by the spin-off policy of their mother university and with the backing of a faculty member, the students decided to commercialize their research in a brand new spin-off: DataMining.
The founders began by serving three different market segments, Customer Relations Management (CRM) bioinformatics and sports analysis, providing customized software based on neural network technology. However, soon decisions had to be made with regard to narrowing the market segment focus and the acquisition of additional capital for the company’s further development. Given the high level of uncertainty surrounding market size and needs characteristic of such emerging industries, these proved to be complex issues.
Written by Petra Andries and Yvonne Kirkels from the University of Leuven and Fontys University of Applied Science. Download case and teaching note at www.thecasecentre.org or request them from Petra.Andries@econ.kuleuven.be.
