Our VP of Marketing Americas, Lara Shackelford, came to Boston and we had a chance to spend some time together. Lara has great insights into the high tech industry and BI market so I thought I’d share some of them here with you. 

Lara was talking about how the excitement about Facebook’s $5B IPO filing, and the interest in Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated as the lead underwriter (trading volume for shares of Morgan Stanley rose up after the announcement), reminded her of the excitement around QlikTech’s own IPO in July of 2010. QlikTech’s IPO was regarded by industry analysts, press, and investors alike as highly successful.

Lara pointed out that reflecting on the excitement around Facebook reminded her of a value QlikTech shares, which centers around “move fast.” The value harks back to the esteemed American inventor, Thomas Edison, who said on his way to inventing the light bulb, “I have not failed; I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

The most successful people know how to “fail fast”

It’s well understood by venture capitalists that an entrepreneur who has founded companies that have failed is more likely to get funding again than an entrepreneur who has had one great success. Why? Because people learn more from failure than from success. But how exactly does “fail fast” differ from “give up early?”At Facebook, there is a saying that adorns their conference room walls, “Move Fast & Break Things.” Similarly, at QlikTech one of our core values is “Move Fast.” We believe it is okay to make mistakes as long as we learn from them.

This core value is at the heart of the QlikView Business Discovery platform, too. QlikView helps people test hypotheses and move fast. We allow decision makers to “Build to Think,” and do it quickly, so they can learn and test various hypotheses. (See the related blog post “QlikView Supports a Build to Think Approach to BI.”) Users can ask a business question, pop up a chart to find the answer, make selections to see associations, and change the chart or create a new one instantaneously. They can invite others into shared sessions and together they can test and prototype, learning all the while, without taking their eyes off the data or interrupting their thought process.

What will you do? Will you move fast? Are you willing to aim for a field goal, give it your best, and fail? Will you allow yourself to make mistakes and learn from them?