Having Fun At The Cusp Of Technology and Entertainment: Phunware CEO Alan Knitowski (Part 7)

Sramana: Your early background was in hard-core networking and infrastructure. What you are doing today is very different from where you come from. Would you talk about how you navigated into this world?

Alan Knitowski: Fundamentally, even though I came from those markets, we created a lot of the devices that attached to those networks. That encompasses switching fabric and even phones. I had intimate familiarity of what 3G and 4G are capable of. It is a huge benefit to understand how networks and the cloud works when it comes to designing the apps that work on devices. We know what to do to optimize experiences on those applications. The feature phone to smart phone migration just felt natural.

We did something that is very untech like. We went out and found people who made consumer games and brought them into our world. The best technology and infrastructure is not good enough when you are touching consumers. The user interface, look and feel, and experience is very important. That became the element that was new for us. Our third co-founder ran the Midway Games studio here in Austin, and he came from that world. We combined the best of our backgrounds as a founding team and filled the holes that were new to us.

At the end of the day, what matters when you are building a brand new company is how you structure the deal, how you finance the deal, and how you monetize the deal. That is what we focus on when we build a company. We have done a lot of different things, from service providers to software and networking. The common thread is always the people. They overwhelm everything. You can never overstate the importance of getting an A team and then being extremely ambitious. When you say you want a small percent of every dollar ever spent on a mobile experience in the world, that is ambitious.

We have always tried to de-risk as much as possible by controlling everything we are able to control. The first two years we did no PR at all. We focused on the steak, not the sizzle. That allows our performance and customer base to speak. After several years of doing that, we have started doing some PR and show our path.

Sramana: What is it about you personally that allowed you to make the switch from networking to the creative aspect of mobility?

Alan Knitowski: I was an engineer by trade. My time in the military did a good job of teaching me some very simple things in the world. I had more drama in my first assignment, the 1994 nuclear weapons inspections of North Korea, than I could have imagined. At that time I realized something simple. Sometimes life can be easier than people want it to be. I am usually going to get to eat food, I am usually going to be able to get sleep, I am usually going to get the chance to see my family, and nobody is shooting at me. I try to maintain context and perspective about what is going on in the world.

I used to think that technology was fast, but mobile is crazy. Everything changes in two months. That requires flexibility in mindsets. We have become a mobile sherpa for large brands because they know we will not embarrass them. If something goes wrong, we are here to solve it. When corporate America is planning on budgets for 12-month cycles, we have to help them work through the noise to understand what they need to focus on. It is a matter of being patient and flexible.

Sramana: I love what you are doing. I love to see the artistic touch on a highly technical foundation.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Having Fun At The Cusp Of Technology and Entertainment: Phunware CEO Alan Knitowski
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