Mach1 Speed to Value
Why the Mach1 Speed-to-value Framework is Like a Cheat Code for Your Technology Roadmap.
There are a lot of new and strange ways to make money in 2021. Most of them I understand, some of them I use, and others probably will never make sense. That’s ok. Even the best chefs in the world are not expected to know how to cook every cuisine.
One of those recipes, however remains as fundamental to running a successful business as grandma’s cookie recipe is to the holidays. You can always make money if you figure out a way to make other people money.
Gulf Coast was created from the embers of making people money. For years I had worked at an up-and-coming services company, helping to position them as an industry leader in using technology to their advantage. My team and I were just a tiny part of the team who could share credit on this, but that company grew fast and furious and ran over the competition for a few years. It was a fun ride, and I learned a lot.
When the company got bought out, and leadership and culture started to shift, we began Gulf Coast Solutions. We wanted something different, and it was time to take our skills to the market to see what we could do.
Almost immediately after starting GCS, dozens of people contacted us to solve the same problems we had solved at our previous jobs. So many of those conversations ended in disappointment after I explained what building those systems from the ground up really cost. We were disappointed too. We knew we had a unique set of skills that could help these organizations level up, but at the time, it was just too cost-prohibitive. Custom software is costly. I say this with a great deal of authority.
A couple of years into GCS, we created Mach1 to change the game, mainly industrial services, and construction. We believed (and we were right) that if we made a good enough framework, one whose primary ingredient was business flavored with technology (instead of the reverse), we could create thousands of unique recipes and products for ourselves and our business partners. Instead of focusing on the meal, we wanted to focus on the process. We wanted results that provided real-world value fast. The Mach1 speed-to-value product was born.
The speed aspect is easy to understand, but so few get its importance. By providing a foundation and framework to address common business concerns (things such as project tracking, resource management, basic accounting, operational improvement, analytic tools), we allow our partners to move up to 12x faster than their competition. Rather than waiting years to see the ROI for a technology project, we can deliver value in months or sometimes even weeks. Our ever-evolving framework is the perfect incubator to experiment with 5-6 ideas a year for our partners, who are early adopters and innovators. In the business kitchen of today, speed kills in a good way.
The value that this approach provides is incredible. Not only can you move faster, but you avoid wasting money creating the plumbing of your solution. After all, why spend $100K+ building a login and navigation system that, in the end, provides virtually no real business value? In addition, by giving everyone a set of ingredients, the Mach1 framework eliminates costly discovery and requirement sessions where everyone is simply staring at an empty pot. Having absolutely zero constraints can be a killer on creativity and corporate budgets. Those who have been talking about that cool new project for five years can attest to this. In a way, we have taken the risk and waste out of an extensive enterprise system that can provide millions of value over time.
The proof is evident in our product portfolio. Having launched several products using this framework, we have seen firsthand how critical this speed-to-value approach is in our pursuit to deliver real-world results. Our Mach1 Enterprise solution provides contractors of all sizes with a set of end-to-end tools to focus on the work in the field while still meeting the requirements of a large labor-based, dynamic workforce. Our Covid vaccine application provides service-based companies a straightforward tool for managing vaccination status. We’ve created dozens of other tools from this framework, and while some have failed, the fact is we were able to get them to market to pivot and readjust quickly. Having the ability to have your idea fail fast can be a superpower in an organization trying to move fast and break things.