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One of their clever moves was calling their consultants "Forward Deployed Engineers". This let them hire better engineers than you normally could to be consulta
by thesausageking 6y ago
One of their clever moves was calling their consultants "Forward Deployed Engineers". This let them hire better engineers than you normally could to be consultants (You're not a consultant, you're a "Forward Deployed Engineer").
This term also allowed them to book much more of their revenues as software licenses than services, which makes them look much more attractive to investors. With it, they were able to get a $20B valuation in the last round, where if they were viewed as a government IT services vendor they would've been lucky to be valued at $0.5B.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- chrisseaton 6y agoIt's also a name that sounds familiar to military people - might have made it easier for them to sell contracts into that space.
- randycupertino 6y agoThat's pretty brilliant. Rebranding!
- Pandabob 6y agoThis made my day. Thanks for the insight.
- otoburb 6y ago>>This term also allowed them to book much more of their revenues as software licenses than services, which makes them look much more attractive to investors. Changing the job title of a professional services staff member, whether it's "FDE", "Consultant" or "Customer Success", doesn't change the final gross or operating margins. The financials and economics remain the same whether this is at the deal or firm level. >>With it, they were able to get a $20B valuation in the last round, where if they were viewed as a government IT services vendor they would've been lucky to be valued at $0.5B. If Palantir didn't sell a product then you're right that they would be viewed as a services company which drops their valuation multiple. But since they sell a product, and presumably charge license fees for the right to use, their classification as a product company seems to justified from a valuation perspective.
- bobwernstein 6y agoamazing insight