It Aint… Cool? What’s up with Serial and Parallel cards.

How do we market old technology?

Yes….such product lines do still exist.

I’m finding it a conundrum that everyone thinks they have the coolest tech product in the world, as if they’re all guzzling the corporate Kool-aid. Well sorry to say, all tech aint cool. Coming from a long history of pushing GPU’s into T1 retailers and driving the gaming ability with awesome visual tech, well that was sexy (At least in my mind). All those years I spent laughing at the guys pedaling cables and adapters, man how uncool! How do they get excited to sell an adapter, even worse how do they get a customer excited? Poor guys.

Well now my world has turned, I find myself in a role selling older technology into commercial and industrial spaces. Well, even I know, it aint cool. So how do I get customers enthusiastic about it? Do I really need to make it a cool product and create a cool new proposition?

Can I make this happen?

Me: “My Parallel Cards push out 5V compared to everyone else’s 3.3V”
Customer: “Oh please, please, tell me more!”
Me: “My cards come with a Lifetime Warranty.”
Customer: “Oh my yes…and?”
Me: “We have local tech support and you could even be supported by the engineer that designed it.”
Customer: “Oh my you’re killing me…Stop…Stop!”
Me: “OK let’s place your order.”
Customer: “Yes, Yes, Yes!”

Can it be done or should it even be attempted? I’m sure the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

A coworker said to me that attempting to make my line cool was like putting “Lipstick on a Pig”. I thought about that and my product is not a “pig”, it’s just old. It would be a better reference to say “Putting lipstick on Grandma” and I loved my grandma (RIP) but I can’t think of her in bright pink neon lipstick…nope, not happening. (Please note that note I could have used Grandpa in this reference but that thought kinda scares me). I have a good product, old, just not cool.

So, it might not be exciting and cool, but in some environments it’s still really needed. Should I take the “it aint cool but it works” approach and tone down the rhetoric or should I try and dress it up?

I’ve been in tech now for 25+ years and I often wondered how rocking chair sales guys did it. Same product for years and years, just maybe add a pillow here or there but how do they get the customer excited to buy? How do they keep the excitement and enthusiasm going? I’m used to transitioning product every 6 months with a great new and exciting story to tell. This new endeavor should be interesting to say the least.

So if you’re in need of an uncool Serial or Parallel PCI, PCIe card that has been proven to work for over 30 years call me. If you’re looking for “cool” tech, call my old friends at AMD.

I’ll keep you all posted on how I do.

Dan Vokey | New Business Development
d.vokey@lavalink.com
LAVA Computer MFG
W: (416) 674-5942 M: (289) 500-5803