Andy Tribute on Mimeo ( HP+Goldman Sachs) and How I learned to stop worrying and love the commodity

In 1964, Stanley Kubrick released "Dr Strangelove or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb." In 2005, I wanted to write "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Commodity.' The editor at WhatTheyThink at the time, called it "Escaping the Commodity Trap." A more appropriate title would have been "Embrace Your Inner Commodity."

At any rate, todays report by Andy Tribute on Mimeo has me feeling that I had it pretty right back in 2005. Andy's full article is behind a subscription pay wall. Some snippets follow.

"August 18th, 2009 -- . . .
since few companies that call themselves printers ever make it on any list for rapid growth there must be something special about Mimeo. Also very few printing companies have a list of investors including venture capital, private equity funds and innovate leaders in high technology

. . . Adam Slutsky, Mimeo’s CEO who joined Mimeo three years ago from the movie industry said, “printing is a huge market that nobody has transformed and it is really interesting to do

. . . To show this approach is successful Mimeo has over 8,000 active accounts and more than 20,000 users. One could say it is perhaps the VistaPrint for the corporate markets where the demands are more critical than for the consumer markets and the document offerings more complex.

. . . It is interesting that this growth (36% CAGR for the last eight years) without getting involved in variable data printing (just launched in July 2009) or transactional or transpromo applications. It has a limited amount of digital photo printing. Its business is simple document printing

My favorite:

The main business applications can be classified into three business areas. In sales and marketing it is seen as sales collateral, brochures and newsletters. In human resources, internal training manuals, policy manuals, orientation guides and handbooks. In operations, reference guides, user manuals and specifications.

Sales collateral, brochures and newsletters, internal training manuals, policy manuals, orientation guides and handbooks, reference guides, user manuals and specifications are all commodities.