Control Freaks

It has to be said that the entertainment industry mathematics, Snipp held a variety of positions with As the attracts some unusual characters, many of which software companies. However, for reasons beyond his control they did not last. During one particular have fallen into it entirely by accident, often with revolutionary period of applying for jobs, Snipp remembers: no specific training and for some reason “I got a couple of offers including one at the unfathomable to themselves they have never computer company Research Machines and the Stardraw Control managed to escape: so it is for David Snipp. Not other at Tasco - an entertainment lighting only is he a most unique character, but he fell company, but I decided to take the more software adds an into this industry entirely by accident. conventional position. Joe Brown, who was running Tasco at the time, demanded to know For the benefit of those unfamiliar with Snipp’s NSCA award to what it would take to get me on board, he said ‘tell company, Stardraw.com produces a variety of me what you want and you can have it.’ I was software solutions for the lighting, sound and AV 22/23 years old - what did I want? I chanced it, its PLASA Award industries, enabling design and documentation of picked a salary, doubled it, added a car, BUPA and systems for contractors, installers, consultants or a pension and Brown said OK! I declined the other rental houses. Its newest application, Stardraw for Innovation, offer and started with Tasco on the Monday.” Control has won numerous awards and accolades, most recently the PLASA Award for Innovation at Tasco was in the early stages of creating Starlites, Sarah Rushton- last year’s PLASA Show and an Innovation in the first moving lights in Europe and second in the world after Vari-Lite. The company was using Z80 Technology Award on the occasion of its worldwide Read talked to launch at the recent NSCA 2005 exhibition. processors - very old, small, but pretty good processors. Snipp described them: “The Company Snipp is a man who likes to be in control, he is a had something it called a Tardis with all the Z80 David Snipp and relentless self-promoter and is driven in a way that processor boards stuck to the outside of it so that would exhaust most people. As a student he took the engineers could tweak it if necessary. My first a degree in mathematics and computing at the Rob Robinson of job was to fix the bugs in the software.” polytechnic of Wales and in the third year worked in industry as a COBOL programmer at the He remembers going out on the road for the first Stardraw.com . . . Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Foods. He time: “The control software was full of bugs - told me: “The only good thing about that job was I rewrote it all. We would be out with shows and I met my wife there!” In the concluding year of his the lights would start flickering and twitching - degree he found his real passion in software generally solved by an engineer working on the design and for his final project wrote software for a processor boards with a screwdriver, tweaking Above, L-R: Kevin Harrison, local school for the physically handicapped, in the them to keep the noise level down.” symbols manager, Rob process taking them from an entirely inefficient In those days, the PC was just starting to take off Robinson, marketing director, mechanical system of communication to a far and Snipp wrote a piece of software that ran on David Strawbridge, senior more effective computerized system. At the end of Windows 1.04 on a 286 processor. It had real time software engineer and David Snipp’s placement, the headmaster gave him a Snipp, CEO - collecting the three-dimensional graphics and voice recognition - cheque for £20. He recalls: “I thought ‘My God - Innovation in Technology remember this was quarter of a century ago! The people pay you for this?’ That was the start . . .” Award at the NSCA 2005 owner of Tasco sold the system to many tours exhibition. Having failed his degree by concentrating on the before the software was actually finished - no, does computer science side rather than the that really happen? This of course meant that Snipp

Lighting&Sound - April 2005 65 Profile - Stardraw Control

Above, left: Stardraw AV schematic. Above, right: Stardraw AV block diagram. Page 68, left: Stardraw Control topology. Page 68, right: Stardraw Control panel.

had to go out on the road to sort out software a sudden the was infinitely options, it was a small company then and glitches, often during the set up and more robust - it was booting 10% faster, I thought nothing of it. One day everyone was performances. He commented: “That is real because my code was now 10 times faster.” running around the corridors very excitedly, pressure: often I would be sitting in the I asked what was going on and they asked if He just got away with this gamble, however it middle of a field with a computer, the show I’d seen the stock prices that day. When wasn’t long before there were repercussions. would be due up in 20 mins and the software I checked out my options I found them to be As you can imagine the guy whose code he wasn’t working. The philosophy of the saying worth just over one million dollars. I had no rewrote didn’t take too kindly to Snipp’s the ‘show must go on’ taught me I had to do idea it was there. I was 30 years old.” modifications and his creation started to get whatever it took even if it meant working all With cash on the hip, Snipp was looking for a weekend and all night to hit a deadline.” the blame for a variety of glitches in other parts of the operating system, Snipp was new challenge. Within weeks, Ray French After a couple of years, Snipp had done all he dispatched to the IBM laboratories in Boca from Tasco told him that Tasco had gone bust could with Tasco’s software and was finished Raton, Florida to fix the bugs. He had soon and there was an opportunity to buy it. Snipp with it. As he so modestly claims: “Even today solved not only the mentioned cashed some of his stocks and wired the it would still beat everything out there!” inconsistencies but, “21 red hot show money over so that French could buy Tasco. Originally there were three joint owners, but Then he got a call from IBM and was offered stopper bugs in O/S2 which had been a position working on O/S2, at that time it preventing O/S2 from shipping.” IBM kept Snipp eventually bought out the third; he then was the next generation of operating system. him in the USA for another three months owned two thirds of the company. He was very excited to be working for a ‘real’ sorting out other bugs - he had only gone Tasco still had contracts to do the lighting for computer company but he also still over for the weekend. the Chippendales, who at the time had three maintained the software at Tasco. Just down the corridor in the same building troupes out every night. It was a cash-rich Snipp explained: “IBM is a hardware, not a was the contingent working on the business from day one. He told me: “The software, manufacturer - so its solution when O/S2 software with IBM. As Snipp told me: business side was challenging; learning about software was too slow was to buy some “I started hanging out with them, they had accounts, marketing and admin made me faster hardware, as opposed to rewriting the the same mentality in respect of writing realize the value of all the different divisions of software. My task was to make the ‘thumb’ small, lean pieces of software.” a business working cohesively together - it’s on the side of a list box proportional to the essential for the whole thing to succeed.” Snipp wanted a job with Microsoft. He got on amount of data in that box.” It was a brand a plane to Seattle and asked for any job they However, Snipp’s real passion was the new job, brand new operating system, brand could offer him. Having secured a position, software, while French, his business partner new code and brand new development- he and his wife emigrated to the USA, where ran the lighting side of the business. Over Snipp was given a year to complete the task. time, Snipp began to develop Stardraw 3D In reality it took him two weeks to get into it they remained for five years. “I was made responsible for all printing at Microsoft on and in 1994 he released it at the PLASA and then two days to finish it! Show. He told me: “It sold like hotcakes”. In O/S2. However, within six months of joining, He was then was offered a debugging job the company said it was dumping O/S2 in fact it did so well that the software part of the on a portion of the new as yet unreleased favour of Windows NT.” business kept growing, so he followed it up version of O/S2. However, having looked at it with a 2D version plus an upgraded 3D - Snipp claimed it was the worst piece of Snipp became one of the original architects version. software he had ever seen and offered to on NT, writing its printing software from the It was also at the PLASA Show that Snipp rewrite it instead. Due to institutional politics ground up. When Windows NT shipped it first met Rob Robinson, now, marketing this was a complete no-no - after all, they supported over 3000 printer drivers. director of Stardraw.com. Snipp says: “Rob had spent 10,000 man-hours writing the Therefore, Snipp was responsible for was working at Shuttlesound, which offered software; it couldn’t be just thrown away! designing a control software that supports audio distribution and installation - the over 3,000 printer drivers, made by numerous Snipp, being a wilful chap, of course ignored company was doing lots of construction manufacturers - all, no doubt, running on his instructions and rewrote it anyway. As he drawings using an off-the-shelf CAD different protocols - anything sound familiar? says: “I fully tested my solution and it was package for which they created numerous absolutely perfect, a tenth of the size of the Some years after, Snipp noticed some product drawings to drop into the diagrams. original and I got rid of every bug. I finished feverish activity in the office. He explains: In 1993, it launched a commercial software the code and put it into the project and all of “When I joined Microsoft I was given stock package - ShuttleCAD.”

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Robinson looked after the sales and He continued: “In time we started to early days of Shuttlesound, the company marketing. He recalls: “ShuttleCAD was a experience the problem that Starlite Systems builds engines for other companies, for DOS-based application which sat on top of Technology was a software and a lighting example the PanelBuilder engine for panel another engine called FastCAD, written by company under the same umbrella - manufacturer RCI. The software allows the one of the original developers of AutoCAD. customers got confused over what we were, design, costing and ordering of bespoke The software was extremely reliant on that while developing and manufacturing moving panels which can then go straight to the DOS engine, however in ‘93 Microsoft lights was becoming expensive - all the processing and manufacturing stage, released Windows 3.11 and we realized we money made on the software was bypassing expensive labour costs along the needed a Windows engine; there was no disappearing into the deep, dark void that way. The client does all the design and generic CAD system out there that was was the lighting R&D. I decided to split the specification online; as soon as they are affordable and fast enough to work with the software part off and start a separate happy with product and price, they click kind of data we were using - that’s when company - that was in March 2000 - right in ‘Order’ - and job done. I met David.” the middle of the dotcom boom which, just Stardraw is a powerful design and control after, went bang but, Stardraw.com survived.” Snipp continues: “They had a DOS-based engine that can be used to contsruct any system for audio design and I had a lighting Of the new company’s early products, the kind of system - after all a system is just a program running on Windows.” Starlite wrote most popular was Stardraw Professional collection of parts be it a model railway, the engine for ShuttleCAD and its tens of which offered design, documentation and hotel media system or even a fitted kitchen. thousands of existing symbols plus the presentation features. This was aimed at Therefore a market has to be decided upon, software to read the CAD files into the audio, AV and lighting, all built into one after which, how do you then approach sell Windows engine, then OEM’d it to software package. Paradoxically, trying to sell into it - do you attend all the trade shows for Shuttlesound. It was finally launched in early something that covered every sector as one that industry around the world, which would 1996. general purpose solution presented a be a huge ramp up of the operation and problem - what to put on the box? “We had a costly. What Stardraw found early on - the Two years later, Snipp bought ShuttleCAD in picture of a lighting rig on it, but show that to key to success is to find partners in relevant its entirety and renamed it Stardraw Audio. an audio guy and he says ‘It’s not for me’.” industries such as RCI - the panel builders. Robinson had left Shuttlesound and the industry, although he was still working with They needed separate packages for each Snipp explains: “The biggest problem by far Snipp on a freelance basis: “One of Rob’s discipline: they produced an AV package, is focus and resources. We had been skills is he’s a creative, arty type,” says which has also sold like hotcakes and has focusing on the shrinkwrap business for Snipp. “He is much more in tune with the been one of the company’s most successful audio, AV and lighting. That’s been the user interface and what the customer needs, products. This is what Stardraw describes as company’s bread and butter, so we want to so I contracted him to write the help files the ‘shrink-wrap’ side of the business: other look after it. But what really turns us on is and the manuals.” income strings include OEM. Just as in the control side of the business. We are now a

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victim of our own success: in the shrink- we can engender this expertise in our being exclusively a software company, the wrap business, where each piece of applications and the software is both product has to work, it has to be reliable, software is sold for a one-off price, some powerful and intuitive to use.” robust and intuitive; if it’s too complicated customers have owned it for anything up to then people won’t use it and Stardraw won’t So why, I wonder, has no one done it before? 10 years, and they still want any problems make any money. The second thing we “Because supporting every manufacturer fixed for free. Snipp realized that if he had a realized is the only way we are going to when each product may run on a different dime for every time someone had completed make real money is when our clients make protocol is not simple. Manufacturers want a project using his software over those 10 money. Clients are only going to use the their products to be unique and to try and years he would have made a great deal software if it enables them to make more get them all together to agree on a protocol more money. money, more efficiently. If you take those two would be near enough impossible - Stardraw things to an extreme and we offer the This approach and a chance conversation ensures they don’t have to.” software for free, clients have nothing to with a manufacturer at ISE 2004 inspired loose. They use it, play with it, win a job with Stardraw Control’s creation. “The company it and, once that job is won and felt that we had a nice bit of software that commissioned, the client pays us a small with a few modifications they could use. amount of money.” They also had loads of customers they felt would also make good use of it.” Robinson says: “Basically, it’s the D’Day mentality: you don’t just set out to invade Stardraw quickly produced a prototype and France, first you take a beach, then another a business model and showed it at PLASA and another, then you go in a couple of 2004 where the company also entered it for miles - it’s slowly, slowly. We’re already the PLASA Awards for Innovation, and it active in our target market and there is won. Snipp told me: “As the judges read out ample room to move into other sectors.” the preamble for the Award, we were stood in the audience thinking ‘oh, that sounds Just as the PLASA awards judges said they interesting, I wonder what that is’ - it was us. had been waiting for this for years and the Afterwards I asked the judges why; they said manufacturers echo this. It means they can they had been waiting for software like this give their customers what they want without for years. We were thrilled to win and it has having to develop it themselves. What Snipp added great kudos to our product.” likes about all this, of course, is that David Snipp. ultimately the manufacturers will become Snipp believes that part of Stardraw’s Stardraw’s distributors. In addition, some success is that it is quite simply a software Stardraw supports thousands of products manufacturers have agreed to put copies of company: it doesn’t manufacture hardware, and is adding more all the time; it has also Stardraw control into the boxed hardware. so doesn’t compete with hardware developed a software development kit to manufacturers. This creates an opportunity Snipp loves the software business because allow manufacturers to write their own for partnership with hardware manufacturers of its scalability. He clarifies: “Once you have drivers for their own hardware. Every - a symbiotic relationship with one adding a package with features and benefits that manufacturer should accept that a system value to the other. As a result, hardware people like, it doesn’t matter if you were to will have to contain something they do not companies actively promote the software to sell a hundred or ten thousand copies in the make themselves. their customers and supply it free of charge. following week, you would not need to hire a Manufacturers authorize and endorse the Snipp says: “Systems integrators need to hundred more people. In fact, now you can software not only because it controls their have as much choice as possible and that is freely download it from a website: nothing product, but everyone else’s as well, offering why Stardraw also supports infra red, TCP/IP needs to be shipped, no manufacturing is designers and specifiers greater diversity in UDP, DMX, RS-232, CobraNet, EtherSound required, no warehouse needed for storage - system design. and QSC Control, some of which you might it’s all done virtually. And what Snipp likes consider to be competing standards - it’s most of all is that he has complete control Snipp explains that what makes Stardraw not there to replace them, but to add value over all the processes from writing the code unique is “the relationship the company has to them all.” to selling the product. with its customers, it knows and understands what a pre-amp is, it understands lighting So why give the software away for free? Sarah Rushton-Read and how designs are put together, therefore “Years ago we realized two things. Firstly, www.stardraw.com

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