What are we selling?

Hey there,

It’s Robin from CFD Engine & having spent (another) week locked in an epic battle with snappyHexMesh, I’m going to write about something else.

A couple of months ago I shared a post on LinkedIn about how I’d just recommended that two long-standing clients should consider using self-serve cloud CFD platforms (instead of me) for their next projects.

That’s now up to four (three clients & one prospect) – is there a trend here or am I just work shy? 😉

It’s probably the latter, but it seems like a opportunity to take stock of what I’m actually providing my clients, especially if that’s not strictly CFD.

What do I do?

For most of my career I’ve been someone who does CFD.

I enjoy it – crafting the models, solving all the little puzzles that come with it, even wrestling snappyHexMesh can be fun (occasionally).

But that’s never been where the value is. That gets added at the other end of the project, translating CFD results into client-ready solutions via domain expertise.

But I’ve always done both, the CFD and the insights, it hadn’t occurred to me that the two are entirely separable.

That’s partly because I’m the only one here, so I do everything. But its partly because historically clients who could deliver their own CFD could also deliver their own insights.

But perhaps that’s changing?

For certain projects, clients can already deliver their own CFD results with little/no CFD experience (& often very little cash) via cloud CFD platforms (& some desktop codes too).

I don’t fancy my chances at being cost-competitive with Diabatix at designing a heat-exchanger or with AirShaper for a simple baseline run.

If I were starting again today, I’d be considering what my business might look like if (when) the CFD results I produce become a commodity.

What happens when my CFD results are no longer meaningfully different to those available from a cloud CFD platform? And by that I mean different in a way that’s valuable to the client/project, i.e. not just special because you did them 😉

Why would people buy from you? My gut feel is that it probably has a lot more to do with you than it does with your CFD.

Thinking time

Whether you think this is a change that would affect you or not, it’s surely got to be worth a moment of contemplation 🤔

I could distil my own thoughts on this down to:

1. not every project needs bespoke, artisanal, hand-crafted CFD. Some do (and they always will) but some simulations are really close to becoming a commodity;
2. that I don’t need to have done the CFD to be able to add value to it;

They’re probably pretty obvious, but they genuinely hadn’t occurred to me before.

What are thoughts on this?

Your replies help shape future issues, so I’m really interested to know what you come up with.

Until next week, stay safe,