Talking Cfd

Today is the first episode with 2 guests — Darrin Stephens & Chris Sideroff — business partners in Applied CCM, based in Australia & Canada respectively. Whilst Applied CCM have several CFD-related activities, this interview is essentially all about Caelus, their CFD software derived from OpenFOAM®. I really wanted to take this opportunity to dig into the whys & wherefores of Caelus, including: • what makes Caelus different to OpenFOAM, both in terms of features & philosophy; • why forks/derivatives detract from their parent open-source project & what they signify; • what “industrially-hardened” means in a CFD context & why Red Hat Linux was a source of inspiration; • why they have "a thing" about validation; Shownotes Applied CCM — http://www.appliedccm.com/ Caelus — https://www.caelus-cml.com/

In this episode I’m joined by Franjo Juretić, one of the founders of Creative Fields & the primary developer behind their CFD meshing toolkit - cfMesh. Franjo & I discuss how a part-time project, that would only take a couple months to finish, turned into a 13+ year journey. Along the way we cover: * how they use a freely-available, open-source product — cfMesh — to increase brand awareness & feed into their commercial offerings; * how cfMesh fits into the OpenFOAM landscape & why it’s more than just an OpenFOAM mesher; * why the problem of creating meshes for CFD will probably never be completely solved (& that’s why he enjoys it so much); * the benefits of being a small company & building direct relationships with your customers; Links http://cfmesh.com/ – For more information on cfMesh, cfMesh Pro & cfFlow https://sourceforge.net/projects/cfmesh/ – the cfMesh code repository on sourceforge https://twitter.com/CFieldsHR – Follow Creative Fields on Twitter

In this episode I’m talking with Nicolas Tonello of Renuda about running a successful CFD consultancy / development / training business. We also open the box on Code_Saturne - an open-source CFD software that you may not know too much about. Nicolas & I chat about: • why being independent is so important to them & how it benefits their clients; • how they balance their consulting, development & training activities; • how CFD can be much more than just an R&D tool; • what is Code_Saturne & why aren’t more people using it? • whether an OpenFOAM user would feel at home in Code_Saturne & some of the compelling reasons to switch; • a nugget of advice for anyone thinking of starting their own CFD consultancy; Links • http://www.renuda.com/ – Renuda Website • http://code-saturne.org/ – Code_Saturne

Today I’m talking with Kelly Senecal, one of the founding team behind Convergent Science. He tells me about how the days spent hand-crafting meshes led to them to develop CONVERGE CFD - a CFD package which automagically handles meshing for you. Kelly & I discuss:​ • how they get along fine without a company president; • how CONVERGE was almost open-source & how they're pioneering a hybrid (open & closed source) model with their take on user-defined functions; • why there's more to CONVERGE than just automated meshing; • how they compete in the marketplace especially when the sales process involves displacing a-n-other code; • a nugget of advice for those just starting out & worried about competing with the bigger players in their market; LINKS • CONVERGE CFD – https://convergecfd.com/ • CONVERGE CFD on YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/user/convergecfd

Talking CFD Season 02 is almost here - 10 more interviews with the people behind some of today's most interesting CFD businesses & a couple of new things to watch out for: Check out: • http://www.talkingcfd.com/social – for the new live video CFD social • http://www.talkingcfd.com/fb – for the new listener Facebook group

It’s the final episode of the season & I'm joined by almost the full cast of interviewees for an hour long Q&A session, originally broadcast live on YouTube. Our expert panel comprised Wolfgang Gentzsch (UberCloud), Patrick Hanley (Hanley Innovations), John Chawner (Pointwise), Haysam Telib (Optimad), Fred Mendonça (OpenCFD), Karim Fahssis (MeteoPole) & our sales coach Jeff Waters. The sound quality isn’t up to standard, but hopefully the content makes up for it somewhat. We touched on: • emerging technologies that could benefit CFD in the near future; • the “democratisation of CAE”; • the trends in outsourcing CFD groups in industry; • whether a CFD developer needs a computer science/engineering degree; • whether CFD will play a big role in healthcare & what other sectors could CFD benefit right now; • whether recent Artificial Intelligence/Deep Learning developments (AlphaGo) have any application in CFD; •what CFD businesses the panelists might start, if they had to start again right now;

As this is the last 1-to-1 interview episode of the season, I thought I'd try something a little different. This time I’m not speaking to a company founder, I’m speaking to a domain expert about a business essential that we could all do with being a bit better at - sales. I take 30mins and get tactical with CAE sales expert (& podcast host) Jeff Waters about why engineers might not be that great at sales & what we can do about it, including: • how introverts can learn to become great salespeople; • why you shouldn’t just “show up & throw up” when you meet a lead; • why it’s important to listen for (& then use) prospects internal language & code-names; • why you always need a next step; • and why LinkedIn is your friend. ### Links Life Upfront - http://lifeupfront.com - Jeff's CAE blog & podcast

In this episode I'm joined by Stefan Harries, one of the co-founders of Friendship Systems, the team behind CAESES, a multi-faceted software package enabling parametric shape optimisation for CFD. Stefan & I discuss: • whether parametric shape optimisation will ever become mainstream in CFD; • why a free version is just one part of a multi-pronged customer acquisition strategy; • how paying attention to your customers can lead to entirely new use cases for your product; • what you need to do to get a Mac version of CAESES; ### Links CAESES – https://www.caeses.com/

In today's episode I had the opportunity to talk to Karim Fahssis - an MIT awarded innovator, a bicycle adventurer and the co-founder of multiple businesses in the CFD space. We cover some ground, mainly around CFD in the wind power industry, but also around doing business in Asia: • how maintaining a consultancy practice can give you great insight into how to improve your product offerings; • why taking CFD outside the *normal* design/development cycle & getting closer to the money can produce great results; • why having a laser focus is essential to making your offerings work; • why, if you want to do business in China, you shouldn't expect to be able to do it all remotely; ### Links MeteoPole - http://www.meteopole.com/ Zephy-Science - http://www.zephy-science.com/ Zephy Cloud - http://www.zephycloud.com/

Today I’m joined by Fred Mendonça of OpenCFD to chat about to chat about the challenges of running a business where the primary offering (OpenFOAM®) is open-source & freely-available. We dig into: • where/how/if being open-source can have an impact on a code’s value proposition; • why fostering a community — and opening up channels to allow that community to make useful contributions — are some of the largest & most important challenges Fred faces with OpenFOAM®; • why the success of their Windows release of OpenFOAM® was both a no-brainer & a surprise; • what a classical Greek story about a feather has to do with the future of OpenFOAM®. Links http://www.openfoam.com/ — All about OpenCFD & OpenFOAM®

In this episode I'm talking with Haysam Telib, CEO of Optimad a Turin-based consultancy & software house working in the freeform deformation & shape optimisation space. We cover some ground, including: • how consulting is a great way to get ideas for products your customers would buy but.... • why transitioning from consulting to products is MUCH harder than you might imagine (& it's not just cashflow that's difficult); • how open-source & open-innovation are shaping their business model; Links Optimad – http://www.optimad.it/

This week I’m joined by John Chawner, President & Co-Founder of Pointwise, the company behind the CFD meshing software of the same name. John & I discuss what it takes to build a CFD business with longevity, including: • why it’s more important than ever to have a laser-focused value proposition in order to communicate with the growing CFD market; • why you don’t need to reinvent the business “wheel” to have a successful CFD business; • why we’re not likely to see a Pointwise solver or post-processor any time soon. Shownotes • Pointwise – http://www.pointwise.com/ • Pointwise blog (always-worth-a-look) – http://blog.pointwise.com/ • Pointwise on Twitter – https://twitter.com/Pointwise • Pointwise on YouTube – https://youtube.com/user/CFDMeshing

I'm joined in this episode by aerodynamics expert & software developer Patrick Hanley to talk about the business that he has built over the past 20+ years around his suite of aerodynamic software. We get into: • how Patrick's philosophy of "putting the biggest program on the smallest machine" guides the development of his toolkit; • why downloadable software is not dead or dying IF you do it right; • how Patrick has taken the best bits of a SaaS/cloud business model & incorporated them into a downloadable product; Links Hanley Innovations - http://www.hanleyinnovations.com/

Today I’m lucky enough to catch-up with David Heiny, one of the five co-founders of SimScale - the impressive cloud simulation platform for FEA & CFD. We touch on: • how software-as-a-service might help to bring simulation into design processes that currently/traditionally don’t benefit from FEA & CFD analysis; • how introducing a community aspect to their platform has helped lower the barriers to entry for new users & incentivised the exchange of know-how; • the importance, as they see it, of having a freemium business model with a useful free tier, rather than just a free trial; • venture capital funding in the cloud simulation space; Links SimScale - https://www.simscale.com/

In this episode I chat with Wolfgang Gentzsch of UberCloud - the company trying to enable HPC for simulation via the cloud – and we discuss: * the evolution of UberCloud from an idea through the experimentation phase, vendor marketplace phase to a provider of computing as a service; * building a community of interested parties - end-users, software providers & infrastructure providers - learning what they need & then building it; * how Docker has shaped the evolution of UberCloud and just how important it will be in simulation software provision; ## Shownotes UberCloud - https://www.theubercloud.com/

I give you a little intro to what Talking CFD is intended to be & who I am. I also give you a heads-up about the upcoming, end-of-season roundtable where you can get involved & ask questions to past interviewees. I also urge you to jump on the mailing list if you haven't already done so at http://www.talkingcfd.com

In this episode I'm joined by Paul Bemis to talk about the lessons he's learned building CoolSim - the data centre airflow modelling application - including (but not limited to ;-) * their client-server approach to building a software-as-a-service offering on top of Ansys Fluent; * how that client-server setup gives them a distinct advantage when it comes to the all-important customer support; * the merits of focusing on a niche market and becoming a domain expert in that niche; * plus why teaching via webinars has become one of their strongest marketing & customer acquisition channels. Links CoolSim - http://www.coolsimsoftware.com/