I apologize for the dearth of information on TanCADEM over the past couple of months. Since the last posting, we have had one potential investor reject our proposal and another one make an "offer" that we refused to agree to. We still have two current "potential investors" looking at our business plan. We are in the process of presenting our proposal to another "possible" in the next few weeks. We have had two more possible investors suggested to us by long-time Generic CADD users whom we are preparing to approach with our plan.

The current score is: 8 rejections of TanCADEM's proposals by potential investors, 2 rejections of potential investor's proposals by TanCADEM, and 2 "under consideration" reviews by potential investors. It is a long and painful process to find an investor(s) with whom we feel we can work. Let me assure everyone that we are NOT going to accept a proposal that does not give us a fighting chance to make TanCADEM a success!

We (the TanCADEM team) are convinced that we have a winning set of product specifications. We have taken the foundation we are all familiar with in Generic CADD, extended it into a full CAD/ CAE/CAM system faithful to the traditions and philosophy we all love in Generic CADD, and overlaid a set of "management tools" to provide coordination between and among CAD, CAE, and CAM. This is a modular system wherein the user only selects those portions of the overall system they need to support the tasks they are doing.

The "management tools" overlaid on the TanCADEM's CAD, CAE, and CAM systems are aimed at "project data management". You may be familiar with one of today's buzzwords -- "project data management" (usually referred to as "PDM"). PDM is aimed at building process control for manufacturers over such things as: material specifications, process specifications, process schedule needs, and the like. Our version of "PDM" incorporates many of these concepts tilted towards the managing of a "project" rather than a "product". Although they are similar in nature, there is a subtle difference in the philosophical grounding between them.

Our version of "PDM" (currently running under the name "TanMAN/PDM" -- though a new suggestion of TanLEAD/PDM is under serious consideration) is essentially a "database manager" that can use information embedded in our TanCAD, TanCAE, and TanCAM files to correlate project: schedules, costs, efforts, supporting files, and the like. Under certain conditions, our "PDM" can act to override decisions made within our TanCAD, TanCAE, and TanCAM modules. I won't go into that now, but suffice it to say that it brings a level of control to the project review process that is unique in the CAD/CAE/CAM world today.

One of the changes we have made in the structure of our system is the use of a "project form" to control other files used in our CAD, CAE, and CAM systems. Before you can (say) create a new file inside of TanCAD, you have to specify the "project" with which the file will be associated. For those of us who do work for several clients simultaneously, this is a godsend as it allows us to segregate such efforts quickly and easily. For those of you for whom such segregation is unneeded, you can use this capability to define WHEN you were working on what -- i.e. you can use some time frame (week, month, quarter, year, etc.) as your "project". We then will have "tools" that assist you in archiving (or dearchiving) specific "projects". Yes, this adds a new "step" that has to be dealt with before you can start working. However, we believe that this will become a very valuable "step" once you understand its potential.

Obviously, those who will use the "time frame association" to define their "projects" will not have a use for our "TanMAN/ [TanLEAD/]PDM" module. That IS designed to be used by those who need to manage "projects" in a different sense. However, the philosophy that led to our "PDM" approach still brings a "value" to TanCADEM's approach that we believe you will truly like. This is one of the "extensions" we talk about.

I realize that this "description" is "sparse" at best. Please keep in mind that we MUST hold many of our "cards" very closely and that premature disclosure of functional details of TanCADEM as a system hurts our ability to find the backing we need. I am trying very hard to balance the excitement that I believe you will have when the entire proposal is finally unveiled with the need to maintain functional secrecy.

I have been working very hard to bring TanCADEM to fruition. I have significantly more than 5000 hours of my personal effort tied up in this. The other members of the TanCADEM team have placed more than 10,000 hours of their personal effort into the proposal. Please believe me when I say that it is no fun whatsoever to have all this "ready to go" and be waiting around for the financial wherewithal to appear. THAT is our situation in truth today.

Of the dozen potential investors we have approached to date, 8 have been "suggested" by other Generic CADD users. We need YOU to help us find "angel investors" who have the wherewithal to back a multimillion dollar ($5.8 - $7.2 million) effort and are willing to play for the long-term (5 - 7 years) to gain the return on investment that will justify the risks. We believe that we have a very good business plan to present to potential investors. However, as we are NOT planning to use a short-term initial public (stock) offering (IPO) to generate the return on investment, most venture capitalists are NOT interested in our plan.

This is a key point to understand. It was the preparations for the IPO process that burdened Numera Software into financial failure. (There were many other problems at Numera, but the costs of preparing for the IPO were "key" [IMO] to driving them to failure.) This is more common than most people believe. A new company doing an IPO has less than a 5% (being generous) chance of surviving the IPO. Venture capitalists make their profit off of the IPO whether or not the company survives that process. This is NOT the type of "backer" we are looking for. We want TanCADEM to survive for the long term. Please note that Microsoft had been in business for eleven years when they made their IPO. Companies that survive the IPO process are those with a fairly long history of operations BEFORE they make their IPO. The founders of TanCADEM understand history.

A venture capitalist intends to take their profit out of the IPO. An angel investor intends to take their profit out of the cash-flow of the company they help launch. Angel investors do not lie heavily upon the ground. They must be approached with a personal introduction -- NOT a "cold call". TanCADEM needs to gain as many of these "personal introductions" as can be arranged. Your assistance in this arena can well make the difference between success and failure -- and the sanity (what is left of it) you save may be your own!

You may contact Lew Merrick, P.E. at:

Editors note:
The content of these documents as posted on the Generic CADD users Web site are the views of the author and shall not be construed as an endorsement of the TanCADEM™ software.

A) We are approaching CAD/CAE/CAM and management functions needed by industry from a unique philosophical direction that incorporates the traditions of design, development, manufacturing, and operation's management. This approach is modular in nature. Our customers can then buy those tools they need, when they need them and expand their toolset as conditions and needs under which they work change. Our focus is on realizing that our customers need to work with the CAD, CAE, and CAM systems in use at the major corporations that are most often the smaller firm's clients.

B) The layout and design of our modules is based on the information flows needed to support the processes of design, development, manufacturing, and operation's management within the context of legal and regulatory documentation requirements. Today's CAD/CAE/CAM marketplace has ignored this set of needs under the mistaken view that such documentation should be external to the CAD/CAE/CAM system's function. TanCADEM understands that documentation functions can and should be incorporated internally to the CAD/CAE/CAM system. We can bring this significant competitive advantage to our customers.

C) Existing CAD and CAM companies are directed and controlled by people with a programming background without the domain knowledge needed to reach effectively into the industrial marketplace. This has resulted in "upgrades" that fail to address the needs their customers have openly expressed. Such failure explains the dismal performance of CAD and CAM companies over the past few years. The founders of TanCADEM are individuals with extensive experience in all phases of product design, development, manufacturing, and management. This is a key difference that TanCADEM can and will exploit.

D) The price structure of our product modules has been established such that all small businesses can afford to operate them. Though priced as a business tool, they have been deliberately kept within the reach of serious hobbyists -- a not insignificant portion of the market we are serving. Real attention has been paid to the total amortized cost structure we are passing onto our users, not just the acquisition cost. We know how tenuous a small firm's profit margins are and have carefully designed our systems to build their profitability without overwhelming their very cost-sensitive budgets. This allows us to "seduce" with the advantages we bring to our customers without forcing them to take an untoward gamble.

E) Our system has been designed by people experienced in the field each module represents. This means that each module is intuitive to anyone experienced in that field and contains the commands and structures needed to operate effectively. The underlying philosophy for each module has been enumerated carefully and completely. Each module has been designed to consistently follow this syllogistic structure. This care will pay off in a reduced "learning curve" for users which directly translates into lower operational costs. More importantly, the overall information and data flows within individual modules and among our total system has been carefully examined to minimize data entry time/costs while maximizing communications among the players working to bring a project to successful conclusion. The analysis placed into these areas is "backwards" from the way such systems have traditionally been designed -- and overall advantage for TanCADEM.

F) The organizational and operational design of our system bring new efficiencies to the smaller commercial or industrial firm. We are bringing the integration of CAD, CAE, and CAM together with operation's and project management that provides a "total solution" without falling into the "complete off the shelf" (COTS), one size fits all, trap that has sidetracked other products in the past few years. We have accomplished this through careful analysis, backed up with formal syllogistic reduction, of the processes of design, development, manufacturing, and management that creates a "general solution" while adding the tools needed to customize each module individually and the overall system into user-specific "solutions". Our competitors would have to completely redesign and rewrite their systems to incorporate the efficiencies TanCADEM brings.

G) An underlying "truth" that has forced TanCADEM to take this approach is a signal change in industrial and commercial economics that few have noticed. We have seen the convergence of increasing capital costs with reduced product lifespans and concluded that dedication of industrial capacity to single product manufacturing is coming to an end. Smaller firms dedicated to specific manufacturing processes will be suppliers of capacity to larger product deployment firms. This trend can be seen in the "outsourcing" conflicts that play such a large part of Union contract talks of late. Fundamental economics is forcing this signal change on the industrial and commercial landscape. TanCADEM's product line has been designed to support this type of operation in a new and powerful way.

These are the salient features of TanCADEM's plan. We believe that we can follow this plan to a new, exciting, and profitable future. Our cumulative experiences tell us that this suite of tools is desperately needed by a wide range of industrial and commercial users. This has been confirmed through discussions with a large number of CAD/CAE/CAM users. Technologies take time and effort to perfect. We take the view that previous efforts at CAD, CAE, and CAM have laid the groundwork for a new approach to integrated CAD/CAE/CAM+MIS in the same way that the early efforts at personal computers laid the groundwork for today's "PC's". We are convinced that the time is now right for TanCADEM to build a new product philosophy on the foundation yesterday's CAD, CAE, and CAM systems created.

Building this capability will require an investment of between $5.8 and $7.2 million deployed over a 2.5 to 3.5 year period. This variation in levels of financial backing depends on rates of sales achieved in the first years of product sales. Higher rates of sales will require the compression of product development cycles which will increase the development effort placed into our products with an associated higher initial cost. This increase will be reflected in higher profits and shorter pay-back times. Our minimum projections suggest that we can generate a 35% annual rate of return on an investment of $5.8 million (deployed over 2.5 years) in 7 years from dividends alone. This requires an investor willing to participate for the long term to bring to fruition.

This is a thumbnail overview of our plan. It is not an offering, prospectus, or business plan. It does not offer or imply an offering of Securities.

For further information, please contact:

USA

(360) 765-4929 (fax)

I realize that the outline above does not answer the questions that you have about the way TanCADEM will act for you as a CAD system. This monograph was created to provide general information to a potential investor as to the path we will take to make TanCADEM a success. The key factor that will justify TanCADEM as a company WILL be our CAM product line. This is a FACT that leaps out at anyone doing analysis in this area. We are going to sell our strong points in order to gain the backing we need to launch TanCADEM properly.

The "strong points" we have to sell are:

(A) CAM must have a powerful, solid, and simple CAD system underlying it.

(B) A successful suite of CAM tools must carry far beyond today's "CAM = CNC programming" thesis that everyone else is using.

(C) CAM must be compatible (through CAD) to the systems that larger corporations are using (typically Catia and ProEngineer).

(D) There are significant changes in the economics of manufacturing working their way through industry that will place our products "front and center" to bring their success.

Behind these "strong points" is the fact that CAD will generate a good and reasonable profit in its own right if it is simple, easy to use, and powerful enough to go "head to head" with Catia and ProEngineer in real use. The unstated foundation of this simple, easy to use, and powerful CAD system is the traditions and philosophy of Generic CADD. The CAD system is not financially justifiable in its own right as a new product development. It is financially justifiable within the context of CAM system development. This view allows us to maintain a low-cost approach to CAD and incorporate its development into our plans.

Entwined in all this is CAE. CAE is justifiable ONLY as a toolset to aid in selling our CAD product line. It is a (relatively) low-cost and low-risk effort that "rounds out" our product line -- and generates a small profit that, in and of itself, would not justify the effort.

I realize that many of you will look at this and say, "Gee, all I want is a way to continue using Generic CADD in the coming years. I do not want all this other claptrap thrown at me!" The only answer I can give you is that we will be building a solid and flexible extension from the Generic CADD foundation as part of our total effort. I would hope that nobody questions my dedication to Generic CADD's operating philosophy! However, I also have to ask you to understand that an attempt such as TanCADEM represents must have solid economic footing to survive -- an attribute that allows you to get what you want.

If you know of someone with the wherewithal to aid in bringing TanCADEM to reality, the above "monograph" can be used to introduce them to our plan. We will need to execute a non-disclosure agreement with them before we supply a copy of our business plan. This monograph should give a potential investor an understanding of what we are trying to do and, generally, how we intend to do it.

OK?