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Recap of Week 8

  By Kristi Day • July 24, 2009

On Monday, we began to make final decisions about materials and vendors for these materials. We spent a lot of time researching different suppliers online, and pricing different products. During this process, we realized that there were a lot of details about how our designs worked that we hadn’t yet decided on. This slowed down the process of selecting to what to buy, since we weren’t really sure how to make these decisions. We learned that there is less certainty in engineering design than we had originally thought. We continued this research on Tuesday, and also called different companies to gain more information about their products and services.

The Technology Entrepreneurship Workshop ran from Wednesday to Thursday, and was a 2 day “boot-camp” for people who are interested in starting their own businesses. The workshop not only involved the members of our Innovation Norway course, but also members of the community. The course covered everything from how to give an elevator pitch to how to write and business plan, and how to gain the interest of investors like venture capitalists and angel investors.

On Friday, we took a trip to Lowe’s in order to get a better idea of what different parts looked like in real life, since we had been looking at everything online. It was nice to be able to see what the different pieces of hardware were called and more specifically how they worked. Then, in order to increase our work efficiency, we divided up the tasks. Caleb and Rhodes went to Regal Plastics to check out the different options they had available, and Kristi and Nicole stayed behind and worked on finalizing the shopping list for materials.

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Recap of Week 6

  By Kristi Day • July 10, 2009

We started this week by taking another look at our key components spreadsheet, and making sure that all our viable ideas from our note cards were represented. We printed out copies of our spreadsheet, and used them to help us in our next step of the brainstorming process.

We then began to do more note card style brainstorming, this time coming up with more complete ideas, and having our specific art pieces in mind. We referenced our spreadsheet to make sure we addressed all the different design blocks. Each of us came up with very different ideas, since our pieces have a wide-range of needs. We each came up with 15 ideas during this step, and presented our ideas to the others when we were finished, as well as to Dr. Matthew Wettergreen and Grace Rodriguez, who gave us valuable feedback to help us with our ideas.

For our next step, we once again came up with 15 ideas, but this time we focused on modularity and general solutions, rather than solutions tailored to our specific pieces. We still focused on utilizing our design blocks, but the ideas that we generated were very different from the previous round. After this round of brainstorming, we went through our spreadsheet to make sure every design idea had been used at least once. We wrote a list of the ideas that hadn’t been used yet, and referenced this list during our next round, in which we once again generated 15 ideas each.

Before attending our Innovation Norway class on Thursday, we needed to have a rough draft of a market analysis section for our business plan assignment. We did some further research about museums in the United States, and made use of the research we had already done for our Design Analysis Phase Report, in which we extensively examined companies that offer similar products. We also did a final push in our brainstorming, each coming up with 3 realistic ideas that focused on modularity and the use of silicone.

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EDAAC Elevator Pitch: Version 1

  By Caleb Brown • June 17, 2009

After listening to a myriad of 90-second elevator pitches at the Rice Alliance Life Science Technology Venture Forum, we decided to create a pseudo-pitch of our own. Elevator pitches are meant to grab the attention of perspective investors, employees, or collaborators by offering a unique solution to an irresolute problem. Successful presenters provide business plans and goals their companies seek to achieve. We wrote our pseudo-pitch as if we were a pre-seed company seeking funds to fuel our developing idea. 

The Crown Jewels of England—the desk of Stephen F. Austin—The Thinker Statue—what do each of these priceless pieces have in common? The need for superior long-term storage solutions.

EDAAC’s new line of products will actively set a new standard for storage solutions in museums worldwide.

Currently wooden boxes are constructed and custom fit to each individual piece. When the item is on display, these boxes are discarded because they take up too much space. These custom-built boxes are both monetarily costly and time expensive. Our collapsible storage boxes are created from recycled materials and save space, time, and money by paying for themselves over the course of three years—saving each museum thousands of dollars/year thereafter.

We have tested the market by conducting field searches and interviews with preparators and registrars at one of the finest museums in the US. They are enthusiastic about revolutionizing the museum storage industry, and their feedback has given specific insight into what features these boxes should possess.

Our management team consists of the Chief Registrar and Conservator, PhD’s from the Rice Engineering Department, and President David W. Leebron. Our concepts have been protected as intellectual property of Rice University. We are seeking seed funds in the amount of $500,000 to create our first line of Owl Pak boxes. Join us, as the Owl Pak soars to new heights in the realm of preventive conservation. Thank You.

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Recap of Week 2

  By Kristi Day • June 12, 2009

The Monday of our second week was dedicated to further research about conservation, both online and in print. On Tuesday, we were given a presentation by Dr. Matthew Wettergreen, our project coordinator, about the Engineering Design Process. We also wrote a mission statement for our team.

Julie Bakke, Chief Registrar of MFAH, gave us a tour of both the museum’s off-site storage facilities on Wednesday. During our tour, we witnessed preparators packing art for transportation, loading it onto a truck, and moving it to and from storage facilities. They offered us valuable insight into the process, and gave us information about the materials that they use. User feedback from preparators who handle art on a daily basis was extremely helpful to our understanding of the current state of need at the museum. We also got a behind-the-scenes look at a conservation lab, where restorative conservation was taking place.

On Thursday, we had the opportunity to attend The Life Science Technology Venture Forum, hosted by Rice Alliance. Here we witnessed many elevator pitches and business plan proposals, and heard two keynote speakers. We, along with other students in the Innovation Norway course, scored each elevator pitch and business plan, as did official judges. Both the top three and bottom four ratings of the  elevator pitches were the same for the students and the panel of judges. To hear more about the things we saw at the Forum, visit our Discussion Recap post, or Dr. Wettergreen’s response.

On Friday, we had the chance to write our own elevator pitch for our project. We also started outlining our Design Analysis Phase report, which encompasses all our research thus far, and will be used as a reference during future stages of the design process.

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Rice Alliance Life Science Technology Venture Forum Discussion Recap

  By Dr. Matthew Wettergreen • June 12, 2009

Our team recap of the Rice Alliance Life Science Technology Venture Forum generated several discussion points. Here’s a brief transcript that highlights the personal observations about the Technology Venture Forum.

What was one thing you learned from attending the Rice Alliance Life Science Technology Venture Forum?

Caleb Brown: Venture Capital (VC) firms fund companies at different stages of the growth process. Finding the right VC is important including knowing what types of deals they are interested in or ones they would not waste their time/capital on.

Rhodes Coffey: I learned what an angel is: a venture capitalist individual or group that supports start-ups that are in their very early stages of development. One such example is the Houston Angel Network that supports start-up companies.

What distinguished the good companies from the bad?

Kristi Day: One of the best companies was iShoe because I actually remember the name, what the company does, and the presentation. The name suggests what the product pertains to, so it’s not vague and forgettable. The presentation was easy to listen to, and kept my attention.

The worst? I don’t remember. I completely forgot the name, their product, their service, etc. They blended in, seemed the same as all the others.

Nicole Garcia: iShoe was definitely the best company that presented. She mentioned everything in a fast, clear and knowledgeable manner, as well as display the confidence in her presentation which represents the confidence that her company has in their product.

What new perspective did you gain about business plans/elevator pitches or creating a business?

Rhodes Coffey: New perspective about business plan/elevator pitch: Presentation matters more than content, time is of the essence, Present the most important things now and discuss later—capture the VC’s interest and elaborate later

Kristi Day: I realized that being able to relate to what they were talking about, or get a visual picture of how it works, was really important. If I had some type of mental picture of what it was or who would use it, I felt like I actually understood it to an extent.

Independent of a grasp over the technological aspects of a company, how could a pitch pique your interest?

Caleb Brown: Making slides that are visually appealing and accessible to audience members of all educational backgrounds—not just life sciences.

Kristi Day: If a clear, widespread need or demand for it was demonstrated. If it was unique and new and different, not just a slight improvement to something else.

Nicole Garcia: If the audience does not know anything about what you are selling, to make it more interesting you should simply cut the jargon.

After seeing these examples, if this summer’s program developed into a real company, what must be taken into account when pitching the company?

Caleb Brown: Let the audience know what sets your company apart from all other similar products on the market and how could your product impact the market.

Rhodes Coffey: Emphasize how this is a breakthrough technology and would gear to the available market. Discuss how this is better than previous technology, project how much money would be needed to make this profitable, discuss the marketing team in place and for the future, gear toward certain VC’s, emphasize how archaic and time-consuming the storage solutions are now and how our technology would change art conservation and storage for good.

Kristi Day: I think a wide application would need to be demonstrated. When I think of “museums” that doesn’t seem like a very large market. It would somehow have to be solving a problem that seemed like a big, widespread problem, or made it seem like people would really want it.

Nicole Garcia: For our specific project, I believe it would be best to make it a product that is needed. Emphasize the current problems in the museums, and the possible damage that no solution would lead to, as well as how this problem would effect everyone.

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Rice Alliance Life Science Technology Venture Forum

  By Dr. Matthew Wettergreen • June 11, 2009

Today we attended Rice Alliance’s Life Science Technology Venture Forum. The Life Science Technology Venture Forum provides a learning atmosphere where burgeoning companies could present a progress report to investors and to explore funding options. This is a prestigious event to be included in as Rice Alliance goes out of its way to select a top list of companies doing business in the sector as well as the leading venture capital firms. In the morning we saw business plans from companies like Microtransponder and Nano3D Biosciences. In the afternoon we saw multiple elevator pitches by companies like iShoe, Lono Medical Systems, Respiratory Research Inc. and Thrombovision.

The forum provided the EDAAC team a great opportunity to shift our focus from one of engineering and design to exercising our business minds. Both the business plan presentations and the elevator pitches were enlightening to the group and without a firm grasp of the technologies involved we were able to assess each presentation simply upon its merit as a presentation itself. The criteria that merged as most important was: presenter’s energy, focal points, flow, and opening/closing.

The highlight of the conference were the two keynote speakers: Leighton Read, MD of Alloy Ventures and in the afternoon Alex Suh of California Technology Ventures. Both provided perspectives paramount to getting in and out of the funding cycle provided by Venture Capital and also how to think like an entrepreneur.

Dr. Read’s presentation could have been entitled “How to run your business on the Cowboy Code” as he went through the steps of being a cowboy and tied that to business actions. His tip of “do what has to be done” provided a nice segue to discuss the importance of identifying and acting on trends, waves and constants in business services and investing. His note  “ride for the brand” addressed how loyalty can affect your career, both positively and negatively.

Alex Suh’s presentation peeled back the mystique of running a VC firm leaving a realistic cut-and-dry view of the relationship between startups and VCs. In his top ten list of “Reasons a VC says “no” to funding a company” he criticized the lack of preparation of some companies in both their business plans and background research. Several other points alluded to naivete that can cloud the projections of startups, for example, statements like “we will be profitable in two years” or “we don’t have competition we’re so superior” that demonstrate a lack of experience and realism.

We followed up the Forum with a frank discussion of what we learned and how we would act in a professional . Our personal observations were nothing surprising, mainly that companies spent too little time on their presentations which manifested itself in many ways. First, vague presentations left viewers with a dim idea of the strengths of the companies technology, market strengths and financial model. Overly technical presentations obscured the brilliance of the company, bewildering the audience and leaving them wondering why the company was superior. Too many presentations suffered from laconic or low-energy delivery. Our final conclusion was that speech writers should at least be consulted because there seems to be a low correlation between business acumen and presentation skills.

Return tomorrow for a recap discussion of our individual impressions of the Life Science Technology Venture Forum.