Feb
20
ETL - Mir Imran
February 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment
For individuals interested in starting high tech companies that are related to biology, chemistry, etc., Mir Imran is your man. He has started a number of businesses focusing on the patents he has received and the application of these technologies. While I personally don’t see myself following a similar path as an entrepreneur, it just goes to show the variety and variability in being an entrepreneur. You can listen to his speech here, or read the summary below.
Background
Mir Imran founded InCube Laboratories in 1995 to focus on his passion: creating medical device solutions that change the standard of care in critical healthcare markets. Mir started out with a BS in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers and an MS in Bio-Engineering. From there he’s moved on to having over 200 patents issued in his name, starting over 20 medical device companies, and continuing to be one of the world’s most successful inventors, entrepreneurs, and investors in healthcare. Of his 20+ businesses, nine have been acquired, three went public and then were acquired, and the other eight are in development with one looking to go public.
Current Projects
Of his projects he is working on right now, 1/2 involve implantable devices. The breadth of fields include obesity, chronic pain, fibrillation, epilepsy, and the creation of an artificial colon. While on the surface it seems like he could be an expert in all thes fields, he really isn’t. When he notices a problem, Mir generally conducts his own research does and figures out what’s being done, what’s working, and what’s not working. As he digs deeper, for some of the problems he finds solutions and for some he doesn’t.
What is a project?
Each project is inspired by ideas, which come in random and multiple ways, and is the testing stages before becoming an official company. As an example for one project, at one time in his past, Mir had a couple friends affected by a specific problem. He talked to some doctors that said the problem shouldn’t be a problem with the right steps taken. As such, he did some research, found some inspiration for a solution, and created the project around it. Another key thing is to keep every project or company Mir starts separate because it prevents each project from interfering with one another. The result is that one project doesn’t hog resources because it is doing well and another doesn’t drag everything else down when it is performing poorly. When implementing an idea, it is a long and tough road. Ideas are cheap, but it’s all about implementing and executing these ideas that takes time. Another thing is that he’s willing to kill a project if it doesn’t meet the guidelines he sets up - which prevents a lot of the hardships if he pursues a bad idea into the company phase.
Thoughts on FDA approval?
Mir thought is that it is an absolutely necessary part of the process. It forces you to think about the impact that will result for patients. The regulations are good because you have to document things, follow procedures, and in general keep track of what’s going on. There is a level of accountability and replicability that makes for consistent (and hopefully successful) performance.
Have any failures occurred and what have you learned?
At first glance, it appears that Mir has an amazing success rate, but that it sonly because he is willing to kill the project before it launches if it is bad. Even with his level of success though, he has had two companies fail. One was a dot-com launched in 1999, which he acknowledges as a bad idea. The other is a failed business, even though the technology is still being used in many of his businesses. A great insight Mir provides is that it is much more painful - for everyone involved - to kill a company or fix a failing one than to kill the project.
It’s all about the team (and the people)…
Mir has a history of creating successful teams - which he describes as the hardest part - and reminisces about one company he started around a specific person. In fact, he offered this individual a cubicle and $1000 a month just to brainstorm with him. After a while, this individual took a position as senior engineer, and then went to CTO. Just this last year, this company did $30 million in revenue and is getting ready to go public. Lesson learned: When you find great people, hold on to them!
What motivates you?
Mir is like most entrepreneurs in that he is not in the business of making money but rather solving problems. And to have a theoretical “could be” answer is not enough - he has to bring them to life and commercialize them if they’re that good. The idea of creating something out of nothing fascinates him.
What’s each day like?
In short, every day is different. This morning, for example, he spent in a design review. Most of his time, though, is spent in the lab. Also, he has a very hands on approach to hiring people, brainstorming session, planning studies, and developing a regulatory strategy. He is intimately involved with all of the companies at an operations level, and spends more times with the less stable companies to get them to the point where they are more stable and he can move on to other projects.
Conflict of interest?
Because Mir found the fundraising process difficult, he started his own and partnered with Draper Fisher Jurvetson. This, of course, begs the question of whether or not a conflict of interest develops. As a humorous remark, he says that if there isn’t a conflict of interest, you aren’t doing anything interesting. As a more serious follow up, though, he states that to deal with conflict of interest, you have to be incredibly transparent and have a high level of disclosure.
What do you wish you had learned earlier in your career?
Through college, Mir developed a strong technical and scientific background and wishes he had had the opportunity to take business courses. Courses in marketing, accounting, sales, etc. would have been really helpful, especially in just getting a simple understanding. Learn enough to know who to bring in, how to get things done, etc. One key to his education has been to develop a broad understanding of things and develop a depth of understanding in at least one area.
Question: What other advice would you want to give to students?
- Be a good listener. Because one person can’t have all of the right answers, you have to listen to and communicate effectively with others to find the right answers.
- Don’t fall in love with your ideas. A lot of times your first idea not necessarily right idea, and instead it is further revisions of the idea that make it successful.
- Failure is almost a necessary and humbling experience. If you haven’t failed, you aren’t stepping outside your comfort zone and trying something truly innovative.
- Surround yourself with experienced people. This works well with being a good listener because experienced people are much more likely to help develop the right answers to the problems you are facing.
- Businesses aren’t always the solution. If you make small improvements, think about licensing the technology versus starting a company.
- Learn the fundamentals. Once you have a strong foundation, in whatever the subject, you can build all kinds of things on top of it.
- View problems as opportunities. Such a reversal in perception opens the doors to solutions that wouldn’t come any other way.
Wired to be an entrepreneur and engineer
As a kid, his mother bought two toys for him - one to take apart, and one to play with. He built toys and then took them to school and sold them. Right now he has ten companies buzzing around in his head and wants to start them soon before other people start them.
Conclusion
Mir Imran is an amazing entrepreneur in his own right, and one many students thinking about an extremely technical background could learn from. The most important takeaway from Mir, to me, is the idea of developing a general background in everything and drilling down to being an expert in something. Combining this with a passion to view problems as opportunities creates a powerful force in developing innovative technologies in specific industries.
Feb
19
Social Entrepreneurship ASB - Class Seven
February 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Today’s class wasn’t extremely exciting or eventful. For the most part, we discussed how we could make class better, one weird item that was particular to each of us, the Innovation Tournament (main event of E-Week), and brainstorming. Because most of the stuff didn’t have much practical value, I will discuss brainstorming in this post.
Rules for Brainstorming
- Throw out all ideas, even if they aren’t fully formed.
- Be willing to run with wild ideas. Don’t critique or shoot down ideas.
- Build on the ideas of others.
- Go for volume. Shoot for 100 ideas an hour
- Focus on one conversation at a time.
- Headline ideas - get essence of idea then move on.
- Bring props to facilitate creative thinking.
- Brainstorm for only 45-60 minutes.
- Provide snacks.
- Have FUN!
Crazy Ideas
- Have a Post Secret on Post It notes
- Have Post It pledged to “reduce garbage” or “recycle more.”
- Gummy bear reward cup for fulfilling goals.
- Housing project made out of garbage.
- Clothing line made out of garbage.
- Write messages to others on candy wrappers
- Post It tree much like a Christmas gift tree.
- Gummy bear ice cream social fundraiser.
- Gummy bear sculpture that everyone can eat
Conclusion
The class period was interesting in terms of wrapping up part of the necessary portions of class, and the brainstorming activity was fun. Even though the rules for brainstorming seem small and somewhat unnecessary, there are many times I realized their significance because someone broke a rule and experiencing the detriment that resulted. Overall, it was a fun experience.
Feb
15
Discovering Entrepreneurship - Field Trip to Plug And Play
February 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Today, for class, we went to Plug and Play Tech Center (PnP) for a field trip. For startups in the Silicon Valley area, this is a really cool place to go and get all the resources you need to get going. I have personally enjoyed the idea of an incubator since I lived in South Dakota, but in order to fully appreciate the benefits, you have to be from a place that has a bunch of startups so that the place can be utilized (unlike South Dakota right now…) Here’s a quick run down of what we did.
What’s the Story?
The first center was opened in 2006 in Sunnyvale and is host to 130 startups. They range from one person teams all the way up to 50 person teams. In October of 2007, another center opened in Redwood City and sometime this March a Palo Alto center should open. The great thing about these places is that they offer all of the services a startup would need in terms of office space and provide the flexibility of month to month leasing that a startup would like to see. They have raised over $350 million in venture capital for their businesses and acts as the one-stop-shop for entrepreneurs and investors.
University Entrepreneurs Welcome
One of the really exciting things about this place is that they have a startup bootcamp for college entrepreneurs where they can try out their business idea with all of the resources PnP has to offer. They have connections with Stanford, UC-Berkeley, MIT, Harvard, and Cornell. In order to test your business, there is an application on the website to fill out. Very cool and something I will look at for the future… 
Midomi
While at PnP, we had a presentation done by one of the startups called Midomi. They have developed an amazing technology that allows people to sing/hum parts of a song into a microphone and then figure out the name of the song (for those who have something stuck in their head but can’t remember who sang the song, this is for you.) They have two former Stanford Ph. D. students on the team and from their graduate work they learned and developed this phenomenal speech and music recognition technology. It was so good that they even won the BASES business plan competition! If you want to check out their website and see if you can find a song yourself, go here.
Conclusion
This trip was pretty cool and I learned a lot about one particular resource available to startups. If I had a business that would benefit from an incubator, I would definitely consider a facility like PnP. The idea of putting a bunch of startups really makes sense and provides value for everyone involved. The startups have all the resources they need in terms of writing a better plan, executing their idea, IT resources, building a board, and even getting financing. For investors, having a central hub that decides which startups are worthy of incubating and having a close relationship with those startups proves invaluable to the investors because they can receive all of the necessary information to find good investment choices.
Feb
13
ETL - Brett Crosby
February 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Brett Crosby, today’s speaker, was one of the most personable guys to come to ETL. Not only did he discuss his background in doing business and college stuff, but he also picked out the nuggets of wisdom he gained along the way. In a nutshell, Mr. Crosby started the web analytics company Urchin with his brother and a couple buddies from college which eventually was acquired by Google and is now known as Google Analytics. Also, here’s the full clip if you’re interested.
Background
Scott and Brett Crosby, brothers, were the co-founders of Urchin. Brett played a large role in writing the original business model, coming up with product plans and features, and developing the sales team. The idea was to create a great product that was easy to use and didn’t require a ton of support. They originally built the business around a scalable product that allowed them to target hosting companies and get a massive number of users in one deal. Brett currently works as a Group Manager of Google Analytics. He is responsible for product positioning, feature roadmap development and all external product communications. Brett also graduated from the University of Souther California with a degree in Political Science and International Relations.
The Early Years
Urchin started out as an internal tool to measure bandwidth for websites. Brett did website design and hosting from 1995-1996, and at that time bandwidth was expensive. Shortly after that, the web hosting business became Quantified Web Systems, Inc. and sold the parts of the original business that weren’t related to analytics. The reason being is that Honda was spending $6 million on their website, not getting much information, and after trying Urchin, they realized they had a product that worked amazingly well.
Change Until It Works
After that they became Urchin Software Corporation and offered a suite of products because that is what everyone else was doing at the time. The only problem is they didn’t do any one of the products well, so they dropped everything except Urchin. Then, in 1997-1998, when Earthlink was huge, Brett sent three emails to Earthlink asking them to try Urchin. The first two times he didn’t get a response, but on the third time, one gentlement asked for a demo and a whitepaper. At the time, they didn’t have either, but they developed both in a quick hurry. After having a meeting, they won Earthlink over and the revenue model them became to pay Urchin for paid customers and have banner ads for the free customers. Whe Earthlink started closing down, Cable Wireless became the next big hosting company and had major websites like Coke and American Airlines. By proving their scalability, they ended up landing their first seven figure deal. Lesson learned: go after datacenters!
Dot Com Bubble Bursts
Throughout their period of growth, Urchin was focusing on getting more revenue, but they were still operating at a loss. They were going through rounds of funding, and it was at that time the bubble burst and they realized the problem of little or not profits. To keep the company afloat, they cut salaries, closed their Tokyo office, and changed their business strategy yet again. They went from making deals in six months with all kinds of clauses to one sheet of paper. The deal was to pay $5,000 per day, and you could use Urchin’s software as much as you want. The goal was to become the most widespread and dominant analytics tool.
Developing a Strong Brand
The next business move was to switch from installed software to a web based system. They started to mature the brand by getting a good copywriter and graphics guy to create a strong image for the company. The idea was to look bigger than you are - which is important for people to take you seriously - by elevating the look of the company as well as creating decent booths when getting involved with the circuits.
Google’s Acquisition
At Search Engine Strategies in San Jose of 2004, Wesley Channon (Google Adwords Product Manager at the time) came up to Urchin’s booth and asked what Urchin was all about. Mr. Channon initially lied about who he was and it was only until Brett went to a party hosted by Google that he found out who he was. It was also during this party that Brett suggested that they should be acquired by Google. At the time, Urchin had $1 million in the bank after a 2-3 year turnaround. The company had turned extremely conservative due to the dot-com bust and never wanted to have the problem of laying off people again, and as such, they had a lot of money and looked very good from a revenue/profit generating perspective. They were in talks for nine months longer than they thought they would, and it wasn’t until April 20th of 2005 that the deal was closed.
Lessons Learned
- Go big (biz models, acquisitions). Make the product as easy to use as possible and do whatever you can with the product you have.
- Keep it legal. There were many dot-coms that did deals that made revenues and balance sheets look much better than they were. Because Urchin didn’t partake in these deals, he feels they stayed out of some unnecessary trouble.
- Build a great team. One story to elucidate this point was when Brett asked their main engineer if they could make Urchin’s software work on Windows. The engineer said it was impossible, but then Brett said a $1 million deal hinged on this development. That said, the Windows based product was made over the weekend.
- Act big, stay humble. Three of them were sharing a room at Ramada to cut expenses. They also carried their stuff onto a plane vs getting a private plane. Instead of hiring people, they would also set up and take down the booth by themselves.
- Try new business models. As discussed above, they went through many different business models until they hit the one that resulted in the best results for them and their customers.
- Celebrate the crazy moments. Sharing these times with friends makes life more enjoyable and shows that you are having fun while doing the work.
- Don’t give up. Even when times are tough, it is usually by getting through these times that the huge payoffs occur.
- Be flexible (work on your business not in your business). One of things Brett did was to learn how to do one job, such as web development, and then hire someone to do that and move on to another system. This is great in the respect that you understand how each system works within your business and you continue to grow it as you move on to different systems.
- Use what you’ve got. For some reason, a lot of country music stars were using Urchin on their websites, and by working with stars such as Faith Hill, Urchin was able to develop ads for their software.
- Work with people you like. When asked how Brett manages personal and business relationships, he said that he didn’t want anything to do with the business personal and instead wanted people he could connect with and were real to him. As such, most of the people he went into business with were friends and this has allowed him to have fun doing what he wanted to do.
Conclusion
Brett was a great example of showing that you can and should be yourself when getting involved with business. While there are certain aspects of your life that should be kept out, your personality shouldn’t change. I also had the incredible opportunity of going to dinner with him and his brother. While most of the discussion was chitchat, one thing I did learn is that both of them failed at a couple of businesses before starting on Urchin. They also both felt that the failure was immensely useful later on in their business careers. Overall, great speaker and someone I feel I could learn a lot from if I met with him on a regular basis.
Feb
12
Social Entrepreneurship ASB - Class Six
February 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Professor Tina Seelig, who I have mentioned before here and here, came to our class today. We spent the majority of the class period engaged in an activity designed by her, and I have to say it ranks in the top five of the most AMAZING classes at Stanford thus far. It was a phenomenal rush and I think I can spend at least twice as much time analyzing what happened in the activity than we actually spent on the activity. Here’s an entry of how things progressed.
Entrepreneurship Week
Entrepreneurship Week will be a week of fun and excitement in which we will take some common item and create value - value being however we want to define it. We will also see the premiere of “Imagine It!,” a movie that recaps the first ever Entrepreneurship Week and the value that was created with post it notes. Tina gave us a quick run down of what would be happening and what to expect. I am thoroughly excited, as I’m sure she is too!
Class Activity
Professor Seelig divided us into four groups. Each group was then given about 20 playing cards and the goal is to develop the tallest house of cards out of a single deck. There were a couple other rules that resulted in more points, but that was the important theme. Each team was also handed X number of sticks that could be used for trading because they were valued at one point each. Because the cards we were given were from three different decks, we quickly learned that we had to trade for a single deck if possible.
Trading
For our team, I was the official trader and I went around to each group trying to trade for the cards we didn’t have. I was able to get all from one group, and tried to create urgency between the other two groups to trade for the remaining deck. The reason being is that three decks split amongst four teams works only for three teams. Eventually, one team ended up not having trades, Tina called all of us to go back to our teams because she had an announcement.
Lose a Team Member
The announcement Tina made was to have one team member volunteer - which was me - and then that team member was “enticed” by another group and left the original team. I ended up with the group that did not do any trading and was stuck with cards that everyone wanted but had nothing to trade. We were also allowed to steal some IP, which I took as one of our simple leftover cards.
The Merger
Because the team I was on had pretty much nothing going for it, I proposed we should merge with my original team. One benefit is that we would have a nearly complete deck plus cards from the other two decks to prevent the other teams from getting the complete deck (and the point bonus that resulted). Another is that we would have more negotiating power and leverage because if the other two teams merged, we would still have the cards that they needed. After talking it over with my new team members, they were all for it and we proposed it to my old team. They thought it was a great idea and we created the new super team.
Finishing Off The Deck
After the merger, the other two teams realized the mistake of their hesitancy to merge. We were offered the proposition of merging with another team and because we had already merged once and were in a position of strength, we decided not to merge. Then Tina pulled out the remaining cards and decided to auction them off. Because we had twice the sticks - worth a point each - to purchase the deck, we ended up winning the bid by a point more than what the other teams had. Thus, we had a complete deck and the cards the other teams needed. We were “winning”.
Goal: Create The Most Value
Knowing that we were going to “win” by the standard of points, we started to ponder if that was actually how Tina was going to evaluate us and how we could tie the theme of the class - social entrepreneurship - into it. We realized we were stuck in this competitive mindset that said to create the most value for us, but because of one of our team members we realized the goal was to create the most value, period. As such, to create the most value in points, we should redistribute the cards to the other teams so that they had full decks. This happened with about five minutes to spare, and the elation of realizing we could all win was amazing.
Lessons Learned
- Steal good ideas. A number of the ideas presented were stolen and ended up creating a large amount of value for every team involved.
- Accountability and trust are key to future transactions. My taking a simple card when I had to leave my original team instead of the most prized card made it much easier to merge groups. One of the other individuals from another team stole extra sticks when leaving and this resulted in mistrust and made it harder to convince teams to make deals with one another.
- Know what rules to break. Rules are made to be interpreted, and it is through these interpretations that opportunities can be recognized. Be sure to recognize that there is a fine line for acting ethically and unethically, though.
- Recognize and seize opportunities. There are windows of times in which some opportunities are available, and if they aren’t recognized in time, they disappear. Be prepared to take advantage of them as they become available.
- Value is how you define it. Value can be created in a number of ways and by clearly defining what value your team wants to create, it becomes much easier to maximize that value and recognize opportunities that take you closer to your goal.
- Leverage resources. Life is full of limits, and it is through effective leverage that these resources work to your advantage.
- Team dynamics are important. By creating a stellar team where everyone knows their role and is on the same page in terms of goals is invaluable to success.
- Use time wisely. Some teams spent too much time thinking about what to do versus actually doing it. This led to missed opportunities and overanalyzing the situation - which resulted in hesitation.
Conclusion
Overall, GREAT class with lots of invaluable nuggets of wisdom. While you can read my blog articles and get a feel for what I experienced, there is no substitute for actually trying this experiment. I feel that if I participated in a variation of this experiment in multiple contexts, there would be more lessons and greater levels of understanding developed. So, stop reading and go do it yourself!