I read this great article by Steve Blank….. thought it was worth sharing
This Thanksgiving it might seem that there’s a lot less to be thankful for. One out of ten of Americans is out of work. The common wisdom says that the chickens have all come home to roost from a disastrous series of economic decisions including outsourcing the manufacture of America’s physical goods. The United States is now a debtor nation to China and that the bill is about to come due. The pundits say the American dream is dead and this next decade will see the further decline and fall of the West and in particular of the United States.
It may be that all the doomsayers are right.
But I don’t think so.
Let me offer my prediction. There’s a chance that the common wisdom is very, very wrong. That the second decade of the 21st century may turn out to be the West’s and in particular the United States’ finest hour. Read the rest of this entry »
This is a very interesting press release……I wonder how much Samsung paid…$200 million?…it will be very interesting to see how many more of these sort of releases are issued….Ben
SEOUL, South Korea and BELLEVUE, Wash. — November 18, 2010 — Samsung Electronics and Intellectual Ventures announced today they have entered into a long-term license arrangement. With this arrangement, Samsung Electronics gains access to Intellectual Ventures’ extensive patent portfolio, which includes IP in a variety of segments critical to Samsung’s business operations.
Kids can teach a lot about ourselves and the world. Kids start out as entrepreneurs. Somewhere along way, when we grow up we can forget to dream big. We forget how to ask questions. We forget how to be an entrepreneur.
This is a great video clip, to remind us how important entrepreneurship is, to remind us to think big, to ask questions – to be remember what is was like to be a kid.
Ever heard of queous dispersions of vermiculite platelets in polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH)? Sound Boring? Perhaps it is. But it is an important clean-tech advancement. I submit the boring clean tech advancements will be the important ones, which is why yet2Ventures loves boring. Here is the background:
Polyvinylidene Chloride
Ralph Wiley, a Dow lab worker, accidentally discovered polyvinylidene chloride (PVdC) in 1933. Ralph, cleaned glassware in a Dow Chemical lab, came across a vial he couldn’t scrub clean. Turned out it was an excellent oxygen barrier, and it was approved for use in food packaging in the ’40s.
Unfortunately chlorine given is off by PVdC combines with moisture in the environment and forms hydrochloric acid in landfills. A number of countries are thus making it illegal to landfill PVdC. There has been a race to find a new clear film coating that has a high oxygen barrier at a very low cost. After a bit of a search, we found one – Nanopack and we invested in it in 2008.
Nanopack
Nanopack invented a coating that is an aqueous dispersions of vermiculite platelets in polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH). The platelets are very small, 1-3 nanometers thick and 10-30 microns in breadth, but they are clear and block oxygen. Doesn’t sound very exciting does it? Well it is.
They are lower cost and are in commercial use (sales are growing nicely). Nanopack will be one of our great success stories, but it wont be high profile, and you wont read about it in the Wall Street Journal. But it is a financial and environmental success story. A Huge one.
What is the learning? Will the most important clean tech advancements will be boring?
The best part about working with yet2.com is learning about trends in technology before others see them. Based on some of these learnings I wanted to share a prediction – in the next few years we will see a New Now.
What is ‘Now’?
Unless you are a physicist or an electrical engineer, your definition of ’Now’ is likely similar to an average 10 year old getting ready for school. ’Now’ is 5 to 15 minutes. (Read how Buddhists define now).
With the convergence of; faster cell networks, better location based computing, and real-time understanding of our environments - ‘Now’ is changing. Now is becoming right now.
What does this mean?
Your cell phone will tell you to walk faster to catch the train, or that your childhood best friend is on the the side of the street. Spontaneous and short conference calls with your family and friends will be set up when the ‘Now’ (your cell phone) thinks you would like it. Your Car GPS will reroute you based on a single red traffic light, or an ambulance ahead. It will be Tivo for life, we’ll skip through the distractions so we can focus on the content.
You wont ever spend time booting up, down loading, or waiting in line. Your attention, entertainment and focus will be carefully managed and optimized - to the millisecond - the network will adapt to you – not the reverse. You’ll spend more time doing the things you want to do – Now.
Thoughts? Any interesting new companies or technology in this space?
yet2Ventures invested in Watermark Medical in August of 2009. Since then the company has raised an additional $21 million. We have high interest in sleep and believe it is one of the frontiers of healthcare. Watermark Medical will be a company to watch – Ben
Watermark Medical, Inc., a privately-held medical products and services company servicing the 25 million patients suffering from sleep-disordered breathing, today announced the completion of a $6 million equity investment from Ballast Point Ventures.
Watermark Medical has developed the first web-based, end-to-end system and is the leading sleep diagnostics provider in the emerging Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based healthcare cloud market focused on Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA.) Ballast Point Ventures will hold a minority stake in Watermark Medical and one seat on Watermark’s Board of Directors along with CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA), who led the round with a $15 million dollar investment earlier this year.
Electro Petroleum (EPI) hired yet2.com 3 years ago. We were so impressed with them that yet2Ventures invested. Now EPI has investors, route to market partners, customers and is seeing real success turning dormant oils wells into productive ones.
How did this happen?
The Market
2/3 of the world’s heavy oil is to viscous to pump. In fact there is more oil in the Canadian Oil Sands than all of the Middle East combined. The problem is that it’s to heavy to pump. The technology of choice was to ‘steam’ a well, meaning pump steam down a well, then pump up the oil/water mixture. However this requires a lot of energy to steam water and to pump it down the well. Steam condenses below about 2,000 feet, so in addition to all of the other major drawbacks, this approach doesn’t work when the oil is deep.
The Technology
Electro Petroleum uses a patented technology called EEOR – Electrically Enhanced Oil RecoverySM. The electrical field upgrades the heavy crude through an electro-chemical process, mobilizes it through electro-kinetics, and heats it through joule or resistance heating . Here’s a neat explanation of the technology. with a video.
What does all of this cost? $4/barrel.
The Solution
What did yet2.com do? We worked closely with the CEO of Electro Petroleum, Phil Bell. We introduced him to Fortune 500 companies to help vet the technology. We found capital sources to invest. We found oil fields who wanted to be customers, like Deloro. After all of this, we invested too.
Now Elecro Petroleum has wells producing that were abandoned. The first is owned by Deloro, and it’s producing more than 15 barrel per day. Other wells are in the process and looking very positive.
The Passion
We love helping entrepreneurs like Phil Bell, commercialize their technology. We love helping entrepreneurs find; partners, customers, capital and people. If you have an impressive technology we’ll love helping you too.
SAN ANTONIO, TX–(Marketwire – 10/19/10) – Avantis Medical Systems, Inc., a technology leader in developing novel catheter-mounted digital imaging devices, today announced three new publications validating the use of the Third Eye® Retroscope® during colonoscopy procedures for increased detection of adenomas and other polyps. The data were presented at the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) Annual Scientific Meeting and Postgraduate Course taking place in San Antonio, TX, from October 15 through October 20, 2010. Avantis Medical is exhibiting at booth #1220.
Peter D. Siersema, MD, PhD of University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands, Principal Investigator, led the podium presentation titled, “A Retrograde-Viewing Auxiliary Imaging Device (Third Eye Retroscope) Improves Adenoma Detection Rates (ADR) During Colonoscopy” (19).
The Third Eye Retroscope Randomized Clinical Evaluation (the “TERRACE” Study) was a prospective, multicenter, randomized, controlled clinical trial conducted by 21 investigators at nine centers in the United States and Europe. In the study, 372 patients underwent two complete same-day, tandem exams using a standard colonoscope with and without the Third Eye Retroscope. The researchers concluded that the Third Eye Retroscope, in combination with a colonoscope, significantly increased detection rates for pre-cancerous adenomas by providing an additional retrograde view of the colon.
“In a head-to-head comparison of Third Eye colonoscopy and standard colonoscopy, we were able to determine that the Third Eye Retroscope increases adenoma detection rates by a significant 23.2 percent,” said Dr. Siersema. “Incorporating the Third Eye Retroscope into colonoscopic exams can provide a powerful advantage for physicians and their patients in the fight against colorectal cancer.”
Not so long ago funding a new idea or business, required the traditional means of funding: Friends, family & fools, angles, and VC. In the past few years a new funding model has emerged- crowdfuding or crowdsourcing. They harness the power of human network to raise large amounts of money, in small increments.
Think of political campaigns where everyone donates $5 and they raise millions of dollars, all over the Internet. Now think about using this to start funding businesses and you can image the power and the impact that this might have.
This is similar to what yet2.com does for technology. We leverage our network of over 150,000 users, and partner organizations all-over-the world, create a market for novel technologies. Is this the way of the future of angel funding or technology commercialization?
Here is a link to an article that explains crowdfunding more in-depth:
P&G has been using the world as their R&D lab for 10 years and it’s been providing a great ROI. They call is Connect + Develop, and their goal is to get 50% of their new technology from external sources. This is called Open Innovation and - No company has been leading more in Open Innovation than P&G.
I first met with P&G in 1999, when we were looking for strategic investors. We thought yet2.com was an innovative idea and company. P&G was way ahead of us. Everythime we would say something crazy like ‘we believe technology will be bought and sold by large companies’, Jeff Weedman of P&G would say ‘ yes, of course, and here is what that means…..’
I learned more in that meeting than I did in the all the previous ones combined. Which is why we were thrilled when P&G made an investment into yet2.com in 2000 (joining; NTT, Bayer, Siemens, Caterpillar, DuPont and Honeywell, who also made strategic investments in yet2.com).
P&G’s new CEO, Bob McDonald, explains their new goals. To ‘step up their game’ to deliver $3B in new sales from external technology.
But before you rush out to send your technology to P&G, there are a few things you can do first to improve your odds; 1) Make sure your idea is protected, by filing at least one patent, 2) Have compelling and independent test data that shows your technology is better, and 3) Have samples/prototypes for P&G to test. Give yet2.com a call (+1781-972-0616) if you need some help!
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