 Today's panel consists of three early-stage entrepreneurs that have all recently come out of Stanford. They are Atosha Cave, PhD in mechanical engineering and co-founder of OPIS-12, Caitlin Albertoli, bachelor's candidate and co-founder of Buzz Solutions, and Sonia Baltodano, PhD candidate in mechanical engineering and founder of Scrapworks. We're going to start the panel by having each of them introduce themselves briefly and describe what it is that their companies do. So maybe we'll start at the far end and move our way down, Atosha. Okay. Yeah, so I graduated a few years ago from the mechanical engineering department, but I did my research in chemical engineering. And we basically are now scaling up what was my research was on the basic science side. And basically what we do is we create higher-value products out of carbon dioxide. So you can imagine taking CO2 admissions and making things like plastic and diesel fuel out of it. And we develop that technology that can do that. And we use metal catalysts and electricity to effectively break apart CO2 in water and to smaller atomic bits and then reform those atomic bits into these new molecules, which again are plastic and diesel fuel. So right now we have some space out in Berkeley. We did a two-year incubator program called Psychotron Road out of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. So that gave us some initial support beyond the Tomcat grant that we got through Stanford. And so now we're working on our first product, which we're targeting for early next year to come out. We have our manufacturing partner that's in Connecticut. So we'll have our first dishwasher-size reactor that'll convert about 40 kilograms of CO2 per day. And then we'll scale up to something that's the size of a whole plant that can do tons per day of CO2 conversion. Thank you. So I am one of the co-founders of Buzz Solutions, and we actually came out of a class here at Stanford last spring. So we partner with large drone service providers to inspect transmission lines. So the big power lines that are out in the middle of the fields. And then Buzz Solutions brings the predictive analytics to that. So we can tell you where and when a line's going to break down. So we're working to prevent forest fires, such as the large fires that happened this past fall in Santa Rosa. We're working to prevent power outages. And then there's about 50 deaths per year in the US alone in line inspections. The current way that the lines are inspected is through helicopters. So they actually fly helicopters really close to the power lines. And then they'll take pictures with cameras. And so we're working to use drones for that solution now. And we're able to use different kinds of sensors to actually tell you not only what's happening around the line, but what's also happening inside to prevent power outages before they even start. And to keep those linemen that are usually in the helicopters on the ground in safer environments. Great, thank you. Hi, I'm Sonia. I earned my master's through the Joint Program in Design, which has recently evolved into the Design Impact Program. And my PhD is through the Center of Design Research. And we focus on autonomous human vehicle interactions. But Scrapworks, my company, is really focused on increasing the efficiency within complex supply chains, especially in the food supply chain. And this came out of my joint program in Design Master's thesis work, where we were trying to understand why there was so much waste occurring in the production cycle of food. And one of the major reasons is because it's relying heavily on human intuition for a variety of reasons. Mostly because people don't know how to leverage the data streams they already have available to them. And often those data streams may not even be digitized. So what we do is we provide ways to ingest these data streams in a digital way that allow us to use predictive algorithms to also understand where the inefficiencies lie and how they can even run their innovation and strategy in such a way that production and demand are really meeting each other and they're not kind of scared that they're going to lose sales because they're not overproducing. Because that's always the thing that I've learned. The food industry is really terrified of is that we prefer to have access so that we can guarantee a sale. And so we're saying you don't have to have that, make that choice anymore. Great, so I'm going to ask some questions. And I mean, you each can jump in when you'd like to answer. But let me start with the following. Was starting a company what you expected and were there any surprises? I would say before I started diving into it, I had a very different vision of what starting a company was. I thought it was more of this brute force, you write a 50 page business plan, then you just execute, execute, execute on that business plan. And then if you work really, really hard, you'll be successful. And in doing some of the entrepreneurship courses here at Stanford before I graduated, I realized that it's actually a lot more fun than that. I think, don't mention this, the whole business model canvas and the lean startup. You're bringing design thinking into how you're forming this entity and being strategic about financing and about how you're going to hire people and build your team. And that can be really, really fun and really creative. And so I would say that was like, it's been a big surprise for me as well as I've moved along. I think another surprise too, again as we were initially first starting a company, there was actually this app that had came out back then called Yo. And the team had raised a million dollars to build this app. So I kind of felt like, well, this app can get a million dollars. We can easily get a million dollars from Fincher Capital. We're actually doing something that's meaningful. But that was not quite the case. We actually, because we only had idea, because it was at the tail end of this massive clean tech funding, Fincher Capital was not investing in clean tech anymore because of failures like Cylindra and that kind of stuff. And so it was really difficult to raise money in the kind of additional way. So we had to go back to the drawing board and be more strategic. And so leaning on philanthropic sources initially, then going to government grants and now recently we've been able to attract private funding as we were starting to build our first commercial product. And we have those financial cost models and their revenue showing that we can be a profitable company. So that was something too that we had to kind of reset and realize that there's gonna be a different path for us to raise money. All right, take Caitlin, do you want to? Yeah, I think definitely it was not what I expected either. Coming out of a class here at Stanford, we launched, we had our financial models built, we had our go to market strategy ready to go. And then we actually found ourself in this almost like a feedback loop. We were going after these customers and we were able to get our foot in the door to get meetings with them through our Stanford connections. But we didn't have a prototype ready. And that was something that was really difficult for us because in order to actually buy our own drones and really get that out the door, we needed some type of capital. But in order to raise capital, we needed some type of customer. And so that really kind of spun us back and forth. We tried to figure out how we were going to break out of the cycle and actually really get our feet moving forward. And so luckily we were able to secure like a pre-seed amount of funding from an accelerator which not only provided us connections to multiple power utilities in the city of Columbus, Ohio, which is now a smart city. But it also helped us actually get our first prototype out the door and then help us gain more customers. So likewise, I came from a program that was very focused on finding, in a way, product market fit, product need fit. And realizing that's a very different thing to find product market fit and product funding fit. Because we had a working prototype that was developed at Stanford. But understanding how to build a model that spoke to investors was a really different thing. And for us, the secret was understanding the ecosystem that Scrapworks could really live within and broaden our own understanding of what the application of the product was. We used to talk about what we did in terms of reducing food waste, which it does do, but it turns out you can sell increasing sales a lot better than you can sell reducing food waste. And the math is the same. It's just understanding of that suddenly became and not even from a customer perspective, it was almost intelligent. You have to find a new way to tell a story for the investment community that is distinct from the story that you tell your customers. And that was something that was unexpected for me. You've each mentioned various classes and experiences you had here at Stanford. I'm wondering if you look back what were some of the most helpful groups, programs or classes that you took for this particular venture that you're all doing now. Yeah, so I would say in terms of learning about entrepreneurship, I took the lean startup course that Steve Blank taught. And that was almost like a startup simulation. And the idea that we had during that class did not end up moving forward at all. But it was still a good way to see like building this business model canvas. And how do you deploy a product and get and find a product market fit. So that was a huge advantage. I also did the Excel Innovation Scholars Program, which is for PhD students post-quals. And you spend a year kind of interviewing and talking with other startups and kind of getting a sense of how these different startups came about. It was a really helpful program as well. I also did Ignite, I think it's a different name now, but maybe not. It was a month long kind of, I call it a micro MBA program over the summer. Whereas a full time one month is for non MBA students. And you actually learn about technology transfer. And in that program actually you brought in the idea of like, hey, we're gonna make something useful out of CO2. And had a team of people working on that idea. So that's kind of how we got our initial cost model made. And we certainly pivoted from that, but that was a huge help. In terms of getting this Opus 12 off the ground, certainly talking with Brian. So if anyone's thinking about doing an idea in clean tech, definitely have coffee with Brian if you're available. He was after a clean tech event here, I went and spoke with him over coffee. And I was like, hey, I'm thinking about starting a company out of this idea. What do you think? And Brian was super helpful and kind of encouraging me to put the team together. And getting everything going. And then we eventually applied for a Tomcat grant. That was our first funding in for the idea. And then we got in Psychotron Road after that. I could talk a little bit about the class that our company came out of. It's called Entrepreneurship in Civil Environmental Engineering here. And it's a graduate class. It's actually taught by four angel investors slash VC and also professors. So it's a great combination actually. And the class basically is you come up with an idea and you form a team. And then every three weeks you pitch to a different panel of investors. You build your entire go-to-market strategy. And then you talk to a whole bunch of CMOs. And then you build your five-year financial models, which is an experience in and of itself. And that's just such a valuable learning experience. And then you pitch to a panel of CFOs. And then at the end of the course, you pitch to a panel of investors who can actually invest in your company. And so throughout the course, you get amazing mentorship. You're actually paired with two mentors. Each team is throughout the class. And so our idea really came, it developed so much throughout the course. We were originally going to tackle the maintenance industry and then found out that the market wasn't quite there at the time. And so then we really pivoted. And that was through the help of the mentors and the professors in the class. And Stanford has just been incredible to give the resources and mentorship at such an early stage in the startup. Great. I also agree that part is the Stanford environment. There are so many people here that are really excited to help you explore what your dreams are and help you explore your own potential. Like I have never felt so supported as I have in this university. And people are OK with you changing your ideas and they're excited for your ideas to evolve. So you don't have to like marry yourself to the one thing and then say, I'm going to be this. And it's the only way to justify. Myself in these conversations, people are excited to see how you're changing. Practically speaking, I've been very tied to the D school. Lean Launchpad, I think it was the official term. They actually offer office hours on, I believe it's on Tuesdays from three to five. You can look them up online throughout the year. And you can show up even if you're not planning on taking the class and say, hey, I've got this idea. What do you think? And they'll just give you this really quick feedback. It's not the last word or the first word. But it's a way that you can just sort of start exploring what you might want to do. How you might want to move forward. The principles of quick iteration that Stanford espouses I think is really helpful. And I've also found, I'm also a member of Stardex, which is a program that is officially not Stanford. But it often has many Stanford students and Stanford affiliates inside of it. I highly recommend everyone to check it out, even just to combine and get to know the resources that are available for you there. And there's a surprising amount of money at Stanford. If you, I just wasn't aware of it for like I think a good three years here. I didn't realize all of the financial support that was available for the young seed stage kind of ideas or pre-seed stage ideas. We were funded by the Stanford Green Fund Grant. We are part of Tomcat. And just between those two it was really transformative to just have a little bit of money to start seeing an idea become real. Great, we like to hear that. So you've each spoken to suggestions on classes or activities here at Stanford. The last questions we want to have time to bring everybody back up here for audience questions is what words of advice would you give to somebody who was thinking of starting a company? Maybe we'll start with Sonya and go back the other way. Start early, fail fast, try again. That's yeah, that's really good. I say take the chance because you'll never know until you try and it's such an exciting opportunity to learn from a startup and you just learn so much so quickly. So being able to just go for it, especially if you have the resources like a place here at Stanford does, then I would just say take the chance. I would say that team matters a lot. I don't quite understand how solo founders do it. I've leaned heavily on my other two co-founders, Kendra Kool, who I did my PhD with. And then Nicholas Flanders, who was in the business school here. It's just been so helpful to have an amazing team in place. And so I would say if you're looking to find co-founders while you're at Stanford, it's a great time to do it. It's gonna be even harder once you leave Stanford and you don't have a co-founder. We find someone, but find some way to work together on a meaningful project before you commit because it's also, you can think you have a great team and find out you don't want to really get to the thick of things. And so business plan competitions can be a great way to do that. Taking courses like the, I guess, Lean Launchpad. It's called, that's a very intensive situation where you're simulating this startup and really get to know this person you're working with in the context of starting a company. And then the team can matter so much and then you have to hire great people outside of that. But starting with that core founding team is really, really important. Snaps to that one. All right, wonderful. Let's thank this panel before we.