 Adventures in commercialization here on Think Deck on a given Tuesday. And I'm Jay Fiedel, and that's Zoe Heaney. And she joins us, why? Because we're introducing her to you, and we're gonna talk about her new show, which is called Ready Adventures in Commercialization. Good afternoon, I should say, Zoe, because you're on the East Coast. Where are you, Zoe? Currently, I am in Lexington, South Carolina for the holidays. Oh, good, okay. South Carolina's got special political meaning these days. I hope everything is peaceful in South Carolina in the holiday season. So let me ask you, why are you interested in commercialization? How does it comport with your life up to this point? And where do you see you taking commercialization in your life after this point? Yes, so I have been blessed to have the opportunity to work for one of the largest angel investment networks in the world. If you've ever seen Shark Tank, very similar to that. We brought seven new companies, instead of 350, instead of the six sharks, we had 350 sharks. And we would bring seven new startup companies a month to five different cities to present to these 350 sharks and really try to facilitate and syndicate some investments for some of these startup companies. These companies were anything from a kitty litter to a cancer research, doing some great things out in the world. And even in these hard times with COVID, still trying to raise money for some really great causes. So watching some of these companies do their pitches and get their go-to-market strategies and try to commercialize themselves was just something that really sparked my interest. And as an event coordinator, I've now had me tap into different industries of medical devices, cancer research or research drugs. And then on to other smaller go-to-market strategies such as things that you could potentially see and target, like the women's Clarisonic face brush, the little electric brush that most women have in their utility bags. So yeah, it's something that's been really close to my heart and watching a lot of these companies grow and become just amazing causes has had me want to tap into them even further. Wow, are you gonna bring your checkbook like those guys do? Are you gonna make proposals to them about your funding and investment and stock interests and so forth? I mean, it's definitely something that we can talk about. I'd love to be one of the angel investors in the room or accredited investors one day. At this point in time, my position was to be the liaison and connect people with the money, with the people who need the money, so. That's great. Well, that offers the possibility that you would not only bring people on your show who are startups, entrepreneurs, whatever, but you would also bring people on your show who do have checkbooks. Is this something you contemplate? Yes, yes, no. I already have a list of great investors who would love to come on the show and talk about what they look for when they're looking for companies and for exiting those companies and really taking them to the next level. Clarisonic Basebrush was one just small example of a very small startup company that came through our forums. They were actually got some investment and then later sold to Target, so exited later to Target. So that commercialization of that product and I don't know a woman now in today's world that doesn't have one in their bathroom closet, so. I would know even what it was myself today. That's just me. So how would you differ from Shark Tank? For example, it always strikes me on Shark Tank. I get different people see this differently, but of how often embarrassing it is for the fellow who's doing the pitch and how those guys are merciless in the way they strip down his idea and his company. It's embarrassing, are you gonna do the same thing or are you gonna be more kindly? I think that constructive criticism is great for everybody. In some of our forums that we've had, there's been some peeling back of the layers of some of the companies and looking at some of the holes that are happening in their plans and their due diligence. Something that makes the angel investment networks a little bit more, let's say, handholding for these entrepreneurs is that first of all, they're voted into the organization. So those watch pitches and they're kind of looking at these entrepreneurs to see what they think the rest of the group is going to invest in. So it's really kind of a pre-screening process that happens for them. And then along the way, the investors will actually get into a committee and do a due diligence on the company. So then they get full access to the company and start deep diving. They'll actually go firsthand and look at the facilities and see what's going on and then almost mentor them into getting to that next step. So I think in a lot of time, the companies that we're looking at on the angel level aren't all the way at the getting into stores level and sometimes don't even want to follow it through that far. They want to go, they want to exit, give that headache to somebody else once I've made my money and let's move on to the next cool project. So it's really interesting to learn that people don't really hold on to some of those companies to the end, to the point where we see them in store. The sooner you can go for, what do you call it, a liquidation event? That's not the right term. The sooner you can get out, the better. An exit strategy, you know? Exactly. And then you have shares in it and then you just watch it grow and make money and go on your yacht vacation. I've always wanted to do that. Unfortunately, we're a nonprofit that doesn't happen with us. So what are the points of interest that you would cover with somebody who had an idea, was pitching you the idea, you know, want to get some investment capital going? What are you looking for and what are you trying to avoid? Great question. So some of the things that we're looking for is a strong board. We really want to have some people in your back pocket that have either done this before and that are kind of mentoring you. And so having a great team and a great CEO and a COO are usually the first things that you want to look for. People, when you're investing, when you're an investor and you're trying to invest in some of these companies, you're not only handing over a check, like you also are investing in those people. And so looking for a really great team and great board of mentorship is always the first thing I think that they look at. Do they have their own skin in the game? Are they putting their own money in and not just taking no salary for a year? I mean, that's not enough for some of these investors. They want to know that you're putting your own money into it as well. Like if you're not gonna put money into your own company, how can you ask these investors to put some of their money in? So I think those are the two top ones that I've heard that people are looking for and things we're not looking for. I think that just really depends. A lot of companies that are just trying to do a consumer product can be very difficult, producing those items, especially now in the time of COVID. Yes, and then research. Research is really hard as well. And because research can get a lot of funding and not go very far sometimes. So, but I have seen some really amazing cancer research companies that are amazing and that do get funding. But I think that investors do get a little bit more weary when it's more research phase or mass production because that takes a lot of money. Mass production, sure. And especially in our time, when you have supply line issues. And I'm sure that to me, one of the fundamental threshold questions is, are you sure you can get the pieces? Because if you can't get the chips, you can't get the elements, the compounds that you need, don't even start. For example, there was an article in the New York Times yesterday and in the Washington Post about COBOL coming out of the Congo. Seems like the Chinese have cornered the market, the global market in COBOL, which is essential for batteries. So if somebody came to me and said, yeah, we're gonna build this new battery. My first question would be, do you wanna use COBOL? Because COBOL is a critical element. And they said, yes, I would wanna know how. I think we're gonna get COBOL. And whether the price is at a price they can predict or whether it's whatever the Chinese market will bear, which may not be what they can afford or put in their budget as a problem. So manufacturing is manufacturing something you would favor conceptually, sort of on a national interest basis, like the administration after administration says to us, we have to get back to manufacturing. We have to make this a manufacturing country again the way it was. And although that may not prove out to be profitable over time. And as you said, there are greater risks, especially now. What about the national interest? What about impact investment? What about for example, entering into supporting a company that was doing something for climate change somehow? Who knows how? And you're not sure if they can make it, but you wanna do something for climate change. Or on the other side of that, is a company wants to do fossil fuel. No, that's not necessarily in the national interest or in the global interest for that matter. So where does impact investment fall in your analysis of a given applicant? I'm happy you asked there. There was different committees for different types of investment. So there's medical device investment, technology investment, and anything like I said, from kidney litter to cancer research, but we did have impact investing. And this is personally one of my favorite coming from a little bit of nonprofit background myself. And impact investing doesn't necessarily have to be a nonprofit. It's gonna be a company like you mentioned that is in it for some money, but then also has an impact on either the earth, the environment or society as a whole. And so when we look at some of those companies, we do look at them a little bit differently. However, you have to remember in the back of your mind, they are still profit-having companies. Like they are still out there trying to create a dollar. And so they are still considered a public entity of investment, but they do have that little niche of environmental or impact. So some of the companies, and one that I actually really would love to bring on this show, is a company that sends salmon over the dams. One, just for the reproduction. Two, for our ability to have them commercially. And then also to feed orcas and help the whole ecosystem. How do they make money? Like where is this money coming from? Like how did they commercialize this type of a business? It's amazing to me, but how they came up with this idea, but where did that seed start from? And how are they making this work? How are they continuing to getting funding? Is it gonna be a governmentally funded? Is this privately funded? What got them their commercialization into this product? And so that's one company we love to look at colleges. I mean, there's a lot of company colleges that have robotics programs that do really fun new products or water stations for workplaces that all give you a little bit of oxygen in your water and track your water intake in order to help society as a whole and get you a little bit healthier. So there's a lot of different companies that come through that have just a little bit of niche where they created a product and they're trying to get it out into the market but it also to make money but they also are doing some sort of good. So those are personally my favorite. Yeah, well, you know what that sounds like one of my theories is that we should never forget that the young people soon enough are gonna be the leaders of our country and globally and we have to see them that way. We have to encourage them to do that and we have to know when to turn over the range to them. And, you know, part of it is can they be leaders within their own companies? So the people you talk to today are the leaders tomorrow not necessarily political, although that's possible but certainly in business and frankly, this is where is where everything happens. This is where real leadership surfaces because you always know the agenda of the individuals involved and it's usually to make money but also impact investment. So I wanted to ask you about technology in the software sense. Where does that fit? You know, we haven't really talked about that yet today. Where does that fit? Is that a high priority? Do you think that's something you would focus on? Is it something we need? Is it something that is more likely profitable than other things? Software itself. I mean, right now with our day and age and how we are working even how we're talking right now there's a lot more software and programs and platforms that need to be created just to make our lives a little bit easier for just our daily lives today. I know that we've had a lot of platforms and software that has made our lives easier but it's still a learning process. We are still trying to maneuver this new age and I've worked with companies such as Oracle. I've worked with Microsoft, Amazon and just seeing how they're trying to innovate and evolve into this, it's still a process. They have, nobody's mastered it yet. And certainly things change. There's one thing constant and that's change and we are in a world now that changes faster than it did a decade ago and I suppose one of the things that you have to consider is whether this company is gonna be able this applicant so to speak, this pitch person is gonna be able to keep up with the change whether the idea is good enough to respond to changes in our world or whether it's gonna be like the buggy whip. Wasn't that at the buggy whip, make a better buggy whip but to accept there's no buggies. So you've got to factor that in, right? And you're gonna test the idea against what everyone thinks and that we don't know for sure. The changes are gonna be, this is a very interesting kind of analysis that you'd be doing with some companies. You say, that's a great idea but that's like the buggy whip, not gonna work. Yeah, I'd love to bring a range of different groups in here entrepreneurs that have made it work and ones that it just didn't work out for them. I do know a lot of projects who started to create platforms like the New Age Etsy but only for woodworking or something like that for woodworkers in general, just very specific. And one is a pitch battle and at his school was actually had a whole platform going and then just fizzled out, didn't work out COVID hit and they just weren't able to make it or get funding to continue on. But then I would also really like to look at other companies as you mentioned impact investing one just popped into my head which I did have on my list and hoping that we can get them on the show but we have a generator battery and basically their patent is that they can pull out when you get down a percentage you can pull that dead 25% out while it's still generating electricity also solar powered or not but then you can swap a new piece of the battery in and bring it back up to 100% and they were looking at being used for concerts but also doomsday if you wanna look at it like that and trying to see these are solar powered and how they got their patent and how they're growing significantly during this time just to be able to help people who are stuck in their homes or creating productions for more energy at home. Yeah, that reminds me, you're deeply ensconced in energy that's a good part of your background is energy can you talk about that? I mean, where do you wanna go with energy because energy is really moving like it or not whether the government does what it says it's gonna do and I believe it will or not there's a tremendous demand out there necessitated by various economic factors for energy for cheap energy, renewable energy, energy and batteries oh, you need cobalt for batteries, I'm sorry what do you think about energy as an area that you would inquire in? Yeah, so I currently am doing a contract I'm a bank coordinator and project manager for Puget Sound Energy in Seattle, Washington and I manage all of the projects that have to do with energy efficiency for residential and commercial businesses and then I also work with the renewable energy excuse me with the windmills and the solar panels that we're building on different instead of somebody having to have one on their residence they're going into local businesses they're getting grants from the government to place them on a local school or boys and girls club and then people can buy shares into it making it a little bit less of a cost overall for people and more of like a monthly cost than a large $30,000 cost that goes on top of your house in Seattle, Washington where it's not really that sunny all the time and then I also do electric cars I do a lot of project management for the electric car group and when talking about batteries that's a hot topic for the electric cars and electricity as a whole and how to manage that upon our grid and how people just manage it in their daily lives we have a lot of events where we bring people who own EVs onto the camera and then also the people who are installing these locations to educate people about how it works and what that switch looks like the politicians have been trying to push all year for this gondon at zero by 2030 or 2040 and we gotta look and see what that looks like and what kind of milestones they have to hit to actually make something like that happen Yeah, a lot, so much of it is we wanna say public relations, advertising trying to develop a pitch that's consistent that's resonant with the, we wanna call it the consumer and government environment the expectations that have been expressed in the marketplace this company, this hypothetical company has to be in tune with that well, the other thing is intellectual property because if I come before you and I have no intellectual property and an idea that can be knocked off by anybody anytime that's one set of facts if I have a preliminary patent or utility patent I'm a lot better off and I should be much more attractive to you and now in Hawaii, we have an organization called the Office this is at the University of Hawaii Office of Technology, Trade, something and they help you getting patents both the preliminary patent I forget the term for it and the utility patent and in past years they have actually funded getting the patent which can be many tens of thousands so has that play in your vetting of these entrepreneurs that is whether they have intellectual property whether they need intellectual property but don't have it and whether they have a way to fund it yes, so patents are a huge sector of our business making sure that you own your ideas is so important but also sometimes getting a patent can take years so we sign NDAs daily I mean, when we get these pitches we'll have companies that come into the room because they know they're in that process and they know that the people in the room have more money and more resources to be able to access creating a product like that I mean, I have done a prison project where we had entrepreneurs we had investors go and speak about entrepreneurship to incarcerated individuals so that they could start to create the toaster masters we're creating these programs where people would try to rehabilitate themselves and go out and create an idea and become their own employer because a lot of times it's hard to be back into the workforce once you've been incarcerated and sometimes there's people that will be in there for the rest of their lives and their ideas will get created out there and they won't ever see a dollar of it so I've seen both sides of it intellectual property and owning your ideas is a difficult path to get through but yeah, I think that when you have a plan and you protect your plan and you take all the precautions to be serious about it then there's ways to get through not having a patent and still getting your idea across and still getting investment to get to that point one of the most creative guys I ever knew invented a little gizmo for joggers it was and there's a little gizmo to help to help you carry things while you were jogging it was creative, it was clever and I said to him, you know what about getting a patent on this thing some kind of intellectual property and he said, I don't have the time or money for that I know they're going to knock me off but by the time they do I'll be on to my next project I have a pipeline of projects and they're all clever so I don't care as I just mentioned this is kind of cute and he was quite successful doing exactly that he kept on coming up with new ideas and they could knock them off but not quick enough for him to go to the next one See that's a serial entrepreneur if I ever heard of one You bet, you bet and that's what you're looking for, isn't it? It's a guy who always has a new idea Yep and honestly some of the most successful investors that I've met have bought and sold multiple companies they've come in they've found a great team or they've walked in and been asked to become a CEO to take it to exit and they are just constantly getting on the bandwagon and they see potential in something and they take them to the point where they're making big exits so I think that that's great if we can all become a part of this community and share our knowledge that's priceless There's a lot of issues that have Niveau have held up the entrepreneurial experience and as I say, the younger generation may come up with solutions for that and remove those roadblocks and have better collaborations better flow of ideas better flow of talented people like for example, the non-compete provisions which are in a number of the companies you mentioned really hold people back from new ideas they hold people back from shifting jobs it creates a bit of a limitation and I think going forward and you will probably see it in talking to some of these entrepreneurs they're gonna try to invent new systems but I wanted to ask you one other question and that is the word commercialization the Office of Technology transfer here at the university their big thing was we'll help you with patents and intellectual property in order to commercialize but there's much more to commercialization than that what do you contemplate by using the word commercialization in the title of your series? Yes, so it's really taking an idea from a piece of paper and creating an actual product and getting it in front of people and getting it bought and that takes so many different steps like pushing to commercialization is if we can even I give multiple examples throughout the show but one of our you talked about patents as being a barrier that is a barrier to commercialization, of course but then also if you look at medical companies I know an amazing company, Odonexus hoping to get Caitlin Cameron on here she's the most wonderful and professional woman I've ever seen in business and watching her over the years continue to request investment and go through different series of investment and rounds to get and she just got FDA approved so that's a huge I mean, that is a huge barrier to commercialization when it comes to the medical field and that's something that I'd really like to touch on with her because her product is just there's nothing like it out there there's nothing to compete with it and there's no reason why we shouldn't have it in our day-to-day lives just to make everything easier so I'm not gonna tell you too much more because I'd love to tell you more about it in a different show but just looking at like the different barriers to getting to the endpoint to getting in front of people and being in the public eye is really the milestones it takes for commercialization and that's what I really wanna touch on here Well, I mean, this reminds me of the entrepreneurial energy that was in Hawaii in the early 2000s we had a tech industry of sorts and we had people who talked just like you about commercializing things since then, we spent more time on hotels and I'm hoping that your discussions will invigorate potential entrepreneurs here in Hawaii What are your thoughts about that? I mean, are you limited geographically? No, I'm not as a child of the world my parents both worked for the airline so I'm blessed to be able to travel and have been to Hawaii and almost every state I think separate the Dakotas so they're on the list but I just think that in our new day and age and in these past couple of years even me trying to do networking sessions online I mean, it's so difficult and when you talk about software platforms that need to be created to make it easier to not just do a breakout session and a Zoom call but to be able to really have some sort of a networking aspect so that these entrepreneurs aren't discouraged I want this show to potentially be a little spark of like it is possible you can still get in front of investors you can still get out there like don't give up on that dream or don't you know, there's still ways to commercialize and honestly today with this accessibility to people they've been sitting in their homes for so long so they might even have an extra space on their calendar to be able to do a quick Zoom call with you don't even need to drive in traffic downtown or be in the rain or have an accident or we're taking away all those other barriers so if we can do that and we can open this platform to commercialization then I think that we can find ways to really help some of these companies get that I'm encouraged I'm encouraged and I'm excited about your show Zoe and I look forward to having it start which will be in a couple of weeks and continue on a bi-weekly basis and we're still looking forward and I really appreciate the thinking you've done to prepare for it the role that you've built and the experiences you've had so this is going to be great Zoe I'm telling you now you're going to actually incentivize a lot of people by what you do Awesome, thank you so much As we say, aloha looking forward