As winter rolled around we both found ourselves on campus during the winter break with no plans and free time to work. So we decide to give it one more shot, we lock ourselves in the library for 2 weeks defining our system, our ideas, and deciding upon the first tangible problem that we believed we could solve. We started from first principles, deduced some basic assumptions and mapped out our road to EL DORADO! While at the time our technology was imperfect we knew that we had stumbled upon a serious opportunity. I say opportunity because I believe that standard format of defining a "problem" is narrow sighted.
In January classes had started again. We are moving our way along and we hear about another pitch contest. We go in with our refined concept and win again. This time instead of leaving with a co-founder we walked away with the interest of a local investor. We meet a few times, explored his interest in our technology but left unsatisfied with his resolve and approach to growing us as individuals. Through out this entire process I had reconnected with a friend from high school whom was doing some work as a personal assistant to a venture capitalist. He had told his boss about what we we're working on and his boss had expressed interest in giving me some advice as to not get taken advantage of in the process. After a few conversations, meetings with myself and Taylor he expressed his own potential interest to invest. We botch our first presentation, learnt from it, and came back with our business plan which successfully got us a substantial angel investment in our idea.
Fast forward a few months after multiple meetings, the hiring of a few team members, the leasing of a small office space downtown, we entered summer heads held high in our glass box of innovation. Over this past summer we have developed some really cool technology that has the potential to have a substantial impact in our specific industry. We have been patenting like mad men, building best practices and in general teaching ourselves how to jump start an up start.
Now its November and we have reached an impasse. We don't know how to take this company into the market. We have plenty of ideas but due to the nature and complexity of autonomous systems and especially small UAVs we don't have the experience interacting with FAA, NASA, and the other partners we believe are necessary key verticals. Unfortunately our investor is not experienced with technical start ups and I have come to the conclusion that we need to bring in outside experience in order to grow this company and our technology to its fullest potential. The problem is we don't know where to start or draw the line. Do we seek investment from a VC firm? Shoot for a partnership with a larger company? Take more money from our current investor and try and find an industry specialist to establish these relationships we so desperately need? Or potentially some fourth option that we haven't considered.
Our pain points are numerous but we believe our opportunity and potential impact for outweigh any temporary pain. I post this because I am eager to hear thoughts from others in the technology space. I am constantly learning and have found that one of my true passions in life is to learn from others.
As always...
Thanks for reading, -CA