Up to now, this blog has focused almost entirely on my personal experiences and reflections as I transitioned from a large company to a startup. Now that I have completed this transition I am uncertain how much of my writing will be about myself as opposed to my startup. I suppose to an extent the two are intertwined. In any event, I thought I’d take this post to write a bit about what is going on with Uniqarta.
First, a quick summary about Uniqarta for those who are not familiar with it. The company was founded in the fall of 2013 by Professor Val Marinov of North Dakota State University and me. It is based on a manufacturing technology that starts with a standard semiconductor wafer, makes it extremely thin (~25 microns), and transfers individual ICs from the wafer onto a substrate at very low cost. When this process is used to mount RFID chips onto a substrate having a printed antenna the result is an ultra-thin, flexible RFID inlay that can be embedded within paper.
Our near-term objective is to develop our strategy and technology to a point where we can raise a seed round to accelerate our R&D. On the technology side, this means having proof-of-concept on the two technologies which our business requires—assembling ultra-thin ICs onto a substrate to create RFID inlays and embedding the inlays within paper stock. We have proof-of-concept on the former but not yet the latter. To achieve this we require access to paper-making expertise and equipment. We are addressing this through a combination of independent paper manufacturing experts, a university paper-making research facility, and an established paper company.
On the business strategy side, we need to select our initial focus market and then establish the various business plan elements that emanate from that selection: product definition, value proposition, marketing strategy, required R&D, manufacturing strategy, required funding, etc. In the past few months I have compiled a fairly long list of potential markets withing varying characteristics: some value one benefit our technology delivers while others value another; some will adopt new technology faster than others; some will be easier for us to penetrate than others; and some are huge billion dollar markets while others are niche $10M markets. The key for our first market selection will be to pick one that has a compelling need for our technology, will adopt it quickly at an acceptable price, and provide us with leverage from which we can enter other markets. Determining all of this requires a lot of learning and validation that can only be done by talking with potential customers. That is where the advisor I’d been seeking and have now identified becomes important. (More on that in an upcoming post.)
The bottom line is that there two key activities for us right now: achieving paper embedding proof-of-concept and selecting our initial focus market. I have to admit all this is going more slowly than I had expected and would have liked. However, the deeper my co-founder and I get into this the more we realize we don’t know. They key is to maintain a clear focus on what we are trying to achieve and what we need to do to get there. This is easier said than done!