Well, I’ve spent much of my first week back thinking about the two questions foremost in my mind: whether I want to start my own company or join an existing startup and what technology/market area I want to pursue.
In regards to the first question I could still see myself doing either option. However, as I think about starting my own company I have to admit it excites me more strongly than joining an existing startup. Yes, I’ve already stated that that is my long-term goal and that I would be happy joining an existing startup as a stepping-stone. But over the past few weeks I have thought more and more about just jumping right away to found my own company. I’ll continue to pursue both options but am putting more time into thinking about what my own startup would be about.
That leads right to the second question: what technology/market area do I want to pursue? Earlier, I had written that my plan was to select two technology areas for deeper exploration. I started that this week and quickly discovered that this is not a good approach. I found that exploring a given technology did little to help me decide whether it would be a good area in which to focus my efforts. I pretty much found them all interesting, to be addressing important problems, and to have good potential if certain technical and economic challenges can be overcome. Also, I am keenly aware that a large majority of entrepreneurs (especially the successful ones) operate in technology or market areas that they already know.
Putting all this together I’ve concluded that I need to change course. Instead of exploring technology areas I need to explore problem areas within technologies/markets in which I have good knowledge. This means primarily semiconductors and energy-related devices/systems. There is certainly no shortage of problems to be solved in these areas. The trick will be to find one that I can address in some unique way that the market values. I think it unlikely that I’m going to have some bolt-of-lightning flash of inspiration sitting here on my own. Instead I’m going to start looking up people working in these areas and see what ideas I can drum up.
One last comment: it may appear that I am meandering a bit in my pursuit of a startup. I am! But I’m ok with that for now. I fully expected that this transition would involve ambiguity and changes-of-direction as I strive to determine what I want to do as well and find whatever that is. Sitting here in Month 3 of this journey I am ok with where I’m at. However, if I find myself in Month 9 struggling to find my way I admit I will likely feel uneasy about that!
Coming up this week: a few meetings with ex-colleagues, a local cleantech CEO, a local semiconductor equipment supplier, and an MIT Enterprise Forum event (“Big Ideas, Big Solutions – Solving big problems”).