Two interesting and diverse interactions to report on today: Professors Fadhel Ghannouchi and Mohamed Helaoui of the University of Calgary and Paul Liberman of DraftKings.com.
Professors Ghannouchi and Helaoui, University of Calgary
This conference call was the result of a referral by a business contact (Adel Ghazel, EBSYS, www.ebsys-tech.com) from my time at Analog Devices. Drs. Ghannouchi and Helaoui have some graduate students that are looking to spin out a company based on some novel RF front-end technology and need business help.
I spoke about a possible first step of me helping these students connect with some potential customers to get some feedback and validation. While the distance between us poses some practical problems this could be a way for me to get my feet wet working with university technologists. Professors Ghannouchi and Helaoui said they would take a couple weeks to think about next steps and would contact me when ready.
Paul Liberman, DraftKings.com
Paul was referred to me by his brother Max – a former colleague at Analog Devices. Paul is the CTO of DraftKings.com which is an online fantasy sports company. While this is not likely an area I would get into Paul was very open with commentary and advice about startups.
Most meaningful to me where his comments below:
- The biggest challenge for startups is in finding talent. This includes the challenge of finding experienced management talent that is willing to actually roll up their sleeves and get deeply involved in execution rather than just management and planning. Another challenge is in with compensation. Typically, early startups can’t afford to match the salaries experienced managers are receiving at large companies and need to focus on people willing to accept lower salaries in return for equity or the other benefits working at a startup can bring.
- Paul suggested that a good way for me to get involved with a startup is to engage with for a limited time (~three months) at modest compensation. Such an arrangement would give both the startup and me a low-commitment way to assess each other while progressing towards our goals.
- Paul did feel that my notion of getting involved in a small number of companies simultaneously, each on part-time basis, was not a good one. His view was that it is very difficult to gain a deep understanding of a company’s challenges without fully immersing oneself full time.
Paul’s comments and advice made sense to me and are causing me to re-think how I should proceed with my future engagements. For now this is not an issue as I still am in the early stages of just seeing what’s out there. But, I may reach the point when I’ll need to focus in on just one company more quickly than I had anticipated.