Former ATI staff member, Tabrez “Tab” Ebrahim, and NuMat Technologies, Inc. entrepreneur, shares his lessons learned (in the second of two installments) while at ATI and how his involvement with the clean energy incubator contributed to his startup success.

On March 1, 2012, NuMat Technologies, Inc. (NuMat), a clean technology Northwestern University spin-out, was awarded the $100,000 top student prize at the Clean Energy Trust (CET) and the Department of Energy’s National Clean Energy Business Plan Competition (NCEBPC). In partnership with the Department of Energy, CET supports the commercialization of innovative cleantech companies. NuMat was also awarded $10,000 as the top team for the state of Illinois and will be representing the Midwest region for the National Grand Prize competition to be held in Washington, D.C., in the summer of 2012. http://numat-tech.com/

Tab Ebrahim pictured above.

4) Investor Perspective:

a. The ATI startup teams always have great technologists. One benefit that ATI provides is an avenue to investors, which not only are a source of capital but even more important, they are available to provide advice, critique, and introductions.

b. While at ATI, I had a unique opportunity to interact with angel investors and VCs, and this interaction helped me to understand the investor perspective. I learned the main questions investors ask, such as what the differences are in angels and VCs, and how corporate VC groups work with startups—these lessons learned have impacted how I and our NuMat team thinks as entrepreneurs and how we prepare for business plan competitions.

5) Entrepreneurial Ecosystem / Targeted Networking:

a. While at ATI, I learned that you need Professional Service Providers to help grow your startup. That is, having good relationships with law firms, accounting firms, marketing/PR firms, etc. help advance one’s startup.

b. ATI provides access to Professional Service Providers that have worked with startups—past ATI entrepreneurs know which are the best professional service providers to work with—and this rich network of trusted provides is a great resource for startups.

6) Process & Challenges in going from Lab-to-Market:

a. While at ATI, I learned more about intellectual property—specifically patents. More so than the nuances of patents, I learned how a startup should develop and advance its patent position. I learned how a tech startup team should attain freedom-to-operate, respond to design-around patent strategies by competitors, and evaluate patent licensing value.

b. My ATI experience helped to understand the challenges and issues involved in technology transfer—working with research faculty, understanding academic tech transfer budgets, and recognizing how industry can work with a university in harvesting technologies from university labs. I have utilized these lab-to-market lessons at NuMat, which is a cleantech university spin-out based on breakthrough materials science and computational research at Northwestern.

7) Twists & Turns of the Startup Journey:

a. While at ATI, I learned that the startup path is not linear and is not predictable. While people only hear about the major successes of the big winner startups, ATI helped me to understand how a startup goes through ups and downs.

b. While at ATI, I better understood how issues related to people, cash flow management, and customer interactions create twists and turns for startups—how a startup management team responds is critical.

8 Targeted Networking:

a. As a technical person, I came to ATI without really understanding the power of a network. While at ATI, I learned that targeted networking can be really helpful to a startup. ATI has an amazing network built on years of incubating startups, and this network continues to give back to ATI startups and the ATI family.

b. While at ATI, I learned that targeted networking can produce unexpected beneficial results for a startup. I have learned this lesson while at NuMat, where I have consciously taken part in targeted networking, and our team has benefited greatly from access to unexpected potential customers and unexpected potential investors. The ATI experience helped me to understand such targeted network—what types of events to attend, what types of people to reach out to, and the process in general. I also learned that targeted networking only works when one also gives back—it’s sort of like karma.

9) Pattern Recognition:

a. When I first heard the phrase “pattern recognition” at ATI, I had thought it referred to image processing theory from one my electrical engineering classes. Later I learned that “pattern recognition” was a business concept that referred to the skill of identifying certain qualities of successful startups.

b. Through learning about “pattern recognition” while at ATI, I have a better sense of what an investor might be looking for in a startup and its business plan.

10) Austin Tech Environment:

a. ATI embodies the spirit of Austin—which is grounded in a progressive, forward-thinking, and risk-taking attitude.

b. ATI is the core of innovation in Austin, which itself is one of the most innovative cities in the world.

c. While at ATI, I learned that for a city like Austin to continue to be innovative, it needs an innovation engine like ATI that brings together multiple stakeholders—academia, local and state government, industry, investors, startups, etc. This “consortium approach” is the hallmark of Austin innovation, and it is clear ATI is a major driving force.

Former ATI staff member, Tabrez “Tab” Ebrahim, and NuMat Technologies, Inc. entrepreneur, shares his lessons learned (in the first of two installments) while at ATI and how his involvement with the clean energy incubator contributed to his startup success.

On March 1, 2012, NuMat Technologies, Inc. (NuMat), a clean technology Northwestern University spin-out, was awarded the $100,000 top student prize at the Clean Energy Trust (CET) and the Department of Energy’s National Clean Energy Business Plan Competition (NCEBPC). In partnership with the Department of Energy, CET supports the commercialization of innovative cleantech companies. NuMat was also awarded $10,000 as the top team for the state of Illinois and will be representing the Midwest region for the National Grand Prize competition to be held in Washington, D.C., in the summer of 2012.

NuMat Technologies is a cleantech university spin-out that computationally designs and synthesizes high performing nano-scale materials for gas storage and separation applications. NuMat focuses on the design and synthesis of Metal Organic Frameworks, or MOFs, a revolutionary new class of materials that can be custom designed at the atomic level to capture and store specific molecules. NuMat has also radically shortened the development cycle for MOF research. For example, using its proprietary computational tool, NuMat was able to identify over 140,000 new MOF structures, including one that has the highest natural gas storage capacity of any know material, in under 72 hours. Then, using NuMat’s complimentary low-cost synthesis method, this MOF was synthesized and validated. To put this in context, in the prior 15 years, there have only been ~10,000 MOFs which have been made and reported. NuMat’s technology has the potential to significantly increase natural gas storage capacity in natural gas vehicles, and to fundamentally change the economics in other gas storage and separation applications. http://numat-tech.com/

Photo from left to right: Ben Hernandez, Dr. Omar Farha, Christopher Wilmer, Tabrez Ebrahim

Tab’s Lessons Learned at ATI: First Installment

1) Cleantech Experience:

a. ATI provided a great opportunity to learn about the cleantech sector. ATI’s cleantech-focused forums, networking events, and the Clean Energy Venture Summit (CEVS) helped me to understand emerging technologies and markets in cleantech.

b. ATI also has a broad informal and formal network of cleantech investors across the country. These investors know about ATI’s results—over 200 ATI startups have raised over $1 billion in investor capital—and ATI provides direct access to these investors for its startups.

c. While at ATI, I had the opportunity to attend a few cleantech conferences, which enabled me to learn even more about cleantech efforts across the country and make contacts with potential investors for ATI startups. For NuMat, I have consciously taken up any such opportunities to connect with other members of the cleantech community because I know that such efforts can lead to unexpected positive results for a startup.

d. While at ATI, I learned that cleantech is very unique compared to other tech sectors, since cleantech has a multiple moving parts—academia, government, industry, investors, national labs, strategic corporates, and utilities. Our NuMat efforts have included collaboration with all of those stakeholders.

2) Team, Technology, Timing:

a. Before I started at ATI, I had originally thought that just having a great technology idea would equal startup success. Through my ATI experiences, I learned that while technology is a critical foundational piece, there are several other important factors to success, such as the nature of the leadership team and market timing.

b. While working with startups at ATI, I observed that successful team chemistry was a key to growth. I learned that having complementary skill sets and different personalities on the management team are necessary for success.  We have considered this aspect in the composition of our startup, NuMat Technologies, whose interdisciplinary team hails from several institutions, including the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern School of Law, McCormick School of Engineering, and the Weinberg School of Arts and Sciences. The executive team includes Dr. Omar Farha, Christopher Wilmer, Tabrez Ebrahim, and Benjamin Hernandez.

c. At ATI, I came across many amazing startups that had a great team and a great technology solution, but sometimes, even those were not enough initially. What ATI helped startups with was with understanding the market. ATI helps startups to segment the market, develop their go-to-market strategy, sync up product development and launch with market timing. I am leveraging those market lessons learned at ATI now at NuMat as we advance our product development and build relationships with potential customers.

3) Importance of Advisors & Mentors:

a. While at ATI, I learned that the startup management teams greatly benefit from mentorship. Even the successful serial entrepreneurs know that they don’t know everything—it’s important to learn from someone who has done it before. ATI provides amazing access to such mentors and those mentors want to give back to the new ATI startups.

b. There are a number of successful “graduates” of former ATI startups that continually come back and advise current ATI startups. This is one of the best qualities of ATI—so many of those entrepreneurs that ATI benefits end up giving back to the new startups at ATI. It is like an exponential growth mentorship model! Hopefully when NuMat has more success, I would like to share my lessons learned from my current startup experience.

c. The “ATI family” has been and continues to be incredibly awesome in their support! 

Make sure to read the second installment.