Berberian's Blog

Picking a Business

Last week I spoke at CU for the New Venture Challenge (NVC). The NVC is a campus wide business plan competition for students and faculty. Members of the local community can also participate so long as one active team member has a current CU ID.

Since the program is just starting, my topic was "Picking a Business Worth Starting". I spoke for about an hour - here is the video of the event.

10 Differences Between Cleantech and Tech Industries

It has been 6 weeks since I started at Zettasun (fka DecaSun - as promised we changed the name). Here are some of my observations about the differences between the Cleantech industry as compared to the Tech space.

1. The JQ (joker quotient) is higher than tech. The world is full of jokers. It seems when it comes to saving the planet they all tend to flock to this industry.
2. Business skills are optional in Cleantech.
3. If you have a PhD - you can raise money. You can raise lots more money if you come from Stanford or MIT.
4. Having a practical idea is of seemingly little value. Using materials in your products that come from meteors seems to make total sense.
5. Boiling the ocean is possible - you just need enough parabolic mirrors and a billion dollars - then you can run a giant steam generator.
6. The government is willing to help you build your business - so long as you don’t need their help - otherwise they won’t help you.
7. We have national labs to evaluate our ideas - unfortunately they don’t have the “this makes sense” test.
8. We have a Grid. Tech has the Internet. In Tech the Internet grew and became better as the market expanded - in Cleantech we’re jamming our electrons into someone else's old and decrepit network causing all kinds of problems. It’s like your cousin backing up a Uhaul to come live with you - he’s family so you can’t say no, but you really don’t want all his shit in your house.
9. Cleantech products weigh more than Tech products.
10. We don’t have to deal with language translations - our stuff works everywhere.