Jeff Bohanan is the CEO of Protomet, a manufacturing and machining company based out of Oak Ridge, TN. Jeff and another partner started Protomet in 1997 with the goal of becoming a world class provider of engineering and manufacturing services. Jeff started his career, not as an entrepreneur, but as a design engineer at the Y-12 Complex at Oak Ridge National Lab. He used the skills and knowledge he learned from that job to start Protomet.
At the very beginning, Jeff and his partner did a lot of consulting work for Y-12 because they still needed the engineering support. He got his big break finally when he landed a contract with Johnson Controls to manufacture a part for a Mercedes SUV. The job was a 5 year 2.5 million dollar contract to make about 1 million parts. The deal was very gutsy for Jeff because he didn’t actually have the equipment to make the parts and could only buy it after he landed the contract. This meant that he had to use contract out work from other machine shops to make prototypes of the design before they landed the contract with Johnson Controls.
Since then Protomet has expanded their business does work in the Medical, Automotive, Boating, Homeland Security, Energy and Power, Architectural, and General Industrial Hardware industries. One of the keys to Protomet’s success is the quality of its employees. Jeff would feel perfectly comfortable not working for a few weeks because he is confident in the people he has surrounded himself with. A testament to this point is that one of his process engineers was working late the night we visited. Protomet is able to compete in the globally competitive manufacturing industry because of the lean measures it has implemented. They work around the clock with three CNC machines to one person.
Jeff no longer works in a technical engineering role but is the primary sales person for Protomet. I gathered that part of the reason for Jeff’s success is the way in which he treats people and the passion he has for his work. This has been common thread in all the talks we have had with local entrepreneurs. Jeff, just as the other we have talked to, believes in treating everybody with respect and not holding secrets from the people you work with. He also loves getting up in the morning to go to work which in turn allows him to be good at what he does. One of our classmates used to do business with Jeff and told everyone that part of the reason they continued doing business with Protomet was because Jeff was so enthusiastic ,interested, and had a great ability to remember a lot about every part that they produced.
Jeff finished his talk with the following quotes to help guide those who want to run their own business one day.
“We tend to overestimate what can be accomplished in 1 year and we tend to underestimate what we can accomplish in 3 years.”
“The formula for Innovation is a step function… output is not proportional to input… though steady input is required to get to the next step.”
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Mark Medley and CTI
Last Monday our class had the pleasure of going to CTI and meeting their CEO Mark Medley. CTI builds electronic circuit boards for logic controls in manufacturing plants. His company is different from the previous two companies we saw, Protein Discovery and Micro Types, in that CTI has been around since 1972 when he went into business with a few of his friends. Mark actually spun off CTI later on as its own entity, separate from the original business he and his friends started.
The entrepreneurial spirit developed in Mark in a different way from our previous two contacts. Mark’s dad was a brilliant mining engineering but was afraid to take a gamble and pursue his own business. His dad never regretted any of his decisions but always had a mentality of I wish I had done that and so Mark decided he never wanted to be like that. When the opportunity presented itself for Mark to run his own business, he took it.
As a manufacturing manager at Proctor and Gamble, Mark learned a lot about the business a manufacturing which helped him run CTI. One of the most important this he told us was to let machines do what machines are good at and let humans do what humans are good at. In other words, let machines do repetitive work and let humans make the decisions in a manufacturing line. Another point of advice he gave us, which is consistent with previous talks, is to have good judgment when selecting the people you go into business with. A large part of his success was due to the fact that he trusted all of his business partners and they in turn trusted him to do their jobs.
Financing a start up business has been a topic of our class and Marks advice to us was that it is extremely important to look at the length of financing and arrange your financing to meet the life of your business. Too many people these days are financing short term when they should be financing long term and are unable to make their payments. Mark was lucky to have friends who were bankers that trusted him when he was first starting his business and exclaimed that it was probably not possible to finance a business the way he had done it.
Finally, Mark finished by leaving us with a few bits of advice to take with us into our business endeavors. First was that it is very important to do what you say you are going to do and that credibility is everything. You must always try to keep your customers and employees informed so that there are no surprises and generally you will keep everyone’s trust. Another was to govern your business by policies instead of rules. Lastly was that it is very important to find a balance in your life. Time management is critical for both your personal and business life. It is ok to be out of balance for a short period of time but in the long run, you will not make it if all you do is business and neglect your family and spiritual life.
The entrepreneurial spirit developed in Mark in a different way from our previous two contacts. Mark’s dad was a brilliant mining engineering but was afraid to take a gamble and pursue his own business. His dad never regretted any of his decisions but always had a mentality of I wish I had done that and so Mark decided he never wanted to be like that. When the opportunity presented itself for Mark to run his own business, he took it.
As a manufacturing manager at Proctor and Gamble, Mark learned a lot about the business a manufacturing which helped him run CTI. One of the most important this he told us was to let machines do what machines are good at and let humans do what humans are good at. In other words, let machines do repetitive work and let humans make the decisions in a manufacturing line. Another point of advice he gave us, which is consistent with previous talks, is to have good judgment when selecting the people you go into business with. A large part of his success was due to the fact that he trusted all of his business partners and they in turn trusted him to do their jobs.
Financing a start up business has been a topic of our class and Marks advice to us was that it is extremely important to look at the length of financing and arrange your financing to meet the life of your business. Too many people these days are financing short term when they should be financing long term and are unable to make their payments. Mark was lucky to have friends who were bankers that trusted him when he was first starting his business and exclaimed that it was probably not possible to finance a business the way he had done it.
Finally, Mark finished by leaving us with a few bits of advice to take with us into our business endeavors. First was that it is very important to do what you say you are going to do and that credibility is everything. You must always try to keep your customers and employees informed so that there are no surprises and generally you will keep everyone’s trust. Another was to govern your business by policies instead of rules. Lastly was that it is very important to find a balance in your life. Time management is critical for both your personal and business life. It is ok to be out of balance for a short period of time but in the long run, you will not make it if all you do is business and neglect your family and spiritual life.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Joe Matteo and Micro Types
On Monday, February 8th, I had the pleasure of visiting Joe Matteo and his wife at their home in Walland, TN. Joe has been in the entrepreneurial business ever since he broke off from CTI Molecular Imaging in 2004 to start NanoTek, LLC which specializes in micro-fluidic chemistry systems for application in Positron Emissions Tomography, more commonly known as PET scans. Joe told us that much of his success spawned from his experiences working at CTI. While at CTI, Joe was able to help build technologies and products from the ground where much of the work was very collaborative with people outside of CTI. He was able to build a large network and gain a wide range of skills some of which include R&D management, Sales, Contracts, Service Business Development, and Marketing. This wide range of skills and ability to find outside sources to collaborate with outside sources was an integral part of Joe’s success as an entrepreneur.
NanoTek’s technology stemmed from research done by CTI where CTI grew the plastic based technology due to manufacturing reasons and costs and NanoTek grew the glass based technology. Joe spoke about his time with NanoTek as “Lean and Mean” because the company was able to leverage prototyping and was collaboratively driven by working with companies and institutions such as UT, Siemens, and GlaxoSmithKline. He was able to obtain 7 SBIR awards in 4 years discussed the staying power of his company. The company focused on building a strong image to compete with larger companies and about how the resources of the areas such as Tech 2020, UT, and ORNL were able to help him grow the business.
After a while, he knew he wanted to move the company into clinical use instead of just laboratory work which required a good distribution channel for the product. NanoTek partnered with Advion , a company based out of Ithaca, NY and was eventually acquired by them. Joe spoke of how there were some advantages and disadvantages to this because they now had a large distribution channel for the product, but the process slowed way down due to the new size of the company. He stayed 18 months with the company and then left to form Micro Types.
Joe’s passion has always been for rapid innovation and started Micro Types to help companies, mainly small start ups and entrepreneurs, to rapidly prototype their ideas. He told us that he had really found his passion and was able to pursue it. When asked by Tech 2020 what his exit strategy was for Micro Types, he said he went blank because he had not thought of that and that all he knew is that he wanted to pursue this endeavor.
Joe finished his talk by giving young entrepreneurs, or anyone really, some “Do’s and Don’ts about life. The first was to assess your strengths and weaknesses and find your passion. As soon as you do this, you can focus on finding others to complement your skill set which will lead to success because of the passion you have about your work. Secondly was to build your skill and recognize and capture your opportunities. He said that everyone is confronted with a window of great opportunity, its all a matter of whether we can recognize that opportunity and have the guts to take it. Next was to get a personal financial planner now in order to prepare yourself for the unknown future. Another piece of advice was to surround yourself with role models and mentors and then to turn around and do the same for others. Just like these talks I go to every Monday, this facilitates the learning curve and allows one to avoid mistakes made by others in the past. An important piece of advice to build a successful business was to build a proprietary advantage because your earnings can grow exponentially when you have one. Lastly was to never fear failure and don’t allow it. Everyone fears failure, the important part is not to dwell on it but focus on success and success will follow.
NanoTek’s technology stemmed from research done by CTI where CTI grew the plastic based technology due to manufacturing reasons and costs and NanoTek grew the glass based technology. Joe spoke about his time with NanoTek as “Lean and Mean” because the company was able to leverage prototyping and was collaboratively driven by working with companies and institutions such as UT, Siemens, and GlaxoSmithKline. He was able to obtain 7 SBIR awards in 4 years discussed the staying power of his company. The company focused on building a strong image to compete with larger companies and about how the resources of the areas such as Tech 2020, UT, and ORNL were able to help him grow the business.
After a while, he knew he wanted to move the company into clinical use instead of just laboratory work which required a good distribution channel for the product. NanoTek partnered with Advion , a company based out of Ithaca, NY and was eventually acquired by them. Joe spoke of how there were some advantages and disadvantages to this because they now had a large distribution channel for the product, but the process slowed way down due to the new size of the company. He stayed 18 months with the company and then left to form Micro Types.
Joe’s passion has always been for rapid innovation and started Micro Types to help companies, mainly small start ups and entrepreneurs, to rapidly prototype their ideas. He told us that he had really found his passion and was able to pursue it. When asked by Tech 2020 what his exit strategy was for Micro Types, he said he went blank because he had not thought of that and that all he knew is that he wanted to pursue this endeavor.
Joe finished his talk by giving young entrepreneurs, or anyone really, some “Do’s and Don’ts about life. The first was to assess your strengths and weaknesses and find your passion. As soon as you do this, you can focus on finding others to complement your skill set which will lead to success because of the passion you have about your work. Secondly was to build your skill and recognize and capture your opportunities. He said that everyone is confronted with a window of great opportunity, its all a matter of whether we can recognize that opportunity and have the guts to take it. Next was to get a personal financial planner now in order to prepare yourself for the unknown future. Another piece of advice was to surround yourself with role models and mentors and then to turn around and do the same for others. Just like these talks I go to every Monday, this facilitates the learning curve and allows one to avoid mistakes made by others in the past. An important piece of advice to build a successful business was to build a proprietary advantage because your earnings can grow exponentially when you have one. Lastly was to never fear failure and don’t allow it. Everyone fears failure, the important part is not to dwell on it but focus on success and success will follow.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Chuck Witcowski at Protein Discovery
Our first visit was to a company called Protein Discovery in downtown Knoxville where we heard their founder, Chuck Witkowski, tell us about how he had started the company. Protien Discovery creates a product that prepares biological samples for protein analysis. Mr. Witkowski actually does not have a technology background but a business background. He received his MBA at the University of Tennessee and proceeded to start, what is now, Protein Discovery right after.
Mr. Witcowski started his entrepreneurial quest for two reasons. First, his father was an entrepreneur and taught Mr. Witcowski the basics of business and how to be an entrepreneur. Secondly, Mr Witcowski worked at Motorola for a while on a big project for about one and a half years and was told his project was not a priority and was never implemented. He felt he had wasted one and a half years of his life so he decided he wanted to be his own boss.
While in the MBA program at UT, Mr. Witcowski took a class called the Technopreneurial Leadership Center in which my professor, Dr. Lee Martin, taught. There he learned two main things that would help someone who wanted to start their own company. First was how to license technology. This allows someone without a technical background to partner with a scientist or firm who has developed a technology thus taking a lot of risk out the deal. Secondly was what he called the “greatest thing ever” which is the Small Business Innovative Research program. This is virtually the only place where you can get free money; everywhere else it costs you something. Both of these ideas helped Mr. Witcowski start Protein Discovery.
In Mr. Witcowski’s last semester of his MBA progam he wrote 25 SBIR’s and landed two of them. He and a friend who had an engineering background started this venture together licensing the technology from Oak Ridge National Laboratory being funded by grants in the beginning stages of their company. A critical part of his plan was that he could develop his technology at ORNL while only owning a small office building allowing him access to top level research labs. They had some short success and decided to raise some venture capital money from. They succeeded but shortly after, Mr. Witcowski’s partner quit because he had a child and couldn’t handle the uncertainty of the entrepreneurial lifestyle and wanted a more stable job. Having continued support from the venture capital firm, Mr. Witcowski persisted and continued on with his venture.
After continued development, he and his team then realized the technology they had been developing did not work as they had promised. They knew they had a real market need and so went back to their investors and got more funding. They hired new research and development staff and eventually came up with their first product, the passport system. It, however, was introduced a little late into the market and so they repackaged their product into the Gelfree system which they rolled out a short time ago. This system promises much more success and they have even been in recent talks with a leading company in their area about a possible liquidation event.
From Mr. Witcowski’s story, I gathered several things about successful entrepreneurialism. First is that it takes persistence. Mr. Witcowski never gave up, even after his partner quit, because he saw a real market need and believed he could gather the right group of people to realize this need. Secondly, it is extremely important to surround yourself with people smarter than you in areas that complement your skill set. As Dr. Lee Martin told us in our class, an entrepreneur is a jack of all trades but a master of none, therefore you need to surround yourself with the best people in order to have the best business. The next thing I took from Mr. Witcowsiki’s lecture was to try and hold off on investor financing for as long as possible because it is the best for all parties in the end. If you can get away financing your research with grant money, it is better than financing it investor capital because you give over part ownership in your company and they have a say in what goes on. Lastly, the market you are trying to get in is extremely important. It is better to have a B product in an A market than an A product in a B market. If you have the best product in a very small market, your sales will not be as high as having a good product in a very large market. Mr. Witcowski’s story was truly inspiring and informative and I look forward to the rest of the lectures this semester.
Mr. Witcowski started his entrepreneurial quest for two reasons. First, his father was an entrepreneur and taught Mr. Witcowski the basics of business and how to be an entrepreneur. Secondly, Mr Witcowski worked at Motorola for a while on a big project for about one and a half years and was told his project was not a priority and was never implemented. He felt he had wasted one and a half years of his life so he decided he wanted to be his own boss.
While in the MBA program at UT, Mr. Witcowski took a class called the Technopreneurial Leadership Center in which my professor, Dr. Lee Martin, taught. There he learned two main things that would help someone who wanted to start their own company. First was how to license technology. This allows someone without a technical background to partner with a scientist or firm who has developed a technology thus taking a lot of risk out the deal. Secondly was what he called the “greatest thing ever” which is the Small Business Innovative Research program. This is virtually the only place where you can get free money; everywhere else it costs you something. Both of these ideas helped Mr. Witcowski start Protein Discovery.
In Mr. Witcowski’s last semester of his MBA progam he wrote 25 SBIR’s and landed two of them. He and a friend who had an engineering background started this venture together licensing the technology from Oak Ridge National Laboratory being funded by grants in the beginning stages of their company. A critical part of his plan was that he could develop his technology at ORNL while only owning a small office building allowing him access to top level research labs. They had some short success and decided to raise some venture capital money from. They succeeded but shortly after, Mr. Witcowski’s partner quit because he had a child and couldn’t handle the uncertainty of the entrepreneurial lifestyle and wanted a more stable job. Having continued support from the venture capital firm, Mr. Witcowski persisted and continued on with his venture.
After continued development, he and his team then realized the technology they had been developing did not work as they had promised. They knew they had a real market need and so went back to their investors and got more funding. They hired new research and development staff and eventually came up with their first product, the passport system. It, however, was introduced a little late into the market and so they repackaged their product into the Gelfree system which they rolled out a short time ago. This system promises much more success and they have even been in recent talks with a leading company in their area about a possible liquidation event.
From Mr. Witcowski’s story, I gathered several things about successful entrepreneurialism. First is that it takes persistence. Mr. Witcowski never gave up, even after his partner quit, because he saw a real market need and believed he could gather the right group of people to realize this need. Secondly, it is extremely important to surround yourself with people smarter than you in areas that complement your skill set. As Dr. Lee Martin told us in our class, an entrepreneur is a jack of all trades but a master of none, therefore you need to surround yourself with the best people in order to have the best business. The next thing I took from Mr. Witcowsiki’s lecture was to try and hold off on investor financing for as long as possible because it is the best for all parties in the end. If you can get away financing your research with grant money, it is better than financing it investor capital because you give over part ownership in your company and they have a say in what goes on. Lastly, the market you are trying to get in is extremely important. It is better to have a B product in an A market than an A product in a B market. If you have the best product in a very small market, your sales will not be as high as having a good product in a very large market. Mr. Witcowski’s story was truly inspiring and informative and I look forward to the rest of the lectures this semester.
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