So you want to Build a Business?

Proteus will be turning three this October. I am very happy to report that we have seen steady development. Our backlog looks good and we have few repeat clients. Water+Energy initiative has really taken off, with the energy sector now very engaged  and excited about the next frontier in Water-Energy Nexus. Proteus is also working on launching two new software in the coming months. Talks are underway on the design and development of a web-based Water Audit database system for Commercial, Institutional, and Industrial sectors. This will be great fun!

Today's post however relates to Entrepreneurship. I mentor several start-ups as well as established businesses who are looking to enter the water world. Most come to me for sector specific knowledge, but I also find myself coaching them on business development, and more specifically CEO development. I prefer to talk directly with the CEO, and when I do I check for the following traits:

Clarity of Vision

Incurable Optimism

Limitless Curiosity

Abounding Creativity

Loving Risk and Taking Action

Tenacious and Persistent

Adept Communicator

Leadership Intelligence

Work Hard/Play Hard

CEOs represent the company and I have found that if they don't exemplify the above mentioned traits, it is very difficult for the company to survive let alone flourish. If any of these traits are lacking, it will drive the company towards mediocrity, and often times failure.

For example, few CEOs just rattle off the product/service description when asked what does their company do. This is unfortunate in so many ways. It shows that there is lack of Vision and ability to Communicate, and sub-par Leadership skills. If they cannot tell me what the company does, how will they make the customer happy, and then how will they keep their workers inspired? I coach some of them to start working on the WHY of their business, and it is often a 'change the world' story. That is the crux of why the business will grow, customers will love it, and people would want to come work for them.

I also look for the CEO's diversity plans, and answer to "what next?" I want them to relate to me their road-map for the next few years. No, I do not need the numbers and a leather bound business plan with pretty bar charts for every future product. But the CEO should demonstrate foresight, once he has the market, what will he do next? How will he remain competitive? Where are the gaps in his industry, how will he produce product / service to fill those gaps? How will he branch out?

Successful entrepreneurs are always asking questions. I find them asking me more questions than we have time for. Along with the questions they ask, I see their eyes light up, I find them connecting dots and ideas springing in their head and new concepts flow. They start finding new pastures, define new work products. Curiosity and Creativity combine.

Living with risk is an amazing trait. These CEOs are willing to stand at the edge with faith in their offering. There are too many armchair prospectors out there, who sit and discuss ideas but do not have the courage to get up and make it work. I also find many such people stressing out about whether to go for a corporation or LLC, where to incorporate, how to get VC money right away, etc. These people usually don't end up having a successful business, they are too risk adverse. They are not willing to go out on the limb for the sake of their ideas, they are too attached to a steady paycheck and cannot accept a 50-70% cut and live on Ramen noodles. You did that in school, so why can't you do it again for a few years? Why do you need the extravagant lifestyle? You can't play it safe. You have to take risk, yes smart risk, but none the less, you have to be able to risk a lot to gain a lot.

Last but not the least trait of a successful entrepreneur is their ability to switch on and off. When they work hard, they put their all into it, nothing held back - sleepless nights working towards a sale, relentless pursuit of quality deliverable, attention to details, no attention to personal grooming / eating (Ramen), ... Then, when the deliverable is done, they switch off for real, and get back to the world, reconnect, hang out with friends and get a refill on nutrition and emotion.

This has been my experience, both as an entrepreneur myself, and working with others in this realm.

World Development and Change, the Pillars and Slabs

I am a civil engineer and much of my basic training was in structural engineering before I shifted to environmental engineering for my Masters. So I often tend to go back on analogies from my civil/ structural engineering training. Here is one of those analogies.

I believe that as we evolve as a civilization, our knowledge of the world around us gets more pronounced. Ancient humans were able to appreciate the world around us, their theories rested on empirical observations, and many things that they predicted based of these observations are pretty set on the mark. Science and Technology is relatively new and has found the 'reason' behind many a phenomenon over the last 3000 years. We are slated for even more fascinating times ahead.

This evolution of science and technology, I believe, has happened just like we build buildings. We lay a foundation, and then erect pillars, followed by a slab, then again pillars, followed by slabs, and so forth. For a structure to be stable, you cannot just go on building pillars, for without slabs, there will be no integrity and no use of the structure either. Slabs connect the pillars, transfer forces from one pillar to the other and ultimately to the foundation. Slabs are fundamental to the building as the pillars, they also enable people to make a home on them and live.

In the development of science and technology, the pillars are the discipline specific R&D that leads to great breakthroughs in those disciplines. For example, in the years leading to the Renaissance, there was development going on in physics, biology, engineering, astronomy, music, painting  and many such fields. When the Renaissance period came, a slab was built. The beauty of that period was that the foremost scientists and artists of the period started mingling with each other and sharing their ideas and approaches. That era afforded the opportunity and encouraged the cross pollination. As a result, there were many breakthroughs that can be directly attributed to the fact that the physicists sat along side the painters and discussed solutions together.

I think that we are at the threshold of another such era. We have made tremendous progress in individual fields, especially biology, IT, energy, etc. Now, it is time to share the discoveries across disciplines and cross pollinate again. The opening of the world due to the social networks make this even more easy to do. We need to build a slab that joins all the various disciplines and share the ideas and insights. This will yield a Renaissance of modern times. I sincerely believe this. And for this reason I work very diligently in the innovation space and consult with start-up companies. It does not matter if they are designing a new touchless mobile app for autistic kids to help them read books or if there is a group designing ground penetrating sensing devices to look for oil. It does not have to be linked to the Water industry, all I want is to learn about the edge ideas. This gets me thinking of novel applications in other fields, it opens up my mind to think differently and devise new ways to integrate technologies across disciplines. In that process I can identify for my start-up clients new markets, new possibilities, and have them be the defining and often disruptive technology in those markets. I enjoy this process a lot!

Watch this space, in the next few weeks I will be showcasing my fascinating discoveries at the WBT Showcase I am attending this week.

Hi-Tech Teabags to Filter Water

Every now and then we come across some team or another trying to design clean water solutions for the 1.2 billion people who do not have access to clean drinking water. We have heard about the LifeStraw, now South African scientists are developing carbon fiber teabags that can filter water. We commend such out-of-the-box ideas. We need more of them, especially since one in three persons on this planet live in a situation where they cannot get clean water.

When working on a potential global solution to address safe water, there are a few points we need to consider:

Price Point. The cost of the solution needs to match the ability of the customers. LifeStraw is priced too high, may work in disaster conditions when there is aid flowing through and these units are heavily subsidized or distributed free; but not for regular use. Also, care should be taken so that when the solution is employed for regular use, the item is not given away for free. When we pay for an item, we place a value on it and appreciate it. Price of the solution therefore should be right - affordable while creating a sense of value.

Reuse. Disposable items are not favored by the masses. Where poverty reigns, people become expert recyclers. When they get a new dress, they save it till the old ones are worn out. Then they take out the new dress on a special occasion. Once the new dress has lost it's luster, they will make bed sheets out of it. When that's worn out, they will use it as towels. Then they will reuse the large towels as small hand towels. When those wear out, they may stitch them up to use as rags. When the rags wear out, they may use them as pulp for something else. That is how poverty works. We may not like it or feel sorry for such methods, but it is the reality. Hence, as designers we need to be cognizant of this need for reuse and design equipment such that there is residual uses after the primary function has been met.

Education. When we design single use items, such as filters, we often forget to understand the limitations of the end users to comprehend the useful life of such items. Education is very important. We need to explain not only the purpose of the filter (e.g. how it cleans the water and saves lives), we will have to educate the end users on how to (and how not to) use the filter, when the filter is no longer working (end of useful life), how to regenerate, etc. Even in the US with 100% literacy, we have found many water systems being operated way under capacity and without understanding of the fundamentals thereby causing much harm to the environment. Education and training is of utmost importance, may be even more than the solution itself.

Community Solutions. In most poor countries where water scarcity is severe, the most sustainable solution is a community solution instead of individual solutions. Communities in these areas share similar financial, familial, political, and social virtues and very rarely will you find an individualistic trait. Individualism is prominent in more affluent societies where competition is severe for luxuries of life. In societies where people are focused on basic survival issues, community solutions work more effectively and should be encouraged. Focus should be on simple indigenous solutions that are developed, designed, and built locally by the people. The people can then take ownership of the project, feel proud of their creation, and take care of it.

PROTEUS Consulting is very dedicated to help create a world where everyone has access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities. We work with various researchers around the world who are working to address this goal. We also work with NGOs such as Water For People who is active in implementing such solutions. If you are interested to help out or learn more about our efforts, please contact us.

Incubator for Promising New Technologies

Proteus acts as an Incubator for promising new technologies that have the potential to benefit the water and wastewater industry. Right now, Proteus has one client in this arena and is having initial talks with four other clients.

As an incubator for a new technology, Proteus provides the following services:

• Marketing. Introduce the business to water and wastewater clients who need the new technology.
• Strategic Partners. Help network with other businesses with complementary services to create a strong team.
• Funding. Review technology and find Federal / State/ Other funding opportunities for project implementation.
• Training. Train the business leaders on the 'way-to-do-business' with the water and wastewater agencies, municipal organizations, State and Federal government.
• Business Development. Help with regulatory compliance and permitting. Help chart out the path to future in the water and wastewater industry.
• Mentor. Help with presentations targeted to clients' needs, help with business basics, technology commercialization advice.

Why does Proteus do this? At Proteus we believe that "You do not invent the transistor while trying to perfect the vacuum tube". Our water and wastewater industry has been too slow to adopt new ideas and technologies. Most of the development in this industry over the last three decades has been trying to perfect what we already have. We have almost as many associations as there are people in the industry and in most of these meetings you find the same kind of presentations and thoughts. We are spinning our wheels! 

With the CleanTech and Social Connectivity revolution sweeping the planet right now, our industry has a lot to benefit from it. There are innovative technologies being developed and some of them have great promise. Proteus wants to introduce these new and fresh ideas to our industry and help the industry and the entrepreneurs find a perfect match. Yes, we are a kind of 'match-making' service!

How do we do this? Proteus is here to help both the entrepreneur with the new idea and the municipal client. We understand and appreciate the issues from both sides. Our core philosophy in operating our business is to help create a win-win situation - the municipal client gets their need resolved with a fit-for-purpose solution, while the entrepreneur gets established as a credible technology provider in the water and wastewater industry. We do not push or peddle a technology where there is no need for it, we are not a sales representative. Rather we are a business consultant to both parties, enabling a perfect fit between 'the need' and 'the solution'. This is how we do it:

• We will need to know details about your technology, it's promise and it's limitations. We will gladly sign an NDA. Please be very frank with us on the details. We are not here to steal your intellectual property, we are here to help you build a successful product and business.
• We work with you as a consultant on retainer.
• We will be your guide and be on a constant look out for opportunities for you. We will be your support for marketing, finding strategic partners, help you look for funding, chart your course through permitting, etc. We will be your friend, through thick and thin.

At Proteus, we have a penchant for sustainable solutions - economic, environmental, and social. The technologies that we support need to be environmentally viable, provide a measurable benefit to the water / wastewater industry, and have a way to ease the life of everyone using the technology.