An Entrepreneur’s Story

A few weeks ago, I had the honor of being part of Super Green Dot’s entrepreneur series.  Super Green Dot is the brain child of artist, entrepreneur, and engineer, Sophi Kravitz.  Her goal is not so much to focus on the companies started by entrepreneurs but rather to focus on the personal story that accompanies the launching of one’s own company.  It was wonderful to be a part of this and share my story.  I hope any aspiring entrepreneur can use this as motivation, while knowing that we’re all in this together

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This is Robin. He is 29 years old and after leaving his job in banking several years ago, began working on two start-ups in the hope that one would take off. While launching these companies, he spent the first year sleeping on families’ couch in NYC, paying in kind rent via chores/dog walking, and watching his bank account dwindle. After a lot of hustle, up’s, downs, twists, turns, and good luck, both companies have launched successfully — he is now COO of BlueStamp Engineering (summer engineering program for HS students) and CEO of Alzeca Bio (Alzheimer’s diagnostic technologies).

What kind of work did you do prior to launching your two start-ups?
Banking, Venture Capital, a start-up that kinda worked, and a start-up that died a slow death.

How long ago did you leave?
December 2009

What pushed you to stop working for other people?
I’ve been blessed to have great bosses all the way through — they were ambitious, hard working, passionate, and caring people. I have great respect and admiration for them.

However, I wanted to work on the things that I was truly passionate about. I have always believed that if I worked on things I enjoyed, then I would be good at them. And if I was good at something, success and fulfillment were inevitable.

Can you tell us about your two companies?
Along with one of my closest friends, I operate a summer engineering program, BlueStamp Engineering, during the summer.

Sophi’s note: I visited Blue Stamp Engineering in NYC this past summer. The students choose a project and spend the session finishing it. I was blown away by the types of projects these students were doing- Geiger counters, wireless communication, coding, electronics.

Robin: The second company and where the majority of my time is spent is Alzeca Bio, where we are developing novel diagnostic technologies for the early detection of Alzheimer’s Disease. About 2-3 times/year I go to DC and sit on review panels for the government, where we decide which companies should received grant money from the government’s SBIR program.

What was your first business?
When I was 7 years old, my sister had a paper route. It was a unique partnership: The work was split 50/50 but somehow her revenue piece was 4x mine. She said that my real earnings were immeasurable because she was forgiving the normal fee for hanging out with her. I went home and told my mom I was planning to file for divorce from my sister. I thought this was quite the ingenious plan…until my sister signed with no hesitation and deducted the legal fees from my next month’s wages.

However, there was a deeper lesson here that I was learning and has become even more true today. I believe that work as an entrepreneur follows a bell curve. In the beginning, where you are most likely to give up/fail, You put in so much work and get so few results – this is when most people quit and say things like “it just didn’t work”.

However, I believe that real entrepreneurs embrace this period differently — they take the feedback and they fine tune, they push through. I am not deeply spiritual, but I do believe you have to show the world you are willing to fight for your idea. I think about it this way: If I’m working on something that will improve education, health, or whatever field, then why wouldn’t the world want me to be successful?

Somewhere in the middle of the bell curve, it seems that effort begins to equal results. Finally, towards the end, it seems you put in much less (or perhaps are just more efficient), but the results seem to outweigh the effort.

Sophi: Yes, the beginning part can take much longer than you have the resources to keep going. It’s pretty important to wean yourself off of sushi lunches and similar before you get started.

Robin: Similarly, as an employee in my sister’s paper route business, I was gaining experience. 3 years later we moved to a new neighborhood and I got wind that the neighborhood needed a new paperboy/girl. One day after school, a herd of ten year-olds ran over to the departing paper boy’s house (apparently he was moving up to a bigger neighborhood) and stood in a line while the regional newspaper delivery director walked up and down trying to figure out how to tactfully break the hearts of all but one of us.

Recognizing this, I stepped forward and said, “Excuse me, I have experience”. “What do you mean?”, the director said. “Well, in my old neighborhood, I was an assistant paper boy to my sister”. And the job was mine!

I was 10 years old and I had my paper route! By the time I was 11, I had leveraged my paper route customers into lawnmowing customers during the summer, and shoveled their driveways during the winter. I was aware that I was earning money but quite frankly my only metric of success was that one driveway shoveled = 33% of a Sega game.

By the time I was 16, I quit the paperboy/lawnmowing/snowshoveling business to sell high end cutlery. I will tell you that convincing people to let you into their house to sell them overpriced cutlery is a lot easier when you’ve already pulled their weeds 

How much money did you have saved up before you went on your own?
$30K, but it felt more like $3K.

Do you make more or less money do you make than you did as an employee?
A little more now.

When you stopped working for other people, describe how you felt.
I constantly had dreams of my old workplace…like I was still there and earning money. It’s amazing how much you take for granted…the $4 lattes, buying a round of drinks for your friends, feeling guilty every time you spend money on something that isn’t a necessity.

I remember trying to answer people when they asked what I did. I couldn’t really explain it. I thought people thought I was a total loser. Perhaps they did, but I made it so much worse on myself than I had to.

In my mind I kept thinking of my old work as the “good ol’ times” even though it wasn’t. When you’re at work, you often think about how much you hate it, but then when you’re not there, you simply miss the dignity that comes with having work. There’s an amazing emptiness when you think about how your friends are at work, earning a good salary, and you are left to an empty apartment, sitting there in your sweat pants trying to make some dream happen. It’s so easy to psyche yourself out, to get depressed, to fall into a lull. I noticed my voice was lacking confidence and volume…I just didn’t feel like a worthwhile person.

Are you passionate about what you do?
I love it. I thoroughly enjoy my work. I feel blessed and I am very grateful for the opportunity. There were dark days, but it was so worth it. I used to start thinking about the weekend by Tuesday. Now I spend part of the weekend working and somehow I don’t mind. I used to dread Sunday because of the impending Monday. Now all the days kind of run together and its quite enjoyable 

Sophi: YES! I’m having the same experience. I’m in the beginning, so I’m working ALL weekend, all the days are the same and I love it.

How are you supporting yourself financially? 
Both companies pay…perhaps not as much as I could be making but the satisfaction easily makes up for it.

Do you consider yourself financially stable or not?
Yes.

Do you have health insurance and if so, who pays for it?
Yes, the company contributes.

How much time do you spend looking for new work?
Zero. I have found the grass can always be greener if you want it to be. At this point, I want to spend all of my time making the current companies as great as they can possibly be.

Do others support you emotionally or are they always asking you to get a “real” job?
My family and friends have been and are incredibly supportive. In retrospect I don’t know how my sis/bro in law tolerated me on their couch for so long coupled with my extreme early morning exercise habits. I can’t imagine what my mom was thinking when I was hopping from bus to bus trying to get these companies moving.

The only thing my family ever said was “If you exercise less, you’ll eat less. Please stop eating so much.”

I never discussed finances with my friends but they must have known. I have the kindest and most generous friends a guy could ask for. The last thing I wanted to do was sit in the apartment by myself and work all day. Going out with them was a daily tonic.

Do you continually need to explain why you’re doing what you do? 
When I was in NYC, I had to explain this constantly. Everyone kept asking me about money, money, money. However, in a start-up rich community like San Francisco, its 180 degrees different. It’s almost like if you’re not in a start-up, that somehow makes you the unusual one. People here truly admire you for your courage and your desire to affect some kind of change. That seems to hold more weight than the numbers on your paycheck.

As for people wishing they could it too…I can only answer in two phases. When we were starting out, no one wished they could do it too. Justifiably so, people are naturally risk averse. However, after launching and having some initial success, it seems like a lot more people want to come aboard 

Do you wish you could change things in your work life or are you happy with the way things are?
I think as an entrepreneur, there are always things you want to change – that’s why you become and entrepreneur.

However, what I’ve been working to find recently is a cruising altitude in a chaotic sky.
To focus on one thing at a time and to do it well.

To have faith in the world and just believe that if I’m trying to do good and if I am determined, then doors will open. It won’t ever be fast or easy, but nor should it be. I’m willing to bet the things we love most in our lives are the things that we had to struggle the most to get.

So to answer the question, yes, I am happy, and yes, there are still a lot of things I wish I could change. However, the difference is that now, after all of the trials and tribulations of the past few years, I know that I have the ability to change anything I don’t like with enough creativity and persistence.

Sophi: That was a very inspiring interview. Thanks for sharing so much of your experience and being so honest. I’ve posted a couple of links so that readers can learn more about your projects.

Link to learn more about the Bluestamp Engineering team

Link to what some of the Bluestamp Engineering Students worked on

Watch Robin’s fascinating TEDx talk

And finally, a link to his company Alzeca Biosciences

What Makes A Great First Project?

Dave recently wrote an article that may help budding designers pick the best approach for navigating the sea of development platforms.  He loves the experience of cracking open a new design platform and seeing what it can do, and how it can be used.  However there are so many out there!  What about the individual options are the best for attacking a project?  How can one ensure that the experience will be the best possible, preventing an immediate hate of the platform?  Dave writes about all of this on Element14′s news section…

“Thanks to the NYC Maker Faire this weekend, there has been a lot of discussion of new project ideas becoming a reality.  With the wide array of different development platforms that are coming out for FPGAs, Microcontrollers, and even complete computing solutions, there is always a system out there to be explored.  It can be intimidating to approach such a wide array of possibilities, so what is it that makes for the best first projects?…”

Read the full article HERE!

BlueStamp’s TED Talk!

This past weekend, BlueStamp had the honor of presenting at TEDx Presidio in San Francisco, California.  There were many great speakers and we were excited to meet so many like minded individuals.  Thanks to all of our students for their incredible work over the past few years.  You all are the stars of BlueStamp Engineering!

Robin speaks at TEDx

Here We Go!

In about 10 days, BlueStamp will launch its summer program.  However, the real work started eight moths ago as Dave and I were sitting at a train stop in Connecticut on a beautiful fall morning, mere muses to the Sunday schedule of the Metro North.  My train to NYC was 30 minutes late and while normally this would have annoyed the (insert negative adjective here) out of me, Dave and I spent that morning conceiving what is now BlueStamp Engineering.  We had actually been kicking around ideas for the past four months (hybrid electric bikes, a new age coffee shop, a technical training program for third world countries), none of which came to fruition.  But somehow, as I left to board the train, I knew we finally had something.  I had two pages left on my notepad and 10 minutes into the train ride, I was writing in the margins, just to capture every idea that passed through my mind.

The next 4 months we reached out to groups all around the country.  We talked to engineering firms, college admissions counselors of top 50 universities, and we met high school students.  We had our false starts and we learned our lessons along the way (yes, we have a database of all such lessons).  But at the end of the day, BlueStamp emerged with some of the smartest high school minds around NYC/NJ/Staten Island.

However, the real work starts on 6/27.  The students have all picked their projects and are now diligently researching exactly how they’re going to build them.  It won’t be easy for them, and perhaps not even for us.  But that’s what we wanted.  We wanted a challenge, and we wanted to make our students think, persevere, and accomplish something above and beyond what they could imagine just a few short months ago.  We want them to hustle and then look up when its all over and enjoy the view.   The truth is, we have no way of knowing how successful our students will be.  But if sweat and determination are any indication, this could be one magnificent view.

Let’s Go.

Why do we enjoy this?

While running your own program often presents itself with a number of challenges and unexpected happenings, I can’t adequately describe how much fun Dave and I have had building BSE.

But before I get to the fun stuff, there are certainly a number of challenges we have faced along the way.  Every week Dave and I spend several hours on the phone just discussing the program – we talk about administrative stuff (space, insurance, etc.).  Which schools should we present to?  What should we present to students?  How tough do we make the application?  What are the most challenging projects that can be built in 6 weeks?  And many more…

However, the real fun for us is meeting the students and teachers.  Everyone loves the “wow” effect.  But what gives us that effect?  It’s simple.  We thought of everything we could do to make the program intellectually challenging, but we didn’t stop there.  When we conceived the program, our primary goal was to balance the intellectual with the “oh, that’s really cool” factor.  See, it may be difficult to build a light organ or electroluminescent wire, but when you build it, it works, and you can explain all of that, then it becomes “pretty cool” (and well worth the effort).

I still love the reaction when Dave pulls out the light organ.  I pull out my phone and always in the back of my mind, I think “I bet the kids think I’m actually standing here in the front of the room and I’m about to send a text to my friend”.  Wrong.  I’m about to give the light organ some dance moves.  I start playing some hip hop from my phone and the light organ starts dancing to the music.

Sometimes the students “ooo”, sometimes they “ahh”, but mostly they just kinda stare – How does it do that?  The best part?  That project is where you start.  We can do a lot more than just making light organs.

But this is what BSE is about.  Figuring it out, building it, and then being able to tell everybody how you did and how it in fact “does what it does”.

Lastly, we enjoy BSE because it belongs to the student.  What do you want to build?  We think certain things are interesting, sure, but BSE is your chance to master something that you find interesting.  Dream big!  Let’s see what we’re capable of!

Nothing like seeing the interest of students!

Living and breathing engineering every day since starting college makes a guy forget what it is like to be a student in high school!  Over the past two months Robin and I have been traversing all over Manhattan visiting high schools to talk about BlueStamp and what engineering is like as a profession.  We start by showing a few introductory projects just to get everyone on the same page.  I love to see the students’ response of “YOU made that prototype YOURSELF at HOME?”

And then comes my absolute favorite part of the presentation.  When we say, “Not only did I make this at home, but YOU can make one FOR YOURSELF.”  Needless to say, we have their attention.  We go on to talk about how the focus of the program is just to build these things, and that the students can keep their new custom devices.

The interest in the prototypes, engineering, and the empowerment one gets from realizing the possibilities each person has is spectacular.  Although we don’t have enough space for all who are interested in the program, the interaction with that many students is well worth the trip around NYC.  I can’t wait to encourage the BSE students as they build protos this summer!

'YOU built a time machine..... Out of a DeLorean?'

NASA’s Great New Marketing Video (Not by NASA)

I am often times amazed at how difficult of a job NASA marketers have.  They do some of the coolest stuff ever and have access to remarkable resources (not just money, but the backing of the US government).  And yet the public does not always view their work in the most positive way.  Recognizing a better way to do it,  the creator of the video made his own marketing material; and I am a HUGE fan of people taking action instead of just talking about how things ‘should’ be done.

There are two reasons I wanted to post this video that was on the website of my favorite electronics podcast, The Amp Hour.  First, I think it makes a solid point about the long-range benefits of the NASA program.  Second, there are several excellent examples of time lapse photography which happens to be one of the sample projects listed on this site.

Enjoy!

Why does this matter?

So many times throughout my education I have asked this question.  Let me first say clearly that the inability to connect the “why” to the “what” is not directly the fault of our schools.  We have a certain curriculum that needs to be taught in a certain amount of time.  However, when quantity becomes the focus, quality is sacrificed.

So, what is the solution?  I think it’s two things (and these are two things that frankly can get us through many of challenges we face):

Hard work and creativity.  We have to outwork and outsmart.

Think differently and do not just work harder, but work smarter – optimize the time you spend learning.  When all is said and done, it is our full intention that our students not only learn how to engineer products from scratch but are also able to discuss them intelligently.  I want them to see that what they are building has an impact to the greater good – whether it be designing a project that can run on clean energy, enable someone in a developing country to live a better life, or just for personal entertainment.

We do not want our students to memorize and regurgitate.  We want them to learn and then apply this information in a way that does not allow them to forget.  When you can learn in such a way, you develop a proficiency.  Naturally, when you are good at something, you begin to enjoy it and passion begins to develop.  We want our students to use this passion to then impact the world in a meaningful way.  That’s why we started BlueStamp Engineering.

Furthermore, I feel when you undertake anything that direct practice is most effective.  If you are going to be an engineer, then practice being a real engineer.  Let’s not spend our time just discussing how it should be done, let’s spend it actually doing.  Yes, the projects are challenging.  Absolutely.  But when you get there, when you achieve it, there’s just no feeling like it.  So go ahead – try, fail, persevere, and succeed – and we will be there to help you.

Let’s find out what we’re capable of.  I bet it’s a heck of a lot more than we think!

Why haven’t I learned this before?

I remember the first day on the job as a wet-behind-the-ears engineering co-op at Audiopack.   My first project was to test microphones — look at the frequency response and then arrange them by their flatness.   I understood the problem on multiple levels — the need for a flat response, the graph that the measurement produced, even how the FET in the microphone worked down to the quantum level.

But still, it was a significant challenge.  When my boss showed me the setup and how to work the machine, I had a million questions.  The connection method, how to make sure it was setup correctly, what to do if the setup was wrong, and other technical tasks that I knew nothing about.  I was asking myself one question:

“Why haven’t I learned this before?”

The answer came to me only after working for a few years.  I hadn’t learned it because so much of my education was fast-paced and densely-packed.  Even though I had a spectacular high school and univeristy program where I took every engineering lab course I could from a high school on, I missed the experience of building projects myself and hooking them up.  Since there are only so many hours in a school day, all of the classes were designed to get as much learning into a semester as possible, leaving time-intensive lessons such as wire connections and troubleshooting for hobbies, personal projects, and work experience.  As I quickly learned, these skills are neither insignificant or trivial.

Giving the next generation of engineers the tools I was missing that first day of co-op is my motivation.  The engineers who build things outside of work are usually the ones at the head of their department.  Often times it isn’t because they are smarter, work harder, or sacrifice more — it is because they love their job of making something real from an idea in their head.  That is why I am a part of BSE.  To help groom students who will want to create things for a lifetime.