The real deal

- by Johan-Ulrik Lervang

So the last couple of days have been quite something else. On Saturday Peter and I went to Stanford University to look around. While standing at the train station, a woman comes up to us and asked if we were Danish - color us surprised, but what are the odds of an American woman coming up to us and asking that?! in any case we spoke all the way from San Francisco to Stanford and exchanged numbers - so now we got a local showing us the ropes.

Anyhow, once at Stanford we went to see the Stanford Hospital, having heard it in itself was almost an attraction. Coming up to the Emergency entrance we were somewhat baffled by the fact that it had a red carpet and valets. We also spoke with one of the physicians at the Emergency Ward who told us, that of the six tending physicians at the ward, four of them were VCs within Emergency Medicine.  The trip not only gave us an insight into the American culture when it comes to talking to complete strangers and how private hospitals work compared to back in Denmark, but also how much the Silicon Valley set-up is ingrained in the regional educational institutions.

On Tuesday we all went to the Innovation Center Denmark offices in Palo Alto to participate in a networking event and to experience two speakers. Now one of these speakers was Saul Griffith, the found of Otherlab. Saul come into the room, wearing overalls and being totally confused, but once he started speaking we knew why. This guy was and is beyond any doubt the real deal. He was a physics PhD and started projects like you would not believe. Currently Otherlab is working on revolutionary projects within everything from solar and wind energy to education and prostheses. The guys at Otherlab are also faced with the downside of the workings of Silicon Valley. The capital in the Valley works put in a simple way, very dysfunctional at times. On one hand they are very strongly focused on the customer in the development phase as well as on projects with a short development cycle. This means that people looking for funding with truly revolutionary ideas are in quite a tight spot - especially companies like Otherlab that is doing projects with a 5-10 year development outlook and in need of high capital investment to truly make it. All in all, Saul was truly inspiring and hopefully we will get the chance to come and see what they do in person, before we leave for Denmark.

A Danish Footprint in the Valley

On Wedensday we went to San José to visit the company Asetek. For those of you that does not know Asetek (and I am guessing quite a few), Asetek is the world's leading manufacturer of water-cooling for PCs as well as being a Danish company. They were founded by André Sloth Eriksen, a former Aalborg University alumni, and moved to the US a couple of years ago. Today they have their sales & marketing in San José, their development in Brønderslev in Northern Jutland and their production in China. While not very theoretical, André without a doubt gave us the most useful insight to Valley of all the places we have been to so far. His experience in gathering venture capital and how to maneuver in the system that is Silicon Valley, was very inspiring. Should Aalborg University ever chose to do keynote speakers like Stanford and Bases do, I will strongly recommend them to hire André to do the show he gave us.

Following the meeting at Asetek we went to Stanford to listen to one of the founders of Method, Adam Lowry. Under the rule to fight dirty they have created quite a niche for themselves. One thing is for sure - they rock the marketing space. Their ads and design were hilarious and quite something else.

Rap up

Time flies these days. Looking back on the last two weeks I must admit the business plan has grinded to a complete halt. While the Bay area definitely brings a lot to the table, it is also not the time to develop the plan much further. To acquire funding in Silicon Valley you need several things, amongst others:

a) Proof of Traction (proof that someone will buy it - letter of intent stating intention of purchase, existing customers etc)

b) Flipping the company (moving the company to the US or at least creating a Delaware holding company - VCs are not fond of getting intertwined with pesky European law unless they are investing in a proven company)

Starting the company, developing a prototype and then coming here, would be the right course of action - the ability to bootstrap (grow organically etc without giving up equity) within health science equipment is significantly higher in Europe compared to the US and bedding the VCs too early might only kill an eventual company. On the other hand I've accumulated so much experience and insight from this place to inspire me for a lifetime.