September 18, 2024 • 49 mins
Episode Description
In this episode of Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) Live, hosts Terrance Orr and Ilya Tabakh interview Dan Goodman, a seasoned entrepreneur and innovation consultant with over 40 years of experience. Dan shares his extensive journey, highlighting his roles as an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) across various institutions, including the University of Maryland, George Mason University, Columbia University, and MIT. The conversation covers Dan's early entrepreneurial ventures, his insights into tech commercialization, and his passion for mentoring climate tech startups. They delve into the evolving role of EIRs, the challenges and opportunities in fostering innovation within large corporations, and the importance of building strong professional relationships. This episode offers valuable lessons on entrepreneurship, innovation, and the impactful role of EIRs in bridging academia and industry.
Key Points from This Episode:
- Dan Goodman’s extensive background and journey as an EIR across multiple institutions.
- The significance of early entrepreneurial exposure and its impact on career trajectory.
- Insights into tech commercialization and the role of EIRs in universities.
- The importance of volunteering and building professional relationships.
- Challenges and strategies for fostering innovation within large corporations.
- The evolving role of EIRs and their impact on economic development.
- The necessity of customer discovery in developing successful products.
- The value of vetting business partners thoroughly.
- Dan’s transition from mentoring startups to investing in climate tech companies.
- The cultural shift in academia towards embracing commercialization.
Links:
- (00:00) - The Journey of Entrepreneurship
- (05:11) - Insights from Dan Goodman
- (06:08) - The Role of EIRs in Innovation
- (20:12) - Challenges in Corporate Innovation
- (30:16) - Lessons from Experience
- (34:36) - Dream EIR Roles and Future Trends
- (41:22) - Current Work in Climate Tech
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dan Goodman (00:00):
I had never really thought about the fact that big
(00:02):
companies, need that too. Ithought, surely, giant
companies, fortune fifties,fortune 100, they must know how
to do this because, otherwise,how could it be so big? Turns
out that they're actually prettybad at it. So that led to the
founding of Relativity Sciences,a company I had for, 14 years.
(00:22):
And we did, innovation,intrepreneurship, and customer
intimacy for Fortune 5 100.
Ilya Tabakh (00:29):
Welcome to EIR Live, where we dive into the
lives and lessons ofentrepreneurs in residence. I'm
Ilya Tabakh, together with my cohost, Terrance Orr, ready to
bring you closer to theheartbeat of the innovation and
entrepreneurial spirit. Everyepisode, we explore the real
stories behind the ideas,successes, setbacks, and
everything in between. Foreveryone from aspiring EIRs to
(00:50):
seasoned pros, EIR Live is yourgateway to the depth of the
entrepreneurial journey andbringing innovative insights
into the broader world. Checkout the full details in the
episode description.
Subscribe to stay updated, andjoin us as we uncover what it
takes to transform visions intoventures. Welcome aboard. Let's
grow together.
Terrance Orr (01:14):
Man, what an incredible episode, with with
Dan. Dan, the man, the KevinBacon of EIRs. And, and I and I
think that he he really lived upto that. And, and frankly, I
learned way more about the, thenumber of EIR opportunities that
this guy had compared to what Iactually thought. We brought a
(01:34):
one that, on, on the podcast, somuch wisdom, over 40 plus years,
that you just can't read inbooks sometimes.
Right? At this level that thatDan has outlined for us. But I
had many more thoughts, man. AndI'm blown away. What do you
think about Adelia?
Ilya Tabakh (01:52):
Yeah, man. It's crazy. I mean, he's a he's a
common node between the 2 of us.Right? You guys work together,
and I kept running into him inkind of the climate tech
ecosystem.
The cool thing for me is, youknow, I've talked to Dan a
couple times, including theepisode. And we just have so
many similarities. And what'scool is I saw you sort of pick
it up on some of the you know,he mentioned a little bit just
(02:14):
in passing, you know, kindaaviation and liking airplanes,
and you were all over that. Youknow, for me, he got started you
know, his first project was,getting started at 10. I I was
doing stuff when I was, youknow, before I was 10.
And as to your point, you know,everybody's starting stuff. Then
he was in methane and, you know,kind of, biosustainability
(02:37):
stuff, and that was kind of thefirst chapter of my career. And
so there's this crazy, like, asyou pull on all these threads,
there's just like, oh, yeah.That's awesome. I've I'm
interested in that.
I've done that. And, you know, Ithink it's it's crazy that, he's
a common node between us, justthere in the network.
Terrance Orr (02:53):
And and and it makes it so interesting because,
you know, Dan is one of thosepeople that he's a true
definition of a translator.Right? And he's a great
translator because he's seenthey've been exposed to multiple
things, not just in climate, notseeing clean energy, but in
biofuels and other things thatin woodworking and chopping down
things, flying planes. I mean,the, the layer sort of person
(03:16):
you become to that sort ofexposure and the different
companies and ventures and thepeople you advise or consult,
along the way. It just, it, it,it, it really shied through a
lot, in, in the episode, how hecan go from talking about
aviation to, you know, cleanenergy, to a whole nother thing.
(03:36):
And, and honestly, what I reallyadmire about Dan is that his
ability to give back. Yes. He'stalked a lot about his positions
as EIRs, but if you look at thetheme of those, a lot of those
positions, it was helping thenext generation of leaders and
entrepreneurs at universitiesand other campuses think through
how do you actually build abusiness when you don't come
from this background.Traditionally, he talked a lot
(03:57):
about scientists. Right?
And wanting to work with thosesort of people and give them the
business and commercializationskills. So, you know, for me,
man, I I just think so manydifferent gems in this episode
that people can take away from.How do you give back and pay it
forward, while you still build.And I think he's a good example
of that.
Ilya Tabakh (04:15):
Yeah. Absolutely. And I mean, ultimately, at the
end of the day, 230 companiesadvised and sort of been
involved in more broadly, youknow, 16 companies founded or
been involved from kinda theground floor. You just you can't
compete with that level ofexperience. And what's crazy is
as to your point, he's justkinda pulling out gems left and
(04:35):
right.
You know, you you bring upsomebody's like, oh, yeah.
That's like that time 25 yearsago when or 30 years ago when
and I'm like, yeah. Well, that'swhat it is. So yeah, man. Well,
yeah.
Let's let's let's let's jumpinto it, and then let everybody
else hear. But it's, it's crazy,the the the amount of, sort of
knowledge and and, breadth of,vision we were able to engage
(04:58):
in.
Terrance Orr (04:58):
No doubt about it. I feel very honored, to, to do
this sort of work and interviewpeople like Dan. And, they're
gonna be doing many more ofthem. So let's get into it and
let the people hear.
Ilya Tabakh (05:11):
Alright. Well, I'm I said super excited last time,
but, I guess I gotta add asuper, super excited because
this this really is exciting tohave Dan, Goodman on the podcast
with us. Dan may just be, theKevin Bacon of entrepreneurs in
residence. And we'll we'll we'llget to we'll get to why I think
(05:34):
that, but as as I was startingto talk to EIRs and looking at a
lot of deep tech startups, Danactually popped up a couple
times in the advisor page andthings like that. And I I
haven't run into anybody elseyet that that's sort of all over
the place.
And so it'd be fun as we kindaget down the episodes here to
(05:55):
see, you know, how many degreesof, separation folks have from
Dan, to, you know, prove our ourtheory. But, super excited, to
have Dan on the podcast. Dan hashas an amazing background, so
much so that we had to sort ofput it in buckets a little bit.
But maybe, Dan, I'd I'd ask youa little bit to to maybe give us
(06:18):
your your early background andkinda how you got started with,
innovation and entrepreneurship,and then we can kind of dive
into it from there.
Dan Goodman (06:26):
Great. Well, thanks for having me, guys. It's really
exciting to be here with you. SoI, I started my first company, I
think, when I was 10 years oldfixing pinball machines. Ended
up, you know, doing that forabout, 15 years, had federal
contracts and about 500customers in the DC, Maryland,
Virginia area.
(06:47):
Went and got a, electricalengineering degree at University
of Maryland. And, along the sortof pinball path, did some some
inventing around, adaptivedevices for people with
disabilities. So I invented apinball machine you could play
with your breath, eyelashes,teeth, or toes that got used
for, traumatic brain injury,spinal cord injury rehab around
(07:09):
the country. And also, anintraoral computer controlled
device for quadriplegics. Youcould move a mouse with your
tongue.
Things like that. Then, youknow, I ended up starting some
other companies. I've nowstarted, founded or co founded
16 companies over the last 53years. Through my sort of
(07:31):
interest in renewable energy, alot of those companies were
cleantech, climateech kinds ofthings. And I'll get back to
that because that's sort of whatI'm focused on now.
But after, I think, 5 or 6companies, I started thinking
about, you know, inventing and,building the company, doing the
(07:54):
sales and marketing. It's a longroad to go through that whole
process. So I got the idea thatmaybe, licensing a technology
from somebody else might be asort of a shortcut. So I ended
up taking a course at, NIH. Theyhave the, a grad school there
(08:14):
called the Foundation For theAdvanced Education of Sciences.
Took a tech transfer course. Oneof the speakers was the
University of Maryland, techtransfer director. So I went up
to him afterwards andvolunteered and said, you know,
I'd love to learn about how techcommercialization works. I'd be
happy to volunteer and do some,you know, industry deals for
(08:36):
you, look at the portfolio oflicensed technologies, bring a
little bit of businessperspective to your operations
there. So I was the the foundingentrepreneur in residence as it
were at the, University ofMaryland College of Perks tech
transfer office.
That was my first, tech transferexperience.
Ilya Tabakh (08:58):
Hey, Dan. Of your 16 companies, how many of them
had you done, before kind of thefirst EIR? You know, kind of 50
years, 16 companies. That'sreally dense, but I'm curious
just kind of the, you know, whatwhat frequency, and and how much
experience you had before youkind of dove into the EIR side?
Dan Goodman (09:15):
I think it was 6.
Terrance Orr (09:17):
Okay. And and and a follow-up question to that,
Dan, I I always see a thread inserial entrepreneur's back,
which is they started somethingwhen they were younger. Doesn't
matter what it was. PinballMachine Company, Lemonade Stand,
they sold something with theirdad, but they had some early
exposure to, you know, theentrepreneurial process and
journey even if they didn't knowit. And I see that thread as
(09:40):
well in your background.
Another thing that I wanna callout, is that the will to raise
your hand to do something evenwhen, you know, it wasn't money
involved, right? Having the willto actually go to the event,
learn something, walk up to theperson afterwards because you
coulda left like probably halfthe room did, you know? But the
(10:01):
entrepreneurial spirit in yousaid, I'm gonna go raise my hand
and figure out how I can getinvolved. And that led to your
first entrepreneur in residencerole as the founding EIR at the
University of Maryland which Ithink is fascinating. So I don't
wanna let that thread go fromthe initiating, raising your
hand, doing something earlystages and that exposure is also
(10:21):
super important that led to yourfirst sort of EIR gig.
So talk to us about you becomingthe founding EIR, right, at the
University of Maryland. You'rein this role now, it's day 1.
What what is Dan doing on on day1 at the University of Maryland?
How are you starting to build afoundation for other EIRs in the
future that will come into theUniversity of Maryland? What was
(10:44):
your job there?
Dan Goodman (10:44):
Well, let me answer that in one sec, but I want to
say something about what youjust mentioned, which was of
volunteering. Absolutely. Icoach, young folks to volunteer
as much as they can in somethingthat interests them. Because,
you know, showing up every day,being competent, you know, doing
what you're asked, getting thejob done, makes you invaluable.
(11:07):
So if you're looking for a jobor even if you're, you know,
more senior, you know, andexploring something new, just
volunteering seems to be areally underused, under thought
about, vector into doingsomething interesting that you
like.
The other thing that youmentioned was an exposure to
(11:27):
entrepreneurship, and that I waslucky in that that my family,
back as far as we know, have allbeen entrepreneurs. So I think
you grow up thinking about yourwork life, from what you hear
around the dining room table.And, you know, my father started
his own business. My grandfatherstarted one. My great
grandfather started one that weknow about.
(11:49):
So that's that thoroughlyexposure was, I think, really
important in my thinking aboutthe world and what what I could
do in it. At Maryland, you know,day 1, I spent actually several
months, you know, thumbingthrough the database of
technologies because part of myrationale for taking that role
was, you know, I'd like to spinsomething out. I'd like to find
(12:11):
a technology that I could runwith. But in the meantime, there
were over a 1,000 at the time.So that took Wow.
Quite a long time. But I alsowas learning about, you know,
how commercialization works atuniversities, meeting with
faculty, you know, talking tothe lawyers, looking at the past
deals and seeing how they werestructured. So I did that for
(12:31):
for some months before Istarted, trying to help them
reach out to industry withtechnologies that weren't being
actively commercialized. Now oneof the the secrets of,
university techcommercialization is that the
staff has very little time. It'soften just, like, 4 or 5 days to
(12:52):
get acquainted, accustomed to atechnology, understand the
market space, and then try andgo out and find licensees, and
before they have to move on.
Because the flow of, disclosuresabout innovations are so much
they so much exceed the capacityof the staff to deal with them.
(13:14):
So that I was trying to fill inand help with that.
Terrance Orr (13:16):
That's incredible. And just a follow-up question to
that, Dan. Can you tell peoplewhy tech transfer is even
important to universities? Whywhy would they want to license
their technology out tosomebody? Can you talk to people
about about that very quickly?
Dan Goodman (13:34):
Yeah. There was a a congressional act called the
Bayh Dole Act. I forget thedate, but I think it was the
early eighties, mid eightiesperhaps, where, Congress decided
that the federal dollars in,that were given to companies in
forms of grants and sorry,universities in forms of grants
should be dual use. Right? Theyshould be, not just for academic
(13:59):
knowledge creation, but theyshould help the economy and the
tax base and the employment basefor the US by creating
companies.
So they they had a mandate ifthey had taken any federal money
to then commercialize thattechnology. So that was the
impetus, but it had since growninto, you know, an engine of
(14:20):
economic development. Anduniversities, often grow their
regional economies by startingcompanies that then land nearby,
and then, you know, create avirtual cycle of goodness in
terms of more students comingin, more tax revenue for the
(14:40):
region, more employment, morevibrancy in the in the local
economy. So it's it's good allaround, and it's something that
is, I think MIT was one of thefirst to really dig into it, but
it's now very, very commonplace.
Ilya Tabakh (14:57):
Just curious. So I talk to a lot of EIRs,
especially at universities, andthere's sort of a whole spectrum
of how much structure and howmuch kinda thought folks had put
in, before kind of inviting anEIR. And, you know, I sort of
wanna pull this on on questionon on a couple of your EIR
roles. But but generally, wasthere a lot of kind of thought
(15:18):
on what you would do and how theuniversity would benefit when
you came in? Or was it more openended?
And kinda how did folks thinkabout that?
Dan Goodman (15:27):
So initially, the tech transfer office at
Maryland, they never had onebefore. And I I sort of proposed
the idea, and they were like,sure. Fine. You know, we're not
paying you. Extra help is great.
And it's often like that. Youknow, I went off and did a short
stint at George Mason Universityas EIR, and that was helping
(15:48):
faculty think aboutcommercialization. Came back to
Maryland and actually was EIRacross different divisions of
Maryland for a span of 22 years.So I went from, I licensed the
technology out of the TechTransfer Office and spun up a
company, then moved over to thebusiness school, got recruited
by them to the, Dingman CenterFor Entrepreneurship, which is
(16:11):
one of the initial, universityentrepreneurship centers. Then
moved up to the B EIR Emeritusat the Business School, Swiss
School of Business across thewhole enterprise, then got
recruited by the vice presidentof research and helped him and
the president sort of understandcommercialization and
entrepreneurship, for a fewyears, became the research
(16:37):
development lead for theLockheed Martin relationship
between Lockheed and theuniversity, which was the first
sort of giant, blanket agreementthat a university had done with
Lockheed, Then went back to thebusiness school and and was in
the EIR for executive educationdoing training for companies
(16:57):
outside the university.
After that, I actually moved toColumbia University as executive
in residence helping facultypostdocs, spin companies out.
And and now I'm at, MIT as anadvisor for their Proto
Ventures. So I've had this sortof winding path through
universities. So that's beensort of one track of my my EIR
(17:20):
experience.
Terrance Orr (17:21):
So let me pull on the thread, Dan, because, you
know, I love to find the thethrough line. You were at EIR,
and I think I just wannaunderscore this with people is
that there is a residence forEIR when they go places. Even
inside of a university, yourresidence is the school that
you're catering to, if you will.And Dan has had the privilege to
(17:42):
go across the school ofbusiness, engineering and almost
every other division you canthink of. Right?
That matters. And a lot of themmatter. Right? At at Maryland.
So, but I don't wanna lose thethreat of he went he did a quick
stint at at George Mason.
Right? And then he went toColumbia and then he's at MIT.
Can you give me a quick youknow, what led to you taking the
(18:05):
EIR role at at Mason? Right? Andwhat made you go back to
Maryland?
And how did that lead to yougetting the role at Columbia?
Dan Goodman (18:14):
Yeah. They're pretty disjoint. There really
isn't a a, you know, this
Terrance Orr (18:18):
happened. No faster.
Dan Goodman (18:19):
Happened then b, then c. I somehow met the
director of tech transfer atGeorge Mason, and she said, I am
putting together a little groupof EIRs to help advise faculty
because we're just sort ofstarting to think about that
kind of role. So So that wasfairly short. I think that was a
year, a year and a half. But itwas concurrent with Maryland.
(18:41):
And then Columbia came aboutthrough a mutual connection with
the executive director, therewho suggested my my son was
actually going to Columbia atthe time. He said, next time
you're up visiting your son, gosee the executive director. He's
a friend of mine. That guyoffered me a role there, the
executive in residence, whichwas fantastic, you know,
(19:03):
amazing. I had the wholephysical sciences portfolio,
Terrance Orr (19:07):
Oh, wow.
Dan Goodman (19:08):
To deal with. And,
Terrance Orr (19:09):
Okay.
Dan Goodman (19:10):
Yeah. Some amazing stuff coming out of there. And
then, the MIT thing came justthrough LinkedIn. They they came
looking for me.
Terrance Orr (19:19):
I just love the thread of I think I I wanna pull
out the themes and some of thethings that I see. Then one is
relationships matter.Friendships matter, and these
are relationships that peoplebuild over years, you know,
decades. And you know, thoserelationships, that is not the
only thing that matters. Andalso how do you, you know,
combine the relationship withthe value you can add to an
(19:42):
organization or a place andpeople will find you.
They will seek you out. Theywill recruit you into the role.
So, you know, I don't want tolose the thread of Dan had the
skill, but also therelationships matter. And that
is a skill that you would needto pull on as a EIR because
you're you're pulling so manythreads as a translator. And
Iolia, I'll pass it back to you,but I wanted to make sure we
(20:04):
give the people that thatwinding road.
Ilya Tabakh (20:06):
No. That's great. Well and and, you know, Dan's
already talked about kinda beinga entrepreneur, a founder, an
EIR. He hasn't talked aboutbeing a innovation consultant,
yet, but that's sort of aninteresting perspective. Maybe
spending a little bit of time onon kinda what you found out
about, you know, trying to getlarger organizations and things
(20:28):
like that to be innovativebecause that's, you know, a lot
of EIRs, especially on thecorporate side, unlike, the
university and things like that,have to sort of build a a new
category of muscles.
You know, everybody, is is isdoing their chest, then they
gotta work on their back. Andso, there's not nearly as much
expertise there. So maybe if wecould talk about that, and then
(20:52):
I got a couple more questionsafter that for you.
Dan Goodman (20:54):
Yeah. So at the University of Maryland, Northrop
Grumman came to the University.They're one of the sponsors of
various engineering things, and,one of the vice presidents came
and said, hey. Yeah. We'rehaving a lot of trouble
innovating.
We're feeling very calcified.It's, you know, difficult to
make decisions, and people arenot taking risks. And, have you
(21:15):
got somebody that could help ussort that out? And they sent
them to me. I ended up, embeddedat Northrop Grumman for 8 years
as a consultant.
And, part of that time, theycalled me an EIR. But that, you
know, I'd I'd already coachedand and mentored and and
consulted for dozens and dozensof startups. I had never really
(21:36):
thought about the fact that bigcompanies, need that too. I
thought, surely, giantcompanies, Fortune fifties,
Fortune 100, they must know howto do this because, otherwise,
how could it be so big? Turnsout that they're actually pretty
bad at it.
So that led to the founding ofRelativity Sciences, a company I
had for, 14 years. And we didinnovation, intrepreneurship,
(22:01):
and customer intimacy forFortune 5 100. I had a crew of
about 10 people that worked forme, and we did workshops,
training, coaching, consulting,embedding with those companies,
and helping them take the theinnovative ideas that they they
already had and trying to getthem over the finish line to get
(22:24):
to revenue. Companies had a lotof trouble with that. You know,
they'd say, well, we spent1,000,000 of dollars on on
ideation.
Maybe they had an ideationconsultant come in, and they
have this, this portfolio now ofconcepts, but, and they want to
innovate at the c suite becausethey go, you know, there's,
(22:46):
there's a 15 year old in theirbasement someplace who's going
to eat our lunch if we don'tstart innovating. Right? You
know, the world is changing. Weneed to we need to start getting
fast and lean and thinking aboutinnovation, and they just
struggle with it. And once theydid the ideation, they had a lot
of trouble moving those thingsthrough to completion.
(23:07):
So we started doing that. I wentand bid one of my staff or
myself with the company. Weteach them about, you know,
customer discovery, aboutBusiness Model Canvas, about a
lot of the skills ofentrepreneurship that convey to
intrapreneurship. And a lot ofthose were, were interpersonal
(23:28):
skills, You know, communication,pitching, active listening,
empathy, you know, things thatthey really need to be good at
to be a successful entrepreneur.And some of the lessons there
were that, the c suite wantedthese things, but the middle
tier and frontline would resist.
And there'd be corporateantibodies that would try and
(23:49):
stop these kinds of innovationsfrom happening because those
levels were not incentivized, tomake those things happen. Right?
If it takes more time or costresources to do those things,
that's not how middle managersgot paid. So, we had to work a
lot with the c suite oncommunicating the mindset of
(24:12):
innovation and how important itwas for the success of the
company for this to besuccessful and then getting the
c suite to flow down, metricsthat would make it, make folks
incentivized to actually helpwith this rather than fight
against it?
Ilya Tabakh (24:28):
Yeah. I actually find a couple of things. I think
part of it is the lack ofincentives and metrics. But I
think also a lot oforganizations are set up to
manage risk. Right?
And if you're doing somethingnew that you don't have a idea
of how it's gonna play out andyour, you know, sort of
scorecard is for, you know,revenue or, earnings delivery
for the quarter or, you know,half year, that's just sort of a
(24:52):
risk to execution. And so, itmay be that by practicing sort
of good execution discipline,right, you're kinda focusing on
the things that you know andunderstand and and can sort of
stand behind. And often, that'snot the new things. The the
other thing is it it sort ofhits me that, you know, you're
kinda describing the translatorrole of of an entrepreneur in
(25:14):
residence. Right?
A lot of the things we'retalking about, you know, to to
me, I'm sure to Terrance are,you know, sort of, yeah, that
makes sense. I did it, you know,when I did this company, when I
was in this role. There's by bysort of the chaotic nature of
the trajectory of the career.Right? You've seen pieces.
You've been kind of in thetrenches. And so a lot of the
(25:36):
you know, startups don't have achoice. They're always intimate
with their clients andcustomers. Otherwise, they don't
survive. Right.
And so, just some of thesethings are interesting to sort
of see how you kinda translate.And then I think your point
about, you know,organizationally thinking about
if the board level wants it, theC suite wants it. You know,
ultimately, you have to be awareof the organization and sort of
(25:57):
the mechanics within a biggercompany to see how do you kinda
get everybody to row in the samedirection. Because large
companies are amazing in thatthey have a lot of resources and
a lot of surface area in themarketplace that they're in, all
kinds of other things. But it'svery hard to get them to act in
a coordinated fashion.
And, you know, culture, all allof these big squishy things,
(26:18):
start to kinda be importantconsiderations there. So it's
cool that you're, you know, sortof touching at the interfaces of
some of those. I think this ismaybe a whole other
conversation, but just wanted tokinda highlight that, you know,
a lot of the things that I hearyou saying in passing are really
sort of the key for, you know,innovation as a function
(26:40):
actually leading to,contributing to meaningful kinda
line items on the p and l.Because going from that idea to,
hey. We have a new$1,000,000,000 business or, you
know, a new thing that's drivingearnings for the company for the
next x years, that takes a lotof these things that, you know,
seem like they shouldn't be asmuch of an issue as they are in
(27:02):
my experience at least.
Terrance Orr (27:03):
Yes. And and I'll add on to that to go. I think
it's so fascinating with withcorporates. Like you said
earlier that you said theymanage risk. And in many ways
that's what entrepreneurship is,right?
You're managing risk, right, onthe least amount of capital and
resources that you can find toget to the next phase, to live
up, to see another day, right?And it's so fascinating to me
(27:27):
that that large corporates orbig organizations are really
good at managing risk internallyto their corporate sort of
structure. But when it comes tobuilding something new, right,
finding their startup DNA again,right, which is how they got
started, For whatever reason,they don't wanna take those
risks anymore. They don't wannamanage those risks. They only
wanna manage the risk that keepsthe core intact, which I think
(27:50):
is just, is very interesting.
And I think the second piece,which I've seen in every EIR
role that I've been in and I'vebeen in 3 of them which is the
incentives, right? You justcan't incentivize the top and
not the middle and not thebottom. You need the people at
the bottom to be theinfrastructure to your company
building the new thing. And ifyou don't wanna pay them or
incentivize them to do sobecause you don't want them to
(28:12):
make more money than you, Idon't know if that's a good
reason. Right?
So, you know, I just wanted tocomment a little bit on those
things. I don't know, you'veseen it earlier. Dan, you've
seen it multiple times. So justwanted to pull on that thread as
well.
Dan Goodman (28:26):
That's an excellent point. And I've seen that happen
a lot where, you know, thatsalary differential that you
might incentivize in a startupperson inside your company with
scares some of the uppermanagement. But I think one of
the major factors that I saw inlimiting, big companies
abilities to to beentrepreneurial is the fact that
(28:51):
they've sort of filtered out inthe HR function. They filtered
out anybody that hasn't flowedthrough a very, sort of standard
career path to fit the the jobdescription that they're, that
they're posed at. So if you'vedone entrepreneurial things,
that doesn't look good to the HRfolks.
Right?
Terrance Orr (29:11):
They they
Dan Goodman (29:12):
kind of screen those out, which is one of the
reasons why the vacuum existsfor EIRs to step into these
kinds of roles because theydon't have a lot of people
inside who have doneentrepreneurial things. So when
it when they have an initiativethat they want, an innovation
initiative that's trying to moveforward, and they're trying to
find staff to lead it, they'reoften there's often nobody
(29:35):
there. So, anyway, that, givesguys like us something to do.
Ilya Tabakh (29:43):
Yeah. No. Absolutely. You know, what's
funny is, like, it's so manydifferent kind of experiences
and so many different roles. Ialways like to and then we've
kinda like to ask folks thequestion of, you know, what
would you tell kind of your pastself, now that they know knowing
what you know?
Because it's amazing that youcan kinda distill, insights and
(30:04):
and experiences from from allkinds of different, touch points
across your career. You weresaying, you know, in more than
50 years founding companies anddoing all these things. What
what would you tell past Dan,from from kind of some of these
insights you've gained?
Dan Goodman (30:18):
There's 3 things that I that I think I might tell
my younger self. 1 is, you know,what's now common practice is
customer discovery. So Iinvented some things. I had an
engineering company for about 15years. And, yeah, some of those
were products that I had dreamedup, but didn't do any customer
discovery and ended up spendinglots of money, lots of time
(30:41):
making things that nobodywanted.
In part because, you know, theywere technically interesting and
challenging, so it was fun forme as an engineer. But that's a
terrible way to decide what tobuild. So customer discovery
would be 1. The other would be,you know, vet partners better.
People that you're gonna go intobusiness with just do a deeper
(31:02):
dive than I did as a youngerguy, in terms of their work
styles, their desires, you know,what it is they really want out
of that partnership, and, youknow, to be a detective and
figure out, you know, how theybehaved and treated prior folks
that they worked with.
I think that would have beenuseful. And then I think the
(31:24):
third is just not to worry asmuch. Right? You know, and not,
maybe not get so excited aboutthe thing when things are going
great and not get to get sounhappy when things are going
badly because, really, it's lifeis both long and short. But it's
hardly ever worth the worry.
Ilya Tabakh (31:44):
Yeah. It's, you know, it's really hard. When I
coach and talk to entrepreneurs,I remind them that this is
probably not the last dealyou're working on. Yeah. Right?
Because, in in in even in, like,university commercialization,
everybody gets so laser focusedon, you know, squeezing the last
drop of water out of the turnip.And and some folks are
(32:06):
personality or whatever. That'sthat's just kinda how they
focus. But it it's it's sort ofI don't know what else other
than sort of the benefit oftime, gives you that perspective
of life as both short and long.Right?
But I think that's actually,like, a really critical, you
know, part of the reason why,I've talked to some of my VC
(32:27):
friends that they like to investin 2nd and third time founders
is, you know, some of that youcan't learn or it's much harder
to learn from everybody elsebecause, you know, humans
aren't, exactly the mostexquisite listeners. And so when
somebody tells you that this isthe hardest thing I've ever had
to do, you're like, oh, thatsounds bad. And, you know,
somebody's having a flashback intheir mind, very different
(32:49):
experience for them. Right? ButI'm just curious how you how you
know, you found an effective wayto kind of help that message
land?
Because I I've advised a couplefolks with that. Like, you know,
think about, obviously, thisdeal, this company, but don't
forget this is not probably yourlast deal in your life. And and
so you know? And some folks takethat and and sort of run with
(33:10):
it, and other folks, you know,it goes doesn't even go through
or near. Just curious on kindayour experience.
Dan Goodman (33:16):
Yeah. I think it's it's the same, is some people
can integrate that a bit, andsome can't. I mean, I have 2
adult children, and I have, youknow, coached them about don't
worry as much. Right? It seemslike this is the most critical
thing that's ever gonna happen,but it's not.
Terrance Orr (33:34):
Mhmm. You know, it's, and I'll add on to that is
that it's all said and done. 1sttime founders don't know what
they don't know until they getpunched in the face. Right? And
in 2nd and 3rd or 4th and 5thtime founders, if you're 6th
time founders, if you're a Dan.
Right? And they know the barrelof complexity that they're about
to go down, in in this journey.And and they they're humbled by
(33:56):
it and and understand that theyneed help and mentors and
resources along the way to buildthe the everlasting company that
they they hope to build. And andDan, you talked about, you know,
a few minutes ago about how youused to dream up things, right,
in your engineering company. Andand I'm gonna ask you to dream a
little bit with us on thepodcast today, and and talk
(34:18):
about your dream EIR role.
You've had a bunch of them,right? But if Dan had a choice
to pick the one that he wanted,the organization that he wanted,
where would Dan go? What wouldbe the dream EIR role?
Dan Goodman (34:31):
Well, I think you know the answer to that, but
I'll tell you anyway for foreveryone's benefit. I I had,
several years ago, I had somedeep discussions with the, the
secretary of the Smithsonian andthe chief financial officer
about being an EIR for theSmithsonian Institution, which
is an amazing organization. Mostpeople only sort of know about
(34:54):
the museums, but it's it's a farflung entity with, you know,
astrobiology and media companiesand all kinds of other stuff. So
it's an it's an incredibleamalgamation of different
enterprises. So, I've beencoaching, actually, the the
(35:14):
director of exhibits, headperson for all the exhibits for
all the museums for a couple ofyears, and that's how I got into
the castle, as it were, to seethe secretary.
But that didn't work out,unfortunately, but that that
would have been great. That was,kind of, my my ideal gig. And I
the other one is kinda weird,but, there's a F16 squadron that
(35:39):
protects, the capital in DCcalled the Capital Guardians.
And when I was at Norfolk, thevice president that I reported
to was the honorary commander.And that's kind of an EIR role.
It's sort of an advisor,community liaison kind of person
that can teach the squadronsomething or, you know, bring
them new ideas from outsidetheir bubble. And I was on deck
(36:03):
to be that honorary commander,and they get they take you up in
an F-sixteen trainer and let youfly it for about 15 minutes. And
I'm I'm a big fan of flyingjets. Wow. I've copiloted a few,
private jets and stuff.
So I was really excited aboutthat, but it didn't work out.
The actual commander retired, soI didn't get to follow my vice
(36:27):
president's seat.
Terrance Orr (36:29):
Yeah. You're in the aviation too. We have so
much more in common than Ithought. Oh, we're gonna geek
out one day on on planes andengines and everything else.
Okay.
Fair enough. That's that'sreally cool. You just taught me
something, by the way, so foreverybody's benefit, I I did not
know about the the capital,guardians. So, you know, that's
what this podcast is for,knowledge and to learn different
(36:51):
things. So, thank you forsharing that, Dan.
And who knows, you know, theymight listen to the podcast and
and go, hey. We we have somethings over here for you to do,
you know, if if you're open.
Ilya Tabakh (37:02):
It it it's amazing how things like that sometimes
come around. I'm curious,actually, just to kinda pull on
the thread a little bit. Sodream EIR roles, love those.
First of all, I didn't knowabout the Capital Guardians
either. How do you see kind ofthe the EIR role, you know,
kinda transforming or,translating or whatnot
developing over time?
You know, before it was sort ofan interesting, you know,
(37:26):
university role, things likethat. But, how do you see this
developing, you know, kind of inthe future going forward,
especially with sort of all ofthe different, at bats or so
that you've you've had, in thatrole?
Dan Goodman (37:38):
I think it's important to think about the
trajectory of the role fromoriginal, VC based EIRs, you
know, where somebody would cashout of a a portfolio company in
VC, and the VC would then, keepthem sort of in house, let them
mentor, other portfolio CEOs,and then maybe slot them into a
(37:59):
company that needed a moreexperienced one as the company
matured. And then theuniversities picked it up and
then government. So there are,you know, government agencies
that have including Departmentof State, that have EIRs in
them. So I think that the areasthat I have not seen a lot of
(38:21):
EIR penetration into have beensort of mid tier companies. And
then, recently, I thought aboutprivate schools.
You know, my my wife justretired after 25 years at a
private school. And, you know,they need to say plight
businesses in order to survivein an economy where less and
(38:41):
less people are willing to spendthe kind of money that it takes
to put kids through privateschool. So I think, an EIR role
there would help them thinkabout revenue and alternate
opportunities in different ways.
Ilya Tabakh (38:54):
Awesome. Yeah. No. That that that's great to to
kind of think about.
Terrance Orr (38:57):
It is. And, you know, Dan, I'm I'm sitting here,
and I'm I'm thinking about allthe things that that that you've
done. I've I learned a ton everytime I talk to you. It feels
like I can talk to you for 3hours. The the the one thing
that I I love to ask people,because we're as humans, you
know, we we work, you know, inthe world that we work in, we
(39:20):
also have personal lives and allthe other things.
We're layered people. You know,I wondered if you can tell us
something about yourself, Dan,that isn't on your resume that I
just can't find on on late then,like the aviation thing, you
know, or other things that youmight what what is something
that we can't find on yourresume, Dan, that that you like
to share with people?
Dan Goodman (39:41):
I used to blow glass, and I was taught
beginning glass blowing at theNice. National park called Glen
Haven. And, my hobby is cuttingup trees. I I have a sort of
industrial sawmill, and I just,you know, my wife asked me many
years ago for a live edge diningroom table, which she still
(40:04):
hasn't gotten because I sort offell in love with the process of
cutting trees up into lumber andslabs. So I now have rented a
number of my neighbors' garagesto keep all of the slabs in.
So I apparently like to do thecutting more than I do, the
making.
Terrance Orr (40:22):
Okay. That is a really cool hobby. I I got a
chance to see glass blowing inin Denver and I was fascinated.
I was like, woah. This guy Ithought the guy was gonna burn
himself or something.
I didn't know what was gonnahappen, but it was just a
fascinating process to see,people do glass blowing. So to
know that that's something thatyou did. And solid trees, I
(40:44):
would have never got that. Youknow, dead of wood and
everything else, that's that'sreally cool. Sounds like a
really good hobby, but I I don'twanna go down the rabbit hole on
that.
So I'm gonna I'm gonna let youI'm
Ilya Tabakh (40:57):
gonna let you go. Is a good thing. The the the the
rabbit hole we could go downthat's maybe a little bit more
relevant is, you know, what arewhat are you tinkering on and
kinda working on recently? Youkinda mentioned Climate Tech
earlier in your intro. Would itbe awesome to spend, you know, a
few minutes, talking about whathave you been kinda working on
more recently and excited about,and kinda learning more about,
(41:18):
you know, how you're using allall your experience and and
background in in your currentwork.
Dan Goodman (41:24):
Yeah. So I mentor climate tech startups for a
whole a number of, incubatorsaround the world. And for
NYSERDA, New York State EnergyResearch and Development
Authority, I've been anentrepreneur in residence for
them for more than 5 years, Ithink. And I've been helping
those companies, and now theseare not all climate tech, but
(41:45):
I'm now up to 230 companies Ithink I've mentored, advised, or
consulted for. But over the last5 or 6 years, it's been purely
climate tech companies.
And in helping them raise fundsand prep for pitching and
setting up their operations,doing hiring, thinking about
(42:05):
project management, all thatstuff. I realized about 3 years
ago that I should be investingin them myself. So I started
something called Sandy SpringClimate Partners and we invest
in deep tech climate companies.So 90% of those are PhD first
(42:25):
time entrepreneur founders. So,that's kind of become my
specialty is, you know,scientists transitioning to
entrepreneurship roles becausethere's a sort of special
mindset shift that has tohappen, and some special
thoughts about how you hire andstaff to be successful that are
(42:47):
a little more challenging forscientists than for, business
people.
And I've been very, veryfortunate to work with some
fantastically smart and, youknow, emotionally intelligent,
very advanced, CEOs. And I thinkthat's interesting to me anyway
because, you know, 30 years ago,the faculty that I would deal
(43:11):
with at universities who werecommercializing were, you know,
pretty, on the whole, fairlyegocentric. I heard a lot of
stuff like, you know, if youwere smart, you'd be a scientist
like me. Business is easy. Icould read a book and do what
you do.
And most of those guys did makeit. But and that was in part
because, academics as a wholeviewed commercialization and
(43:37):
business as defiling the ivorytower. And that has gone away.
Right now, the folks that I workwith are typically, you know, in
their early thirties, and theyhave grown up in a world where
commercialization makes sensebecause it brings the the
creational knowledge to benefitthe greater good, to benefit
(43:58):
humanity throughcommercialization. And that
that's a beautiful thing, and itmakes sense to them that that
it's a lot dirty.
Business is not evil. So that'sthat's been a really interesting
transition to watch in theculture of academia.
Ilya Tabakh (44:16):
Yeah. And it's, you know, I I benefited from
spending the first chapter of mycareer in academia, and I did it
a little later than than you, atleast on the first kind of
encounter. And so a lot of thethings I was exposed to were
things like Icore and NSF alsolooking at, you know, how can,
you help faculty and academicsat least communicate if not
(44:39):
commercialize. For sure. And so,I'm I'm not sure that I'm in
full agreement that it'scompletely gone from the
academy, some of the things thatyou've described.
But I think what what's happenedis it's created a whole, you
know, kinda pocket and group ofpeople that are excited about,
commercializing, communicating,and definitely a more
(45:00):
approachable and and andconsiderate move. But yeah. In
in in my experience on theclimate tech side, as you think
about these folks kinda goinglater stage, there there's all
kinds of other things that youhave to do when you deliver, you
know, what I call heavy metalcompany is ultimately when,
folks put things that are metalin the ground, that, you know,
(45:23):
it it's amazing to watch thesefolks that, kinda matriculate
out of academia, ultimatelystart to understand, you know,
what are some of the things thatwe have to do, but how their
companies kind of evolve asthey, you know, prove their
technology through pilot, thenultimately have to go do an
integrated demonstrationon-site. And then start to talk
(45:43):
about and think about projectfinance, and institutional
capital, and bankability. AndYeah.
You know, many of the thingsengineers don't really, as as a
normal, role, think about. Andit's just it's such a, you know,
symphony, such amultidisciplinary, engagement.
It's interesting to sort of seehow that evolves. And I am I am
(46:03):
a little bit, you know, kind ofencouraged that folks are
learning to translate andspending a little bit of time in
different camps. You know?
And I and I think, ultimately,that enables us to to do some
really some really interestingthings. I guess, maybe to pull
on the on the kind of yourcurrent work thread, you know,
hopefully, what we're, you know,trying to do through the podcast
(46:24):
is connect kind of the networkof EIRs together. And so, you
know, one of my favorite startupquestions is always, you know,
what can we do to help? But,hopefully, you know, with with
the kind of the podcast and someof the work that we're doing in
in reaching out to EIRs, we can,you know, make that sort of an
EIR live, EIR network concept.Absolutely.
(46:45):
So maybe what can, you know, aswe kind of build the EIR
network, what can that networkhelp or do to help kind of what
you're working on?
Dan Goodman (46:51):
Yeah. Well, I think it's being able to make a warm
introduction into, corporatesthat might need something that
some of these portfoliocompanies that either mentor or
invest in are producing. And wehave companies that are energy
storage, carbon capture andconversion, material science,
(47:13):
you know, bio materials,bioplastics, some other things
like that. So, yeah. So thoseintroductions are really
valuable and often hard to aredefined through LinkedIn.
So it would be great to be ableto have that network that, that
I could tap into there. Andthen, you know, always looking
for folks interested in, youknow, accredited investors
(47:35):
interested in the, in helpingwith climate emergency.
Terrance Orr (47:40):
That's really good to know, Dan. And and I think
that the the last thing we wantto we want to know is how can
these people connect with you?Right? How can our listeners
follow you, connect with you,reach out if they wanna sort of
get to know you, have an introcall and try to build that
relationship?
Dan Goodman (47:56):
Yeah. LinkedIn is one way.
Terrance Orr (47:58):
Okay.
Dan Goodman (47:59):
And the other is through Sandy Spring Climate
Partners which isssclimatemartners.com.
Terrance Orr (48:06):
Okay. Dan, it's been an honor and privilege, to
have you, on on on the show.Man, I I might have to bring you
back for a part 2. We're gonnahave to bring you back for a
part 2 because I wanna hearabout, you know, once you have
your feet planted at MIT, thethings you're working on there
and the other things that you'reseeing in the DTech world
(48:26):
working with climate startups,which I think is truly a way we
can deploy impact at scale inthe world, working with climate
companies. So thank you for thework that you do there, and
thank you for joining us.
It's been a privilege.
Dan Goodman (48:39):
Thank you, guys. It's been a great pleasure. And
I, whenever I talk to you guys,I feel like I'm in the bosom of
brothers at arms in inentrepreneurship and EIR hood.
Terrance Orr (48:48):
That's right. That's right. But there you have
it.
Ilya Tabakh (48:51):
Awesome. Always a great time.
Terrance Orr (48:53):
Thanks for joining us on EIR live. We hope today's
episode offer you valuableinsights into the
entrepreneurial journey.Remember to subscribe so you
don't miss out on futureepisodes, and check out the
description for more details. Doyou have questions or
suggestions? Please reach out tous.
Connect with us on social media.We really value your input.
Catch us next time for moreinspiring stories and
(49:15):
strategies. Keep pushingboundaries and making your mark
on the world. I'm Terrance Orrwith my co host Ilya Tabakh,
signing off.
Let's keep building.
I had never really thought about the fact that big
(00:02):
companies, need that too. Ithought, surely, giant
companies, fortune fifties,fortune 100, they must know how
to do this because, otherwise,how could it be so big? Turns
out that they're actually prettybad at it. So that led to the
founding of Relativity Sciences,a company I had for, 14 years.
(00:22):
And we did, innovation,intrepreneurship, and customer
intimacy for Fortune 5 100.
Ilya Tabakh (00:29):
Welcome to EIR Live, where we dive into the
lives and lessons ofentrepreneurs in residence. I'm
Ilya Tabakh, together with my cohost, Terrance Orr, ready to
bring you closer to theheartbeat of the innovation and
entrepreneurial spirit. Everyepisode, we explore the real
stories behind the ideas,successes, setbacks, and
everything in between. Foreveryone from aspiring EIRs to
(00:50):
seasoned pros, EIR Live is yourgateway to the depth of the
entrepreneurial journey andbringing innovative insights
into the broader world. Checkout the full details in the
episode description.
Subscribe to stay updated, andjoin us as we uncover what it
takes to transform visions intoventures. Welcome aboard. Let's
grow together.
Terrance Orr (01:14):
Man, what an incredible episode, with with
Dan. Dan, the man, the KevinBacon of EIRs. And, and I and I
think that he he really lived upto that. And, and frankly, I
learned way more about the, thenumber of EIR opportunities that
this guy had compared to what Iactually thought. We brought a
(01:34):
one that, on, on the podcast, somuch wisdom, over 40 plus years,
that you just can't read inbooks sometimes.
Right? At this level that thatDan has outlined for us. But I
had many more thoughts, man. AndI'm blown away. What do you
think about Adelia?
Ilya Tabakh (01:52):
Yeah, man. It's crazy. I mean, he's a he's a
common node between the 2 of us.Right? You guys work together,
and I kept running into him inkind of the climate tech
ecosystem.
The cool thing for me is, youknow, I've talked to Dan a
couple times, including theepisode. And we just have so
many similarities. And what'scool is I saw you sort of pick
it up on some of the you know,he mentioned a little bit just
(02:14):
in passing, you know, kindaaviation and liking airplanes,
and you were all over that. Youknow, for me, he got started you
know, his first project was,getting started at 10. I I was
doing stuff when I was, youknow, before I was 10.
And as to your point, you know,everybody's starting stuff. Then
he was in methane and, you know,kind of, biosustainability
(02:37):
stuff, and that was kind of thefirst chapter of my career. And
so there's this crazy, like, asyou pull on all these threads,
there's just like, oh, yeah.That's awesome. I've I'm
interested in that.
I've done that. And, you know, Ithink it's it's crazy that, he's
a common node between us, justthere in the network.
Terrance Orr (02:53):
And and and it makes it so interesting because,
you know, Dan is one of thosepeople that he's a true
definition of a translator.Right? And he's a great
translator because he's seenthey've been exposed to multiple
things, not just in climate, notseeing clean energy, but in
biofuels and other things thatin woodworking and chopping down
things, flying planes. I mean,the, the layer sort of person
(03:16):
you become to that sort ofexposure and the different
companies and ventures and thepeople you advise or consult,
along the way. It just, it, it,it, it really shied through a
lot, in, in the episode, how hecan go from talking about
aviation to, you know, cleanenergy, to a whole nother thing.
(03:36):
And, and honestly, what I reallyadmire about Dan is that his
ability to give back. Yes. He'stalked a lot about his positions
as EIRs, but if you look at thetheme of those, a lot of those
positions, it was helping thenext generation of leaders and
entrepreneurs at universitiesand other campuses think through
how do you actually build abusiness when you don't come
from this background.Traditionally, he talked a lot
(03:57):
about scientists. Right?
And wanting to work with thosesort of people and give them the
business and commercializationskills. So, you know, for me,
man, I I just think so manydifferent gems in this episode
that people can take away from.How do you give back and pay it
forward, while you still build.And I think he's a good example
of that.
Ilya Tabakh (04:15):
Yeah. Absolutely. And I mean, ultimately, at the
end of the day, 230 companiesadvised and sort of been
involved in more broadly, youknow, 16 companies founded or
been involved from kinda theground floor. You just you can't
compete with that level ofexperience. And what's crazy is
as to your point, he's justkinda pulling out gems left and
(04:35):
right.
You know, you you bring upsomebody's like, oh, yeah.
That's like that time 25 yearsago when or 30 years ago when
and I'm like, yeah. Well, that'swhat it is. So yeah, man. Well,
yeah.
Let's let's let's let's jumpinto it, and then let everybody
else hear. But it's, it's crazy,the the the amount of, sort of
knowledge and and, breadth of,vision we were able to engage
(04:58):
in.
Terrance Orr (04:58):
No doubt about it. I feel very honored, to, to do
this sort of work and interviewpeople like Dan. And, they're
gonna be doing many more ofthem. So let's get into it and
let the people hear.
Ilya Tabakh (05:11):
Alright. Well, I'm I said super excited last time,
but, I guess I gotta add asuper, super excited because
this this really is exciting tohave Dan, Goodman on the podcast
with us. Dan may just be, theKevin Bacon of entrepreneurs in
residence. And we'll we'll we'llget to we'll get to why I think
(05:34):
that, but as as I was startingto talk to EIRs and looking at a
lot of deep tech startups, Danactually popped up a couple
times in the advisor page andthings like that. And I I
haven't run into anybody elseyet that that's sort of all over
the place.
And so it'd be fun as we kindaget down the episodes here to
(05:55):
see, you know, how many degreesof, separation folks have from
Dan, to, you know, prove our ourtheory. But, super excited, to
have Dan on the podcast. Dan hashas an amazing background, so
much so that we had to sort ofput it in buckets a little bit.
But maybe, Dan, I'd I'd ask youa little bit to to maybe give us
(06:18):
your your early background andkinda how you got started with,
innovation and entrepreneurship,and then we can kind of dive
into it from there.
Dan Goodman (06:26):
Great. Well, thanks for having me, guys. It's really
exciting to be here with you. SoI, I started my first company, I
think, when I was 10 years oldfixing pinball machines. Ended
up, you know, doing that forabout, 15 years, had federal
contracts and about 500customers in the DC, Maryland,
Virginia area.
(06:47):
Went and got a, electricalengineering degree at University
of Maryland. And, along the sortof pinball path, did some some
inventing around, adaptivedevices for people with
disabilities. So I invented apinball machine you could play
with your breath, eyelashes,teeth, or toes that got used
for, traumatic brain injury,spinal cord injury rehab around
(07:09):
the country. And also, anintraoral computer controlled
device for quadriplegics. Youcould move a mouse with your
tongue.
Things like that. Then, youknow, I ended up starting some
other companies. I've nowstarted, founded or co founded
16 companies over the last 53years. Through my sort of
(07:31):
interest in renewable energy, alot of those companies were
cleantech, climateech kinds ofthings. And I'll get back to
that because that's sort of whatI'm focused on now.
But after, I think, 5 or 6companies, I started thinking
about, you know, inventing and,building the company, doing the
(07:54):
sales and marketing. It's a longroad to go through that whole
process. So I got the idea thatmaybe, licensing a technology
from somebody else might be asort of a shortcut. So I ended
up taking a course at, NIH. Theyhave the, a grad school there
(08:14):
called the Foundation For theAdvanced Education of Sciences.
Took a tech transfer course. Oneof the speakers was the
University of Maryland, techtransfer director. So I went up
to him afterwards andvolunteered and said, you know,
I'd love to learn about how techcommercialization works. I'd be
happy to volunteer and do some,you know, industry deals for
(08:36):
you, look at the portfolio oflicensed technologies, bring a
little bit of businessperspective to your operations
there. So I was the the foundingentrepreneur in residence as it
were at the, University ofMaryland College of Perks tech
transfer office.
That was my first, tech transferexperience.
Ilya Tabakh (08:58):
Hey, Dan. Of your 16 companies, how many of them
had you done, before kind of thefirst EIR? You know, kind of 50
years, 16 companies. That'sreally dense, but I'm curious
just kind of the, you know, whatwhat frequency, and and how much
experience you had before youkind of dove into the EIR side?
Dan Goodman (09:15):
I think it was 6.
Terrance Orr (09:17):
Okay. And and and a follow-up question to that,
Dan, I I always see a thread inserial entrepreneur's back,
which is they started somethingwhen they were younger. Doesn't
matter what it was. PinballMachine Company, Lemonade Stand,
they sold something with theirdad, but they had some early
exposure to, you know, theentrepreneurial process and
journey even if they didn't knowit. And I see that thread as
(09:40):
well in your background.
Another thing that I wanna callout, is that the will to raise
your hand to do something evenwhen, you know, it wasn't money
involved, right? Having the willto actually go to the event,
learn something, walk up to theperson afterwards because you
coulda left like probably halfthe room did, you know? But the
(10:01):
entrepreneurial spirit in yousaid, I'm gonna go raise my hand
and figure out how I can getinvolved. And that led to your
first entrepreneur in residencerole as the founding EIR at the
University of Maryland which Ithink is fascinating. So I don't
wanna let that thread go fromthe initiating, raising your
hand, doing something earlystages and that exposure is also
(10:21):
super important that led to yourfirst sort of EIR gig.
So talk to us about you becomingthe founding EIR, right, at the
University of Maryland. You'rein this role now, it's day 1.
What what is Dan doing on on day1 at the University of Maryland?
How are you starting to build afoundation for other EIRs in the
future that will come into theUniversity of Maryland? What was
(10:44):
your job there?
Dan Goodman (10:44):
Well, let me answer that in one sec, but I want to
say something about what youjust mentioned, which was of
volunteering. Absolutely. Icoach, young folks to volunteer
as much as they can in somethingthat interests them. Because,
you know, showing up every day,being competent, you know, doing
what you're asked, getting thejob done, makes you invaluable.
(11:07):
So if you're looking for a jobor even if you're, you know,
more senior, you know, andexploring something new, just
volunteering seems to be areally underused, under thought
about, vector into doingsomething interesting that you
like.
The other thing that youmentioned was an exposure to
(11:27):
entrepreneurship, and that I waslucky in that that my family,
back as far as we know, have allbeen entrepreneurs. So I think
you grow up thinking about yourwork life, from what you hear
around the dining room table.And, you know, my father started
his own business. My grandfatherstarted one. My great
grandfather started one that weknow about.
(11:49):
So that's that thoroughlyexposure was, I think, really
important in my thinking aboutthe world and what what I could
do in it. At Maryland, you know,day 1, I spent actually several
months, you know, thumbingthrough the database of
technologies because part of myrationale for taking that role
was, you know, I'd like to spinsomething out. I'd like to find
(12:11):
a technology that I could runwith. But in the meantime, there
were over a 1,000 at the time.So that took Wow.
Quite a long time. But I alsowas learning about, you know,
how commercialization works atuniversities, meeting with
faculty, you know, talking tothe lawyers, looking at the past
deals and seeing how they werestructured. So I did that for
(12:31):
for some months before Istarted, trying to help them
reach out to industry withtechnologies that weren't being
actively commercialized. Now oneof the the secrets of,
university techcommercialization is that the
staff has very little time. It'soften just, like, 4 or 5 days to
(12:52):
get acquainted, accustomed to atechnology, understand the
market space, and then try andgo out and find licensees, and
before they have to move on.
Because the flow of, disclosuresabout innovations are so much
they so much exceed the capacityof the staff to deal with them.
(13:14):
So that I was trying to fill inand help with that.
Terrance Orr (13:16):
That's incredible. And just a follow-up question to
that, Dan. Can you tell peoplewhy tech transfer is even
important to universities? Whywhy would they want to license
their technology out tosomebody? Can you talk to people
about about that very quickly?
Dan Goodman (13:34):
Yeah. There was a a congressional act called the
Bayh Dole Act. I forget thedate, but I think it was the
early eighties, mid eightiesperhaps, where, Congress decided
that the federal dollars in,that were given to companies in
forms of grants and sorry,universities in forms of grants
should be dual use. Right? Theyshould be, not just for academic
(13:59):
knowledge creation, but theyshould help the economy and the
tax base and the employment basefor the US by creating
companies.
So they they had a mandate ifthey had taken any federal money
to then commercialize thattechnology. So that was the
impetus, but it had since growninto, you know, an engine of
(14:20):
economic development. Anduniversities, often grow their
regional economies by startingcompanies that then land nearby,
and then, you know, create avirtual cycle of goodness in
terms of more students comingin, more tax revenue for the
(14:40):
region, more employment, morevibrancy in the in the local
economy. So it's it's good allaround, and it's something that
is, I think MIT was one of thefirst to really dig into it, but
it's now very, very commonplace.
Ilya Tabakh (14:57):
Just curious. So I talk to a lot of EIRs,
especially at universities, andthere's sort of a whole spectrum
of how much structure and howmuch kinda thought folks had put
in, before kind of inviting anEIR. And, you know, I sort of
wanna pull this on on questionon on a couple of your EIR
roles. But but generally, wasthere a lot of kind of thought
(15:18):
on what you would do and how theuniversity would benefit when
you came in? Or was it more openended?
And kinda how did folks thinkabout that?
Dan Goodman (15:27):
So initially, the tech transfer office at
Maryland, they never had onebefore. And I I sort of proposed
the idea, and they were like,sure. Fine. You know, we're not
paying you. Extra help is great.
And it's often like that. Youknow, I went off and did a short
stint at George Mason Universityas EIR, and that was helping
(15:48):
faculty think aboutcommercialization. Came back to
Maryland and actually was EIRacross different divisions of
Maryland for a span of 22 years.So I went from, I licensed the
technology out of the TechTransfer Office and spun up a
company, then moved over to thebusiness school, got recruited
by them to the, Dingman CenterFor Entrepreneurship, which is
(16:11):
one of the initial, universityentrepreneurship centers. Then
moved up to the B EIR Emeritusat the Business School, Swiss
School of Business across thewhole enterprise, then got
recruited by the vice presidentof research and helped him and
the president sort of understandcommercialization and
entrepreneurship, for a fewyears, became the research
(16:37):
development lead for theLockheed Martin relationship
between Lockheed and theuniversity, which was the first
sort of giant, blanket agreementthat a university had done with
Lockheed, Then went back to thebusiness school and and was in
the EIR for executive educationdoing training for companies
(16:57):
outside the university.
After that, I actually moved toColumbia University as executive
in residence helping facultypostdocs, spin companies out.
And and now I'm at, MIT as anadvisor for their Proto
Ventures. So I've had this sortof winding path through
universities. So that's beensort of one track of my my EIR
(17:20):
experience.
Terrance Orr (17:21):
So let me pull on the thread, Dan, because, you
know, I love to find the thethrough line. You were at EIR,
and I think I just wannaunderscore this with people is
that there is a residence forEIR when they go places. Even
inside of a university, yourresidence is the school that
you're catering to, if you will.And Dan has had the privilege to
(17:42):
go across the school ofbusiness, engineering and almost
every other division you canthink of. Right?
That matters. And a lot of themmatter. Right? At at Maryland.
So, but I don't wanna lose thethreat of he went he did a quick
stint at at George Mason.
Right? And then he went toColumbia and then he's at MIT.
Can you give me a quick youknow, what led to you taking the
(18:05):
EIR role at at Mason? Right? Andwhat made you go back to
Maryland?
And how did that lead to yougetting the role at Columbia?
Dan Goodman (18:14):
Yeah. They're pretty disjoint. There really
isn't a a, you know, this
Terrance Orr (18:18):
happened. No faster.
Dan Goodman (18:19):
Happened then b, then c. I somehow met the
director of tech transfer atGeorge Mason, and she said, I am
putting together a little groupof EIRs to help advise faculty
because we're just sort ofstarting to think about that
kind of role. So So that wasfairly short. I think that was a
year, a year and a half. But itwas concurrent with Maryland.
(18:41):
And then Columbia came aboutthrough a mutual connection with
the executive director, therewho suggested my my son was
actually going to Columbia atthe time. He said, next time
you're up visiting your son, gosee the executive director. He's
a friend of mine. That guyoffered me a role there, the
executive in residence, whichwas fantastic, you know,
(19:03):
amazing. I had the wholephysical sciences portfolio,
Terrance Orr (19:07):
Oh, wow.
Dan Goodman (19:08):
To deal with. And,
Terrance Orr (19:09):
Okay.
Dan Goodman (19:10):
Yeah. Some amazing stuff coming out of there. And
then, the MIT thing came justthrough LinkedIn. They they came
looking for me.
Terrance Orr (19:19):
I just love the thread of I think I I wanna pull
out the themes and some of thethings that I see. Then one is
relationships matter.Friendships matter, and these
are relationships that peoplebuild over years, you know,
decades. And you know, thoserelationships, that is not the
only thing that matters. Andalso how do you, you know,
combine the relationship withthe value you can add to an
(19:42):
organization or a place andpeople will find you.
They will seek you out. Theywill recruit you into the role.
So, you know, I don't want tolose the thread of Dan had the
skill, but also therelationships matter. And that
is a skill that you would needto pull on as a EIR because
you're you're pulling so manythreads as a translator. And
Iolia, I'll pass it back to you,but I wanted to make sure we
(20:04):
give the people that thatwinding road.
Ilya Tabakh (20:06):
No. That's great. Well and and, you know, Dan's
already talked about kinda beinga entrepreneur, a founder, an
EIR. He hasn't talked aboutbeing a innovation consultant,
yet, but that's sort of aninteresting perspective. Maybe
spending a little bit of time onon kinda what you found out
about, you know, trying to getlarger organizations and things
(20:28):
like that to be innovativebecause that's, you know, a lot
of EIRs, especially on thecorporate side, unlike, the
university and things like that,have to sort of build a a new
category of muscles.
You know, everybody, is is isdoing their chest, then they
gotta work on their back. Andso, there's not nearly as much
expertise there. So maybe if wecould talk about that, and then
(20:52):
I got a couple more questionsafter that for you.
Dan Goodman (20:54):
Yeah. So at the University of Maryland, Northrop
Grumman came to the University.They're one of the sponsors of
various engineering things, and,one of the vice presidents came
and said, hey. Yeah. We'rehaving a lot of trouble
innovating.
We're feeling very calcified.It's, you know, difficult to
make decisions, and people arenot taking risks. And, have you
(21:15):
got somebody that could help ussort that out? And they sent
them to me. I ended up, embeddedat Northrop Grumman for 8 years
as a consultant.
And, part of that time, theycalled me an EIR. But that, you
know, I'd I'd already coachedand and mentored and and
consulted for dozens and dozensof startups. I had never really
(21:36):
thought about the fact that bigcompanies, need that too. I
thought, surely, giantcompanies, Fortune fifties,
Fortune 100, they must know howto do this because, otherwise,
how could it be so big? Turnsout that they're actually pretty
bad at it.
So that led to the founding ofRelativity Sciences, a company I
had for, 14 years. And we didinnovation, intrepreneurship,
(22:01):
and customer intimacy forFortune 5 100. I had a crew of
about 10 people that worked forme, and we did workshops,
training, coaching, consulting,embedding with those companies,
and helping them take the theinnovative ideas that they they
already had and trying to getthem over the finish line to get
(22:24):
to revenue. Companies had a lotof trouble with that. You know,
they'd say, well, we spent1,000,000 of dollars on on
ideation.
Maybe they had an ideationconsultant come in, and they
have this, this portfolio now ofconcepts, but, and they want to
innovate at the c suite becausethey go, you know, there's,
(22:46):
there's a 15 year old in theirbasement someplace who's going
to eat our lunch if we don'tstart innovating. Right? You
know, the world is changing. Weneed to we need to start getting
fast and lean and thinking aboutinnovation, and they just
struggle with it. And once theydid the ideation, they had a lot
of trouble moving those thingsthrough to completion.
(23:07):
So we started doing that. I wentand bid one of my staff or
myself with the company. Weteach them about, you know,
customer discovery, aboutBusiness Model Canvas, about a
lot of the skills ofentrepreneurship that convey to
intrapreneurship. And a lot ofthose were, were interpersonal
(23:28):
skills, You know, communication,pitching, active listening,
empathy, you know, things thatthey really need to be good at
to be a successful entrepreneur.And some of the lessons there
were that, the c suite wantedthese things, but the middle
tier and frontline would resist.
And there'd be corporateantibodies that would try and
(23:49):
stop these kinds of innovationsfrom happening because those
levels were not incentivized, tomake those things happen. Right?
If it takes more time or costresources to do those things,
that's not how middle managersgot paid. So, we had to work a
lot with the c suite oncommunicating the mindset of
(24:12):
innovation and how important itwas for the success of the
company for this to besuccessful and then getting the
c suite to flow down, metricsthat would make it, make folks
incentivized to actually helpwith this rather than fight
against it?
Ilya Tabakh (24:28):
Yeah. I actually find a couple of things. I think
part of it is the lack ofincentives and metrics. But I
think also a lot oforganizations are set up to
manage risk. Right?
And if you're doing somethingnew that you don't have a idea
of how it's gonna play out andyour, you know, sort of
scorecard is for, you know,revenue or, earnings delivery
for the quarter or, you know,half year, that's just sort of a
(24:52):
risk to execution. And so, itmay be that by practicing sort
of good execution discipline,right, you're kinda focusing on
the things that you know andunderstand and and can sort of
stand behind. And often, that'snot the new things. The the
other thing is it it sort ofhits me that, you know, you're
kinda describing the translatorrole of of an entrepreneur in
(25:14):
residence. Right?
A lot of the things we'retalking about, you know, to to
me, I'm sure to Terrance are,you know, sort of, yeah, that
makes sense. I did it, you know,when I did this company, when I
was in this role. There's by bysort of the chaotic nature of
the trajectory of the career.Right? You've seen pieces.
You've been kind of in thetrenches. And so a lot of the
(25:36):
you know, startups don't have achoice. They're always intimate
with their clients andcustomers. Otherwise, they don't
survive. Right.
And so, just some of thesethings are interesting to sort
of see how you kinda translate.And then I think your point
about, you know,organizationally thinking about
if the board level wants it, theC suite wants it. You know,
ultimately, you have to be awareof the organization and sort of
(25:57):
the mechanics within a biggercompany to see how do you kinda
get everybody to row in the samedirection. Because large
companies are amazing in thatthey have a lot of resources and
a lot of surface area in themarketplace that they're in, all
kinds of other things. But it'svery hard to get them to act in
a coordinated fashion.
And, you know, culture, all allof these big squishy things,
(26:18):
start to kinda be importantconsiderations there. So it's
cool that you're, you know, sortof touching at the interfaces of
some of those. I think this ismaybe a whole other
conversation, but just wanted tokinda highlight that, you know,
a lot of the things that I hearyou saying in passing are really
sort of the key for, you know,innovation as a function
(26:40):
actually leading to,contributing to meaningful kinda
line items on the p and l.Because going from that idea to,
hey. We have a new$1,000,000,000 business or, you
know, a new thing that's drivingearnings for the company for the
next x years, that takes a lotof these things that, you know,
seem like they shouldn't be asmuch of an issue as they are in
(27:02):
my experience at least.
Terrance Orr (27:03):
Yes. And and I'll add on to that to go. I think
it's so fascinating with withcorporates. Like you said
earlier that you said theymanage risk. And in many ways
that's what entrepreneurship is,right?
You're managing risk, right, onthe least amount of capital and
resources that you can find toget to the next phase, to live
up, to see another day, right?And it's so fascinating to me
(27:27):
that that large corporates orbig organizations are really
good at managing risk internallyto their corporate sort of
structure. But when it comes tobuilding something new, right,
finding their startup DNA again,right, which is how they got
started, For whatever reason,they don't wanna take those
risks anymore. They don't wannamanage those risks. They only
wanna manage the risk that keepsthe core intact, which I think
(27:50):
is just, is very interesting.
And I think the second piece,which I've seen in every EIR
role that I've been in and I'vebeen in 3 of them which is the
incentives, right? You justcan't incentivize the top and
not the middle and not thebottom. You need the people at
the bottom to be theinfrastructure to your company
building the new thing. And ifyou don't wanna pay them or
incentivize them to do sobecause you don't want them to
(28:12):
make more money than you, Idon't know if that's a good
reason. Right?
So, you know, I just wanted tocomment a little bit on those
things. I don't know, you'veseen it earlier. Dan, you've
seen it multiple times. So justwanted to pull on that thread as
well.
Dan Goodman (28:26):
That's an excellent point. And I've seen that happen
a lot where, you know, thatsalary differential that you
might incentivize in a startupperson inside your company with
scares some of the uppermanagement. But I think one of
the major factors that I saw inlimiting, big companies
abilities to to beentrepreneurial is the fact that
(28:51):
they've sort of filtered out inthe HR function. They filtered
out anybody that hasn't flowedthrough a very, sort of standard
career path to fit the the jobdescription that they're, that
they're posed at. So if you'vedone entrepreneurial things,
that doesn't look good to the HRfolks.
Right?
Terrance Orr (29:11):
They they
Dan Goodman (29:12):
kind of screen those out, which is one of the
reasons why the vacuum existsfor EIRs to step into these
kinds of roles because theydon't have a lot of people
inside who have doneentrepreneurial things. So when
it when they have an initiativethat they want, an innovation
initiative that's trying to moveforward, and they're trying to
find staff to lead it, they'reoften there's often nobody
(29:35):
there. So, anyway, that, givesguys like us something to do.
Ilya Tabakh (29:43):
Yeah. No. Absolutely. You know, what's
funny is, like, it's so manydifferent kind of experiences
and so many different roles. Ialways like to and then we've
kinda like to ask folks thequestion of, you know, what
would you tell kind of your pastself, now that they know knowing
what you know?
Because it's amazing that youcan kinda distill, insights and
(30:04):
and experiences from from allkinds of different, touch points
across your career. You weresaying, you know, in more than
50 years founding companies anddoing all these things. What
what would you tell past Dan,from from kind of some of these
insights you've gained?
Dan Goodman (30:18):
There's 3 things that I that I think I might tell
my younger self. 1 is, you know,what's now common practice is
customer discovery. So Iinvented some things. I had an
engineering company for about 15years. And, yeah, some of those
were products that I had dreamedup, but didn't do any customer
discovery and ended up spendinglots of money, lots of time
(30:41):
making things that nobodywanted.
In part because, you know, theywere technically interesting and
challenging, so it was fun forme as an engineer. But that's a
terrible way to decide what tobuild. So customer discovery
would be 1. The other would be,you know, vet partners better.
People that you're gonna go intobusiness with just do a deeper
(31:02):
dive than I did as a youngerguy, in terms of their work
styles, their desires, you know,what it is they really want out
of that partnership, and, youknow, to be a detective and
figure out, you know, how theybehaved and treated prior folks
that they worked with.
I think that would have beenuseful. And then I think the
(31:24):
third is just not to worry asmuch. Right? You know, and not,
maybe not get so excited aboutthe thing when things are going
great and not get to get sounhappy when things are going
badly because, really, it's lifeis both long and short. But it's
hardly ever worth the worry.
Ilya Tabakh (31:44):
Yeah. It's, you know, it's really hard. When I
coach and talk to entrepreneurs,I remind them that this is
probably not the last dealyou're working on. Yeah. Right?
Because, in in in even in, like,university commercialization,
everybody gets so laser focusedon, you know, squeezing the last
drop of water out of the turnip.And and some folks are
(32:06):
personality or whatever. That'sthat's just kinda how they
focus. But it it's it's sort ofI don't know what else other
than sort of the benefit oftime, gives you that perspective
of life as both short and long.Right?
But I think that's actually,like, a really critical, you
know, part of the reason why,I've talked to some of my VC
(32:27):
friends that they like to investin 2nd and third time founders
is, you know, some of that youcan't learn or it's much harder
to learn from everybody elsebecause, you know, humans
aren't, exactly the mostexquisite listeners. And so when
somebody tells you that this isthe hardest thing I've ever had
to do, you're like, oh, thatsounds bad. And, you know,
somebody's having a flashback intheir mind, very different
(32:49):
experience for them. Right? ButI'm just curious how you how you
know, you found an effective wayto kind of help that message
land?
Because I I've advised a couplefolks with that. Like, you know,
think about, obviously, thisdeal, this company, but don't
forget this is not probably yourlast deal in your life. And and
so you know? And some folks takethat and and sort of run with
(33:10):
it, and other folks, you know,it goes doesn't even go through
or near. Just curious on kindayour experience.
Dan Goodman (33:16):
Yeah. I think it's it's the same, is some people
can integrate that a bit, andsome can't. I mean, I have 2
adult children, and I have, youknow, coached them about don't
worry as much. Right? It seemslike this is the most critical
thing that's ever gonna happen,but it's not.
Terrance Orr (33:34):
Mhmm. You know, it's, and I'll add on to that is
that it's all said and done. 1sttime founders don't know what
they don't know until they getpunched in the face. Right? And
in 2nd and 3rd or 4th and 5thtime founders, if you're 6th
time founders, if you're a Dan.
Right? And they know the barrelof complexity that they're about
to go down, in in this journey.And and they they're humbled by
(33:56):
it and and understand that theyneed help and mentors and
resources along the way to buildthe the everlasting company that
they they hope to build. And andDan, you talked about, you know,
a few minutes ago about how youused to dream up things, right,
in your engineering company. Andand I'm gonna ask you to dream a
little bit with us on thepodcast today, and and talk
(34:18):
about your dream EIR role.
You've had a bunch of them,right? But if Dan had a choice
to pick the one that he wanted,the organization that he wanted,
where would Dan go? What wouldbe the dream EIR role?
Dan Goodman (34:31):
Well, I think you know the answer to that, but
I'll tell you anyway for foreveryone's benefit. I I had,
several years ago, I had somedeep discussions with the, the
secretary of the Smithsonian andthe chief financial officer
about being an EIR for theSmithsonian Institution, which
is an amazing organization. Mostpeople only sort of know about
(34:54):
the museums, but it's it's a farflung entity with, you know,
astrobiology and media companiesand all kinds of other stuff. So
it's an it's an incredibleamalgamation of different
enterprises. So, I've beencoaching, actually, the the
(35:14):
director of exhibits, headperson for all the exhibits for
all the museums for a couple ofyears, and that's how I got into
the castle, as it were, to seethe secretary.
But that didn't work out,unfortunately, but that that
would have been great. That was,kind of, my my ideal gig. And I
the other one is kinda weird,but, there's a F16 squadron that
(35:39):
protects, the capital in DCcalled the Capital Guardians.
And when I was at Norfolk, thevice president that I reported
to was the honorary commander.And that's kind of an EIR role.
It's sort of an advisor,community liaison kind of person
that can teach the squadronsomething or, you know, bring
them new ideas from outsidetheir bubble. And I was on deck
(36:03):
to be that honorary commander,and they get they take you up in
an F-sixteen trainer and let youfly it for about 15 minutes. And
I'm I'm a big fan of flyingjets. Wow. I've copiloted a few,
private jets and stuff.
So I was really excited aboutthat, but it didn't work out.
The actual commander retired, soI didn't get to follow my vice
(36:27):
president's seat.
Terrance Orr (36:29):
Yeah. You're in the aviation too. We have so
much more in common than Ithought. Oh, we're gonna geek
out one day on on planes andengines and everything else.
Okay.
Fair enough. That's that'sreally cool. You just taught me
something, by the way, so foreverybody's benefit, I I did not
know about the the capital,guardians. So, you know, that's
what this podcast is for,knowledge and to learn different
(36:51):
things. So, thank you forsharing that, Dan.
And who knows, you know, theymight listen to the podcast and
and go, hey. We we have somethings over here for you to do,
you know, if if you're open.
Ilya Tabakh (37:02):
It it it's amazing how things like that sometimes
come around. I'm curious,actually, just to kinda pull on
the thread a little bit. Sodream EIR roles, love those.
First of all, I didn't knowabout the Capital Guardians
either. How do you see kind ofthe the EIR role, you know,
kinda transforming or,translating or whatnot
developing over time?
You know, before it was sort ofan interesting, you know,
(37:26):
university role, things likethat. But, how do you see this
developing, you know, kind of inthe future going forward,
especially with sort of all ofthe different, at bats or so
that you've you've had, in thatrole?
Dan Goodman (37:38):
I think it's important to think about the
trajectory of the role fromoriginal, VC based EIRs, you
know, where somebody would cashout of a a portfolio company in
VC, and the VC would then, keepthem sort of in house, let them
mentor, other portfolio CEOs,and then maybe slot them into a
(37:59):
company that needed a moreexperienced one as the company
matured. And then theuniversities picked it up and
then government. So there are,you know, government agencies
that have including Departmentof State, that have EIRs in
them. So I think that the areasthat I have not seen a lot of
(38:21):
EIR penetration into have beensort of mid tier companies. And
then, recently, I thought aboutprivate schools.
You know, my my wife justretired after 25 years at a
private school. And, you know,they need to say plight
businesses in order to survivein an economy where less and
(38:41):
less people are willing to spendthe kind of money that it takes
to put kids through privateschool. So I think, an EIR role
there would help them thinkabout revenue and alternate
opportunities in different ways.
Ilya Tabakh (38:54):
Awesome. Yeah. No. That that that's great to to
kind of think about.
Terrance Orr (38:57):
It is. And, you know, Dan, I'm I'm sitting here,
and I'm I'm thinking about allthe things that that that you've
done. I've I learned a ton everytime I talk to you. It feels
like I can talk to you for 3hours. The the the one thing
that I I love to ask people,because we're as humans, you
know, we we work, you know, inthe world that we work in, we
(39:20):
also have personal lives and allthe other things.
We're layered people. You know,I wondered if you can tell us
something about yourself, Dan,that isn't on your resume that I
just can't find on on late then,like the aviation thing, you
know, or other things that youmight what what is something
that we can't find on yourresume, Dan, that that you like
to share with people?
Dan Goodman (39:41):
I used to blow glass, and I was taught
beginning glass blowing at theNice. National park called Glen
Haven. And, my hobby is cuttingup trees. I I have a sort of
industrial sawmill, and I just,you know, my wife asked me many
years ago for a live edge diningroom table, which she still
(40:04):
hasn't gotten because I sort offell in love with the process of
cutting trees up into lumber andslabs. So I now have rented a
number of my neighbors' garagesto keep all of the slabs in.
So I apparently like to do thecutting more than I do, the
making.
Terrance Orr (40:22):
Okay. That is a really cool hobby. I I got a
chance to see glass blowing inin Denver and I was fascinated.
I was like, woah. This guy Ithought the guy was gonna burn
himself or something.
I didn't know what was gonnahappen, but it was just a
fascinating process to see,people do glass blowing. So to
know that that's something thatyou did. And solid trees, I
(40:44):
would have never got that. Youknow, dead of wood and
everything else, that's that'sreally cool. Sounds like a
really good hobby, but I I don'twanna go down the rabbit hole on
that.
So I'm gonna I'm gonna let youI'm
Ilya Tabakh (40:57):
gonna let you go. Is a good thing. The the the the
rabbit hole we could go downthat's maybe a little bit more
relevant is, you know, what arewhat are you tinkering on and
kinda working on recently? Youkinda mentioned Climate Tech
earlier in your intro. Would itbe awesome to spend, you know, a
few minutes, talking about whathave you been kinda working on
more recently and excited about,and kinda learning more about,
(41:18):
you know, how you're using allall your experience and and
background in in your currentwork.
Dan Goodman (41:24):
Yeah. So I mentor climate tech startups for a
whole a number of, incubatorsaround the world. And for
NYSERDA, New York State EnergyResearch and Development
Authority, I've been anentrepreneur in residence for
them for more than 5 years, Ithink. And I've been helping
those companies, and now theseare not all climate tech, but
(41:45):
I'm now up to 230 companies Ithink I've mentored, advised, or
consulted for. But over the last5 or 6 years, it's been purely
climate tech companies.
And in helping them raise fundsand prep for pitching and
setting up their operations,doing hiring, thinking about
(42:05):
project management, all thatstuff. I realized about 3 years
ago that I should be investingin them myself. So I started
something called Sandy SpringClimate Partners and we invest
in deep tech climate companies.So 90% of those are PhD first
(42:25):
time entrepreneur founders. So,that's kind of become my
specialty is, you know,scientists transitioning to
entrepreneurship roles becausethere's a sort of special
mindset shift that has tohappen, and some special
thoughts about how you hire andstaff to be successful that are
(42:47):
a little more challenging forscientists than for, business
people.
And I've been very, veryfortunate to work with some
fantastically smart and, youknow, emotionally intelligent,
very advanced, CEOs. And I thinkthat's interesting to me anyway
because, you know, 30 years ago,the faculty that I would deal
(43:11):
with at universities who werecommercializing were, you know,
pretty, on the whole, fairlyegocentric. I heard a lot of
stuff like, you know, if youwere smart, you'd be a scientist
like me. Business is easy. Icould read a book and do what
you do.
And most of those guys did makeit. But and that was in part
because, academics as a wholeviewed commercialization and
(43:37):
business as defiling the ivorytower. And that has gone away.
Right now, the folks that I workwith are typically, you know, in
their early thirties, and theyhave grown up in a world where
commercialization makes sensebecause it brings the the
creational knowledge to benefitthe greater good, to benefit
(43:58):
humanity throughcommercialization. And that
that's a beautiful thing, and itmakes sense to them that that
it's a lot dirty.
Business is not evil. So that'sthat's been a really interesting
transition to watch in theculture of academia.
Ilya Tabakh (44:16):
Yeah. And it's, you know, I I benefited from
spending the first chapter of mycareer in academia, and I did it
a little later than than you, atleast on the first kind of
encounter. And so a lot of thethings I was exposed to were
things like Icore and NSF alsolooking at, you know, how can,
you help faculty and academicsat least communicate if not
(44:39):
commercialize. For sure. And so,I'm I'm not sure that I'm in
full agreement that it'scompletely gone from the
academy, some of the things thatyou've described.
But I think what what's happenedis it's created a whole, you
know, kinda pocket and group ofpeople that are excited about,
commercializing, communicating,and definitely a more
(45:00):
approachable and and andconsiderate move. But yeah. In
in in my experience on theclimate tech side, as you think
about these folks kinda goinglater stage, there there's all
kinds of other things that youhave to do when you deliver, you
know, what I call heavy metalcompany is ultimately when,
folks put things that are metalin the ground, that, you know,
(45:23):
it it's amazing to watch thesefolks that, kinda matriculate
out of academia, ultimatelystart to understand, you know,
what are some of the things thatwe have to do, but how their
companies kind of evolve asthey, you know, prove their
technology through pilot, thenultimately have to go do an
integrated demonstrationon-site. And then start to talk
(45:43):
about and think about projectfinance, and institutional
capital, and bankability. AndYeah.
You know, many of the thingsengineers don't really, as as a
normal, role, think about. Andit's just it's such a, you know,
symphony, such amultidisciplinary, engagement.
It's interesting to sort of seehow that evolves. And I am I am
(46:03):
a little bit, you know, kind ofencouraged that folks are
learning to translate andspending a little bit of time in
different camps. You know?
And I and I think, ultimately,that enables us to to do some
really some really interestingthings. I guess, maybe to pull
on the on the kind of yourcurrent work thread, you know,
hopefully, what we're, you know,trying to do through the podcast
(46:24):
is connect kind of the networkof EIRs together. And so, you
know, one of my favorite startupquestions is always, you know,
what can we do to help? But,hopefully, you know, with with
the kind of the podcast and someof the work that we're doing in
in reaching out to EIRs, we can,you know, make that sort of an
EIR live, EIR network concept.Absolutely.
(46:45):
So maybe what can, you know, aswe kind of build the EIR
network, what can that networkhelp or do to help kind of what
you're working on?
Dan Goodman (46:51):
Yeah. Well, I think it's being able to make a warm
introduction into, corporatesthat might need something that
some of these portfoliocompanies that either mentor or
invest in are producing. And wehave companies that are energy
storage, carbon capture andconversion, material science,
(47:13):
you know, bio materials,bioplastics, some other things
like that. So, yeah. So thoseintroductions are really
valuable and often hard to aredefined through LinkedIn.
So it would be great to be ableto have that network that, that
I could tap into there. Andthen, you know, always looking
for folks interested in, youknow, accredited investors
(47:35):
interested in the, in helpingwith climate emergency.
Terrance Orr (47:40):
That's really good to know, Dan. And and I think
that the the last thing we wantto we want to know is how can
these people connect with you?Right? How can our listeners
follow you, connect with you,reach out if they wanna sort of
get to know you, have an introcall and try to build that
relationship?
Dan Goodman (47:56):
Yeah. LinkedIn is one way.
Terrance Orr (47:58):
Okay.
Dan Goodman (47:59):
And the other is through Sandy Spring Climate
Partners which isssclimatemartners.com.
Terrance Orr (48:06):
Okay. Dan, it's been an honor and privilege, to
have you, on on on the show.Man, I I might have to bring you
back for a part 2. We're gonnahave to bring you back for a
part 2 because I wanna hearabout, you know, once you have
your feet planted at MIT, thethings you're working on there
and the other things that you'reseeing in the DTech world
(48:26):
working with climate startups,which I think is truly a way we
can deploy impact at scale inthe world, working with climate
companies. So thank you for thework that you do there, and
thank you for joining us.
It's been a privilege.
Dan Goodman (48:39):
Thank you, guys. It's been a great pleasure. And
I, whenever I talk to you guys,I feel like I'm in the bosom of
brothers at arms in inentrepreneurship and EIR hood.
Terrance Orr (48:48):
That's right. That's right. But there you have
it.
Ilya Tabakh (48:51):
Awesome. Always a great time.
Terrance Orr (48:53):
Thanks for joining us on EIR live. We hope today's
episode offer you valuableinsights into the
entrepreneurial journey.Remember to subscribe so you
don't miss out on futureepisodes, and check out the
description for more details. Doyou have questions or
suggestions? Please reach out tous.
Connect with us on social media.We really value your input.
Catch us next time for moreinspiring stories and
(49:15):
strategies. Keep pushingboundaries and making your mark
on the world. I'm Terrance Orrwith my co host Ilya Tabakh,
signing off.
Let's keep building.
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