November 4, 2020 • 55 mins
It’s one thing to know your idea can change the world. It’s another to convince other people of that. On this episode of the ROI Online Podcast, engineer and entrepreneur Florian Bohn shares the challenges of turning a revolutionary vision into a tangible product that changes everything.
During the last decade, engineer Florian has been developing a technology that transmits energy from space to earth. His tech would make power cords absolute and power the earth with renewable, clean energy. The application would be similar to WiFi replacing ethernet cables. Today, we walk around with WiFi in almost every location. With Florian’s technology, we could do the same without our devices ever losing power.
Florian first started this project with a world-class team at Caltech, but the idea wasn’t originally his own. He was pitched it by his former Ph.D. advisor. He knew it could change the world. Other people were not so optimistic. When he first started working on transforming the project from an idea into technology, he met a lot of opposition. People told him the project was too expensive, not feasible, even physically impossible.
But that opposition made him feel even more convinced that he was headed in the right direction. Almost every great mind, from Einstein to Stephen Hawkings, met resistance when they shared their theories with the world. The same goes for entrepreneurs. If you have the right idea, all that matters is you’re right.
Despite being the co-founder and CEO of GuRu Wireless Inc., Florian doesn’t see himself as an entrepreneur. He just sees himself as a guy who helps others. The most satisfying part of his career is knowing that his work will make other people happy. As the project has started to take shape, Florian transitioned from an engineering role to a marketing and business development role.
Florian’s team still faces several challenges to bring their vision to life, including trying to set up compliance standards for the application of their product and protecting the idea. But he’s confident that their idea will reshape the world of technology as we know it—and make annoying tangled cords a thing of the past.
You can learn more about Florian Bohn here:
www.guru.inc
Follow Florian on LinkedIn
Watch this video on GuRu Wireless
Read the books mentioned in this podcast:
Zero to One by Peter Thiel
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
Enroll in the QuickStart Academy today to learn how to develop and implement a proven growth strategy that grows your ROI, your business, and your confidence. Learn more HERE.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Florian Bohn (00:03):
It's, it's gonna be the same thing as its Wi Fi.
When Wi Fi came out, it was veryclunky. And you have these PCM
ca cards and it's expensive wasslow and everyone was like, why
don't you just plug in yourcomputer? Now if you go to a
Starbucks and you or pizza,whatever, what have you coffee
bean, and you don't have Wi Fi?
You're upset. You're like, Whatdo you mean? Is this a stone age
(00:24):
here? And it'll it'll be thesame. It'll be the same and and
no one no one yet can see thisquite clearly. But you will be
looking back in a couple ofyears it will be unimaginable
that never was like that. It'sgoing to be that experience that
Captain Picard will have like,you know, he wouldn't understand
(00:46):
what it means. What do you mean?
My tricorder is out of power,you know?
Steve Brown (00:51):
Hi, everybody.
Welcome to the ROI onlinepodcasts where we believe you.
The courageous entrepreneurs ofour day, are the invisible
heroes of our economy. You notonly improve our world with your
ideas, your grit and yourpassion, but you make our world
better. I'm Steve Brown. Andthis is a place where we have
great conversations with winnersjust like you while we laugh and
(01:14):
learn together. Florian bond,welcome to the ROI, online
podcast.
Florian Bohn (01:27):
Hey, Steve, thanks for having me.
Steve Brown (01:29):
So I was looking at all the information on you and
you're quite accomplished.
engineer and you've done allthese cool things. And one thing
you're trans been working on aproblem of transferring energy
from space on the earth. Andthat's, that's really
interesting and great Nall, butI just like to be able to
(01:52):
transfer energy from the socketto my cell phone without a
stupid cord hanging everywhereand tripping over. Why can't you
focus on something like that?
Florian Bohn (02:04):
That's actually exactly what we're focusing on
that guru. So the project fromspace that you were talking
about, was the project that weworked on at Caltech. That was
it's the same technology, excepta different scale. But yes, we
absolutely working ontransferring your power from
your socket to your cell phone,so you don't have to plug it in.
Steve Brown (02:26):
Well, there you go.
That I appreciate that. That'sreally something that I think I
hate cords. I got cordseverywhere, you can't wipe your
desk down because the dust isunder the cords. And when you do
you knock stuff over. Butimagine having to run a big
extension cord from space toEarth? Where would you plug it
in? What I mean, that's been aconsideration has not
Florian Bohn (02:52):
Yeah, I mean, the the court and space so to speak,
is plugged into the sounds ofthe project that we were working
on that. And that's still anongoing project at Caltech,
except that I have left it tostart the company. The plug
basically was the sun. So theidea was to convert solar energy
to microwave energy form a beamand be able to steer it to
(03:16):
different locations on Earth.
Mainly not not so much to chargepeople cell phones just from
space, but more so to providepower to difficult to reach
location. So for example, indisaster areas, and so on. So
that's, that seems like a JamesBond situation and just like a
little dangerous, you couldn'tfly a plane to that area because
(03:36):
it would like slice you in halflike some mega weapon. No, no,
it's it's um, it's you can kindof think of it as the sun and
the power density of the sun. Soif you're flying through through
sunlight doesn't doesn't cookyou or destroy your planes.
Solar Energy actually has quitea bit of power. So the the the
(04:01):
power levels that would ifyou're talking about are
similar, the advantage or thethe the idea to do this with
microwaves, you may as well whynot just use the sunlight is so
when you don't have sunlight,right? It's a sunlight, a lot of
variation. clouds will block it.
Exactly. You know, you have thisthis day and night cycle kind of
(04:24):
thing if you're eating it 24seven. And if you can determine
or select where it's gonna go onEarth, let's say you have a
disaster area somewhere, yougain a lot more freedom.
Steve Brown (04:37):
Yeah, so I'm kind of being facetious, but so you
are the co founder and CEO of acompany called guru Inc, ci you
are you Incorporated. And tellus a little bit more about guru
and what you guys are developingover there. It's kind of cool.
Florian Bohn (05:00):
Yeah, so at Google, we basically are
developing this technology wehave productizing it. The
history of Guru goes back toCaltech, we started active
developing a development of thecore technology 2011 2012. I
joined full time a little bitlater in 2013. Right around when
(05:22):
my daughter was born actually.
And but the application so manyfolds, so you can think of large
scale from satellite, but mostmost people care about their
cell phones. If you ask people.
Let's say you have this hammer,what what what can I do with it?
Most people will ask, Okay, canI charge my phone? And can I
charge my car, and the phone?
Yes, the car, you can. But it'sprobably not the best way that
(05:47):
there are better ways of doingit. So that it's phones, its
sensors, it's there lots ofthings where it's actually very
expensive to run cables, or it'sreally annoying, or both, or
batteries. So that's those arethe applications that we are
mainly targeting.
Steve Brown (06:05):
So for the audience that's listening, you know,
what, what Florian is working onbringing to market is, it's
similar to a Wi Fi router, therewas a time where you had to plug
in your devices to receive theinternet. And then all of a
sudden, this cool thing that youjust plugged in to your cable
(06:26):
coming in, and you can walkanywhere and have internet on
your phone. And so this would bethe Wi Fi version, sending a
charging power to your batteryoperated devices, correct?
Florian Bohn (06:39):
Correct. You're doing such a better job of
explaining it. Yes, it's it,it's, um, I guess we kind of
jumped right in. But this isexactly the right image. It's
Yeah, if you have a router,instead of data, you're sending
power, you have client devicesthat you want to get rid of
having to plug them in, andthose other recipients have
power. And the idea is that youdon't have to worry about it.
(07:02):
And it's basically it presentand your phone's always charged
your sensor so is powered and soon.
Steve Brown (07:07):
That's so cool.
I've, you know, I've gone tolike these conferences, you
know, and, and they're all day,and you're checking your phone,
and you're doing stuff and yourphone doesn't last all day. And
so everybody's standing aroundby some plugin by the bathroom,
just to get another 10 minutesof power to make it through
another 30 minutes. And it's,and I just see your devices
(07:28):
being like this. Just this Aha,you'd want to go to that
conference, because you neverhave to worry about plugging
your phone in.
Florian Bohn (07:39):
Yeah, it's a when we went out pitching for money.
I have this facetious slide. I'ma Star Trek fan. So this is a
Star Trek example. But it wasCaptain Picard showing off his
tricorder to get some alien andsay, you know, I would show you
all the cool features, but I'vejust forgotten to charge it up.
(07:59):
And the idea the idea that youknow, if you're flying a
starship around but your yourtricorder doesn't work or
whatever it is I silly. But itis not a century idea. Right?
The the speed with whichtechnology changes is is very
rapid. If you think about it,right? If you think about, you
(08:21):
know, your smartphone, when didthat come to market that was in
2007. So you and I are oldenough to remember what it was
like not to Yeah, this thingright or not to have internet? I
don't know about you. But Icertainly remember the first
time I logged into the internetand and seeing this change life
(08:41):
essentially right? You kind ofwith these sort of like
fundamental changes and how wedo things you kind of get a
feeling or at least I do, likegoosebumps almost. You really
see this is this is a stepfunction and how we're going to
be doing things in the future.
And yeah, good.
Steve Brown (09:01):
No, it makes total sense. And it's actually Yes,
like, almost expected is it eventhough this is a great idea, and
I'm glad to see someone workingon him is like, Where are you
been? What's been taking you solong to get this handled?
Florian Bohn (09:15):
Well, the idea is actually older, right. So Nikola
Tesla, certainly, I think wasthe first one to to actively, he
was actively pursuing this idea.
This idea of being in power fromspace, I think goes back to a
short story by Isaac Asimov. Sothe idea is it seems very
(09:35):
natural, right? Why do we haveto handle this this this
cumbersome cables and all ofthat different standards? The
practical implementation isobviously a little bit tricky,
because otherwise, I wouldn't bedoing wow versus people having
done this 100 years ago. So thebut it's like many things today
(09:57):
that are On the surface veryeasy to use, or just they
immediately obvious but thewhat's under the hood takes a
lot of takes a lot of time andeffort and also some some
developments that are just notunder the control of the
entrepreneur. I like advances incomputing, power, material
processing, and all thosethings. So right now these these
(10:19):
all coming together, plus, wehave a, we came out of Caltech.
So we have quite a world classteam of minds, having worked on
this for a long time to makesomething that's practical and
useful, and not just a not justsort of like more of a lab
experiment, so to speak.
Steve Brown (10:42):
Yeah, totally. So I'm, the folks that listen to
this, Dave, you know, the ideasare easy. They've, everyone's
has a great idea, I have adrawer full full right here that
we can start to review. Butactually starting to make
movement and align resourcesmeans that you have to have
(11:03):
some, some influential power topersuade people to buy into the
idea to align and attractresources and to go through
these challenges by bringingthis product to market. Right.
And so tell us a little bitabout your How did you get from
(11:26):
this concept of an idea toactually get people to start to
focus in invest money, time andenergy and expertise into this?
Florian Bohn (11:35):
Yeah, it's, it's interesting, because I actually
was pitched the idea myself, Ididn't start out from the right
from the start. So the idea waspitched to me by my former PhD
advisor, and now co founder, Alihad you marry. And to me, it
made sense. Um, it was aconversation in a sushi store.
(11:57):
And I thought about it, and ittook me took me maybe a day or
so to say, okay, there are lotsof things that have to come
together, but overall sound,that's certainly not true with
everyone. And I think that's agood sign. So many people you
talk to will say, this is not,you know, they will come up with
all sorts of reasons why thisisn't works too expensive, it's
(12:19):
too. It's not feasible, it'sphysically impossible. So the
physically impossible we can, wecan do away with that very
quickly. And I think this is agood sign. Um, if you have the
right idea, and also the rightargumentation on arguments, why
the your idea will actually workand such as something, maybe we
have all sorts of ideas, right,I want to have a hoverboard,
(12:41):
that, you know, being transporttransports me to work or
something like that, or beams mefrom, but but many of these just
don't work. I'm the you meet alot of people that will tell you
these things. And and the ratioof you know, I want to say 10 to
one I like out of nine people,not like you're your average
(13:03):
person on the street that wesaid, this is a great idea. But
I don't understand how what onewould do this. But you do meet
this resistant, I think this isthis is a good sign of that
you're on the right track.
Because if you have the rightidea, All that matters is that
you're right, right. If you wereAlbert Einstein, you have an
idea of how gravity works. Evenif everyone else thinks you're
(13:23):
wrong. At the end of the day,what matters is whether you can
do it. Um, the way I would pitchit is that they're asked,
they're sort of practicalaspects and fundamental aspects.
So we, we pitched VCs and 2017at a time when it became clear
that we can't just sort of workon it. In the research lab,
(13:43):
we've made made tremendousadvances, but you know, we
needed to scale we needed tojust solve some more practical
problems. And some, some VCswill say, you know, this is not
our cup of tea or this is notour our area but if you talk to
enough people, you know, you'llfind these people that that sort
of get it right and or at leastthat's what you hope for right
(14:06):
that you're right and and thatthose are the people that get it
then and and you just work withthat the same is true with with
customers partners. There aremany the many conversations that
start out with no way or no. Andin some way, it's actually good
(14:28):
to hear that no first like youdon't typically hear a yes
first, right. You want to hearthat no first because that makes
the other person think thatmakes the other person say like,
okay, you know, I have thefreedom to this doesn't make
sense to me. And then then itstarts to make sense to a lot of
people and again, I'm mostlytalking about financing or
(14:48):
customer partners and so on.
Steve Brown (14:55):
So would you say you're more you're more an
engineer or research scientistWhat? What do you what was your
first? Yeah, iteration aftercutting starting to see yourself
in the professional world?
Florian Bohn (15:09):
I am. Yeah, that said it's actually an
interesting question. I'm Iwould not define myself as an
entrepreneur. And I am anentrepreneur, I do not, I am not
like a full time entrepreneur,I'm doing this because I think
it's actually addressing a need.
And if I didn't have anythingelse, I would be doing something
else, I would view myself assort of, I'm scientifically
(15:32):
interested. I'm an engineer. Ilike things I like serving
needs. So I worked at a company,close to 20 years ago, now we
made we make components for cellphones, first, CMOS power
amplifiers. And we sold aboutfour and a million of these and
the fact that there were at somepoint in time, you know, maybe a
(15:55):
couple of hundred million phonesout there with our component in
there. And it served a needpeople wanted this for whatever
reason, they didn't, mostconsumers wouldn't say, you
know, we want this thisparticular power amplifier, but
through the fact that theypurchased the phones and the
suppliers, provided them withthose, it gives me tremendous,
(16:15):
tremendous satisfaction to knowthat what I've been doing is
useful to others. I'm very, veryutilitarian that way, you know,
doesn't mean that I don't dothings that are just interesting
to me, but professionally, Ilike to do things that, you
know, make other people happy atthe end of the day. So that's
(16:37):
how I would define myself.
Steve Brown (16:41):
Well, I like Bill happy. I like what you say,
because I think more most so Ibelieve that the invisible
heroes of the American economy,especially our entrepreneurs,
but I wouldn't believe most ofthem would say, Well, I didn't
start off saying, Hey, Mom, I'man entrepreneur. They were like
(17:01):
starting a business because theysaw a need and wanted to provide
a solution and pay the bills,right? Yeah. And that's exactly
the same experience that you'rehaving, as well. But yet, let's
be honest, you're having tostart to change your self
identity and to seeing yourselfas, yeah, I'm an entrepreneur,
(17:22):
I'm an engineer. But also, Ineed to be able to speak
entrepreneur and and swim inthose waters. No.
Florian Bohn (17:32):
Yeah, it's, yeah, it's just a different language
or a different the, you'retrying to solve a problem. So
maybe I view myself as a problemsolver. I don't care what the
problem is, it has to beinteresting. And it has to serve
a purpose. So at the end of theday, many things have to come
together to make a successfulproduct. It's not just
(17:53):
engineering, right? You can haveto, you can have the best
engineer, the engineer and peacein the world. But if no one
knows about it, because you'renot doing marketing, what's the
use of it, right? If you'resitting on an island, and so on,
you need to have marketingexperience, you need to have
flex, you need to think about itstrategically. And ultimately, I
(18:14):
enjoy that I enjoy doingsomething that maybe pushes me a
little bit out of my comfortzone. It's a lot of work. It's
like, you know, it's notsatisfactory most of the times,
but you know, it's like, but atthe end of the day is pays off,
right? Because it's a realstruggle. And and yeah, and you
(18:34):
know, this, right, you manytimes you think, how am I going
to solve this problem? Right?
Right, I don't have enough time,I don't have enough money, and I
don't have enough, I don't havethe right people. But if you
just sort of think about themost likely there's a solution
and and after you've done itonce, then you want to have a
new challenge, right. So the,you know, whatever terminology
(18:56):
or addressing people that arecoming from a different
background than you I think thatcomes naturally with that you
just sort of pick it up as yougo along. Right.
Steve Brown (19:10):
So I think of an engineer, needing to start to
step into being comfortable withmarketing. Kind of like these in
Star Star Trek where Yeah, thesespecies are higher intellect
trying to talk to humans, right.
And so being an engineer is likehaving that, you know, this
(19:32):
higher intellect in a way butnow you got to speak marketing.
How do you talk to us about thattrans transition?
Florian Bohn (19:41):
I don't think this is true. I know I have so there
are many forms of likeintelligence and and just
because you're a great engineeror you know you're great in one
thing doesn't mean that peoplewho are great and very different
Sort of like, like a differentskill set. They're just the
(20:04):
smartest, you just they justhave learned something else.
Right? So I think I think youjust approach it with curiosity,
right? But what is it? What isit that? What is the need that
you're addressing? Right? Likeif let's say, if we're talking
about marketing, what'smarketing? Well marketing as
you're offering something, andyou want someone else to buy it,
but really, really what youshould be wanting is you should
(20:25):
be wanting to understand whatthe other person's problem is.
Right? So one book, I've read acouple of books, and there's
only so much you can get throughbooks, there's only so much you
can find out yourself, you know,so you have to kind of do all a
little bit, but Eric Reese'sbook, the lean startup, that he
(20:45):
had a very interesting thoughtin it, which was that the
marketing process is really ascientific discovery process.
Because you don't know what whatyour customers want. I don't
know what my customers want. Noone knows that. How do we find
out we find out what works andwhat doesn't work, right? If we,
we show them here, this is thebest thing and they say no, go
(21:08):
home. And then you then you haveto think okay, what is it that I
need to improve? What is it thatworks? And that's how you get to
perfection of a product. Right?
And and this is why it's so, soimmensely difficult. This is why
we advance as a society, if youlook at it, the smartphone,
right? It's so complicated, andthere's so many things that are
(21:29):
just dried. And on the surfaces,it seems like it seems obvious
and easy. But it's the processof iteration right before Apple,
let's say half the iPhone, therewas was it the Newton work?
Right and, and, you know, itjust takes that so that thought
(21:49):
that the marketing is it'sreally a scientific discovery
process other than it's not lossof nature's just people's
desires and fears and whateverpockets money spending habits
that you're addressing, doesn'tmake it less of a scientific
discovery process. And and sothat's, that's very satisfactory
(22:09):
to me, since I'm an engineer andscientist.
Steve Brown (22:14):
That's cool. So in Peter deals, book zero to one,
he talks about the process thatyou're going through that if you
don't consider the marketingaspect of this product, in the
design phase of this, you'resetting yourself up for failure.
And what's interesting to me, ishow's someone, someone from your
(22:38):
background, you would have neversaid, Mom, I'm gonna, I'm gonna
also be really good atmarketing, right? But, but there
was this time it came, it wasstarting to be obvious to you
where you got to go, mom, I haveto figure out this marketing
thing. When did that happen foryou?
Florian Bohn (22:55):
Well, for me, it happened, I guess, last year,
where because we started thecompany, we found some marketing
effort, but I basically Itransitioned from a more
engineering role to a out like amarketing role or business
development role, let's let'scall it that. It just has to be
(23:20):
done. And it's it's, it's, it'shappening. I'm hiring people to
help me trusted advisors, youask friends who have done this,
and that's how you learn and Butagain, it's, you know, it's a
learning process, and I don'tknow, these sort of things. I
(23:43):
just find them naturallyinteresting. Let's say if let's
say we have a customerconversation, that didn't go too
well. Next time I know why thisparticular one didn't go too
well. Most likely it was becausethe customer wanted something
and we're just too boneheaded toto get it right. It's like I
know we really care about thisand this and and you know, if
(24:03):
you don't I think there's noreason there's no point in like
overthinking it, just do itright. Yeah, have fun doing it
and and then after you might aswell enjoy it and learn as you
go.
Steve Brown (24:18):
So now you're talking about sales. And this is
another thing that maybe even ifyou realized you needed to be
good at sales, you wouldn't likebrag to my mom, I'm gonna be a
great salesperson. Right? Butbut it's it's in play.
Florian Bohn (24:36):
But But sales is actually is actually an
interesting challenge. Right? Ifyou think about it, the um it's
actually something I wouldprobably want to do if let's say
I had infinite money and nothingto do just just sign up like get
employed as the lowestsalesperson for a mattress store
right and just get that rightyou know, how do you sell a
(24:58):
mattress to someone Even if theydon't need one, right, and and,
again, sales is, it's a kind ofconviction, like you have to
convince someone right, or youhave to discover what they need.
And and so that that's achallenge. And I like
challenges. Yeah, I think again,I am not, I'm not like a one man
(25:19):
show here at the company. Sothat and then people that helped
me in there that areas thatother people, maybe more maybe
more experienced or better at.
And it's important to have ateam and that the team works
well and, and that you sent theright person for the for the
right job, so to speak.
Steve Brown (25:36):
But the natural, even though you hired a
salesperson that actually isprobably very well, just that
they haven't sold this productbefore, right? And so the
natural tendency is to go, wegot to bring Florian to this
meeting. Well, now you're in asales role. And you can't stay
(25:57):
just on the technical playing,you need to be reading the room,
you need to be understandingwhat's the real thing they're
they're wondering about, insteadof just do the technical dump of
all the features that this thingwill happen. So actually, you
have to be the salesperson for alittle bit until the people that
(26:20):
you hire, settle in and feelconfident that they can do this
without needing you for backup.
No.
Florian Bohn (26:26):
Yeah, I mean, obviously, if there's an
important customer meeting, it'sit's up to everyone to make sure
that we understand the the, theneed and then do a sale. And
again, I would I would call itmore listening. Right? What is
it that if someone talks to youit's they come in, they have
(26:47):
something in mind, right? In theworst case, it's they they want
to find out how they canwhatever get from you or
something right. But but that'sagain, the sale right? The it's
finding out what is it? What isit that the other side? One was
that we want? And how do yousort of get to the to the best
(27:08):
outcome, and sometimes you don'tmake a sale? Now maybe it makes
more sense to make a sale later.
But it's it's, again, I think ofit as a discovery process or
just just understanding whatwhat is it that where you have
mutually beneficial interaction,right, because obviously, the
other side will always get takesomething for free, obviously,
(27:29):
you would sell for infiniteamount of money. But that's not
how sale happens. You buysomething because you value your
money less than the thing youget, and the other side values
the money more than the thingthey're selling you. And so it's
a win win situation always andtrying to find that win win is,
is sort of the process. And yes,and that sense, I'm a
(27:52):
salesperson.
Steve Brown (27:55):
Want to pause here just for a moment and talk to
you about a program that we havejust released called ROI
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Every day, I talk to businessowners just like you who
struggle with quickly gettingtheir fundamentals in place. We
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(28:18):
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(28:40):
you want to do, you want to getyour book in front of more
people, you want to make it easyfor them to find you learn how
they can schedule a time to talkwith you hire you for a
conference, or maybe sign up forthe services that your book
promotes. So what is theQuickstart Academy for authors?
Imagine working with a smallgroup of like minded authors,
and the experts from the ROIquickstart team, it's a great
(29:05):
way to get your messaging clearto be confident with the
technology in your marketingautomation, and how to run a
strategic campaign to get youmore of what you want from the
investment of your book. Tolearn more about the Quickstart
Academy for authors, you canvisit ROI online.com or click in
the link in the show notesbelow. And now back to this
(29:29):
episode. So in the journey ofdeveloping this product from a
prototype to actually in use,you think about positioning.
Talk to us about in one of thesesales conversations where you
(29:52):
had an epiphany about youinitially had envisioned that
being used in this app But thenall of a sudden, the person on
the other end, asked thequestion that made the light
bulb go off that maybe you weregoing in the wrong direction.
Florian Bohn (30:12):
Yeah, I'm trying to and this certainly happened.
This happens all the time. Idon't know if I have like a, an
example that specifically sortof brings out an epiphany, but
yeah, you got you go into aconversation, you think, Oh,
this would be perfect for XYZ,and then the other side doesn't
think so. And, and they talkabout something and all of a
(30:33):
sudden, you think, oh, if itcould do this, as well, or if we
focus the the effort on thisparticular aspect, then all of a
sudden, you have like a wholenew product, or a whole new sort
of added feature to it. Um, oneof the, the technology itself
that we're using, it can cansend wireless power, it can do
(30:56):
other things as well, forexample, as part of the the, we
sort of have some, someredundant sensing mechanism,
because you want to know ifsomeone sucks a hand into the
phone, if you know the power isbeing interrupted, and so on. So
there are things where customershave asked, oh, can I do this?
(31:18):
Right? Like, can it? And I don'twant to? Because most of these
conversations are active,ongoing conversation. I don't
want to give a yes, specificexample. But it happens all the
time. Right? Most of the times,it's, it's just hearing what
people struggle with. You know,like, an easy example, I guess
(31:41):
that, that I'm not giving toomuch away is how expensive it
is, if you have let's say, aretail store, and you want to,
you want to have electronicshelf label, so displays how
expensive it is to changebatteries. Or let's say you have
(32:01):
our technology and you want tohave a shelf label that only
turns on when someone isactually looking at it, right.
So that this is a freebie thatcomes with it. Because you can
kind of detect, okay, or someonein front of it. So let's just
turn it on, or maybe maybedetect how they're interacting
with it. Right? Are they arethey actively engaged,
particularly for some of theseshelf labels that are in high
(32:23):
end electronic store, you havevery sophisticated engaging
customers. And so you thinkabout how, like, these sort of
things were an obvious to me,they're things like, um, I just
wrote a byline for an automotivemagazine, that wiring is 10s of
pounds in the car. You know,it's so you actually if let's
(32:46):
say a wireless power solution,and the you actually increasing
the fuel efficiency of the caralmost right, because the car
weighs less, because you'rereplacing all the wires, then
you have to dry you have lessdragon and you have to lug less
wait around and um, yeah, sothat always always, you never
know what what someone reallywants until you talk to them.
(33:09):
And then until you get get downto the down to the nitty gritty
of the of the customerconversation.
Steve Brown (33:16):
Excellent. So one of the things I think that
leaders really struggle with isclearly communicating the value
of what you have to offer orwhere the vision for the company
is to go. Talk to us a littlebit about your journey and
first, conveying kind of gettingdown to what's called a logline.
(33:38):
You know that one sentence aboutwhat what it is that you guys
to, that's hard for the personthat's up and close and
personal. Talk to us about thatjourney of clearly
communicating?
Florian Bohn (33:53):
Yeah, I mean, wireless power will be as
ubiquitous as wireless data,then five to 10 years for sure.
You will not be you will nothave to worry about at least for
your for your day to dayelectronic devices. How do you
plug them in? Do you have theUSBC or the lightning? Or the
whatever cable it is? It's justgoing to be all one standard.
(34:15):
You don't have to worry aboutyou don't even think about it.
You don't think about how, howmuch battery Do I have to use?
So do I need to change thebatteries in my remote or want
to put this camera up there howto wire it up, you just place it
there and it gets gets itspower? It's it's going to be the
same thing as its Wi Fi. When WiFi came out. It was very clunky.
(34:36):
And you have these PCM ca cardsand it's expensive was slow and
everyone was like Why don't youjust plug in your computer. Now
if you go to a Starbucks and youor pizza or whatever, what have
you coffee bean and you don'thave Wi Fi you're upset. You're
like what do you mean? Is thisthe Stone Age here? And it'll
(34:56):
it'll be the same it'll be thesame and and no one No one yet
can see this quite clearly. Butyou will be looking back in a
couple of years it will beunimaginable that never was like
that, it's going to be thatexperience that Captain Picard
will have, like, you know, hewouldn't understand what it
means. What do you mean? Mytricorder is out of power, you
(35:17):
know? Do it, you know, it's it'salways powered and, and this is
the world we're going to beliving in. And our mission is
to, to enable this for thecompany, does that mean that in
let's say, 10 years from now,we'll be doing the same things
that we're doing now most likelynot the same, the same way. The
(35:42):
companies that started let'ssay, building Wi Fi boxes in the
early 2000s, that invented WiFi, they're not the ones that
are supplying hardware rightnow. Wi Fi actually was used in
stores initially, like thiswhole, like 802 dot 11
technology was used for mobile,mobile terminals, like cash
(36:03):
registers, that kind of stuff.
So that you can exchange somelow level data, the idea that we
would be watching, let's say,streaming video, and then all
came later, and I don't have acrystal ball. I don't know what
that there's thousands ofapplications that I have no idea
about. The same way. No one knewwhat would the internet bring?
(36:24):
Right? What, you know, when theinternet started, you could do
things right, he looked at news,so whatever it is, but you have
cloud storage now, no oneimagined like, Okay, great, you
know, we're going to store allour pictures in the cloud, what
is the cloud who knows right?
And and we don't have to worryabout it, you look at the same
(36:44):
pictures across your devices, sothat there's going to be lots of
applications that once thistechnology really catches on,
that people will think aboutthat I have no idea yet what
that will be. But I can think ofa lot right now. And they're
markets that have a really,really urgent direct need right
(37:07):
now. And those are the ones weare focusing on right now.
Steve Brown (37:10):
So as a CEO of a company with this revolutionary
idea, or product, you would,what are we talking about? Is
this, this is more of an idea?
Or is it a product?
Florian Bohn (37:27):
The product?
Steve Brown (37:27):
Okay?
Florian Bohn (37:29):
Um, yeah, we can send power over air over several
meters, several watts of power,you can send it wherever you
want it you can you can, we havesome videos, some we actually
just put some videos on our ourweb page, you know, you can see
a car running around, you cansee like light bulbs, we haven't
(37:49):
we put a power source on therobot, right? So the robot goes
around powers things up as it asit finds them. So no, the
technology is here. Maybe insome aspects, it's a little bit
like the early Wi Fi, noteverything is is super perfect,
but it has a lot of applicationsalready. And in the next decade,
(38:11):
we will see the the sort ofkinks being worked out.
Steve Brown (38:15):
So what is your primary challenge right now? Is
that communicating the value ofthat idea? Is it trying to set
up compliance standards for theapplication of this product,
protecting the idea,intellectual property, what is
your,
Florian Bohn (38:31):
all of the above.
Everything is difficult and, andtakes work. And there's a
solution for everything. Thereare some regulatory there's some
regulatory things that thathappen. There's some let's say
there's some application areaswhere regulators are more or
(38:55):
less comfortable about, youknow, because it's just
different. If you're talkingabout sending, you know,
kilowatts over whatever longdistances, that's a different
thing, then, you know, I don'tknow powering a small IoT sensor
or something like that. Thereare challenges in in reaching
the right people there. Thereare so many companies out there
(39:17):
that have a need that theyhaven't thought about, and we
haven't thought about and somaking make creating that that
channel and communicating thistechnology exists and have them
come and say, Oh, this thissolves a big problem. We had a
few of those, right? We were Wewere at the Consumer Electronics
Show on the show floor this thisyear and January, way back when
(39:39):
the world was different. But wehad people stopped by they're
like, Oh my God, this thissolves something. You know, this
solves a seemingly mundaneproblem. You know, did you know
in a hotel like what people callabout us, this is the the remote
isn't working. And 99% isbecause the battery is out, it's
(40:01):
really expensive to every timesend someone in fix battery of
something, and then then havethat done. It's a, it's a simple
problem. But so the thesolution, let's say, if you
charge the batteryautomatically, wirelessly, it's
not the cost of the battery,it's the cost of having to send
(40:23):
someone having a customer that'supset, can watch whatever the
game that they wanted to watch.
And that's the price. Right? Andthat's, that's yourself. That's
your selling point there that,you know, you can, your
customers will be happy, theywill never have to deal with
this again. And so, yeah, I meanthat there are lots of hurdles
(40:48):
there. There's COVID. This isbusiness. If business was easy.
You and I wouldn't be doing itright. Now, what's the what's
the fun in it? If you ifeverything was obvious when you
when you when you start out?
Right?
Steve Brown (41:06):
Yeah, so So what?
You know, you're getting you getto talk about these things, and
people ask you typical questionsyou hear over and over. But
what's, what's the one questionyou wish people would ask you
about this product? Or theprocess? Or what's in your head?
And where are you going?
Florian Bohn (41:30):
I know the answer.
The question is like, Is it forreal? Yes, it's real. Yes, it
will be here. And yes, I know.
You don't believe it quite yet.
But we are talking to peoplethat are talking about shipping
product next year. And the yearafter that, and and then the
year after that, we've talked toall sorts of companies that have
(41:50):
very clear ideas as to how theywould integrate this into into
their products. Is it gonna shipnext year? Hopefully, um, maybe
not. But it's going to be herelike the year after that. Maybe
you won't see it immediately.
Because it's maybe in somewarehouse or it's in some, you
(42:12):
know, in some hotel room or onsome, some store or bus, or
maybe you're gonna see it verysoon. Maybe maybe won't be
charging your your cell phoneall that much longer with ci and
and again, there's this it's anew technology. So there's
there's some some, I guess, somehurdle almost that you have to
(42:36):
overcome there some practicalthings, let's let's pick cell
phones, right? Apple named theirwireless charging technology air
power that they discontinued?
And why did they name an airpower? Presumably, because they
have a vision of some sort thatyou just powered over the air?
Is it going to roll out in cellphones, maybe, you know, cell
phone, cell phone, for example.
(43:01):
People may not need that. Orthey may say well, I want the 50
megapixel camera, rather thanthis, this kind of thing. But
it'll be in cell phones to keepup with yours. It'll be in cell
phones, it will be in yoursmart, smart home devices. It'll
be in your wearables, it will bein in your the stores for you.
It says it will be in your cars,it'll fly your drones
(43:24):
eventually, it'll it'll dothings that are cumbersome now,
and that in the future will justbe a setup box. Just put the box
there, you don't worry about it.
It's there. The same way youdon't worry about it, how that
power gets to your outlet in thefirst place. Right? I mean, do
you ever think about you know,how does that that power plant
(43:45):
work? And who is making sure andit's complicated, but you just
expect it
Steve Brown (43:54):
and watch this document documentary recently
where they brought in a 777 Iforget airline, but it was
really cool to watch how theydisassemble the whole airline. I
mean, the whole airplane. Didyou see this documentary? on
just listening to what were youdoing this? I don't know. Maybe.
(44:16):
But it's like, they took it allapart and looked at everything.
But one of the things thatshocked me was the amount of
cables running up and down. Thatthing is like, how do you keep
track of all those cables andwhere they're going but then
while you're talking? I can seewhere you could replace miles
and miles and miles of heavycable and just an airplane.
Florian Bohn (44:41):
Yeah, it's an airplane. Getting the power to
the seats, where you have yourscreen or something is that
already is pretty painful. I'mrunning cables through moving
parts like like doors or Orwhere you have joints and stuff.
(45:02):
It's painful things break andthen then the sensor break and
then someone has to crawl andfind that broken cable. And, and
yes, there's a lot of cables inan airplane. I know there are a
lot of cables in a car. And Idon't even I haven't seen that
video. So I thought how many howmuch it was in the plane, but
you can ask your savings there.
Steve Brown (45:24):
I'll send it to you. But yeah, because you think
over years and miles and miles,that would be a significant
savings to reduce weight,especially when they're wanting
to charge me a little extra forthe stupid carry on. I'm I'm
bringing on so. So what the?
Where are you now? As far as thecompany? Are you still taking
(45:45):
investors? Are you about? Whatcan you share with me on the
stage of your company? And andwhat what can we look for is
like the first evidence thatthis is actually going to
market?
Florian Bohn (46:03):
Well, you'll probably see evidence sooner
rather than later. Again, as Isaid, like you may see product
stripping, as early as nextyear? Well, you may not, but you
may at least see the indicationsof of this happening. We are
(46:24):
working on we're working ondeepening our our customer
relationships we are talking towe have a pipeline and all of
these sectors, to some extent weare discovering as we go along.
What is the most urgent one,what is the sort of like lowest
(46:44):
hanging fruit so to speak,because no one has that solution
yet. But there's demand in allof these sectors, every cell
phone company, every cell phonecompany, and I'm not telling
saying telling you which oneswe've talked to, but we've
talked to some of them at least.
Yeah, I've thought about this.
(47:05):
I've seen resumes of engineersthat said, yeah, we worked on
this at this cell phone companyat this and then it went off to,
you know, headquarters orsomething and stuff like that.
Every every high tech companyhas definitely looked into this.
(47:26):
We, you know, I mean, we wetalked to them. There are some
things that they know, they'rethe many things that they know,
there's some things they don'tknow, we are very actively
developed and doing businessdevelopment. We are I mean, I
don't know, we're probablyalways fundraising. Not very
(47:48):
specifically, but it doesn'thurt to you know, to to have
that conversation started, evenif you're not whatever raising
this particular round. You know,it's a relationship, right? And
most of this conversation, tellme where you're at. And, you
know, keep me updated, and soon. And you tell them some
things, you don't tell them allthe all the secrets, and until
(48:11):
you actually, you want to closearound, but then it becomes much
easier because they let's say ifyou're talking to a VC, they
know, they've talked to youbefore. We are working on
roadmap items and the technologywe're already thinking about,
okay, what do we need in oneyear, three years, five years
from now, we may not be gettingto everything all at once
(48:33):
because we have limitedresources. But all of these
things are going on I when Istarted out like this is this is
eight years ago, almost when Ifirst thought about this, I
didn't think about this likeokay, this is some sort of cool
gadget I after this conversationin the in the sushi store, I
drove back home, and then I wasliving in the Bay Area at the
(48:56):
time the conversation took placedown in LA you know, I drove
back home and thought about it.
And but I had this, this sort oflike, the let me use that word
to use epiphany of seeing thingswhat all has to come together to
make this happen. And it's amillion things. Okay, what is
(49:16):
the number one thing that I needto be doing right now?
Steve Brown (49:21):
Yeah. Right.
Florian Bohn (49:23):
So let's do that.
And, and so at any given pointin time, I have a and this is
why I see my role, let's say asa CEO, I don't necessarily see
it as a salesperson or as a, asa engineer or as a marketing
person. It's all of thosethings. I don't have to be the
best at it. But it's all ofthose things. Yes, there are
regulatory questions that ourcustomers that are there
(49:45):
engineering issues, there areoperational issues. All of those
things just have to be done within the right way and in the
right priority. And there willthere will always be emails that
don't get answered right away.
There's always going to besomething that you wish but it
was, you know, not the mostimportant thing. And and right
(50:07):
now it's Yeah, right now it's alot of emphasis focus on on
ramping on qualification on onbusiness development, those
kinds of things. But again, thatthat's sort of like the the most
important part of it.
Steve Brown (50:24):
So what I'm curious if you're concerned about you,
obviously, you have someintellectual property secrets.
Are you? I would imagine, youmight be concerned about the
security of those are thosebeing pilfered by some outside
entity? Is that?
Florian Bohn (50:47):
Yeah, I mean, so the most important secrets, we
don't file anything, it's justlike, it's just like something
that, you know, again, we'vebeen working on this for quite a
while. So there were some somereal problems that have to be
solved. Just don't talk aboutit. You You know how it's done.
(51:12):
The people who have to know howit's done, know how it's done.
And that's a trade secret. Wefile some IP is always some,
there's always a little bit ofgiving and taking, and I don't
lose sleep over it. If someone Idon't think someone can just
sort of like it? Well, at theend of the day, it's a cost
(51:34):
function. Really, right. So ifyou think about it, let's say
whatever the big, big badcompany wants to steal all your
secret, because they really meanso their only purpose is to like
get, get, you know, what it isthat you have, and you have to
be very productive about it, itbecomes a function of money. And
I mean, if there's a competitorout there that has infinite
(51:55):
resources and can hire 3000, youknow, whatever. This of the
smartest engineers and thesmartest marketeers Yeah, at
some point, you you don't havereally a chance, right? You just
have to make it expensive enoughthat they say, well, let's just
work with these guys. Right? Um,but that's always true, right? I
(52:16):
mean, could you copy the the,whatever the, let's call it the
Apple iPhone, of course youcould, right? If you had a
gazillion trillion dollars, andyou got like 20,000 of the
smartest people working on it,you can make a better copy of
the iPhone, it's just veryexpensive to do. And so it's,
(52:36):
you know, let's, let's worryabout like what's in our
control, and let's protect oursecrets. Let's be a little bit
tight lipped about what it iswe're doing. But at the end of
the day. Yeah, at the end of theday, it's it's a business risk
that you protect in variousways. And, and you know, you
(52:58):
shouldn't lose too much sleepover it. People have tried. I
mean, people have tried todevelop this technology. Some of
them have given up. Some of themmay try again. We have, we have
something good to offer, we workon all aspects of technology.
I'm an IC designer by training.
So I've designed some of theintegrated circuits that are on
(53:21):
this on some of our ICS. We'vedone software development
algorithms, em simulations. It'shard to assemble the team. And
this is this is an advantage. Ithink that me and my co founder
staff we have very broad, verybroad like I can I can design
(53:42):
the ICS design the rightsoftware for it, figure out how
it operationally has to do I maynot be the best at it, but I can
solve all of this problems. Andso can both of my co founders.
And it's hard to if you It takestime to get to that point. And
so there's some naturalproduction there.
Steve Brown (54:05):
Well, Florian, this been an excellent conversation.
You've been a great guest. Ireally appreciate you being with
us. Tell us if someone's reallyinterested in learning more.
Where can they connect with you?
Where can they look this up?
Florian Bohn (54:22):
Sure. Um, people can follow us on LinkedIn. They
can follow me on LinkedIn, theycan go to our website, guru.inc,
g u r u. i n c, orguruwirelessinc.com. Our company
was called Caspian calm, all ofthose things will lead you to
the same thing. You can findvideos of our CES presence on
(54:44):
YouTube. reclining smart hopesolver. So you can see some
demos there. We have demos onour website and take it from
there.
Steve Brown (54:53):
Awesome. I'm gonna send you a free Kindle copy of
my book The Golden toilet to seeRead it and it'll help improve
your chances of making it towhere you're going.
Florian Bohn (55:07):
Wonderful. Thank you so much. See, if I really
enjoyed our conversation. Ireally enjoyed the questions
from long answers. Those wereactually very interesting
questions. And he had a verygood way of asking, making
making my brain cells.
Steve Brown (55:22):
Yeah, no, this was, this was fun. I, I appreciate
you so much for being a greatguest. And so that's a wrap.
Florian Bohn (55:30):
All right. Thank you so much, Steve.
Steve Brown (55:33):
Thanks for listening to another fun episode
of the ROI online podcast. Formore, be sure to check out the
show notes of this episode. Andfeel free to connect with me on
LinkedIn where we can chat, andI can help direct you to the
resources you're searching for.
To learn more about how you cangrow your business better. Be
sure to pick up your copy of mybook, The Golden toilet at
(55:54):
surprise, that golden toilet.comI'm Steve Brown, and we'll see
you next week on another funepisode of the ROI online
podcast.
It's, it's gonna be the same thing as its Wi Fi.
When Wi Fi came out, it was veryclunky. And you have these PCM
ca cards and it's expensive wasslow and everyone was like, why
don't you just plug in yourcomputer? Now if you go to a
Starbucks and you or pizza,whatever, what have you coffee
bean, and you don't have Wi Fi?
You're upset. You're like, Whatdo you mean? Is this a stone age
(00:24):
here? And it'll it'll be thesame. It'll be the same and and
no one no one yet can see thisquite clearly. But you will be
looking back in a couple ofyears it will be unimaginable
that never was like that. It'sgoing to be that experience that
Captain Picard will have like,you know, he wouldn't understand
(00:46):
what it means. What do you mean?
My tricorder is out of power,you know?
Steve Brown (00:51):
Hi, everybody.
Welcome to the ROI onlinepodcasts where we believe you.
The courageous entrepreneurs ofour day, are the invisible
heroes of our economy. You notonly improve our world with your
ideas, your grit and yourpassion, but you make our world
better. I'm Steve Brown. Andthis is a place where we have
great conversations with winnersjust like you while we laugh and
(01:14):
learn together. Florian bond,welcome to the ROI, online
podcast.
Florian Bohn (01:27):
Hey, Steve, thanks for having me.
Steve Brown (01:29):
So I was looking at all the information on you and
you're quite accomplished.
engineer and you've done allthese cool things. And one thing
you're trans been working on aproblem of transferring energy
from space on the earth. Andthat's, that's really
interesting and great Nall, butI just like to be able to
(01:52):
transfer energy from the socketto my cell phone without a
stupid cord hanging everywhereand tripping over. Why can't you
focus on something like that?
Florian Bohn (02:04):
That's actually exactly what we're focusing on
that guru. So the project fromspace that you were talking
about, was the project that weworked on at Caltech. That was
it's the same technology, excepta different scale. But yes, we
absolutely working ontransferring your power from
your socket to your cell phone,so you don't have to plug it in.
Steve Brown (02:26):
Well, there you go.
That I appreciate that. That'sreally something that I think I
hate cords. I got cordseverywhere, you can't wipe your
desk down because the dust isunder the cords. And when you do
you knock stuff over. Butimagine having to run a big
extension cord from space toEarth? Where would you plug it
in? What I mean, that's been aconsideration has not
Florian Bohn (02:52):
Yeah, I mean, the the court and space so to speak,
is plugged into the sounds ofthe project that we were working
on that. And that's still anongoing project at Caltech,
except that I have left it tostart the company. The plug
basically was the sun. So theidea was to convert solar energy
to microwave energy form a beamand be able to steer it to
(03:16):
different locations on Earth.
Mainly not not so much to chargepeople cell phones just from
space, but more so to providepower to difficult to reach
location. So for example, indisaster areas, and so on. So
that's, that seems like a JamesBond situation and just like a
little dangerous, you couldn'tfly a plane to that area because
(03:36):
it would like slice you in halflike some mega weapon. No, no,
it's it's um, it's you can kindof think of it as the sun and
the power density of the sun. Soif you're flying through through
sunlight doesn't doesn't cookyou or destroy your planes.
Solar Energy actually has quitea bit of power. So the the the
(04:01):
power levels that would ifyou're talking about are
similar, the advantage or thethe the idea to do this with
microwaves, you may as well whynot just use the sunlight is so
when you don't have sunlight,right? It's a sunlight, a lot of
variation. clouds will block it.
Exactly. You know, you have thisthis day and night cycle kind of
(04:24):
thing if you're eating it 24seven. And if you can determine
or select where it's gonna go onEarth, let's say you have a
disaster area somewhere, yougain a lot more freedom.
Steve Brown (04:37):
Yeah, so I'm kind of being facetious, but so you
are the co founder and CEO of acompany called guru Inc, ci you
are you Incorporated. And tellus a little bit more about guru
and what you guys are developingover there. It's kind of cool.
Florian Bohn (05:00):
Yeah, so at Google, we basically are
developing this technology wehave productizing it. The
history of Guru goes back toCaltech, we started active
developing a development of thecore technology 2011 2012. I
joined full time a little bitlater in 2013. Right around when
(05:22):
my daughter was born actually.
And but the application so manyfolds, so you can think of large
scale from satellite, but mostmost people care about their
cell phones. If you ask people.
Let's say you have this hammer,what what what can I do with it?
Most people will ask, Okay, canI charge my phone? And can I
charge my car, and the phone?
Yes, the car, you can. But it'sprobably not the best way that
(05:47):
there are better ways of doingit. So that it's phones, its
sensors, it's there lots ofthings where it's actually very
expensive to run cables, or it'sreally annoying, or both, or
batteries. So that's those arethe applications that we are
mainly targeting.
Steve Brown (06:05):
So for the audience that's listening, you know,
what, what Florian is working onbringing to market is, it's
similar to a Wi Fi router, therewas a time where you had to plug
in your devices to receive theinternet. And then all of a
sudden, this cool thing that youjust plugged in to your cable
(06:26):
coming in, and you can walkanywhere and have internet on
your phone. And so this would bethe Wi Fi version, sending a
charging power to your batteryoperated devices, correct?
Florian Bohn (06:39):
Correct. You're doing such a better job of
explaining it. Yes, it's it,it's, um, I guess we kind of
jumped right in. But this isexactly the right image. It's
Yeah, if you have a router,instead of data, you're sending
power, you have client devicesthat you want to get rid of
having to plug them in, andthose other recipients have
power. And the idea is that youdon't have to worry about it.
(07:02):
And it's basically it presentand your phone's always charged
your sensor so is powered and soon.
Steve Brown (07:07):
That's so cool.
I've, you know, I've gone tolike these conferences, you
know, and, and they're all day,and you're checking your phone,
and you're doing stuff and yourphone doesn't last all day. And
so everybody's standing aroundby some plugin by the bathroom,
just to get another 10 minutesof power to make it through
another 30 minutes. And it's,and I just see your devices
(07:28):
being like this. Just this Aha,you'd want to go to that
conference, because you neverhave to worry about plugging
your phone in.
Florian Bohn (07:39):
Yeah, it's a when we went out pitching for money.
I have this facetious slide. I'ma Star Trek fan. So this is a
Star Trek example. But it wasCaptain Picard showing off his
tricorder to get some alien andsay, you know, I would show you
all the cool features, but I'vejust forgotten to charge it up.
(07:59):
And the idea the idea that youknow, if you're flying a
starship around but your yourtricorder doesn't work or
whatever it is I silly. But itis not a century idea. Right?
The the speed with whichtechnology changes is is very
rapid. If you think about it,right? If you think about, you
(08:21):
know, your smartphone, when didthat come to market that was in
2007. So you and I are oldenough to remember what it was
like not to Yeah, this thingright or not to have internet? I
don't know about you. But Icertainly remember the first
time I logged into the internetand and seeing this change life
(08:41):
essentially right? You kind ofwith these sort of like
fundamental changes and how wedo things you kind of get a
feeling or at least I do, likegoosebumps almost. You really
see this is this is a stepfunction and how we're going to
be doing things in the future.
And yeah, good.
Steve Brown (09:01):
No, it makes total sense. And it's actually Yes,
like, almost expected is it eventhough this is a great idea, and
I'm glad to see someone workingon him is like, Where are you
been? What's been taking you solong to get this handled?
Florian Bohn (09:15):
Well, the idea is actually older, right. So Nikola
Tesla, certainly, I think wasthe first one to to actively, he
was actively pursuing this idea.
This idea of being in power fromspace, I think goes back to a
short story by Isaac Asimov. Sothe idea is it seems very
(09:35):
natural, right? Why do we haveto handle this this this
cumbersome cables and all ofthat different standards? The
practical implementation isobviously a little bit tricky,
because otherwise, I wouldn't bedoing wow versus people having
done this 100 years ago. So thebut it's like many things today
(09:57):
that are On the surface veryeasy to use, or just they
immediately obvious but thewhat's under the hood takes a
lot of takes a lot of time andeffort and also some some
developments that are just notunder the control of the
entrepreneur. I like advances incomputing, power, material
processing, and all thosethings. So right now these these
(10:19):
all coming together, plus, wehave a, we came out of Caltech.
So we have quite a world classteam of minds, having worked on
this for a long time to makesomething that's practical and
useful, and not just a not justsort of like more of a lab
experiment, so to speak.
Steve Brown (10:42):
Yeah, totally. So I'm, the folks that listen to
this, Dave, you know, the ideasare easy. They've, everyone's
has a great idea, I have adrawer full full right here that
we can start to review. Butactually starting to make
movement and align resourcesmeans that you have to have
(11:03):
some, some influential power topersuade people to buy into the
idea to align and attractresources and to go through
these challenges by bringingthis product to market. Right.
And so tell us a little bitabout your How did you get from
(11:26):
this concept of an idea toactually get people to start to
focus in invest money, time andenergy and expertise into this?
Florian Bohn (11:35):
Yeah, it's, it's interesting, because I actually
was pitched the idea myself, Ididn't start out from the right
from the start. So the idea waspitched to me by my former PhD
advisor, and now co founder, Alihad you marry. And to me, it
made sense. Um, it was aconversation in a sushi store.
(11:57):
And I thought about it, and ittook me took me maybe a day or
so to say, okay, there are lotsof things that have to come
together, but overall sound,that's certainly not true with
everyone. And I think that's agood sign. So many people you
talk to will say, this is not,you know, they will come up with
all sorts of reasons why thisisn't works too expensive, it's
(12:19):
too. It's not feasible, it'sphysically impossible. So the
physically impossible we can, wecan do away with that very
quickly. And I think this is agood sign. Um, if you have the
right idea, and also the rightargumentation on arguments, why
the your idea will actually workand such as something, maybe we
have all sorts of ideas, right,I want to have a hoverboard,
(12:41):
that, you know, being transporttransports me to work or
something like that, or beams mefrom, but but many of these just
don't work. I'm the you meet alot of people that will tell you
these things. And and the ratioof you know, I want to say 10 to
one I like out of nine people,not like you're your average
(13:03):
person on the street that wesaid, this is a great idea. But
I don't understand how what onewould do this. But you do meet
this resistant, I think this isthis is a good sign of that
you're on the right track.
Because if you have the rightidea, All that matters is that
you're right, right. If you wereAlbert Einstein, you have an
idea of how gravity works. Evenif everyone else thinks you're
(13:23):
wrong. At the end of the day,what matters is whether you can
do it. Um, the way I would pitchit is that they're asked,
they're sort of practicalaspects and fundamental aspects.
So we, we pitched VCs and 2017at a time when it became clear
that we can't just sort of workon it. In the research lab,
(13:43):
we've made made tremendousadvances, but you know, we
needed to scale we needed tojust solve some more practical
problems. And some, some VCswill say, you know, this is not
our cup of tea or this is notour our area but if you talk to
enough people, you know, you'llfind these people that that sort
of get it right and or at leastthat's what you hope for right
(14:06):
that you're right and and thatthose are the people that get it
then and and you just work withthat the same is true with with
customers partners. There aremany the many conversations that
start out with no way or no. Andin some way, it's actually good
(14:28):
to hear that no first like youdon't typically hear a yes
first, right. You want to hearthat no first because that makes
the other person think thatmakes the other person say like,
okay, you know, I have thefreedom to this doesn't make
sense to me. And then then itstarts to make sense to a lot of
people and again, I'm mostlytalking about financing or
(14:48):
customer partners and so on.
Steve Brown (14:55):
So would you say you're more you're more an
engineer or research scientistWhat? What do you what was your
first? Yeah, iteration aftercutting starting to see yourself
in the professional world?
Florian Bohn (15:09):
I am. Yeah, that said it's actually an
interesting question. I'm Iwould not define myself as an
entrepreneur. And I am anentrepreneur, I do not, I am not
like a full time entrepreneur,I'm doing this because I think
it's actually addressing a need.
And if I didn't have anythingelse, I would be doing something
else, I would view myself assort of, I'm scientifically
(15:32):
interested. I'm an engineer. Ilike things I like serving
needs. So I worked at a company,close to 20 years ago, now we
made we make components for cellphones, first, CMOS power
amplifiers. And we sold aboutfour and a million of these and
the fact that there were at somepoint in time, you know, maybe a
(15:55):
couple of hundred million phonesout there with our component in
there. And it served a needpeople wanted this for whatever
reason, they didn't, mostconsumers wouldn't say, you
know, we want this thisparticular power amplifier, but
through the fact that theypurchased the phones and the
suppliers, provided them withthose, it gives me tremendous,
(16:15):
tremendous satisfaction to knowthat what I've been doing is
useful to others. I'm very, veryutilitarian that way, you know,
doesn't mean that I don't dothings that are just interesting
to me, but professionally, Ilike to do things that, you
know, make other people happy atthe end of the day. So that's
(16:37):
how I would define myself.
Steve Brown (16:41):
Well, I like Bill happy. I like what you say,
because I think more most so Ibelieve that the invisible
heroes of the American economy,especially our entrepreneurs,
but I wouldn't believe most ofthem would say, Well, I didn't
start off saying, Hey, Mom, I'man entrepreneur. They were like
(17:01):
starting a business because theysaw a need and wanted to provide
a solution and pay the bills,right? Yeah. And that's exactly
the same experience that you'rehaving, as well. But yet, let's
be honest, you're having tostart to change your self
identity and to seeing yourselfas, yeah, I'm an entrepreneur,
(17:22):
I'm an engineer. But also, Ineed to be able to speak
entrepreneur and and swim inthose waters. No.
Florian Bohn (17:32):
Yeah, it's, yeah, it's just a different language
or a different the, you'retrying to solve a problem. So
maybe I view myself as a problemsolver. I don't care what the
problem is, it has to beinteresting. And it has to serve
a purpose. So at the end of theday, many things have to come
together to make a successfulproduct. It's not just
(17:53):
engineering, right? You can haveto, you can have the best
engineer, the engineer and peacein the world. But if no one
knows about it, because you'renot doing marketing, what's the
use of it, right? If you'resitting on an island, and so on,
you need to have marketingexperience, you need to have
flex, you need to think about itstrategically. And ultimately, I
(18:14):
enjoy that I enjoy doingsomething that maybe pushes me a
little bit out of my comfortzone. It's a lot of work. It's
like, you know, it's notsatisfactory most of the times,
but you know, it's like, but atthe end of the day is pays off,
right? Because it's a realstruggle. And and yeah, and you
(18:34):
know, this, right, you manytimes you think, how am I going
to solve this problem? Right?
Right, I don't have enough time,I don't have enough money, and I
don't have enough, I don't havethe right people. But if you
just sort of think about themost likely there's a solution
and and after you've done itonce, then you want to have a
new challenge, right. So the,you know, whatever terminology
(18:56):
or addressing people that arecoming from a different
background than you I think thatcomes naturally with that you
just sort of pick it up as yougo along. Right.
Steve Brown (19:10):
So I think of an engineer, needing to start to
step into being comfortable withmarketing. Kind of like these in
Star Star Trek where Yeah, thesespecies are higher intellect
trying to talk to humans, right.
And so being an engineer is likehaving that, you know, this
(19:32):
higher intellect in a way butnow you got to speak marketing.
How do you talk to us about thattrans transition?
Florian Bohn (19:41):
I don't think this is true. I know I have so there
are many forms of likeintelligence and and just
because you're a great engineeror you know you're great in one
thing doesn't mean that peoplewho are great and very different
Sort of like, like a differentskill set. They're just the
(20:04):
smartest, you just they justhave learned something else.
Right? So I think I think youjust approach it with curiosity,
right? But what is it? What isit that? What is the need that
you're addressing? Right? Likeif let's say, if we're talking
about marketing, what'smarketing? Well marketing as
you're offering something, andyou want someone else to buy it,
but really, really what youshould be wanting is you should
(20:25):
be wanting to understand whatthe other person's problem is.
Right? So one book, I've read acouple of books, and there's
only so much you can get throughbooks, there's only so much you
can find out yourself, you know,so you have to kind of do all a
little bit, but Eric Reese'sbook, the lean startup, that he
(20:45):
had a very interesting thoughtin it, which was that the
marketing process is really ascientific discovery process.
Because you don't know what whatyour customers want. I don't
know what my customers want. Noone knows that. How do we find
out we find out what works andwhat doesn't work, right? If we,
we show them here, this is thebest thing and they say no, go
(21:08):
home. And then you then you haveto think okay, what is it that I
need to improve? What is it thatworks? And that's how you get to
perfection of a product. Right?
And and this is why it's so, soimmensely difficult. This is why
we advance as a society, if youlook at it, the smartphone,
right? It's so complicated, andthere's so many things that are
(21:29):
just dried. And on the surfaces,it seems like it seems obvious
and easy. But it's the processof iteration right before Apple,
let's say half the iPhone, therewas was it the Newton work?
Right and, and, you know, itjust takes that so that thought
(21:49):
that the marketing is it'sreally a scientific discovery
process other than it's not lossof nature's just people's
desires and fears and whateverpockets money spending habits
that you're addressing, doesn'tmake it less of a scientific
discovery process. And and sothat's, that's very satisfactory
(22:09):
to me, since I'm an engineer andscientist.
Steve Brown (22:14):
That's cool. So in Peter deals, book zero to one,
he talks about the process thatyou're going through that if you
don't consider the marketingaspect of this product, in the
design phase of this, you'resetting yourself up for failure.
And what's interesting to me, ishow's someone, someone from your
(22:38):
background, you would have neversaid, Mom, I'm gonna, I'm gonna
also be really good atmarketing, right? But, but there
was this time it came, it wasstarting to be obvious to you
where you got to go, mom, I haveto figure out this marketing
thing. When did that happen foryou?
Florian Bohn (22:55):
Well, for me, it happened, I guess, last year,
where because we started thecompany, we found some marketing
effort, but I basically Itransitioned from a more
engineering role to a out like amarketing role or business
development role, let's let'scall it that. It just has to be
(23:20):
done. And it's it's, it's, it'shappening. I'm hiring people to
help me trusted advisors, youask friends who have done this,
and that's how you learn and Butagain, it's, you know, it's a
learning process, and I don'tknow, these sort of things. I
(23:43):
just find them naturallyinteresting. Let's say if let's
say we have a customerconversation, that didn't go too
well. Next time I know why thisparticular one didn't go too
well. Most likely it was becausethe customer wanted something
and we're just too boneheaded toto get it right. It's like I
know we really care about thisand this and and you know, if
(24:03):
you don't I think there's noreason there's no point in like
overthinking it, just do itright. Yeah, have fun doing it
and and then after you might aswell enjoy it and learn as you
go.
Steve Brown (24:18):
So now you're talking about sales. And this is
another thing that maybe even ifyou realized you needed to be
good at sales, you wouldn't likebrag to my mom, I'm gonna be a
great salesperson. Right? Butbut it's it's in play.
Florian Bohn (24:36):
But But sales is actually is actually an
interesting challenge. Right? Ifyou think about it, the um it's
actually something I wouldprobably want to do if let's say
I had infinite money and nothingto do just just sign up like get
employed as the lowestsalesperson for a mattress store
right and just get that rightyou know, how do you sell a
(24:58):
mattress to someone Even if theydon't need one, right, and and,
again, sales is, it's a kind ofconviction, like you have to
convince someone right, or youhave to discover what they need.
And and so that that's achallenge. And I like
challenges. Yeah, I think again,I am not, I'm not like a one man
(25:19):
show here at the company. Sothat and then people that helped
me in there that areas thatother people, maybe more maybe
more experienced or better at.
And it's important to have ateam and that the team works
well and, and that you sent theright person for the for the
right job, so to speak.
Steve Brown (25:36):
But the natural, even though you hired a
salesperson that actually isprobably very well, just that
they haven't sold this productbefore, right? And so the
natural tendency is to go, wegot to bring Florian to this
meeting. Well, now you're in asales role. And you can't stay
(25:57):
just on the technical playing,you need to be reading the room,
you need to be understandingwhat's the real thing they're
they're wondering about, insteadof just do the technical dump of
all the features that this thingwill happen. So actually, you
have to be the salesperson for alittle bit until the people that
(26:20):
you hire, settle in and feelconfident that they can do this
without needing you for backup.
No.
Florian Bohn (26:26):
Yeah, I mean, obviously, if there's an
important customer meeting, it'sit's up to everyone to make sure
that we understand the the, theneed and then do a sale. And
again, I would I would call itmore listening. Right? What is
it that if someone talks to youit's they come in, they have
(26:47):
something in mind, right? In theworst case, it's they they want
to find out how they canwhatever get from you or
something right. But but that'sagain, the sale right? The it's
finding out what is it? What isit that the other side? One was
that we want? And how do yousort of get to the to the best
(27:08):
outcome, and sometimes you don'tmake a sale? Now maybe it makes
more sense to make a sale later.
But it's it's, again, I think ofit as a discovery process or
just just understanding whatwhat is it that where you have
mutually beneficial interaction,right, because obviously, the
other side will always get takesomething for free, obviously,
(27:29):
you would sell for infiniteamount of money. But that's not
how sale happens. You buysomething because you value your
money less than the thing youget, and the other side values
the money more than the thingthey're selling you. And so it's
a win win situation always andtrying to find that win win is,
is sort of the process. And yes,and that sense, I'm a
(27:52):
salesperson.
Steve Brown (27:55):
Want to pause here just for a moment and talk to
you about a program that we havejust released called ROI
quickstart Academy for authors.
Every day, I talk to businessowners just like you who
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want to create a greatfoundation and we want to grow
our business. But the thingsthat are in our way, our lack of
(28:18):
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of technology what kind ofmessaging and what kind of
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we just chill so good withauthors because, well, I'm an
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with, you have a great idea youhave a great book, but what do
(28:40):
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(29:05):
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Academy for authors, you canvisit ROI online.com or click in
the link in the show notesbelow. And now back to this
(29:29):
episode. So in the journey ofdeveloping this product from a
prototype to actually in use,you think about positioning.
Talk to us about in one of thesesales conversations where you
(29:52):
had an epiphany about youinitially had envisioned that
being used in this app But thenall of a sudden, the person on
the other end, asked thequestion that made the light
bulb go off that maybe you weregoing in the wrong direction.
Florian Bohn (30:12):
Yeah, I'm trying to and this certainly happened.
This happens all the time. Idon't know if I have like a, an
example that specifically sortof brings out an epiphany, but
yeah, you got you go into aconversation, you think, Oh,
this would be perfect for XYZ,and then the other side doesn't
think so. And, and they talkabout something and all of a
(30:33):
sudden, you think, oh, if itcould do this, as well, or if we
focus the the effort on thisparticular aspect, then all of a
sudden, you have like a wholenew product, or a whole new sort
of added feature to it. Um, oneof the, the technology itself
that we're using, it can cansend wireless power, it can do
(30:56):
other things as well, forexample, as part of the the, we
sort of have some, someredundant sensing mechanism,
because you want to know ifsomeone sucks a hand into the
phone, if you know the power isbeing interrupted, and so on. So
there are things where customershave asked, oh, can I do this?
(31:18):
Right? Like, can it? And I don'twant to? Because most of these
conversations are active,ongoing conversation. I don't
want to give a yes, specificexample. But it happens all the
time. Right? Most of the times,it's, it's just hearing what
people struggle with. You know,like, an easy example, I guess
(31:41):
that, that I'm not giving toomuch away is how expensive it
is, if you have let's say, aretail store, and you want to,
you want to have electronicshelf label, so displays how
expensive it is to changebatteries. Or let's say you have
(32:01):
our technology and you want tohave a shelf label that only
turns on when someone isactually looking at it, right.
So that this is a freebie thatcomes with it. Because you can
kind of detect, okay, or someonein front of it. So let's just
turn it on, or maybe maybedetect how they're interacting
with it. Right? Are they arethey actively engaged,
particularly for some of theseshelf labels that are in high
(32:23):
end electronic store, you havevery sophisticated engaging
customers. And so you thinkabout how, like, these sort of
things were an obvious to me,they're things like, um, I just
wrote a byline for an automotivemagazine, that wiring is 10s of
pounds in the car. You know,it's so you actually if let's
(32:46):
say a wireless power solution,and the you actually increasing
the fuel efficiency of the caralmost right, because the car
weighs less, because you'rereplacing all the wires, then
you have to dry you have lessdragon and you have to lug less
wait around and um, yeah, sothat always always, you never
know what what someone reallywants until you talk to them.
(33:09):
And then until you get get downto the down to the nitty gritty
of the of the customerconversation.
Steve Brown (33:16):
Excellent. So one of the things I think that
leaders really struggle with isclearly communicating the value
of what you have to offer orwhere the vision for the company
is to go. Talk to us a littlebit about your journey and
first, conveying kind of gettingdown to what's called a logline.
(33:38):
You know that one sentence aboutwhat what it is that you guys
to, that's hard for the personthat's up and close and
personal. Talk to us about thatjourney of clearly
communicating?
Florian Bohn (33:53):
Yeah, I mean, wireless power will be as
ubiquitous as wireless data,then five to 10 years for sure.
You will not be you will nothave to worry about at least for
your for your day to dayelectronic devices. How do you
plug them in? Do you have theUSBC or the lightning? Or the
whatever cable it is? It's justgoing to be all one standard.
(34:15):
You don't have to worry aboutyou don't even think about it.
You don't think about how, howmuch battery Do I have to use?
So do I need to change thebatteries in my remote or want
to put this camera up there howto wire it up, you just place it
there and it gets gets itspower? It's it's going to be the
same thing as its Wi Fi. When WiFi came out. It was very clunky.
(34:36):
And you have these PCM ca cardsand it's expensive was slow and
everyone was like Why don't youjust plug in your computer. Now
if you go to a Starbucks and youor pizza or whatever, what have
you coffee bean and you don'thave Wi Fi you're upset. You're
like what do you mean? Is thisthe Stone Age here? And it'll
(34:56):
it'll be the same it'll be thesame and and no one No one yet
can see this quite clearly. Butyou will be looking back in a
couple of years it will beunimaginable that never was like
that, it's going to be thatexperience that Captain Picard
will have, like, you know, hewouldn't understand what it
means. What do you mean? Mytricorder is out of power, you
(35:17):
know? Do it, you know, it's it'salways powered and, and this is
the world we're going to beliving in. And our mission is
to, to enable this for thecompany, does that mean that in
let's say, 10 years from now,we'll be doing the same things
that we're doing now most likelynot the same, the same way. The
(35:42):
companies that started let'ssay, building Wi Fi boxes in the
early 2000s, that invented WiFi, they're not the ones that
are supplying hardware rightnow. Wi Fi actually was used in
stores initially, like thiswhole, like 802 dot 11
technology was used for mobile,mobile terminals, like cash
(36:03):
registers, that kind of stuff.
So that you can exchange somelow level data, the idea that we
would be watching, let's say,streaming video, and then all
came later, and I don't have acrystal ball. I don't know what
that there's thousands ofapplications that I have no idea
about. The same way. No one knewwhat would the internet bring?
(36:24):
Right? What, you know, when theinternet started, you could do
things right, he looked at news,so whatever it is, but you have
cloud storage now, no oneimagined like, Okay, great, you
know, we're going to store allour pictures in the cloud, what
is the cloud who knows right?
And and we don't have to worryabout it, you look at the same
(36:44):
pictures across your devices, sothat there's going to be lots of
applications that once thistechnology really catches on,
that people will think aboutthat I have no idea yet what
that will be. But I can think ofa lot right now. And they're
markets that have a really,really urgent direct need right
(37:07):
now. And those are the ones weare focusing on right now.
Steve Brown (37:10):
So as a CEO of a company with this revolutionary
idea, or product, you would,what are we talking about? Is
this, this is more of an idea?
Or is it a product?
Florian Bohn (37:27):
The product?
Steve Brown (37:27):
Okay?
Florian Bohn (37:29):
Um, yeah, we can send power over air over several
meters, several watts of power,you can send it wherever you
want it you can you can, we havesome videos, some we actually
just put some videos on our ourweb page, you know, you can see
a car running around, you cansee like light bulbs, we haven't
(37:49):
we put a power source on therobot, right? So the robot goes
around powers things up as it asit finds them. So no, the
technology is here. Maybe insome aspects, it's a little bit
like the early Wi Fi, noteverything is is super perfect,
but it has a lot of applicationsalready. And in the next decade,
(38:11):
we will see the the sort ofkinks being worked out.
Steve Brown (38:15):
So what is your primary challenge right now? Is
that communicating the value ofthat idea? Is it trying to set
up compliance standards for theapplication of this product,
protecting the idea,intellectual property, what is
your,
Florian Bohn (38:31):
all of the above.
Everything is difficult and, andtakes work. And there's a
solution for everything. Thereare some regulatory there's some
regulatory things that thathappen. There's some let's say
there's some application areaswhere regulators are more or
(38:55):
less comfortable about, youknow, because it's just
different. If you're talkingabout sending, you know,
kilowatts over whatever longdistances, that's a different
thing, then, you know, I don'tknow powering a small IoT sensor
or something like that. Thereare challenges in in reaching
the right people there. Thereare so many companies out there
(39:17):
that have a need that theyhaven't thought about, and we
haven't thought about and somaking make creating that that
channel and communicating thistechnology exists and have them
come and say, Oh, this thissolves a big problem. We had a
few of those, right? We were Wewere at the Consumer Electronics
Show on the show floor this thisyear and January, way back when
(39:39):
the world was different. But wehad people stopped by they're
like, Oh my God, this thissolves something. You know, this
solves a seemingly mundaneproblem. You know, did you know
in a hotel like what people callabout us, this is the the remote
isn't working. And 99% isbecause the battery is out, it's
(40:01):
really expensive to every timesend someone in fix battery of
something, and then then havethat done. It's a, it's a simple
problem. But so the thesolution, let's say, if you
charge the batteryautomatically, wirelessly, it's
not the cost of the battery,it's the cost of having to send
(40:23):
someone having a customer that'supset, can watch whatever the
game that they wanted to watch.
And that's the price. Right? Andthat's, that's yourself. That's
your selling point there that,you know, you can, your
customers will be happy, theywill never have to deal with
this again. And so, yeah, I meanthat there are lots of hurdles
(40:48):
there. There's COVID. This isbusiness. If business was easy.
You and I wouldn't be doing itright. Now, what's the what's
the fun in it? If you ifeverything was obvious when you
when you when you start out?
Right?
Steve Brown (41:06):
Yeah, so So what?
You know, you're getting you getto talk about these things, and
people ask you typical questionsyou hear over and over. But
what's, what's the one questionyou wish people would ask you
about this product? Or theprocess? Or what's in your head?
And where are you going?
Florian Bohn (41:30):
I know the answer.
The question is like, Is it forreal? Yes, it's real. Yes, it
will be here. And yes, I know.
You don't believe it quite yet.
But we are talking to peoplethat are talking about shipping
product next year. And the yearafter that, and and then the
year after that, we've talked toall sorts of companies that have
(41:50):
very clear ideas as to how theywould integrate this into into
their products. Is it gonna shipnext year? Hopefully, um, maybe
not. But it's going to be herelike the year after that. Maybe
you won't see it immediately.
Because it's maybe in somewarehouse or it's in some, you
(42:12):
know, in some hotel room or onsome, some store or bus, or
maybe you're gonna see it verysoon. Maybe maybe won't be
charging your your cell phoneall that much longer with ci and
and again, there's this it's anew technology. So there's
there's some some, I guess, somehurdle almost that you have to
(42:36):
overcome there some practicalthings, let's let's pick cell
phones, right? Apple named theirwireless charging technology air
power that they discontinued?
And why did they name an airpower? Presumably, because they
have a vision of some sort thatyou just powered over the air?
Is it going to roll out in cellphones, maybe, you know, cell
phone, cell phone, for example.
(43:01):
People may not need that. Orthey may say well, I want the 50
megapixel camera, rather thanthis, this kind of thing. But
it'll be in cell phones to keepup with yours. It'll be in cell
phones, it will be in yoursmart, smart home devices. It'll
be in your wearables, it will bein in your the stores for you.
It says it will be in your cars,it'll fly your drones
(43:24):
eventually, it'll it'll dothings that are cumbersome now,
and that in the future will justbe a setup box. Just put the box
there, you don't worry about it.
It's there. The same way youdon't worry about it, how that
power gets to your outlet in thefirst place. Right? I mean, do
you ever think about you know,how does that that power plant
(43:45):
work? And who is making sure andit's complicated, but you just
expect it
Steve Brown (43:54):
and watch this document documentary recently
where they brought in a 777 Iforget airline, but it was
really cool to watch how theydisassemble the whole airline. I
mean, the whole airplane. Didyou see this documentary? on
just listening to what were youdoing this? I don't know. Maybe.
(44:16):
But it's like, they took it allapart and looked at everything.
But one of the things thatshocked me was the amount of
cables running up and down. Thatthing is like, how do you keep
track of all those cables andwhere they're going but then
while you're talking? I can seewhere you could replace miles
and miles and miles of heavycable and just an airplane.
Florian Bohn (44:41):
Yeah, it's an airplane. Getting the power to
the seats, where you have yourscreen or something is that
already is pretty painful. I'mrunning cables through moving
parts like like doors or Orwhere you have joints and stuff.
(45:02):
It's painful things break andthen then the sensor break and
then someone has to crawl andfind that broken cable. And, and
yes, there's a lot of cables inan airplane. I know there are a
lot of cables in a car. And Idon't even I haven't seen that
video. So I thought how many howmuch it was in the plane, but
you can ask your savings there.
Steve Brown (45:24):
I'll send it to you. But yeah, because you think
over years and miles and miles,that would be a significant
savings to reduce weight,especially when they're wanting
to charge me a little extra forthe stupid carry on. I'm I'm
bringing on so. So what the?
Where are you now? As far as thecompany? Are you still taking
(45:45):
investors? Are you about? Whatcan you share with me on the
stage of your company? And andwhat what can we look for is
like the first evidence thatthis is actually going to
market?
Florian Bohn (46:03):
Well, you'll probably see evidence sooner
rather than later. Again, as Isaid, like you may see product
stripping, as early as nextyear? Well, you may not, but you
may at least see the indicationsof of this happening. We are
(46:24):
working on we're working ondeepening our our customer
relationships we are talking towe have a pipeline and all of
these sectors, to some extent weare discovering as we go along.
What is the most urgent one,what is the sort of like lowest
(46:44):
hanging fruit so to speak,because no one has that solution
yet. But there's demand in allof these sectors, every cell
phone company, every cell phonecompany, and I'm not telling
saying telling you which oneswe've talked to, but we've
talked to some of them at least.
Yeah, I've thought about this.
(47:05):
I've seen resumes of engineersthat said, yeah, we worked on
this at this cell phone companyat this and then it went off to,
you know, headquarters orsomething and stuff like that.
Every every high tech companyhas definitely looked into this.
(47:26):
We, you know, I mean, we wetalked to them. There are some
things that they know, they'rethe many things that they know,
there's some things they don'tknow, we are very actively
developed and doing businessdevelopment. We are I mean, I
don't know, we're probablyalways fundraising. Not very
(47:48):
specifically, but it doesn'thurt to you know, to to have
that conversation started, evenif you're not whatever raising
this particular round. You know,it's a relationship, right? And
most of this conversation, tellme where you're at. And, you
know, keep me updated, and soon. And you tell them some
things, you don't tell them allthe all the secrets, and until
(48:11):
you actually, you want to closearound, but then it becomes much
easier because they let's say ifyou're talking to a VC, they
know, they've talked to youbefore. We are working on
roadmap items and the technologywe're already thinking about,
okay, what do we need in oneyear, three years, five years
from now, we may not be gettingto everything all at once
(48:33):
because we have limitedresources. But all of these
things are going on I when Istarted out like this is this is
eight years ago, almost when Ifirst thought about this, I
didn't think about this likeokay, this is some sort of cool
gadget I after this conversationin the in the sushi store, I
drove back home, and then I wasliving in the Bay Area at the
(48:56):
time the conversation took placedown in LA you know, I drove
back home and thought about it.
And but I had this, this sort oflike, the let me use that word
to use epiphany of seeing thingswhat all has to come together to
make this happen. And it's amillion things. Okay, what is
(49:16):
the number one thing that I needto be doing right now?
Steve Brown (49:21):
Yeah. Right.
Florian Bohn (49:23):
So let's do that.
And, and so at any given pointin time, I have a and this is
why I see my role, let's say asa CEO, I don't necessarily see
it as a salesperson or as a, asa engineer or as a marketing
person. It's all of thosethings. I don't have to be the
best at it. But it's all ofthose things. Yes, there are
regulatory questions that ourcustomers that are there
(49:45):
engineering issues, there areoperational issues. All of those
things just have to be done within the right way and in the
right priority. And there willthere will always be emails that
don't get answered right away.
There's always going to besomething that you wish but it
was, you know, not the mostimportant thing. And and right
(50:07):
now it's Yeah, right now it's alot of emphasis focus on on
ramping on qualification on onbusiness development, those
kinds of things. But again, thatthat's sort of like the the most
important part of it.
Steve Brown (50:24):
So what I'm curious if you're concerned about you,
obviously, you have someintellectual property secrets.
Are you? I would imagine, youmight be concerned about the
security of those are thosebeing pilfered by some outside
entity? Is that?
Florian Bohn (50:47):
Yeah, I mean, so the most important secrets, we
don't file anything, it's justlike, it's just like something
that, you know, again, we'vebeen working on this for quite a
while. So there were some somereal problems that have to be
solved. Just don't talk aboutit. You You know how it's done.
(51:12):
The people who have to know howit's done, know how it's done.
And that's a trade secret. Wefile some IP is always some,
there's always a little bit ofgiving and taking, and I don't
lose sleep over it. If someone Idon't think someone can just
sort of like it? Well, at theend of the day, it's a cost
(51:34):
function. Really, right. So ifyou think about it, let's say
whatever the big, big badcompany wants to steal all your
secret, because they really meanso their only purpose is to like
get, get, you know, what it isthat you have, and you have to
be very productive about it, itbecomes a function of money. And
I mean, if there's a competitorout there that has infinite
(51:55):
resources and can hire 3000, youknow, whatever. This of the
smartest engineers and thesmartest marketeers Yeah, at
some point, you you don't havereally a chance, right? You just
have to make it expensive enoughthat they say, well, let's just
work with these guys. Right? Um,but that's always true, right? I
(52:16):
mean, could you copy the the,whatever the, let's call it the
Apple iPhone, of course youcould, right? If you had a
gazillion trillion dollars, andyou got like 20,000 of the
smartest people working on it,you can make a better copy of
the iPhone, it's just veryexpensive to do. And so it's,
(52:36):
you know, let's, let's worryabout like what's in our
control, and let's protect oursecrets. Let's be a little bit
tight lipped about what it iswe're doing. But at the end of
the day. Yeah, at the end of theday, it's it's a business risk
that you protect in variousways. And, and you know, you
(52:58):
shouldn't lose too much sleepover it. People have tried. I
mean, people have tried todevelop this technology. Some of
them have given up. Some of themmay try again. We have, we have
something good to offer, we workon all aspects of technology.
I'm an IC designer by training.
So I've designed some of theintegrated circuits that are on
(53:21):
this on some of our ICS. We'vedone software development
algorithms, em simulations. It'shard to assemble the team. And
this is this is an advantage. Ithink that me and my co founder
staff we have very broad, verybroad like I can I can design
(53:42):
the ICS design the rightsoftware for it, figure out how
it operationally has to do I maynot be the best at it, but I can
solve all of this problems. Andso can both of my co founders.
And it's hard to if you It takestime to get to that point. And
so there's some naturalproduction there.
Steve Brown (54:05):
Well, Florian, this been an excellent conversation.
You've been a great guest. Ireally appreciate you being with
us. Tell us if someone's reallyinterested in learning more.
Where can they connect with you?
Where can they look this up?
Florian Bohn (54:22):
Sure. Um, people can follow us on LinkedIn. They
can follow me on LinkedIn, theycan go to our website, guru.inc,
g u r u. i n c, orguruwirelessinc.com. Our company
was called Caspian calm, all ofthose things will lead you to
the same thing. You can findvideos of our CES presence on
(54:44):
YouTube. reclining smart hopesolver. So you can see some
demos there. We have demos onour website and take it from
there.
Steve Brown (54:53):
Awesome. I'm gonna send you a free Kindle copy of
my book The Golden toilet to seeRead it and it'll help improve
your chances of making it towhere you're going.
Florian Bohn (55:07):
Wonderful. Thank you so much. See, if I really
enjoyed our conversation. Ireally enjoyed the questions
from long answers. Those wereactually very interesting
questions. And he had a verygood way of asking, making
making my brain cells.
Steve Brown (55:22):
Yeah, no, this was, this was fun. I, I appreciate
you so much for being a greatguest. And so that's a wrap.
Florian Bohn (55:30):
All right. Thank you so much, Steve.
Steve Brown (55:33):
Thanks for listening to another fun episode
of the ROI online podcast. Formore, be sure to check out the
show notes of this episode. Andfeel free to connect with me on
LinkedIn where we can chat, andI can help direct you to the
resources you're searching for.
To learn more about how you cangrow your business better. Be
sure to pick up your copy of mybook, The Golden toilet at
(55:54):
surprise, that golden toilet.comI'm Steve Brown, and we'll see
you next week on another funepisode of the ROI online
podcast.
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