Physicists at Small Companies and Startups. Alex Panchula

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Roger Watkins
8 years ago
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1 Physicists at Small Companies and Startups Alex Panchula

2 My (brief) history PhD Stanford/research at IBM Almaden Experimental physics in thin film and magnecc tunneling 1 year Lam Research 2000 employees 3 years at Grandis MagneCc memory startup Employee No 10 2 years at OpCsolar/First Solar Employee No. 320 (small company) Failed/sold to First Solar (4500 employees)

3 What have I done as a physicist? (startup) Ran materials development effort SBIR Principal invescgator for Phase I and Phase II ($600K of taxpayer money, equity free. 3 Issued (2 pending) patents in three different fields Designed and set up class 100/1000 clean room Managed infrastructure Purchased, validated, and installed equipment PresentaCon to customers ScienCfic know how Grant wricng Patent wricng Project management CommunicaCon

4 What have I done as a physicist? (small company) R&D focus Set up ran inical materials characterizacon experiments Numerical simulacon of behavior of a Si PIN junccon Numerical calculacons prediccng solar cell performance in the field Technical liaison with universices Technical assistance to business development group Fast learning in a new field Read lots, talk to smart people Technical tool kit Experimental lab set up, programming Ability to speak physics Ability to collaborate

5 My current daily accvices Ac#vi#es Data driven end to end analysis of solar projects Model development Comparison to experimental data Error bar = $ Internal technical point of contact Skills needed Comfortable with computaconal tools and math Matlab, SQL, Excel StaCsCcs, precision, escmacon Sounding board for internal technical review

6 Weekly accvices Ac#vi#es Technical resource for business development and finance Customer presentacons Independent engineer (external) point of contact Skills needed Ability to explain to the non technical Communicate Communicate

7 StaCsCcs on small companies Companies less than 500 people: Employ 50% of the private sector (2004) (1) Patents Employee raco increase with increase size of firm. (2) Large and small firms rely heavily on small firm technology (3) Are employers of 39 percent of high tech workers (such as sciencsts, engineers, and computer workers) VC backed companies (4) 6 out of 1000 business plans are funded by VCs 60+% of VC backed companies go bankrupt 30% are liquidated or merged All small companies at four years (5) (1) hjp:// (2) hjp:// (3) hjp:// (4) Nesheim. High Tech startup (2000) (5) hjp://

8 Benefits to small company or startup Abstract Small companies tend to have a singular goal Each employee has big impact, by definicon Breadth of problems both technical and commercial Speed in extremely important Prac#cal Fewer meecngs! Slightly more flexibility Note: Total hours about the same in small and large companies more of funccon of industry, and business character

9 Drawbacks Abstract Small companies tend to have a singular goal Financial uncertainty Lijle to no business organizacon Risk of Failure Prac#cal If you don t like your job, no room to move Slightly less salary, typically no bonus. Necessary to work on noncore funccons Limited admins, purchasing or shipping dept. for really small companies Involuntary career transicons

10 Defining Success at small companies Career development Not necessarily Ced to the success of the company although success is always nice. Learning something new, breadth of transferrable skills Adapt to change Technical run a project end to end rather than small part of larger project Managerial Early responsibility

11 Geqng hired at small company DO Have lots of conversacons Outside your lab At the business school Alumni network Control on line idencty Linked In/Facebook Directly connect with upper management of very small companies Check out the people carefully DONT Spend large amounts of Cme on job search sites (1 hr/week more than enough) ACTION: Have job site send you searches over . Believe that website s are linked anywhere ACTION: When job search make one contact/day, and document.

12 The Resume Magneto transport in magnecc nanostructures WHAT HOW Synchrotron X ray experiments Low temperature physics Large data set analysis PracCcal experience with equipment Fit data to 1D quantum mechanical tunneling Link theory and experiment in complex systems AcCon: Rewrite your resume to focus on how you performed your duces not what you did.

13 Case Study 1 Applicant to start up Found possible posicon on website Found friend of a friend through Linked In who previously worked there. Got on touch with Sr. Engineer at company CEO quit, no funding, posicons on website are old and on hold This informacon is not publicly available. PosiCve result Applicant did not waste Cme applying. ACTION: Get in touch with employees (current or former) to get sense of job

14 Case Study 2 Applicant to start up found possible posicon Sent resume directly to CEO who forwarded it to hiring manager Two rounds of interviews 2 nd interview was technical Applicant sent thank you note with other technical points sold himself as someone who works many angles of a problem Offered posicon Due diligence from other sources on company revealed possible issues with funding and staffing issues. ACTION: Follow up to interviews are important and due diligence is important

15 Case Study 3 PhD applying for posicon at small company through alumni contact All day interview includes talk Talk was carbon copy of dissertacon defense Mechanical Engineer Manager lost by slide 3 PhD physicist in audience lost by slide 6. ACTION: PracCce your job talk on a non physicist.

16 Case Study 4 PhD Physicist moves into clean tech auer 4 years of semiconductor experience Focused search through direct contacts Friend of a Friend with an MBA previously worked with a director for business analysis at a small company Got interview as a business analyst spoke to founder Brought in for 2 nd interview by founder in R&D Got posicon ACTION: Never turn down a conversacon.

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