Suppose I was a venture capitalist with, oh…I don’t know, say 1 million burning a hole in my pocket and looking for a good startup company to invest in. The folks from I-MOS stop by, give me their elevator pitch, show me some convicting analytical models and drop off their business plan for my review. I take a few days to ponder over the business plan that describes this innovative and ground breaking semiconductor technology. I-MOS gives me a phone call a few days later and gets right to the point: Would I be willing to invest in I-MOS? My answer would be ABSOLUTELY NOT!
Reason #1: I-MOS states that they developed a disruptive transistor technology that reduces the static power dissipation by 1000x and provides a 30 percent increase in chip performance without increasing semiconductor manufacturing cost. They don’t state this incredible breakthrough in chip technology once, twice, three times, four times or even five times. They make this statement about 100 times throughout their business plan – talk about trying to amp up potential investors. This comes off more like a used car salesman pitch where the same “great” point is reiterated over and over until you just say yes, fine, sure, let’s make a deal. Except in the case of this business plan the “great” point is not understood by the average investor. Which brings me to my second point…
Reason #2: I don’t know enough about this technology to make a logical and reasonable decision. It all sounds pretty convincing and don’t get me wrong, this business plan is well written and appears to cover all of the bases. That said, I would never invest my hard earned money into a technology that I don’t completely understand. As an engineer I would make it my mission to sign an NDA and go through every calculation until I felt comfortable that the new semiconductor chip technology made sense and would be feasible to produce in a very competitive and growing market.
Reason #3: I-MOS states that they have extensive modeling and simulation results that show this new technology works. It has also been proven at a micron level. Sorry folks, come back when you can demonstrate your new chip works in a simple circuit board. All too often analytical models miss very important variables that makes the concept look like a gem on paper but when it’s scaled up, the rubber hits the road and “real life” products get created it’s a whole different ball game (in a bad way).
To sum up my take on I-MOS: I would like to know what the acronym I-MOS stood for – that’s never stated in the business plan. I know that MOSFET means metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor but I’m not sure about I-MOS. I thought the business plan was very well written and convincing to the average Joe. It appears that they covered all of the main bases and I really liked the projected income statement…some serious profits could be made presuming the plan went accordingly. I didn’t see any back-up plans or different tactics that would be taken assuming that things didn’t go as planned. I understand you can’t predict the future but it is never a bad idea to have 2 or 3 escape routes just in case.
If I-MOS came back to you with a working prototype, would you change your mind? Would you be willing to delve into the technology to learn all you needed to know to invest? Would you and your million dollars be a good funding source for I-MOS, given what you know about yourself?
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