Turning Carbon into Gold

  Eureka!  Kendrick Martin, President and Chief Technology Officer at CarboPur and his team have found a way to turn carbon into gold…a golden opportunity, that is!

The CarboPur team has developed an ingenious, high performance, super efficient innovation with the potential to significantly reduce costs and increase performance in air and water purification systems and energy storage in fuel cells, ultra-capacitors and hydrogen cells.

What does that mean to the rest of us? Well, in lay-men’s terms, it equals a huge impact on our environment and for our wallets:

1) Unlike traditional air and water carbon filters that must be discarded as waste from purifiers once their porous materials become laden with contaminants, CarboPur has longer lasting filters and has the potential to regenerate their filters by purging those nasty contaminants from the carbon fabrics via an electric charge eliminating the need to replace them. For the technologically less adventurous, CarboPur also has next generation air and water filters that offer more capacity and better contaminant removal for competitive prices.

2) Better yet, they are making these filters from recycled materials!

That’s not all; CarboPur’s innovations are also aimed at the financially lucrative market for biological and chemical protective clothing for the military. The possibilities are endless.

Kendrick is joining us today to not only tell us about his product, but to also share his experiences and wisdom on the adventurous start-up road. We’re going to chat about how CarboPur is taking simple carbon and making it their golden success story.
 
Welcome, Kendrick!

KTY:  Roughly forty years have passed between the last time researchers made significant advances in carbon technology…and then you came along pushing the frontiers even further.

What incited you and your colleagues to develop this product?

Kendrick: Well, it started off as a project I was working on for my Master’s degree. Soon after, I started working for a company during the day and working on this pet project nights and weekends. You could say that I was going 24-7!

In 2002, I left my job and focused my full attention on my carbon research. I knew I could make the world a better place by offering a solution that would give us cleaner, safer drinking water and better quality air.

So, I wrote my first business plan and set off to make it happen! And, that same year, we received our first round of financing from MSBi. We followed up in 2005 with a second round of financing from Ventures West, and have been going non-stop ever since!

KTY: Since then, you’ve grown your research project into a company with a viable team. Please tell us more about your organization.

Kendrick:  We started off with my former colleague, Yves Sicard, a bright guy with an expertise in financial re-engineering and myself.  We also had another partner, a university researcher, for a brief time, but the fit did not evolve as CarboPur developed. Researching in a university environment can be quite different from the rough and tumble entrepreneurial life, and we respect that.

We recently added a Vice President of Product Development from Calgon Carbon to help us bring our product to market faster. We’re excited to have Mr. Rick Farmer aboard. Rick brings a wealth of experience and rigor to CarboPur and has helped us work through many challenges. Having personnel in another country, Pittsburgh U.S., was a new challenge but we have successfully overcome it.

We also have a Director of Sales and Marketing as part of our core team, plus six technicians and engineers.

All the members of our team are driven by the same things:

a) Respect…a respect for everyone we work with, our customers and the environment

b) Passion…you need passion! We are convinced that we are doing great things and feed upon that energy

c) Innovations…we know that true innovations are few and far between. The respect and passion I just mentioned help us do what we need to get done.

We look for people with passion, drive and intensity all wrapped in a package of respect and credibility. Their personality has to fit in with these core values of ours.

Let’s face it, as serious entrepreneurs, we spend tons more time with our team than with our families. We need to fit well together.

At CarboPur, we motivate our team with challenges and the way we conduct ourselves. And, we put a mentor-ship program in place whereby senior members must coach the lesser experienced members of our team. It’s all part of our corporate culture of working together to reach our goal.

KTY: You look like you are well on your way to reaching those goals. Just what is the market potential of your product?

Kendrick:  That’s a bit difficult to pinpoint given the diversity of our market. However, we do look at a rough total estimate of $1- 1.5 Billion USD.

Currently, we do not have many competitors doing exactly what we do. We do, however, face old school competition. However, those guys treat carbon like a commodity product and basically work on the technology side.

At CarboPur, we differentiate ourselves by offering our clients a value proposition, and we make sure to articulate those values to them. We tell them why our product offers better air and water. We not only work on the technology of using carbon, but also put a lot of attention into working with the carbon material to make it more valuable to our clients.

KTY: Now dollar-wise, what are the environmental benefits (savings) thanks to your product?

Kendrick: I can not put a number to it right now, but suffice it to say that we have a long term strategy. With our eventual permanent filters offering, the world will benefit from less waste. We’re working actively with recycled textiles to make this happen.

KTY: Who have you signed on so far as clients?

Kendrick: Our product is in the finalization stages at companies like Brita, Procter and Gamble and 3M. These companies are currently testing and finalizing our value offer.

KTY: Who would you like to sign on as new clients?

Kendrick: We tend to concentrate on our few valuable clients right now than to expand too quickly. However, it would be great to secure clients like Donaldson or Venmar.

We’re planning 2007 to be our break-even and break-out year. By breakout, we mean that we want to become a “household” name in carbon with companies and with venture capitalists alike. We want to be profitable, work well with our client base and then expand the base over time.

It really is not a question of who we want as clients, but rather how we plan to take care of the clients we have.

KTY: Are there ever moments when you and the team think that your ground breaking ideas might not be realized? How do you push past those times?

Kendrick: Sure…all the time! Any entrepreneur who does not admit that is lying.

But, I never give up. My father taught me that. That’s my motto, it’s part of our core value at CarboPur.

I have a process engineering background,so when I hit those walls, I stop and explore what went wrong and attempt to define the problem with the team. Then, we kick off a brainstorming session with our managerial and scientific team members and with our advisory board. We’re pretty fortunate; we have high caliber advisers like Bob Briscoe on our board, and benefit from their 25 + years of entrepreneurial expertise.

We remind ourselves to not lose hope and to reach out to others for support. And, the support mechanism we have put in place helps us find solutions when we’re stuck. We need this because being a start-up is nothing shy of a roller-coaster ride…the highs are really high and the lows can make your stomach fall fast!

KTY: It looks like you need a strong stomach to be a start-up. What is the most difficult part about being a start up on the rise?

Kendrick: That would be managing operations with limited resources, finances and time.

You can’t fool yourself. You need to manage your expectations and opportunities. Even when you think you’ve hooked a great new client, they can make you wait it out and not come through after all. You never know what is waiting for you around the corner.

It’s also the realization that you’re just a small fish in the sea…maybe even the plankton at first…and that you need to grow one step at a time, outlive the dangers, eat some other fish, and achieve critical mass before becoming a bigger fish. Today, we’re just a survivor working hard to become the big fish.

KTY: And, what would be the most rewarding?

Kendrick: Becoming that big fish!

KTY:  What’s coming up next on the horizon for CarboPur?

Kendrick: A few things. We’re working on two new water filtration products that would bring cleaner water at the same cost for our clients.

We’re also moving towards full scale production with the help of a partnership agreement that we have with another group.

And, of course, we aim to break even in 2007, and to be well positioned to move forward in 2008.

KTY: What would take CarboPur to the next level? What’s stopping you?

Kendrick: Time and more money for expansion. We’re looking at debt, government programs like the Sustainable Development Technology Canada program, and perhaps another round of financing from VCs.

We’re a “clean-tech” company and there are great opportunities in the market for us. We would like to focus more on this important sector. Not many people understand the impact that we can make. Just think of all the pharmaceuticals in our water system…there is more Prozac in our water than ever before and studies have yet to be done on the long term impact of this situation. Also, bottled water drinkers think they are making a healthy choice, but they do not all realize that chemicals from the plastic bottle containers are seeping into the liquid over time, making filtered water from the tap a much healthier choice!

KTY: How do you envision the ULTIMATE CarboPur success story to look like?

Kendrick: Acquisition. However, given our diverse markets, any one company might not be well suited or interested in servicing all of those sectors. An alternate ending may be an IPO for CarboPur.

As for me, I am a serial entrepreneur. I like to grow companies and am constantly on the lookout for challenges. I liken the experience to raising a child. Your baby is conceived, you need to nurture it, handle the bad days and the good ones, and deal with unexpected expenses and situations. And, then one day the child must go off on its own.

Once I’ve evolved the company to the success that I know it can have, CarboPur may be better served by a more on-going, managerial leader - but I plan to always be associated with this great company.

KTY:  Given your experience, what are the secret ingredients that propel companies towards success?

Kendrick: A few thoughts come to mind:

a) An absolute passion for what you do. You need to eat, breathe, and live the company for about five years. This also reinforces the point I made earlier about having an affinity with your colleagues.

b) A laser focus…it is so easy to get distracted. You need to stay on track.

c) Truly understand the value you bring to the client…clarify your value proposition. Potential clients might be impressed with the change you offer, but may not be willing to pay for it for many reasons. So, find that “customer pain” (frustrations and headaches with the current application) that will make them want to switch over to you.

KTY: Great advice to keep in mind and better yet, to put in play. In your opinion, who are the other “best in class” small companies on the rise that inspire you and did things right? And, what did they do to come out shining?

Kendrick: The underdogs!

I really like Apple. They really understood the clients and their customer pain. They offer a safe, virus free, secure product with everything in the box. Their product is easy to use and allows users to conduct a myriad of creative projects.

Then there’s Hyundai. Imagine, about 20 years ago, they made the Hyundai Pony. Today, their award winning Sonata can beat the Honda Accord and the Toyota Camry. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you understand the customer and what they want in addition to knowing the competition and what they are lousy at!

KTY: In the spirit of the classic film, “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”, we could say that we’ve talked about the GOOD. How can companies on the rise avoid becoming the Bad and the Ugly? 

Kendrick: Three words…all the same…plan, plan, plan!!!

People sometimes have great ideas, but no plans. You know that 50% of people with plans never reach their goals, and 100% of people with no plans never reach their goals.

This is not to say that you should not be flexible. Plans can be revisited, but at the very least, a current, updated version must be guiding you to keep you on track. If you deviate, you could end up in a ditch.

Entrepreneurs are not the risk takers that others often think they are. Entrepreneurs actually calculate the opportunities. They often are more analytical and control focused than their counterparts in big corporations. They need to think everything through and plan!

KTY:  If you could create an imaginary advisory board made of brilliant minds from eons past and those currently alive and active today, who would you name to this board to guide you, and why?

Kendrick:  I can think of three wish list advisers and one actual member, being:

a) Steve Jobs of Apple. I really want to know how he did it. How did he revolutionize the industry? What was his strategy? It would be great to have access to his mind!

b) Bill Gates of Microsoft: I would love to know how he sold his technology and ideas to IBM and other companies. How did he convince them of his vision?

c) Lee Iaccoca – his claim to fame is how he managed people and turned Chrysler around. It would be so valuable to have his insights around the table.

d) Bob Briscoe – a current CarboPur advisor. Bob’s a time tested, proven serial entrepreneur. He also has a scientific and business background. He’s a fountain of entrepreneurial knowledge.

KTY:  Would you care to share some favorite and best advice with us today?

Kendrick: Certainly!

a) Live your passion. And remember, the entrepreneurial spirit is not a disease as some non-entrepreneurs may say, it’s a passion!

b) Be deliberate about how you proceed. Being methodical is key.

c) Surround yourself with the right people.

Remember, it’s a roller coaster ride. And, it’s a great ride whatever you do.

KTY:  Thank you for sharing your adventures and advice with us today.  We wish you much continued success and a cleaner CarboPur world for us all.