0173 - Thoughts on New Ventures with Stephen Keenan

I am pleased to have Stephen Keenan with us to talk about founding a start-up, the early-stage product design and development process, and to share his thoughts about funding new ventures.

First, Stephen, could you say a few words about yourself and the motivation behind Filter, the MedTech start-up you are part of?

•Why are companies that have a hardware component considered 'Deep Tech'?

oDeep tech is where deep innovation comes from. And hardware is nearly always at the heart. But it is high risk over a long timeframe, that's why, ultimately, only governments have pockets deep enough to make that happen.

•Are software businesses less capital intensive than hardware?

oThe obvious answer is yes! And even more so now with people shifting away from needing so much commercial office space. But for a hardware product, the cost from concept to something concrete - from prototype to small batch production runs - is much less expensive than it was. With CAD models, 3D printing, custom chips and electronics, taking a hardware concept to market has become a lot like the software development process, fast and iterative.

•In the Hard vs. Soft debate that Jonathan Goldberg recently commented that "Software may be eating the world, but hardware monetizes better". 

oYes, and No. "The bar for hardware is so much higher than software. There are many software plays out there that are mere basis points better than existing solutions but their ease of distribution, ability to run free trials, low switching costs means they can win... Hardware doesn't have these characteristics - your solution has to be significantly (10/20/30x) better across some meaningful metric (cost/usability/size/performance) for it to make sense to pursue."

•And how supportive is Ireland as a location for starting a new venture?

•Ireland is brilliant, but we can do better, particularly for the very early stage.

Well, we’ll wrap up there.

Thank you for talking with us and sharing your thoughts today.

Notes:

Filter Health Ltd. https://www.joinfilter.co

See the Jonathan Goldberg article at: 

https://www.techspot.com/news/95937-hard-vs-soft-software-may-eating-world-but.html 

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