by Caleb Fort
Daily Lobo
Joseph Cecchi said engineers do more than calculations.
"Engineers have an image problem," said Cecchi, dean of the School of Engineering. "Everyone thinks we're geeks - well, we are geeks, that's true. But everyone thinks all we're about is doing arcane calculations, when really we do so much more."
Cecchi was a part of a discussion about starting companies using technology developed at UNM on Thursday.
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Starting a business takes more than engineering expertise, Cecchi said.
"It means understanding business and dealing with lots of different people and situations," he said.
Luke Lester, a UNM professor who co-founded Zia Laser using technology he developed at the University, outlined the challenges of starting and maintaining a high-tech company.
Providing a product with a clear purpose is essential, he said.
"The simpler the better," he said. "The No. 1 lesson I learned is that you need to eliminate your customer's pain. You need to make your product as useful to them as possible."
He spoke at the University Libraries' Faculty Acknowledgement Reception in the Willard Reading Room of Zimmerman Library. The event has been held every month during the school year for about 12 years, said Dina Ma'ayan, who helped organize the event.
Each month, one college chooses a faculty member to be recognized at the acknowledgement reception, she said. The event is meant to be a gathering place for different branches of the University, she said.
"It's meant to benefit the faculty, staff and students of the University," she said. "It's meant to be interdisciplinary, since the library is something that all these people use."
The School of Engineering chose Lester for the reception.
Lester said the technology he used to start Zia Laser - quantum dots - have a lot of applications.
"They are essentially artificial atoms that you can toy around with," he said.
That flexibility helped his company survive the economic difficulties spanning from 2001-03, he said. Such flexibility is crucial to surviving in the technology marketplace, he said.
"These seem like fairly simple guidelines, but flexibility is key to survival," he said. "A lot of the other companies that failed during that time were one-trick ponies."
Business student Kedar Bhasker said the presentation provided insight into starting a business.
"I came to this because I'm working on a business plan of my own, and I think this will help me out," he said. "This is the real thing. It's interesting to see that he's an engineer, but he still knows about the business side of it."
It can be hard to start a business with no prior experience, Lester said.
"If you're a new company, you have little or no reputation," he said. "That was a real eye-opener for me. You might have this reputation in the academic world, but that doesn't mean anything in the business world."
It can be difficult to keep a group of engineers focused on the financial aspect of a startup business as well as the technological aspect, he said.
"As engineers and scientists, we think that tech is really cool," he said. "The downside of this is that you'll just be so happy with this really cool technology that you're not even really worried if you're not making money."
Lester compared the competitive environment of a startup company to the TV show "The Apprentice."
"It's incredible the way people duke it out when you first start a company," he said. "You don't really believe it when it first starts happening."
