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April 4, 2005 Vol. 76, no.
11S
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| STARTUP:
A Berkeley team recently won the University of San Francisco (USF)
annual International Business Plan Competition and formed a new
company. Posing with USF faculty after their win, three of the members
are EE Ph.D. student Gianluca Piazza (second from left), MBA student
Kenny Miller (center), and ME Ph.D. student Phil Stephanou (second
from right).
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Graduate
students win international business plan competition, start new company
The startup is not dead.
Just ask ME Ph.D. student Phil Stephanou and EE Ph.D. students Gianluca
Piazza and Justin Black.
Their story begins two and a half years ago. As part of their Ph.D work,
the threesome was researching ways to produce a smaller, cheaper cell
phone chip that could deliver more functionality in a smaller space.
Like many people, Stephanou, Piazza and Black envisioned cell phones
as THE device. A cell phone will do everything, they say, and envisioned
people watching TV on their cell phones, accessing data bases, and,
of course, connecting to the Internet.
To get to that level of functionality, a chip must be able to process
more without getting bigger, they explain. It must be cheap to produce.
The three students, in conjunction with EE professor Al Pisano, logged
hours and hours in the lab. By last fall, all their hard engineering
work paid off. They realized they'd found the silver bullet.
"We decided to make it real," says Stephanou. "We said, 'Let's write
up a business plan.'"
Adds Piazza, "We thought our technology was superior. We knew there
was a huge market for this component. We wanted to bring it to market."
The three, who consider themselves business-minded engineers, went searching
for MBA students who were technology-minded business people. Kenny Miller
and John Hwang fit the bill. The engineers admired how quickly the two
understood the technology and asked them to join the team. Then came
hours and hours of collaboration on a business plan. The plan was submitted
to the University of San Francisco's annual International Business Plan
Competition. In February, the students found out they were one of 20
finalist groups from around the world. They'd have to deliver two presentations
flawlessly, plus the dreaded "Elevator Pitch," to win. The elevator
pitch is a 90-second product spiel, named after the time it would take
a would-be entrepreneur to corner and pitch an idea to a venture capitalist
riding in an elevator.
On March 12, the team won the competition, beating the second-place
team from Stanford. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, a clear
majority of judges voted for the Berkeley team. The students walked
away with $10,000 (which will go to pay all their operating costs, they
say), and serious interest from venture capitalists who attended the
event. "It felt good," said Piazza about winning.
Four days later, buoyed by their success, the group licensed their company,
and Harmonic Devices Inc. was born. They chose the name Harmonic for
the way components in the chip vibrate like a guitar string. The next
steps are to finish school and secure funding for their company, which
the students hope will soon be paying the rent.
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