Back From the Summer

I'm back from my three month hiatus.  Actually, it wasn't much of a hiatus.  It's just been really really busy around here.  Lots of traveling and meetings has put the blog on the back burner for a bit.  So let me give you a quick run down of the last few months.

We, cycleWood, have been traveling to and fro Dayton, OH quite a bit.  We scaled up our gram scale process up to several hundred pounds.  Let me tell ya, that was an ordeal.  We powered through it though, spending many late nights working on this project.  It was pretty rewarding though to get in there and get our hands dirty.  Not just our hands, pretty much everything.  It was exhausting, but fun.  We've also set everything up for our next big hurdle, making bags and film.  We did several trial runs to produce pellets and we also produced some pressed films.  So far everything looks very promising.  The blown films and bags will take place in less than a couple of weeks.  We've overcome quite a few significant challenges already and are sure to come across a few more, but we are encouraged by the progress we've made so far.  We showed our samples to our technical adviser who has 35 years of working with lignin and he was astonished at what he saw.  He said he never thought he would see anything like what we produced in his lifetime.  Pretty amazing!

So that's pretty much what's been going on.  I think I will post shorter posts more frequently.  At least more frequently than one every 3 months.

Hectic Travel

I know it's been a while since my last post, but I've been traveling all over the world.  Ok, maybe not the world, but I have traveling a lot.  In the past month and a half I've been from Houston to New York City, and several stops in between.  It's been tough.

The highlights, we've been traveling to meet with investors as well as pick up awards.  Actually just one award, the Edison Award.  We were presented with a bronze Edison Award for recognition in sustainable innovation.  In Houston we got to meet up with one of our fellow U of A teams, SpatiaLink, at the Rice Competition.   They didn't make it to the finals but they did represent the University well.  There's always next year.

Speaking of which we got a sneak peak of next year's batch of competitors last week and looks like a good mix of youth and experience.  I'm sure they'll carry on the winning tradition.

I won't bore you too much with the cycleWood stuff, but we are moving right along.  We've done more testing and had more positive results.  We'll be coming to a critical point in our development in the next couple months as we scale up our process.  Can't say too much about it right now, but we are making great progress.

The graduation ceremony for the 2012 Walton MBA class was this past weekend.  Congratulations to everyone who survived.  It really is a great program, so if you're looking make sure you take a look at Walton.

I've got some pics from our travels, but haven't had time to load them up yet.  I'll load them up and post again soon.  I know this is a short post, maybe I should just post more often with shorter post.

Almost April

Well I looked up at the calender and it's almost April.  Time flies when you're running a start-up.  I'm trying to get at least one post in each month and I almost missed out on March.  Needless to say, March has been busy.

Here are the highlights for cycleWood since my last post:

• Completed our first phase of compatibility studies
• Started discussions with pilot scale manufacturers
• Attended the Informex conference in New Orleans, which is one of the biggest chemical conferences
• Secured third party logistics partner
• Secured lignin sources
• Started final composition studies

That's just the stuff I can talk about.  We are talking with some large customers as well.  It's very exciting for us.  April is going to a busy travel month for us.  We'll be out of town for 3 of the 4 weeks.  The highlight of April travels will be heading to New York to accept our Edison Award.  We know we've won one, but don't know if it's gold, silver, or bronze.

This past month we were also in Anaheim for the AUTM conference.  We were able to meet up with some of the folks from the University of Minnesota that helped us with our patent license.  We also got to check out WonderCon which just happened to be going on at the same time.  It was an interesting experience.  below are some pics to illustrate what we saw.  We happened to Stan Lee and Lou Ferrigno.

For all the Big Bang Theory fans, Wil Wheaton was also there but we didn't get a chance to see him.  For the Resident Evil fans, Milla Jovovich was there too, but we didn't get in either.  Apparently these people are kind of popular.  There were very long lines to see them.

Things are moving along nicely so far.  Looks like you may be able to get you hands on a XyloBag soon.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Well it's been a little over a month since my last entry.  Quite a bit has happened since then.  I'll give you a cycleWood update first.

We went up to our research lab in Dayton and put together a plan for moving forward.  We had laid the groundwork in the months prior and with the help of our lignin adviser we have refined that plan and have a solid path forward.  Basically it boils down to more testing.  That's probably all I can say about that at this point.

February is going to be a busy travel month for Kevin and I.  We're headed down to New Orleans tomorrow for the Informex trade show.  It's one of the chemical industry's largest shows.  Next week we are headed down to Little Rock and Dallas.

Now the exciting news.  We've been selected as a finalist for the Edison Awards.  This quite an honor.  Some of the other finalists are Kraft, GE Healthcare, Proctor&Gamble, Nissan, Ford, and OnStar.  So you can see we are in good company.

Now lets get to some Walton College news.  This years incoming class is the largest class ever at 46.  I got a chance to meet some of them during orientation and they seem excited and full of energy.  We'll see what their demeanor is around midterms.  The Spring Social is Thursday at the Powerhouse.  I believe it starts at 6pm.  If you're interested in getting an MBA, even a little, you should show up.  Unfortunately I won't be there since we'll be in New Orleans.  It's always a good time.

As always, I'll try to post more frequently, but the trend for the past few months have been one post a month.  Maybe I'll try to double that this month.  We shall see. Until then....

Happy Valentine's Day!    

Happy New Year!

It's a new year and time for a new post.  Let's take a moment and reflect on 2011.  I graduated from the Walton College, Graduate School of Business.  cycleWood Solutions started as an entrepreneurship class project and became a VC funded start-up.  It was a good year.  The momentum needs to continue through 2012.  cycleWood still has plenty of hurdles to overcome as head towards an official product launch.  Kevin Oden and I have been working hard at it and have quite a few folks pulling for us to succeed.  Our families, friends, and significant others have been patiently cheering us on and supporting us.  We have a couple big milestones coming up in the next few months.  I'll keep you abreast of these happenings as we approach these significant events.

Now let's switch back to the Walton College of Business.  I had the pleasure of meeting this year's incoming class this past Monday.  It's a record breaking class, the largest class in the history of the Walton MBA program.  There are 46 students in this class.  That's over 35% more than my graduating class.  This is a smart, diverse, and motivated group of students.  I'm sure they are anxiously awaiting the first day of class.

In sports and entertainment news, the Arkansas Razorback football team finished the season with a Cotton Bowl Win and a #5 ranking.  Not too shabby.  That provides the team with some momentum going into next season.  Last night I had the opportunity to go see the Blue Man Group at the Walton Arts Center.  They put on quite a show.  It was very entertaining.  I'd recommend anyone to go see them.

The weather has been great so far this winter, unless you love snow.  Today was actually the first day we've seen snow this winter and it was just a light dusting.  It is cold and windy outside though, wind chills are in the teens.  It's supposed to warm back up in the next few days.  If this is all the snow we see this winter it won't bother me much.  I do like to see some snow though.  Maybe we'll get a few inches later this month or in February.

That's about it for now.  Again, I'll try to post more often, but no promises.  Good luck to the incoming class of Walton MBA candidates!

What's Going On?

Well it's been over a month since my last post.  It's been a busy month.  cycleWood is officially funded.  The ink has dried and money is in the bank.  We are moving along with the scaling of our process.  Last week we created the our first film sample literally in my garage.  It's pretty exciting.  We were in Dallas this past week giving a talk at TEDxSMU.  Pree, our chief marketing officer, delivered a very compelling talk.  I think we opened a few eyes in the audience.

This week we have a visitor in from the UK.  He's one of our mentors.  We met him while we were in Winnipeg last year.  We met up in Little Rock and had a short chat with the Secretary of State.

These are exciting times for us.  There are times when things don't move as fast as we would like and there are times when we have trouble catching our breath.  We've learned to take it all in stride and that's all part of being an entrepreneur.  I will try to post more frequently again, but again no promises.  Merry Christmas to all and to all... well that depends on when you're reading this.

Time Flies

Well here I go again, it's been almost a month since my last post. I gotta get better at this. It's been a busy month. cycleWood has been traveling around getting funding. The good news is we could be very close. We've started working with our research lab to scale up our process. It's exciting stuff.

This past week we met up with our "The Ol' Adviser." I think that's a new nickname for her, Dr. Carol Reeves. We met up to do a video for the entrepreneurship program. Some of the other teams from years past were also present; Silicon Solar Solutions, Biologics MD, Tears for Life, and Merchant View. It was great seeing everyone again. These are the folks that helped us get off the ground. Lots of great advice.

We are also preparing for our trip out to San Jose in a couple weeks for the finals of the CleanTech Open. Silicon Solar Solutions will also be along for the ride. Hopefully one of us can bring home the big prize.

In other news, Halloween was this weekend so Sarah and I decided to dress up as Lego Minifigures. We were a hit at the party we went to and won the best costume contest.

A good time was had by all. A couple of my old classmates were also at the party. It's always good to catch up with friends.

The Hogs keep winning somehow. Hopefully they'll break out of their funk this week against South Carolina. The games are definitely entertaining so I'm not complaining as long as we end up on top.

I will try to do a better job of posting but no promises.