Vig Sherrill, Aldis

Aldis has a product called Gridsmart that is used for monitoring and managing the traffic lights at intersections. It uses a fisheye lens technology and object tracking software to determine where cars are at the intersection and make decisions about when to change the light. One of the major conflicts of the product is that the people who use and benefit from the technology are not the ones that pay for it. So Vig had to determine a value proposition for the city municipalities who are the ones that write the check. Many times municipalities want to know how many cars are going through an intersection and Aldis is able to provide that data with a very competitively priced product.

Current products on the market include inductive loops that go into the road. These are very expensive, require construction on the road, and can often break. When they are break it’s so expensive to fix that the municipalities usually don’t repair them. So they are quite ineffective. Aldis’s Gridsmart product will be much cheaper for the municipality and it is very easy to update the software over time. Aldis has determined that there are about 350,000 total intersections in the US. While the market is not huge the data is very valuable and could have many uses.

To protect their intellectual property which is mostly software based, Aldis uses encrypted code and intends to update the software every quarter.

Vig offered a few take home messages about entrepreneurship:

Start a company with people in the same economic level, so that you have similar levels of motivation and drive.

The man with the money owns everything

VC’s invest in people not companies

Everyone is your boss if you are the entrepreneur.

Don’t do this for the money and the hours are very long

Jeff Bohanan, Protomet

Jeff wanted to have a world class manufacturing organization. He received his first big opportunity when Mercedes solicited for a 1 million piece contract for an SUV part with a target price of $4/part. No one on the market currently offered that part for that cheap. Jeff was determined to make it work and get the contract, emphasizing that most companies make the bulk of their money on the simple stuff. However, the high tech pieces build your credibility. Jeff successfully fulfilled the contract and it got the business off to a promising start. Currently Protomet has two large industry focuses in wake board parts and homeland security. Protomet recently won the 50 fast award for Tennessee. They have 18 CNC machines at their facility and efficiently use one person to run 3 to 5 machines.
Jeff offered some great advice on managing people. He said to always have integrity, be honest, and control your temper. It also helps to have HR infrastructure to help deal with people during challenging times. Salaries are the most expensive part of most businesses. Jeff quoted as high as 80%, however it is important to hire good people. Jeff feels confident in his team and knows that if he had to be gone for a while, things would run smoothly without him.
Jeff also gave us two great quotes to live by:

“We tend to overestimate what can be accomplished in 1 year. We tend to underestimate what can be accomplished in 5 years.”

“The formula for innovation is a step function…output is not proportional to input…though steady input is required to get to the next step.”