http://mysiliconvalleystartup.blogspot.com/

You hit the nail on the head, but then ignore it through a good part of your discussion.

“However, if it can do something that nothing else can, then you will be successful.”

True you might have the opportunity ….but

Many if not most proposed nanotech “innovations” are not properly benchmarked for viability or advantage over prior Intellectual Property or existing products. Often times too little review of prior art is done.

There are and have been far too many me too nano proposals(arrgh not another nano powder!!), materials centric rather then end use, products /businesses proposed.

By contrast, the nexus of the start of commercial nanotechnology was found in an end use scientific instrument – The Nanoscope Scanning Probe Microscope. The execution of Digital Instruments against competition was astounding, and DI started by licensing their first couple of patents, invented some 40+more, and went on with no outside investment money to generate $60m rev per year at the end of 10 years, ~$450k+ rev / employee, and dominate the world and most notably JAPANESE markets.

All mostly staffed by students out of school. (counterpoint to a star studded overpaid team)

So when one proposes a nanotech business to get funded, and has not done one’s homework with respect to benchmarking against conventional and often times far cheaper technologies, whaddya think ?

Take one firm whose name I won’t mention, that was proposing the use of nanotubes for cryoadsorbtion hydrogen storage, (got funded for this among 1 more device) and the numbers they had were storage capacity = activated charcoal’s SAME specific capacity of hydrogen cryoadsorbtion. (all found from a VOLVO report on the web). And carbon nanotubes were ?500x more expensive than activated charcoal, and nanotubes will come down in price and have somewhat since, but the question is since they had no clue how to cost reduce, where was the business proposition?

Proposed by some well known folks too, again who I won’t name, and funded ??? Granted their sensor product is ok, but took them quite a few years to figure out how to make it for modest advantage and a whole heck of a lot of development $$.

The problem is if you don’t do your homework in applications performance benchmarks against competing and often cheaper technology, you also likely don’t known much about the application either. Nano for nano’s sake is dumb, nano for a cost and performance advantage that is real and sufficiently substantive can be smart.

But also there are cases where nano is proposed, where it is proven and projected to be unsafe(just read). Seeing nano proposals in these high risk applications, is silly. Sometimes science is not worthy of commercialization, and other times it is.

re OLED’s if you don’t have a strong IP position, and if a new effort is just another way of either violating someone else’s OLED patents, what is the point? Does not matter how prestigious the scientific staff is, if the IP is not blocking and still is infringing?

OLEDs are big, even soon to be huge, but is every new OLED proposal or startup going to have the (IP) way free and clear?

The future will be in organics for a given firm if the IP is owned by the respective company one might have invested in, and if the product IP is blocking and technology substantively better than other OLEDS or organic device as may be.

Same rules for good investment practices as with ANY technology. Copy and you’re toast, or nanotoast as may be. Invent and invent with substantive barrier to entry, and with substantive performance and cost advantage, and nano or no nano, you’ll likely get funded by the right investors if you look hard enough and have a decent team.

Innovate, properly benchmark and know your application and competitors technology. Nanotech is not an excuse for lack of product or applications expertise. Wimp out on your homework….and well then it is just paperwork or homework, and back to the drawing board…

fwiw, I have been a microfab engineer for ~25yrs and of this have done nanofabrication for some 8 years, both commercially in volume applications.