Energy Tech Startups

0:00 Welcome back to the show. I'm excited today to introduce Chen Young and Jiang Shu of Hexespec. They are recent winners of the Rice Lily pitch competition a few months back. I'm excited to have them

0:13 here. They're also members of the Nexus. Why don't you guys tell us what you do and what the origins of the technology comes from? Hi, I'm Chen Young and like the our technologies, many from our

0:26 lab And so for me, I just, when I apply for the PhD, I just think that the material is a magic thing. And I just imagine that

0:39 developing and finding new material is kind of like a treasure hunting. And it's good. Like we just got a treasure. So from all that, and it's always good to develop these like the material and

0:53 just sell our material and to make it to like new applications in like that. advanced package industry. Like currently, it's a very important semiconductor part 'cause the GPU and AI are emerging.

1:10 And so everything is very important about the advanced package. And fortunately, and we have like this chance to apply our own labs material and to like the least new like era of the AI. So I'll

1:27 add something We're all material scientists and PhD student from Rice University. And we work on the heat management of chips, especially the semiconductor areas for AI computing here. As we know

1:40 that AI has become in a very sexy topic. And at the same time, the energy and greenhouse gas emissions are a huge concern. And we're at the time we're supposed to give some revolution for the

1:55 industry to change their materials.

1:58 We call them packaging materials, which is all the touchable area of the semiconductors chips here. You can feel it. And that part of the material hasn't really changed for the past 60 years. And

2:07 it has very low thermal conductivities and very poor protections. And for the future application of immersion cooling, like advanced cooling technology, this material is too old for that and it's

2:17 not designed to be suitable for those kind of application here. So what we are doing is we're trying to figure out the next generation of packaging materials We have the technology and we have the

2:27 technique to make this material into the final products, which can be directly adopted by the industry customers here. And then just like bringing this down to Earth, I got this poem with my laptop

2:38 and there's a point where, and we keep our house warm, like I like it at 29 degrees, which I think is crazy for most people. But what happens is my computer does not like it that warm. And at

2:48 some point it just slows down and just gets really hot in my lap. And then I realize have I to put it to sleep for for like 10 minutes to get going again. And it's that heat management problem.

2:57 like literally the computer slows down when it's too hot. And that's obviously not good if you're trying to do very computationally intensive things. And they're doing that to protect the chip. I

3:07 think everyone has an Apple phone. You kind of experience the same thing. It throttles and slows down when the battery gets older or when it starts to overheat. When I'm driving my phone constantly

3:17 reminds me that it doesn't like to have like Android mode on or Android Auto on because it started to overheat. So this is a very practical real problem for us as any consumers, but you can only

3:28 imagine it's much more impactful for the enterprise customer who has to really think about heat when they're running these things 247. Yes, that's a very good point, actually. So heat is the most

3:39 common form of waste. So for all kinds of application, you'll generate heat in some way of that. Like the iPhone here, especially when we're living in Texas here, time just crazy. Every time I

3:50 put it on my - Exactly. I was driving here and put it on my car like front show And it says, oh, you have the - the cell phone has to be shut down for a while because it's over heated, that's a

4:00 huge problem. And this actually caused a financial issue for the industry too. So several years ago for Samsung and Apple, not for Apple, for iPhone here, especially for iPhones as well, that's

4:13 the generation. So Samsung and TSMC, they are the main manufacturer for the chips here, the iPhone chips. But however, Samsung has a little bit poor heat management design of their chips, which

4:26 result if 40 degrees Celsius lower temperature is actually a lot, because our human temperature is like 37ish, so far you can feel the difference here. And then customers are not happy with it.

4:37 And this 40 degree actually gives an extra 100 minutes battery life for those chips manufactured by TSMC. And ever since that Samsung pretty much lost all of their iPhone orders and TSMC get the

4:50 monopolized for this game here to get. So heat management is a huge issue and is everywhere in

4:56 And I would say like the thermal issue is more and more important in the AI chips because currently like the for the future AI chips, you need to stack the chips one layer by one layer. So the

5:10 hotspot just accumulation, and there is no way to just dissipate the heat with the currently designed. So it's a time to change to new material

5:23 So let's yeah, get into the material science of this then. You know, what are the prevalent materials that are used today? You know, you spoke about thermal conductivity and you also meant

5:34 they're, you said something about like other protective properties. Like talk about what materials used today and what new revolutionary material you have that's going to be better. That's a very

5:44 wonderful question. So right now, the 60 year old fashioned things are mainly they call EMC epoxy molding compound here. So they have polymer binders and also also kind of ceramic feeders here. In

5:58 general is aluminum oxide and silica. So we can think of as, silica is like SiO2 is the sand. So it's like sand and glue. And those are not famous for thermal conductivity, right? Imagine you're

6:11 standing on the Florida beach here. Would you feel for the beach here? So to bring this back, so like if anyone's ever opened up like an electrical widget, there's like plastic or a goo that kind

6:21 of covers everything else, right? And it's solid, right? Is that what we're talking about as the filler? That's like the, when you have a chip, you'll see the black part. Oh, the black part,

6:29 so that's actually the black part. Like if you think of it like your iconic, like A-Sick chip, it's really the cover. So it's different from the other kind of chill, but we still call it a filler.

6:37 Yeah, yeah. Okay. So it's like a covering, it covers the chip, right? You can think of it as a protection of the chip. Everything covers all the design and the value part inside. That's cool.

6:47 Yeah, and it needs to be electrically insulating so that you don't short it out, but generally things that are electrically insulating are also thermally insulating. That's a very good one. So we

6:57 know good thermal conductivity is more normally metal, right? Copper, gold. But if you use those kind of things in the packaging here, they might have leakage issue. So they might short the

7:07 circuit too. It's very, it will be a huge disaster for the chips here. So it's kind of hard to find a material which is thermally conductive, but at the same time, it's also electrically

7:18 insulated. So it won't conduct the current here. And they also demonstrate very high mechanical performance to work as a protection here. As Michael Fonder mentioned that, as we stack layer of

7:31 layer transistors on top of it, the outer part needs to support the whole structures. So the mechanical property has to be strong enough to. Yeah, and this way you can't literally just throw like

7:40 a thermal paste on everything. So the paste itself doesn't provide structure. Yeah, so that's the main properties of the materials here. So how to find material with this kind of like unique

7:51 features here and our material, It's not a brand new material, it's not a bar and I tried. But the issue is that there are so many, we call them low-handing fruit here. Material has been

8:02 developed for a while, but it's never been fully utilized for the industry here. What we are doing is we try to make this lab space material and technology fully applied to the industry and make

8:14 them to some real impact here. Good, and tell us about the, I guess, the development or discovery process Like you said, this is not a new chemical necessarily, but it's the formulation, right?

8:27 So tell us about it. Yeah, like the, I would just add a, we're a background. Like, you know, first, try. We are now applying to the semiconductor problem. We just apply to HVAC. Yeah, this

8:39 is our startup experience here. Okay, good. We know that the good story is like, you figure out the problem of the, or figure out the problem and then find a solution. But for PhD, especially

8:51 like us, We pretty much have our own. uses like a project here too. We thought we were solving the problem, but scientifically, we're working on the solution, but we don't really study about the

9:02 market here. So we don't know if this is a real problem. So we actually joined the iCorps by NSF, which helped us, we conduct over 150, now it's like 200 already, customer interviews. So we

9:14 talk with, our first, our original market is actually HVAC. So thermally conductive and also anti-corrosion, good production, can be applied as protective coating for the HVAC too. That's how

9:28 our original IKEA. Interesting, interesting, okay. Yes, so it's literally for heat exchangers. Yes, that's the original part. We actually talk with a lot of big firms and friends and also very

9:40 individual customer. I asked my friends who have a AC, how's it going there? How often do you change your AC things? How often do you maintain it? I even check with the rice So the manager here,

9:52 they mentioned that. In tennis is required, like for the rice one is, they do that at four times a year, but what they change is not about the corrosion part, what they care is the rubber, like

10:03 the very small component that easily to be worn out here. So corrosion is not as huge problem as we expected before, especially for the HVAC part, the AC part. And for those individual air

10:18 conditioning and the maintenance evens lower, the frequency is even lower So I'm gonna cover it with that one. Oh yeah, I don't even change my air filter. You don't see the problem too, right?

10:29 Probably it give you a little bit extra, you pay a little bit higher for the electricity available, but you don't really care about that. Okay, so I'm gonna upset a lot of people. I paid6 for

10:37 electricity last week. Like it's just not worth my time. So I'm gonna worry about this problem 'cause we used to - You keep it really hot. You keep it really hot. It's

10:47 the solution. It's 29 dollars of degree. Yeah Anyhow, so you. So part of this is you ended up in the market because you did the iCorps program. And for those who don't know iCorps is probably one

10:59 of the best programs for people transitioning out of academia to understand how to get into in front of customers, but it's just good for startups. I believe it's anyone who's done an SBIR or STTR

11:10 is also eligible. It's different. Oh, it's different? You have to have iCorps first. You have to have iCorps first now. And iCorps came out when I was just starting like 10 years ago, so the

11:19 rules have changed Or rather, I think they figured out where it's valuable is changed. And so it's a fantastic program, I would say, for anyone who's trying to figure out if they should be an

11:29 entrepreneur because you can learn it. I think that's the moral of the story, right? They give you money. How much money do they give you? They give you a 50K. Oh, fucking hell yeah. I mean,

11:37 it's nothing but like, it's - For the very early stage, just feel something. It's something when you're not making any of this. And it's always good for free money for travel and business travel,

11:46 ooh, it's good.

11:49 and I make connection. around

11:56 the whole US, so it's fantastic and exactly. So we have that chance to fly to New York, fly to Orlando and like a San Fran. Yeah, so, and also like to dig out our market. And so after the HVAC,

12:10 and we just, maybe it's not a good, like a market target. And we just thought, think about like other applications

12:20 And then Tienxu just make a connection 'cause he has lots of friends in California like working, they come very excited. They call that everything. Yeah, coding and something like

12:33 that. And Tienxu said, maybe we can turn to like the semiconductor, like data center, heat, thermal management. And then I just, ooh, I have the experience.

12:46 So why do you think it wasn't obvious to you that that was the first place to go. Like the data shows that people will always want to start companies and markets they're already familiar with yeah So

12:56 I'm curious what you know what brought it back for you Back to the yeah, like why didn't you why didn't you why didn't you go there first personally? Uh first it to do the silicon and the chicken.

13:07 Yeah, um I would like to say like because I'm familiar with the the the whole like semiconductor in sauce tree like a because Typically people working like a TSMC and I also worked before like a few

13:24 years ago Also working TSMC, but it's for like from and if you Just deep go into semiconductor industry. There is a front end and back back end front ends kind of a TSMC and the product is kind of a

13:40 12 inch wafer like a pizza and but the back end part is for like the sliding and into small pieces and advance the package. that is a backend and fortunately I have the like the least two kind of the

13:57 experience also so like the whole including from and back and I have the whole experiences so I mean I'm familiar with the whole like semiconducting industry and I know kind of the oh advanced

14:14 packaging is sexy topic and our material can is unique and it's boom like yeah yeah so let's apply into kind of a industry semiconductor to help them to develop new like material. I'll save him here

14:31 a little bit. That's fine. That's how the teamwork here so because I mentioned we have the project first and it was the original target is for HVAC here that's what we're so that's why we start with

14:42 HVAC. But I core told us because the market doesn't really need this kind of things and this as serious as we expect and the way we go all the way to a change from HVAC to semiconductor because of a

14:57 laptop here. My laptop is making huge noise at that time and then I check with my co-founder and also other people with like especially people use computer a lot like computer science like people I

15:11 asked me like oh when how often do you feel your computer overload like heat it here and the mention if you open a lot of tabs then you have the issue yes and then we found that

15:24 and then I check because at that time it's right when chat GPT actually come up here it's getting really high and I'm like okay cool how about like chat GPT and AI here and the mention for AI is going

15:33 to be another more serious problem because even your laptop they cannot afford a lot of like work there yeah yeah for those I job it's actually finished by the data center like a different at the very

15:45 end part here and I then I thought check with my co-founder, you actually working in semiconductor before, and how's the packaging material? You understand about that part? The issue working in

15:55 the huge firm here is that they train you to work onto something very specific. So you're only familiar with the part you, they assign you to do it. But he has a background. So we have the sources

16:09 to dig into this area. We found, oh, heat management is an issue. And material size, we understand what that material, what kind of material they're using right now. And we know what's the

16:18 advantage for our material benchmarking with them. Yeah. I was like, okay, that could be a potential market here. Then we join all

16:27 the semiconductor conference all over the US here, a big five, already attended already. Yeah. Yeah. So talk with different people and check if it is a huge issue. And do some background and

16:39 survey and work here, we found that that's how we actually finally find the market here. Good. And I think this is a good underscoring of like a hardware is like you're kind of stuck with the

16:49 physics you understand, but the world is so large in terms of places you can solve problems that it's not necessarily the market you first think of, but you got to do the research, you got to go

16:59 out and you will find the place where you can create the biggest value. And I think people describe it as a pivot in hardware, but the technology is the same. You're just figuring out where you can

17:06 make the most money and it's good to figure it out the front end. Very different from software. We're in software. Usually people see a business challenge or a market challenge and then they figure

17:16 out what technology they need to bring in later.

17:21 Not everyone operates that way.

17:24 I think that's why it's important to do things like I quote early and figure out your customer early because you're going to invest so much in building the stuff, the supply chain and things like

17:32 that around your product. You'll be too far along the wrong path for you to really do a pivot later, so to speak. It is so important to really take that time at the first stage where you think you

17:43 have an idea. Do the thing. Talk to 200 people. And I'm sure like, now that you have the experience in knowing how to interview people, the next time you do this, the next time you explore

17:52 market, you're gonna realize, oh, I can do this with 10 interviews or 15 interviews. 'Cause now you'll know when things line up and what questions is it. Is that your experience? Yes, like,

18:03 the first time they push you to do the 200, 'cause none of us have any business background, we're all PhD students. Yeah. They push us out of our comfort zone, so you don't feel shy, and you

18:13 know the basic tricks to talk people like cold call email, things like this. And after that, you will see like, oh, maybe those people are our rock stars, and we can spend more attention, pay

18:25 more attention on specific people. We know which kind of customer interview is more valuable to us. And every time we had a, one thing I learned from my core is that first, a two thing actually,

18:35 right on everything, keep everything locked. And the other thing is like, bring a problem. Have your problem first, and then have your customer interviews. Don't like ask for random things,

18:47 is less effective, less efficient. They need something to react to, almost, right? Yes, yeah, good. So in that case, what was your problem? Like what were you going and telling these

18:59 customers? Oh, when we had these interviews, yeah. Yes, so that's one of the tricks we learned there too. So first of

19:08 all, people are in general willing to talk about themselves here. So what we do is like, oh, what's your job? And we're interested in your like daily work here, work live here. And then I'll

19:23 ask them like, what's your top three problems, you encounter during your work here? And now I'll see if my problem can actually fit in here 'cause my cue was easy, semiconductors and heat

19:34 management, right? Those are the two things. If they have something cool, then we all have a huge conversation that I feel, if they don't out kindly brought like, oh, have you, what about the

19:44 heat management issue? have your company has this issue here or have any RD spend on this part. And for the problem part, in general, one is for the heat management and then we can break down into

19:57 different things. For example, I think Jason, see my ecosystem, the huge map or something like that too. We don't know that before. The value chain for semiconductor is very complex and ultra

20:10 finely segmented and we don't know any of them. So we have to click all the puzzles here, talk with suppliers and talk with the, oh, then from the conversation and the proposition, oh, we have

20:20 the regulation tools and the design house. And with all the information, we can finally figure out, what's our role here? What's our value propositions and the whole ecosystem for the

20:30 semiconductor community here? And what's kind of maybe unintuitive for people who haven't done this is like in some ways, there's only so many people who know this information. It's gonna be

20:38 consultants, it's gonna be you guys. And it takes work to go build that map, but it's not impossible.

20:46 When we reflect back, I'm like, what does this mean for the energy transition in other people in our ecosystem who want to make that leap? Some of it's just like, you got to get out and do the

20:53 grind, you got to call people, and then you build your own map. And some of it is untrodden. Like maybe no one has had to do it. The Silicon industry itself has a lot of consultants looking at it,

21:03 so there's probably maps you can tap into, but especially in these markets, like there is value and kind of putting it together for yourself and figuring out where you want to put things. But you

21:12 did this while you're earning a PhD, while winning a competition So if you guys can do it, other people can do the work, 'cause it's kind of what I'm trying to get at. We have zero background of

21:21 business. Every entrepreneur, if we can do that, you guys can do that.

21:25 So tell us about that journey then, going from my core, doing these 200 interviews and figuring out exactly the details of like what market you're gonna address. Then how did you go about in

21:36 building a prototype and building that solution? Yes, so one thing, Jason. Sorry, I'm just so big here, I didn't even skip brush my hair. Yeah, so we're a material scientist and we have the

21:51 materials expertise and we know, we're pretty, we pretty much everything about our materials and for the final product is just a form of different formation of that one here. We have our lab lab

22:05 scale prototyping for the HVAC before is like coding things and then when we know for the packaging, we just dig into the technology wise What kind of machine the industry are using for that is like

22:15 molding. So for us, even though we don't have the specific facility and the machines here to make the lab scale, but we know what mechanism they share the same, we can start with the lab scale

22:25 here. Prototyping, to be honest, is not a huge issue for us because that's what we're being trained for the past five years. For the VHD, know the material, know the problem, know the qualities

22:37 and performance they want to evaluate, and we can design the prototyping here. Yeah, so I would thank Rice and my PI for this part. They have a huge support.

22:48 Even the iron center, they give us a space for that one. Yeah, and with the extra money, we got to purchase our own for the typing tools here. Good, good, yeah. And I think that's being a

22:59 classic entrepreneur, getting other resources from other people. What do they call it, other people's money? Good. And I'm

23:07 just looking at the clock here Well, actually, Chantu, you were in California last week, fundraising, right? So tell us

23:15 about what that journey is like

23:19 and what it means to be fundraising out of Houston. Yes. Oh, in Houston? Okay. And the reason is there's a reason why you're flying elsewhere. Yes. Tell us about it. So I

23:30 love Houston, but I think for the investor and the VC part, still New York and California, they are more mature compared with Houston. That's the good part. That's why we all choose to stay in

23:44 Houston too. Yeah.

23:47 But getting some VC from California can actually give us some networking with the local park 'cause the design house was still there, okay? And those are our, those are the key players. And if you

23:59 wanna change the materials, there's no way you can skip the design house, like Intel, NVIDIA, they make decisions here So VCs here, they have more channel, working with the local design house

24:14 here. That's why we decide to figure out the potential opportunities there. We talked with several VCs and, 'cause we tried to erase next year.

24:25 Now is like very early stage talking, but we also brought our problem when we are talking here. A lot of them, they care about non-dilute funding too. That's one thing we're working on right now,

24:35 which makes sense It's more like, uh, uh,

24:40 confirmation from the government here, right? Means your technology is solid enough. And after that, I will see the difference. I think for the Bay Area VC, they're more open-minded, as I said,

24:55 I'm not sure if I'm using the correct word here. They have a lot of experience working with HeartTech and they're more familiar

25:12 with the HeartTech incubation here. It takes time here. It's not like other small business You can have fast investment and you can take some money back here. Especially for semiconductor, it

25:13 takes a little bit time. And they also have the channel here for us to benefit. Because what we value most is the piloting test. With that one, we can have a conversation with Intel and NVIDIA.

25:25 That's a key thing we're going to have

25:28 to have our final dream customer here getting the work. For Silicon Valley, the semiconductor industry is very mature and

25:36 the whole ecosystem there like a but I would just. say, we are a big fan of the Houston. And also it's like a thanks for like the opportunities. Thanks for Nexus. And like everything is good for

25:53 here. And also we feel like the Houston is our home. And we plan to just like set our headquarters here and start here. And like we already built a lot of connections. And then working here. And

26:07 also we have like the lots of the resources to support us. And also like the thanks again for rising and Dr. Lowe and help us a lot. So Houston is the first priority. I would say it's a better

26:20 choice for us to set a headquarters. Although Houston do not have like the lots of the semiconductor chain, but it's still perfect for us to develop here. We don't see Houston as Houston itself.

26:34 When we see Houston, we consider Austin and Dallas together.

26:41 So Austin already have a lot of foundry, they're building up. It's a good platform for us. And for us, Cheyenne mentioned, for Semicontakar, they have front end and back end. Front end is like

26:51 the design part. And we're more like a back end, so the packaging part. And back end is not really in California, mainly Arizona and Austin. Oh yeah, they're

27:03 dumping money there. Yeah. So for a half quarter part, we're a program from Rice And in the future, we still need some collaborations. That's why we decided to base in Houston. And that's how

27:13 all the resources and networking we're having so far.

27:18 And for a startup focused on the back end, there's no need to move in California. It's not smart. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure like the Silicon Valley, because they used to make Silicon back

27:30 down there. They saw the design houses, so you'll obviously be traveling there a lot. I'm curious, do you interact with like the old TI community here? community here. O-T-I, can you? Texas

27:39 Instruments, so they used to make all these, like, you know, they were such a, the reason Austin has a lot of technologies 'cause T-I grew up and built things there. And I don't know about you

27:49 guys, but my calculator. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's always the first reason we know about T-I-84. Yeah, yeah. That's why we use here. Yeah, I think right now they're not very competitive for

28:00 packaging right now. Yeah, but I mean, he's still like a very great company and maybe in a future is our custom. Yeah, we had a talk with one of their VC with the on packaging part. It's just,

28:18 'cause for startup, you have to have a B-chat market. And for us, we need to figure out, we know it's CHIP, but which specific kind of chips you wanna apply your material on. So talking about

28:28 that then is, we think it's a need-based issue here I think the chips, yeah, in charge of the packaging part is not that, highly like workload is sensitive, which means it doesn't generate that

28:42 much heat. For the AI one, still, like TI, I don't think has a capability to, yeah. Yeah, they have a different niche. I mean, the calculator never gets hot. Yes, like they, you know, the

28:55 workload is different. That is true. You don't have AI inside for the calculator. Maybe in the next generation, they have some RD probably. We'll see.

29:03 So you've been part of many competitions recently You're at the Rice Business Plan competition, the Rice Elu Lab, and probably others, right? So tell us about that journey of like what you've

29:15 learned and how having that kind of prepares you to like, you know, go out there and pitch for VCs and what it's really like to be a startup is mostly you're just pitching all the time. Yes,

29:28 that's one of the reasons I really enjoy the Houston community here

29:34 I was he four months? No, now's like. three months ago, we know there's nothing above startup here. I was lucky I got elected by the Lilly Innovation Fellow cohort this year. And what they do is

29:48 they train us how to be an entrepreneur and how to have a really fine-tute peach deck here. No, not one. You have to have multiple at the end. We learn pretty much alone everything from there.

30:01 Well, we think that we really enjoy this three month competition, it's very busy, I put on 10 pounds.

30:09 It is, you know. I'm stress eater. Yeah. And, but this three months, first of all, is it pushed me to have a better understanding of my startup, what's the business model and what's the

30:19 financial projections, what kind of problem, what's the final products you want to do and who's your customers. I pushed myself to do that. Previously, we have the iCore last year, but we only

30:28 have the puzzle here again. This whole competition pushed us to collect everything and make them into a good story And the other takeout is collaboration with T. We have three co-founders. One is

30:39 based in Bay Area, and that's why we were there too. We meet regularly in person to work on the prototyping and some more discussion, further discussion here. He's very smart, a CTO guy,

30:52 anti-social.

30:55 We have team dynamics here, but it's cool. We're very supportive during the competition. My CTO flew all the way to Houston from Bay Area and stay here for several days

31:06 Grief on, and I think there's a one example. We got first place for the RBPC qualifier, but for the big competition, we think we did a good job, but we didn't really get into the second round.

31:21 It's typical. Investors probably think different way than entrepreneur CEO think here. It's always good for us to have a chance to put ourselves in their shoes too. That's a very good experience we

31:32 take here. And I think my co-founder see the little bit like disappointing on my face here. And they was like, Okay, we still have chance. They have a revive, revive me. A wild card around here.

31:43 We still got chance here. And it was like staying all night up, work on the deck here. They just try out a lot to help me finish everything and have feedback for all the comments from the judges

31:56 here. The whole, even though we didn't go that far, but the whole experience and working with the teammates here is very rewarding And I'll see it's very full of joy, yeah. And it's also very

32:12 good, although the RBPC in the final, we didn't got a big prize in the RBPC's final, but it's always good for us to revise our deck, and also prepare for the conscience, and QAs, and work. And

32:28 it's really helpful for us to get an IOC And

32:33 it works. Yeah, we got the first place and. We feel like the lots of things and also put our shoes on like the VCs part and what is their caring about and what we can just how do we just definitely

32:49 answer the right question and like help the VC to figure out what we did. And what kind of our plan and business model and everything. Yeah, so it's always a very great chance to pitch We're all

33:04 learning. That's a really joyful part. It helps you refine your story, right? Because at the end of the day, that's what you're saying is your story. And I think that's like it's hard because on

33:15 the one hand it's sort of like it feels like a popularity contest when you get up there and it's like I got seven minutes to impress people

33:22 and it's so hard to justify or to explain the whole breadth of the business you're going to build And a lot of people will vote with their intuition of a market or intuition of a dynamic because

33:32 they're never going to become the experts you are. But on the other hand, it's a really good indicator because you do need to be able to do the storytelling. You need to get up there and pull

33:41 people with you. And so it's one of those things where it's like, you love it and you hate it a little bit in terms of what it represents. But it's important to get up there and practice. Just

33:52 like phone calling to call customers. You have to get up there and practice pitching constantly.

33:58 And it's not really about winning, right? Because it's really about getting - You need to get the cash Just good, but you still get to be in front of so many people, right? You get that feedback.

34:10 Like, I remember it when you guys presented, and even if it wasn't in the finals, you know, it was in the smaller room, we got to ask you questions. And, you know, we remember that, and

34:19 there's so many people who got to interact with you from there. I think the reason we did a pretty good job, this is our first trial, so we're very happy with the results here so far. 'Cause we

34:30 don't have any expectations Before I join the competition here. I know I'm a little bit procrastinator. That's really bad for entrepreneur. But I'm improving. I like that one. It's also a way to

34:43 improve yourself here to the entrepreneur roadmap here. The reason why I started the competition is that I tried to have my very first version of Peach Deck first, but then we got lucky or - because

34:55 this AI is a huge issue, everybody knows that. And we have the technology. So we somehow get a lot of - we make into the final round or something. I was like, oh, gosh, it's getting real And we

35:04 were representing Rice. Then you feel the burden and the responsibility is here. So oh, wow, that month is crazy. We're working every day on the pitch stack pretty much. And it's totally

35:15 different. We know some judges who actually see our call of fire before also ends up in the final round. They mentioned like, oh, your deck is totally different. I couldn't imagine you have still

35:25 have so much improvement in the short time here. And the good things, we learn so much within that month. I never expect that before Yeah, yeah.

35:35 No, I think the data shows that accelerators that are intense, like back-to-back-back, you get a lot more improvement in kind of the storytelling than things that are spread out over a long time,

35:44 and that's your experience. Good. Well, when we think

35:49 about, so you're talking a little bit about Houston, you're gonna be here in Houston. Yeah. You guys are still students though, right? Like, what are you actually like graduating? What's it

35:59 like being, 'cause to be honest, like there's not a lot of Houston students who decide to do the startup. I think we talked about Rwanda a little earlier, who did that. You're kind of a rarity in

36:11 the Houston ecosystem. Yes. But it's changing. So tell us about what that's like. Yeah, that's the key word, it's changing. There's a reason why there are many student entrepreneurs in Houston

36:22 before, I think both environment and resources way.

36:27 It's, we're lucky. Right now, both Rice and Houston, They're trying so much, spending a lot of efforts to - foster the entrepreneur environment here. I'm graduating by the end of this December

36:38 and after that, I'll be working full time for the company here. Chinyou still have one and one and a half year, but this is also part of his defense here. So he will have a lot of energy spent on

36:49 this part. And one thing about PhD is, if you're in a

36:54 very supported PI's group, your schedule is kind of flexible. So you can make your own schedule here Chingo will have a lot of energy spent on the company too. That's the next year or a plan here.

37:09 For Rice,

37:11 it was not famous for startup before. We know the big one is like, since the G is our big brother, everyone, and it's growing really fast. And also, Dex Mac, the CNTM2 group too. So other than

37:25 that, there isn't that much, or others like biomedical area too, 'cause it's next to TMC, that's the reason Many reason is the. the harness to work with the LTT. Okay. Yeah, the tech transfer

37:36 issue. The tech transfer office here. They're doing their job. It just, I think at that time, their major priority is not to promote a startup from university, but now they're changing. They

37:49 actually have replaced all the people who were working in that office before. And with another group of people who is more experienced in the startup and tech transfer part, we got some good deals

38:01 to transfer our patent out. That's the one thing you have to have for a startup company, starting initiating from this university. You have to transfer your patent out first. And that's something

38:14 we need to finish before our fundraising too. So that's the top priority we're doing right now. And also we just look for, like we also hear some like the very good opportunities like the activate

38:27 Yeah, and is typically is just only three size. like the New York and Bay Area Boston. And there's a Zoom one thing, right? Yeah, anywhere, yeah, anywhere. And like the list is first

38:42 activated in Houston. So, will money is important? And so, we are planning to apply like this founding and we know that it is kind of like the chance and also kind of the opening. Like if

38:58 activate the list and successful and I believe further like the organizations or other foundations will just continue to invest more money in Houston. And like the Texas is kind of a sky rock, like

39:14 a flying, like a rock star. Rock star. So, I feel

39:23 like it's good. Like to have these chances here. And yeah You know, I think for Hacksus back and also Texas. The thing we share in common is that we're all growing really fast, that's the key

39:35 thing. I can tell from the past year I can view the difference, especially for entrepreneur here. There are so much resources

39:46 getting dumped into the entrepreneur area and now we're lucky we have the access to those one and it's really helpful. And it's really to like, yeah, the credit rise similarly with Kyle and Brad

39:57 now with

40:00 the alliance like that this is years of work in the making but now regularly we're getting good quality startups coming through the programs in a way that just didn't exist four or five years ago.

40:10 And so as much as like I think we're doing our part, Houston, you know, the academic organizations need to produce kind of companies because you guys have real like real deep technology in a way.

40:23 So I'm glad. I'm glad we're here to be along for the ride to be honest. We see you guys Well, we're glad you're there with us here Yeah Yeah. I think one thing I learned most from the ETN here is

40:36 that the entrepreneur community is very important. Entrepreneur helps entrepreneur. What I've been doing, 'cause I'm PhD, I don't have any background in this area, for the peaching part, I'm

40:48 learning from all my

40:50 entrepreneur fellows. A lot of them they didn't make it to the final startup. They have experience to share it with us here. What's the part you need to pay more attention, avoid that That's how

41:01 honestly, like for the peach competition, they're the huge reason we can make so far here. They pretty much help us for initial the peach deck and share, oh, that's the part you need to improve.

41:12 We've been peaching in front of them for so many times here, need to go along, very good friends. And right now, for us, we're stepping to a next stage. So like out of university, it's a

41:25 different story. That's pretty much I can help you so far from now. We need to figure out someone else to help you here. 'Cause I don't have experience for that part. And that's the community,

41:34 why community is very important here. We're also learning from others here. Yeah, good. That's really good to hear because I know that's been Jason's vision and he's always talking about that with

41:46 the energy tech nexus. Yes. Is you know, in places like Silicon Valley, you have the Y Combinator, you have all these other communities and Houston needs more of those 'Cause we're a bigger city

41:57 and we're growing, like he said, just like hexa-fly. Yeah. So, yeah. So, because you're students, I assume you guys don't leave campus that much. So usually we ask, like, what are the

42:06 hidden gems? But I'm gonna ask you, what's a hidden gem of Rice Village? I hope you guys have been over there. The gem is like, I mean - Like something that's like it's - Something you like in

42:15 Rice Village that you go to - Oh, actually, we travel a lot. Oh, you do. Where do you go to? So in Houston, that's one thing. I used to stay in Chicago area.

42:29 but like, it's called Champagne. I'm a university here. It's boring and I never need to drive for my past five years, my first five years in US. here. I moved to Houston in 2018. And I got my

42:39 car right after first year. I really need a car. I was in my life so hard. Houston is too spread out. That's one thing we like about Houston. A lot of people complain that Houston is boring and I

42:51 don't know how to explore the city. But to be honest, I think there are tons of good food, especially Asian food here. Very good. Do you have a good recommendation? We want a Chinese and then we

42:59 want a Taiwan. We have so many. I

43:03 don't know

43:05 what to do with this. Yeah, it's about, yeah, it's about your question. What do you like to go for Chinese food here? Oh, Chinese food here? It depends 'cause Chinese is a huge place. We have

43:12 so many different categories. And for dim sum, like Cantonese one, I normally go to often's kitchen and also ocean palace. Those are the two place I can go. If you want some really authentic,

43:25 Part of Cantonese, not the real Cantonese part. We call it the Ciao Shen's. It's called a few. Jio-fue. Jio-fue. Jio-fue. Jio-fue. It's next to Hmart here. We just hand out their last video.

43:37 In Haiti? No, no, no, no. Hmart. In where is it? In Chinatown and by Valair. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, 'cause there's an Hmart in Haiti. Not the fake one. Haiti has a lot of huge place too. A

43:48 lot of Boba, good Boba tea is actually in Haiti. Mm-hmm. So don't blame the city 'cause if you spend a lot of effort, time to explore the city, there are tons of parts. Good bar area too, good

44:00 food, and the living is pretty reasonable here. That's why we actually enjoy the life here. The only complaints to weather, but I've been to some really cold place before. I know I cannot stand

44:10 that.

44:12 It's a reason that actually turns me all the way to south here. Yeah, I can handle heat better, yeah. So I do wanna know what the best Boba place is. If you have an opinion. Obviously like it

44:23 depends on flavor too. Yeah, you like really strong tea flavor. I suggested to go to tea top I go to the top. Yeah, I got I got green just me a jasmine tea with the milk form No, shoot no no ice

44:36 Sugar, that's my thing Tea top is good. I just say um tianci is is good like the Guide to subject to what and also tea top is laid around the business in Taiwan. So it's really I know Yeah,

44:52 and for like the restroom Like tainan bistu and we also have tainan is okay. Yeah, part of the in Taiwan and Yeah, that is authentic and also kind of dao xiang. Oh, that's all right Tain rice

45:07 roll. Yeah, it was for breakfast. Yeah, that is also authentic. I would say and like back to Houston and Uh, I just earned like the massive degree in 2018. That is a year cancerous year. So we

45:22 didn't matter each other at the time. And after that, I back to Taiwan and work, starting work, including TSMC and like the PTI. And when I back to Taiwan, I, whoa, I'm so miss the Texas

45:37 barbecue. And I really miss the, the Houston, like the everything. I would say Houston is kind of like second home. Yeah, yeah, I miss so much. And, and that time, I apply back to PhD and

45:52 thanks doctor to pick up and I back here and like the, someone just say, oh, you just leave your comfort room. And I feel like I back to Houston kind of back to comfort.

46:06 So, so it's always like the great and

46:11 I love Houston's a lot. Like the here is good and also Asian 30s. Amazing. like the amount that whole US. Yeah. My co-founder is a huge meat lover. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And now you guys are

46:24 great promoters of Houston. We need to bring you on more. So does that mean you like Korean pugogi? Oh, pugogi. Yeah. There's a good one. If you want a good Korean food, go to

46:35 Sogondo. They should give me fries for that. Oh, I'm commercial. Promoting. They had promoted here. I think we need to have a list that goes with this podcast. I know, yeah, with you. On the

46:44 great recommendations, yeah. Actually on the way, we didn't expect it so far here. So I know it's somewhere around IKEA, but it's like a little bit further than that one. And I was like, okay,

46:55 so maybe we can go to Sogano for three and a long time. We're here already, right? Okay, let's get the food here. Good. Good. I'm glad that. So those are the hidden gems. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

47:06 there are many. There are many. Don't, don't, don't restore it in Rison Village. Yeah, there are more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's life outside. Yes. I think that's the moral of the story.

47:14 Yeah, I think for you, if you want to love Houston, or more, like there are so many par for you.

47:21 When you think about the ecosystem, have there been any gaps you've come across, like either within RICE or within the broader district where there just wasn't a resource you were looking for?

47:34 Are there any gaps in like the innovation support networks, like resources that you wish you had? Oh, yeah. So as I mentioned, the key thing is we're looking for a packaging company have the

47:49 capability to manufacture real chips here. That one, I think Houston have one don't we, so far. That's why we're also reaching out to find the resources because that's a key milestone we're going

48:01 to finish before that one. It's kind of a missed opportunity because like Biden and the administration said like chip manufacturing is a strategic importance for the US. and you know we don't have

48:11 the talent here but it wasn't necessarily I don't think there's any discussion about even bringing that kind of manufacturing to Texas even. Yes. Talking about the CHIPs Act here, we know that the

48:22 university and industry, they're getting some, for the first round, they already get their money already. So unfortunately, Houston doesn't get that much for the first round. UT and Texas AM

48:33 they, got a lot of money for the front and design here. And for the cooling part, UT Ardenton has

48:41 a lot. But they actually work on the active cooling, so the very large-scale water cooling things. What they do is design like more efficient 3D-printed

48:51 data center racks here. That's how you put the GPU here. So different scale. We're working on the chip scale. They're working on the GPU scale here. And what we're trying to do is, when we also

49:02 join a lot of conference for the past few years, and we're also promoting our Houston and rise to them, we think we have the capability to join this part, especially for the material size. That's

49:13 why Rice is famous, 'cause we have

49:16 the Nobel Prize winner with a full array of things. That's the pretty much the start of nano-material synthesis. That's the reputation we have here. And even before I came to US for school, I know

49:29 full, I don't know Rice, I know full array in our writing. It's the first lecture for the chemistry. Like, you wanna know the the the the Bucky Bowl things? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

49:38 Yeah. Is there any way that our audience can help you? Do you have an ask as you're chatting on to your company? Yes, we have our website, I'm linking here. We update regularly every week to

49:53 gain some attractions. So feel free to follow us. And if you have any questions or you're interested in the semiconductor area, heat management, feel free to shoot us a question here and there.

50:06 We're really willing to help. Right now, we're still very early stage So.

50:11 we're still gaining attention to here. And one thing about this podcast is, I think Nada and Jason mentioned that it's a good chance to let the audience know about ourselves here. What we've been

50:24 doing for the past few months, we're talking about the hack suspect. And here, we're talking about ourselves here. We have the food, our little kids. I think it's a very good chance to show our

50:34 personality. Yeah. Thanks so much Like the also Nexus is like the great opportunity and thanks for like operation and just founding this platform. And it's a great opportunity for us to exposure

50:51 here. And definitely we believe and we expect to have more chances to end up with other members and also in excess other activities. Yeah, thanks. We're grown together too. Yeah, we are. Good,

51:07 I'm glad to have you here. Yep, thank you. Yeah, thank you for coming on. Yeah, thanks for the invitation.