Breakfast series wraps up with focus on local tech

Technology touches every facet of society, publicly and privately.

And while developing and sustaining a startup tech company can entail an array of challenges, the possibilities are wide and endless for those with the desire, the resources and knowhow, even in the Gem State.

“We’ve been told countless times you can’t build a chip company in Idaho,” Paul Dlugosch, founder of locally based Natural Intelligence Systems (NIS) said. “Don’t tell us we can’t.”

Such strong sentiment was the prevailing attitude shared by a group of local technology experts who took part in the recent Homegrown Technology breakfast panel and discussion sponsored by Idaho Business Review Oct. 8 at the Grove Hotel in downtown Boise.

Along with Dlugosch, the panel included: Aaron Brinton, chief strategy officer at Ventive, a local entity that uses digital tools to help enhance business efficiency and drive growth; Jason Stolworthy, director of technology deployment for Idaho National Laboratory (INL); and Shelley Bennett, chief operating officer of SWEAR, another local outfit whose primary mission is to protect the authenticity of digital media.

Stressing the “yes-we-can” approach, panelists provided their thoughts on the expanding tech industry in Idaho, the highs and lows of traveling the road of a startup, the efforts needed to acquire capital, the need to find and retain talented workers, as well as the importance of responding to valuable feedback from customers and investors.

In today’s competitive tech environment, the panel found common ground in the notion that “none of it comes easy.”

Along those lines, legendary football coach Vince Lombardi famously often told his players, “the only place ‘success’ comes before ‘work’ is in the dictionary.”

With 30 years of experience in the semiconductor tech industry, Dlugosch certainly knows the relevance of such a profound statement.

After nearly two decades at Micron, where he helped oversee the tech giant’s Automata Processor program, he now heads up NIS, which focuses on developing processing systems to greatly extend the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning platforms.

NIS, he said, was “spun out of Micron seven years ago. … We certainly can build this type of company. There is an elitist attitude that emanates out of Silicon Valley,” he said. “We have everything we need right here in Idaho.”

In 2017, Dlugosch took full advantage of an “opportunity of a lifetime” to start NIS with full support of Micron’s executive staff. In addition to the support his company receives from the tech giant, he acknowledged that capital or funding is the “lifeblood of any startup” business, especially a capital-intensive startup.

“It will probably take about $100 million to reach the full scale we intend to,” he said. “We’re about 10% of the way through that journey.”

With more than three decades of experience as a technology entrepreneur, Brinton said he, too, is fully aware of the complications in creating a tech company. Throughout his career, the former U.S. Navy nuclear engineer has started eight companies total, while learning “six ways how to annihilate a business.”

And though he has attempted to “escape the Treasure Valley several times,” the Boise native has found his forever home.

“It’s exciting to talk about AI and cybersecurity and small businesses and the future of tech in Boise, Brinton said. “I plan to stay, and my goal is to make sure things continue to move forward.”

From both the successes and failures he’s endured, the key lessons gleaned include listening to customers, as well as showing and not just telling investors how a sought-after investment can be profitable.

“Of course, investors are not going to just give you money,” Brinton said. “They want a return on their investment. For those involved in a startup, until they learn what business leaders want, until they make this type of transition, they will struggle to get funding.”

For Bennett, the panel’s only self-proclaimed “non-tech” participant, helping oversee the operations of SWEAR and its efforts to protect digital content has taught her that creating technology is never an easy process.

“We’ve been a little before our time as a company,” Bennett said. “And when you’re trying to build something new and you go to investors and customers and they don’t understand the very base level of it, it’s hard to get people to engage and to listen.”

Awareness and getting people to “understand the technology” being developed, she said is vital to success.

“At SWEAR, we look at ourselves as being one guardrail we are trying to put on AI,” she said. “We’re trying to not do what happened with social media. As AI develops and benefits society, it must also stay within its guardrail and not do the opposite and hurt us in society.”

At INL on the state’s east side, Stolworthy specializes in all matters related to innovating, protecting, transferring and commercializing technologies developed from research.

A registered patent attorney, the key challenge he cited for technology development is ensuring research efforts remain focused on the “things that are important to the world.”

“The more that we collaborate with industry partners, the more that we understand about the market, the better job we do at producing technologies that have an impact,” Stolworthy said.

Like his co-panelists, Stolworthy reiterated that no matter what the technology or the development, dealing with customers, researchers and investors is still an art form.

Too often, he said, people “go into something with a solution” they think is the next greatest thing.

“When they do and realize they are wrong, they get valuable information on where to focus their efforts and research,” he said. “It’s so much more powerful but they have to get to that point where they are told enough times that they finally realize it is them, not everyone else.”

Sometimes that means stepping back and making adjustments.

“Each time you do this, the research comes with some idea of what an industry’s problems are,” Stolworthy said. “After they go through the process, they realize they have to pivot their research.

We even partner with some industry and work on something they care about directly.”

Or, as Dlugosch pointed out, there is “no substitute” for engaging customers.

“You cannot figure this out safely behind your own walls,” he said. “You have to get out and put yourself out there and let people beat you up and sometimes spit you out. But you learn from that which is incredibly valuable.”

According to Brinton, technologists have what he called a “bad habit” of chasing emerging technologies and leaving customers behind.

“We tend to have this attitude of ‘build it and they will come,’” he said. “You need to get out and talk to customers. Find out what their base is, observe them, listen to them.”

However, on the flipside, Dlugosch stressed that when it comes to building new technology and new companies, the one “huge weapon” Idaho has going for it in the tech development market is simply Idaho itself.

“It’s truly an asset for attracting people to come to work here,” Dlugosch said. “We need to be better about talking about that asset, and not just my company, but all of us who want to grow business in this valley and throughout the state.”

According to Bennett, with a fully engaged and supportive chamber of commerce, law firms, banks and corporations, Southwestern Idaho is an “amazing community” for current and prospective tech companies.

“It’s incredibly easy to get integrated into this community if you want to,” she said. “That is something I would hate for the Treasure Valley to lose sight of. It’s truly one of our strengths.”

With degrees in chemistry, biochemistry and chemical engineering, as well as a law degree, Stolworthy strongly agreed with his counterparts and emphasized the vital role higher education plays within the business sector.

“Anywhere there is a tech hub that emerges, it’s because they have a strong tech-based college or university like we do here,” he said. “It’s important having that environment that creates the next generation.”