Nancy Brown ’11Journal #1
This summer I am interning at Solais Lighting, Inc, a manufacturer of LED light bulbs. Solais is a venture-backed start-up aimed at gaining share in the lighting market. It is a for-profit enterprise, but has significant societal benefits.
When LED lighting reaches its full potential, worldwide electricity consumption due to lighting will be decreased by more than 50 percent, and total consumption of electricity will be decreased by more than 10 percent. Carbon emissions will decrease proportionally. Furthermore, LED lighting yields no hazardous waste, such as mercury, that is found in other lighting sources. The Department of Energy projects that between 2010 and 2030, Solid State Lighting (that is, LED and OLED lighting products) could save 1,488 terawatt-hours representing a savings of $120 billion at today's energy prices.
When I joined, the company had been in existence for about a year and a half and had already developed and filed provisional patents on technology for its three products. Our CEO was in the midst of perfecting our manufacturing processes, and now we are ready to launch sales. Since I knew nothing about the lighting industry before beginning the internship, I have been spending a substantial amount of time educating myself on the industry and our products. For instance, I learned that the lighting industry utilizes many middlemen, and as a result Solais expects its client base primarily to be comprised of lighting distribution firms.
I expect my summer projects to consist of helping on the financial and operational aspects of launching sales. However, as with any young business, circumstances change daily so I expect to be very flexible.Journal #2
Over the course of the summer, there have been a lot of exciting things happening in and around Solais Lighting. First, we moved offices within Connecticut, from Bridgeport to Stamford. This move was inspired by our CEO’s realization that as a venture-backed clean-tech company, Solais was capable of attracting top talent, and he wanted to move closer to the NYC and Greenwich/Stamford areas. I am happy, because the move eliminates more than an hour of my subway-subway-crosstown bus-MetroNorth-taxi daily commute.
Now that we are settled within the state of Connecticut for the foreseeable future, I have begun to research local, state, and national incentives for start-ups and/or clean-tech companies. There are a few tax credits designed to benefit job creation, but I am starting to realize that incentives for green businesses have not yet made the transition from political rhetoric to reality. The few grant opportunities that do exist require lengthy applications that greatly exceed the capabilities of resource-strapped start-ups. By far the most appealing and realistic option is the SBIR program, which has been in existence for almost 30 years. I have spent a bit of time researching past solicitations and awards, and have attended two conferences on the SBIR proposal-writing process.
In the meantime, Solais has also launched sales. A few modest orders have come in, and my colleagues staged a celebratory order-entering ceremony for the first one. There is a lot of interest in our product, and we are hopeful that many large accounts will soon take the plunge and give it a try.
Journal #3
In the last few weeks of my internship, there has been a flurry of activity. Sales orders have been steadily increasing, which have been testing our distribution capabilities as well as our internal processes for taking orders. It is a completely different experience from my previous job, which was at a large bank with a bureaucracy around every process, and from my first job, which was at a small, new company, albeit one with no customers.
For the last few weeks of my internship, I dedicated the bulk of my time to researching possible funding sources (from grants and otherwise). I have been working closely with our CEO to write a new and updated version of our business plan and am tying up some loose ends in terms of organizing the work I’ve done so that it’s accessible.
Notably, it seems that everyone who asks me where I’m interning this summer is interested in LED lighting. Given the restrictions on lighting products the US government has put in place starting in 2012, it is not surprising that there is increasing interest on this subject. People keep asking me what kind of light bulbs I use in my apartment, and, unfortunately since my company is currently focusing on commercial clients, I haven’t been able to plug our products. However, I have no doubt that in a few years all of my friends will have LED lighting products in their homes.
