“If I could re-do my career, I would jump into the entrepreneurial world a lot sooner.”
Hüseyin Tığlı spearheaded the formation of the RC Community Entrepreneurs Bond (RCCEB) and here reflects on his own entrepreneurial journey.
Did you always want to be an entrepreneur?
While at RA, then at the engineering school at Columbia, then at Harvard Business School, I was really a “conventional thinker” —mostly focusing on routine academic success, though cherishing creativity and innovation.
In my early career as an engineer, I found myself in environments that welcomed creativity. For example, I loved applying Monte Carlo simulation to a critical technical design, linear programming to a thorny capacity planning problem. Later on in higher leadership positions, I loved trying unconventional management practices —one such example was allowing two pregnant, then young parents, to “share” the job of VP Manufacturing.
After a long corporate career, I accidentally came across a start-up opportunity. I’ve been an “intentional entrepreneur” ever since. If I could redo my career, I would jump into the entrepreneurial world a lot sooner.
How about successes and failures along the way?
In the last 20 plus years, I’ve founded and/or ran five start-ups, at times more than one at a time. I’ve had three exits and one complete failure. The fifth one created what I hope will turn out to be valuable IP. I’m currently incubating the sixth.
My failure perhaps offers the best pieces of advice to founders. Even a product offering that is both much higher in performance and lower cost than the competition does not ensure success. We had created biosensors on nano-porous silicon, read by sophisticated photonics. However, we misjudged the length of the sales cycle and therefore our go-to-market strategy and the financing strategy were not aligned with the real market dynamics. My personal mistake was falling in love with the technology and attempting to enter a market in which I had no experience. And not recruiting deeply critical or highly helpful Board members.
Two tidbits on success (other than routine advice such as “hire the best people,” etc.): 1) Allow “crazy ideas” to be tested —they could produce fantastic breakthroughs. In one of my photonic switch ventures, my team was stuck with a high cost/low performance design. They rejected a novel idea by a junior engineer and justified their opposition in numerous ways. I let the junior engineer try it —and this allowance turned out to be the most significant innovation in the entire industry. 2) Do not rely on the opinions of “experts.” On another occasion in another venture, another junior engineer wanted to try a different silicon etching method. Her boss, who had done her PhD on this topic, took out papers out of her desk and said: “Here, read these and understand why your idea won’t work!” It worked like a charm and was the idea that allowed us to make the product.
