Lighthouse

Hello. I said that the next post would be about DARPA’s $2 per gallon algae oil, but I’m going to hold off on that one more post to mention something important and new at Centurion Biofuels. In the last blog post, I wrote about selling products as soon as possible and generating positive cash flow. Time to walk the talk! I’ve started a sponsorship program at Centurion, which enables people and companies to sponsor Centurion and advertise on our website. You can check it out here.

The idea behind being a sponsor is fairly straightforward. It takes a lot of time and energy and money to develop new technologies, especially technology whose purpose is to help create a greener, bluer, healthier planet for all of us. If that kind of planet is something that you value, and if you believe that Centurion Biofuels and, really, me, Duane Chung, is one of the companies and people to get us there, then support us financially. I could write some words to try to convince you of why, out of all of the people and companies out there to sponsor, I and Centurion Biofuels should receive your money, but better than my words, I’m going to show you in our actions. So, please go for it. Every little bit does help.

For companies looking for increased profile and advertising for your green efforts and intentions, we will link to your website from our Hall of Champions page for 2 years (3 years if you’re one of our first 100 corporate sponsors). As Centurion’s profile continues to grow, your profile will grow right along with us!

Hi. I saw a very interesting article about DARPA – the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the US Department of Defense – producing algae oil at $2 per gallon, with a target of $1 per gallon. These are some of the best numbers that I’ve seen for algae oil and I’m going to look at this article, and algae economics, in the next blog post.

This is going to be a post about being an entrepreneur, because it’s something that I’m passionate about and, also, I’ve just spent a great deal of time and energy preparing for and meeting with some investors. By entrepreneur, I really mean anyone who has a dream or vision that involves innovation, creativity, and creating value, and who turns that dream into reality.

I believe it’s a good idea for every entrepreneur or would-be entrepreneur to present to investors, more than once if possible, especially if they are investors who have built their own businesses and have a lot of experience. It doesn’t matter if we have a great cause that drives us, good intentions, or whatever. Personally, I believe those things are very important. But if the business doesn’t have sound economics, and doesn’t sell something and make money, and isn’t able to compete, it’s not going to be around long enough to see its vision become a reality. That’s part of why I’m pausing to write a post about my experience and learning as an entrepreneur. Without really objective analysis of the business side, the dream of a world with renewable algae products may not happen. That’s where investors come in. So often, an entrepreneur or would-be entrepreneur, and I’m writing from personal experience here, isn’t really objective about their business. They want to believe so much in their business that they don’t ask the really hard questions.

I believe it’s absolutely crucial to ask the really hard questions. And, personally, I value anyone’s input who can ask, or help me to ask, the really hard questions. Yesterday, I saw part of a T.V. program about ‘apps’ for the iPhone. Apparently, this is already a big business. One segment was about some entrepreneurs who had spent half a million dollars to develop and market their iPhone app and, at the time of the show, couldn’t get their app into the online store to sell it! Ouch!! There’s a good lesson in entrepreneurism!

So, if you are an entrepreneur or thinking of being one, get yourself in front of some investors as soon as possible. It doesn’t matter if you are there to raise money or not. You can always say ‘no’ if the terms are not to your liking. The point is to get some objective feedback about what you’re doing or planning to do, to make you face the tough questions. How will the business make money? What do you do if your assumptions don’t pan out. How can you test those assumptions?

The crucial thing that I’ve learned is that it’s very tough to build a business where you need to develop the product that you’re going to sell. Things usually take longer to develop than you think, especially new technology. That means you’re going to be in a cash flow negative situation for a long time, which means that you get desperate, and you become easy pickings for investors who can dictate the terms. It’s much better to go to investors from a position of strength. And that means positive cash flow. So, whatever brilliant idea you have, start selling! Make the simplest prototype you can and start selling it. Find out as soon as you can whether someone will pay for it, and whether they’ll pay enough for it for you to make a healthy profit. If you just can’t make a prototype of your brilliant idea to start selling, start selling something else! Many entrepreneurs especially technology entrepreneurs don’t seem to put enough focus on selling, but to me, it’s the number one thing.

Hello, World! This is my first ever blog post! Seems like a good time since today is Earth Day and I’m part of a company working for a better planet for us to live on. My name is Duane Chung and I am the Founder of Centurion Biofuels. I founded the company in April of 2007 with a partner. I had already been working in a biotech company for a couple of years called Fighting Chance, Inc. Centurion, and Fighting Chance before it, operates out of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. It’s a fantastic place to work, and it’s my hope that one day Centurion will play a big role in Hamilton’s economic and industrial community, and that we can also start a biofuels research institution with McMaster.

Centurion works mostly with microorganisms, trying to encourage them to make biofuels and bioproducts. Most of our work is with algae and photosynthetic microorganisms. Most of our work involves genetic engineering. Many people are concerned about the use of genetically-modified organisms, especially for food production. I can understand that. I don’t think anyone wants to deal with some Frankenstein creation or abomination of nature, especially from a company that is supposedly trying to do something positive for the planet. But, the devil is in the details and I think there are some types of genetic engineering that a bit more natural, a bit more in harmony with processes that are already going on in nature. Bacteria and many microorganisms already exchange genetic information regularly in a process called conjugation. It’s kind of like sex for bacteria! This exchange of genetic information is a form of ‘genetic engineering’ that Nature does, that is actually part of how microorganisms evolve and respond to environmental challenges.

Anyways, this first blog post wasn’t meant to be a dissertation on genetic engineering! What I really wanted to say was ‘hello’. I hope you’ll come back from time to time to see what we’re up to at Centurion. I’m going to try to write on this blog once a week. We’ll see what my schedule allows. One thing that caught my eye today on the way in to work was an article by Jeff Rubin, a former Chief Economist at CIBC World Markets. Jeff was considering a world in which oil costs $200 a barrel. Some people think that finding alternatives to oil is about addressing climate change. I think that’s part of it. But, I think the economic consideration is also very important. The price of oil indirectly affects so many things in our lives, including the price of food which in North America we currently have the luxury of importing from far away places. If oil goes to $200 a barrel, a lot of people are going to have trouble feeding themselves, and we’re going to see food riots like there were a couple of years ago, and increased instability. I think $200 for a barrel of oil is not out of the realm of possibility, and I also think it takes many years, even decades, to develop alternative solutions. So, that’s why we’ve started!