SU Accelerator Startup FREDsense Reflects on Silicon Valley Experience
Last week I spoke with one of Canada’s top Kairos Fellows and K50 ’15 Alumnus, Emily Hicks, CEO and Co-founder of FREDsense Technologies. She had just returned from the three-month Singularity University Accelerator Program.
Emily has been working on FREDsense Technologies for three years now and the company has grown to a team of twelve. FREDsense technologies combines biology and engineering to detect chemicals in water. Using a biosensor with an electrochemical output, the team is creating a system that is fast, sensitive, and allows anyone to learn exactly what is in their water.
The SU Accelerator is a three-month program based in Silicon Valley which selects seven companies from around the world to live and work in the NASA co-working space. The program mission is to bring together companies that are leveraging exponential technologies to solve our world’s greatest challenges. From over 450 applicants, FREDsense technologies was chosen as one of the seven.
When asked what struck her most about living in the Bay Area for the first time, Emily mentioned the energetic vibe that comes about when nearly everyone around you is excited to be working on fresh and interesting ideas.
One of the greatest aspects of the program included meeting with Peter Diamandis. She had a few chances to hear him speak and even got to sit down with him in a small group setting.
Peter encouraged the group to tackle big problems. To work on solutions with a 10X improvement rather than a 10% improvement. He called these moonshot ideas. Even if you don’t end up reaching that 10X solution, Peter explained that you’re going to discover and solve new problems along the way.
During the program, FREDsense took his advice and ended up discovering new markets and new problems to solve first. They worked on a few different things:
- Their target industry. Coming in, the team at FREDsense had been looking to tackle the mining industry. The problem was that this industry needed a bulletproof, bear-proof, winter-proof solution to the big problems they faced every day. During the program, they pivoted to start with a “tricycle” solution and aimed to tackle water districts, a narrowed subsection of the market.
- Team dynamics. This was a great opportunity for Emily to formalize her team structure. The company had been running for a couple years already and this was a critical stage of growth for the team. Singularity helped her identify what was working and how to address needed improvements going forward.
- Organizing and rolling out pilot programs for their product. Living in the NASA co-working space in Silicon Valley, surrounded by many other high-impact entrepreneurs was a great environment to run tests and experiments. Emily said, “Singularity helped us embrace the riskiness of what we’re doing. It could be extremely successful or could not. But by learning to tackle big things, we’re going to learn and push forward.”
Emily’s favourite moments included meeting the other founders and creating long lasting friendships. Emily expressed,
“The friendships that you make in a really intense program like that will last a long time. Everyone has the same passion and drive going forward…”
She also mentioned that Tom Chi from Google gave an amazing session on rapid prototyping. His talk was particularly memorable as it led to big internal changes happening at FREDsense.
Though so many great and new opportunities have arisen from her time in Silicon Valley, it wasn’t all an easy process. Splitting up the team was difficult. Only Emily and her co-founder had attended the program while the rest of the team was back in Calgary. Keeping up strong communication was more difficult than they thought, but they made it work.
Going forward, Emily’s goals for FREDsense have expanded as they’ve just moved their lab into a bigger space. They’re looking to launch an arsenic sensor pilot product this summer, as well as raise $1.5 million to bring the product to market.
Join our second accelerator! Click here to apply for the 2016 Singularity University Labs Startup Accelerator. Applications are due Friday, February 19th, at midnight Pacific Standard Time.
