The CEO and co-founder of Spinnova Ltd, Jane Poranen, offers advice on any inventions made. He believes when a person makes an invention. He must keep getting the first customer. Know how vital the project is to the user.
Despite being the executive of Spinnova firm, he was working on a side hustle project. For six years, he was trying to discover the following type of fiber cloth. Through all those years, he managed to make products from pulp plants. However, it took him the next six years to get partners to sell his new technology idea.
Unlucky during early stages
He has agreed to do various deals with top companies like Adidas and H&M over his new textiles. But, unfortunately, they want to change as the average fiber plant seems to exhaust, so a replacement is necessary. The fabric is different from regular cotton. During the manufacturing process, it uses little water as compared to cotton wool. Also, the amount and types of chemicals applied are very few. Such characteristics give it advantages over the primary raw material, cotton.
Mr. Paranen brags that Spinnova is the only company in the world that can produce textile fiber without chemicals. Instead, wood pulp, old clothes, straw, and biomass are the main products required for the complete process. He is very ambitious on how his company is making more significant changes to the textile industry. The biomass materials get broken down into micro-scale fibers. The micro-fibers are aligned in chains in categories. Finally, they come out through a very tiny nozzle making thread-like cotton, a report by bbc.
Maximum research
The CEO opens up about how a single motivation from a university lecture brought a massive change in his life. At the congress, the lecturers and other biologists discussed how a spider makes a web through its silk. He had to spend many years in government laboratories researching how the spider does this. AT one moment, he realizes the secret was about putting micro-fibers in a similar line. After sometimes extract them through tiny holes which makes the product smooth.
It wasn’t until 205 that they decided to work on the project with other research scientists. It invited financial backers to be among the shareholders. After they had set up everything, they approached some companies that could use such a process. Minor firms came, but they demanded rights on the innovation of that technology. Even a fishing company came to them because they felt the idea could help them make better fishnets.
All members decided not to offer their technology rights to minor companies. Their main aim was to spread their technology across the globe. Of course, the new technology takes time before a large tech company comes in to support it. Mr. Paranen feared that they might have turned off a potential partner, and in return, they failed to secure a better offer. Perseverance and patients are the key value to such rhetorical questions.
All the shareholders in the company had high hopes; hence they stayed a little longer. For any startup, worries build during the early stages. Imagine if the time you are spending adds. All the minds go on the money you can earn if the idea hits the market. If the picture doesn’t capture the user’s attention, then that is a significant loss to you. AS you wait, some shareholders might decide to withdraw their money.
Difficulty in convincing
Poranen admits how difficult it is to convince shareholders when you will get a perfect first deal. The CEO has the mandate to persuade them that the company will at a point make more profit. But it will have to take time for that high-profit margin to be experienced.
Throughout the negotiation with H&R and Adidas, they won the trust of those big companies. They decided to manufacture garments using the pup wood fiber. Since they are World-known companies, they will advertise the idea to the rest. The fiber’s first product was heavy coats. Spannova’s CEO gives simple advice to young inventors not to take offers earlier. Instead, think of the big goal ahead of you and avoid mistakes during the early development stages.
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