Roof For Two is creating a collapsible cover that protects motorcycle riders in South Asia from monsoon rains. This is an extremely hard working team of recent Tufts graduates; I routinely see them pulling all nighters at the office in order to get their company up and running quickly.

When a new company decides to take part in the MassChallenge competition, they tend to find everything the advertisements promised at the start.  You get access to accomplished mentors, first rate guests with great info sessions and some even get the funding they need.  What you don’t expect going in is the community of driven people with similar passions that you’re thrown into. Entrepreneurs have an outlet here to share experiences and ask the nagging little questions that don’t always seem big enough to seek out answers to.

As they approached their final round of judging, Roof For Two emailed me to ask if I had had a production-ready prototype by the time of my final presentation. They were also curious to know if I’d learned any lessons along the way that had helped to speed up the product development process. My response to them is below:

Hey Justin,

I’ve reached a point very near to complete, but I won’t call it final until somebody pays me for an inventory of devices.

When presenting your current status the important thing is to provide context.  Show that there are a couple iterations down the road, but they’re part of a well thought out strategy. There are lessons you plan to learn from one that will lead to an added level of sophistication in the next. Right?

Floundering is bad; Iteration (within reason) is good.

As for what you can do to speed up the process?  Make a map right now that covers every element at play on your road to commercialization (technical challenges, supplier relations, marketing milestones etc).  Make note of all the unknowns you face and find people who have the answers need. Everybody does it to some extent, but few do it thoroughly enough.

Surprises generally cause delays.

Helpful?

Best,

Dave

Sunrise view from the MassChallenge space in Boston.

The competition is open to anyone in the world, with any new startup, in any industry. Physical activities are based in Massachusetts where innovation resources are highly concentrated. Every entrant receives training, feedback, PR and networking support via expert volunteers from partner organizations. 110 of the highest-potential startups will participate in a 3 month accelerator program. Active focus areas, a curriculum and bootcamp, investor in residence program, alumni in residence program, and expert mentorship make up the accelerator. The very best startups are identified by expert judges to receive cash awards toward launching their businesses along with enhanced PR and privileged access to top investors seeking to place seed capital to work in high-growth firms. MassChallenge is a 501(c)(3) (non-profit) leveraging both public and private funding. Key dates for this year are March 7th (online application goes live) and April 11th (deadline for final submission).

Last summer, I was honored to participate in the first contest which launched on April 14, 2010 and received ~450 entries. This year’s application is now opened until Aprill 11th! If you have a venture and are looking to make it to the next level I strongly encourage you to apply to the 2011 accelerator. If you have any questions please reach out to me or apply online atwww.masschallenge.org/enter.

Pretty girls taught me about missed opportunities.  If you don’t man up and ask for a date, you will be spending the night alone with your LEGOs.  Turning an idea into an actual product or business requires you to put yourself way out on a limb and take a bunch of scary chances.  The best opportunities won’t do the legwork for you, and if you wait for the one that does, it won’t be very well adjusted and is probably high maintenance too.

Had a nice chat with Sean Zinsmeister of BostInnovation.  Click here to check out the article he posted.

I recently had the opportunity to demonstrate OsmoPure’s bottle top filter at Future Forward 2010 in Wellesley Massachusetts.  There were some pretty incredible companies presenting along side me whose innovations will change the way we monitor the web, interact with computers, keep ourselves healthy and apply to college.  In the end, I had the honor of accepting the award as Game Changer of 2010.  Check out the article on MSNBC.

The competition portion of this program came to an end recently, and the results were extremely favorable for OsmoPure.  We were awarded a year of outstanding office space  on the south Boston waterfront and $100,000 in no-strings-attached seed funding.  While vital to development, this funding is nothing compared to the contacts, support and insight that has come with being a part of MassChallenge.

This competition has attracted some pretty impressive startups.  Check out the other winners and finalists at www.masschallenge.org.

This article written by Andrew Ryan talks about a new community of entrepreneurs created in Boston by Mass Challenge.

Click here for the article

As finalists in the Mass Challenge competition we have been provided with free office space at Fan Pier on the waterfront in Boston. Other finalists have taken over the fourteenth floor of One Marina Park Drive with us turning it into a hotbed for growth and innovation.  The resources available to us here, as well as the community we have become a part of, will allow us to advance rapidly.  The view isn’t too shabby either!