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It's an ex-uBeam...

Just shy of its 10th birthday and with between $40 and $48 million of investment (estimated), it appears uBeam (recently Sonic Energy ) has ...

Friday, May 13, 2016

Well that was an interesting couple of days...

I think my blog may have been noticed...

Something told me that when it went from 1000 views total in three weeks to 2000+ views per hour that it wasn't just friends and family reading anymore. Of course it happens on a day when I have to get to multiple meetings, a multi-hour drive to the airport, and a long haul flight home that was delayed enough I finally got back in at 5am.

During this time my email was packed with requests for confirmations, interviews, and comments, and I grabbed a few minutes between each meeting and at rest stops to talk - you may have noticed some of the results of all that.

I had expected that at some point the blog would be noticed and that there might be some interest, but I never expected it this fast, nor the interest to be this intense. It's been something of a bizarre experience, and I'll discuss it in more depth another time. 

So to confirm, I am Paul Reynolds, former VP of Engineering at uBeam, responsible for transducers and acoustics. I was hired on as a consultant in the summer of 2013, was offered the VP position soon after, and like everyone else remained a consultant until our funding round in Sept 2014 when we all converted to actual employees. As part of the team that pitched the Series A round, I saw the company grow from literally working in a garage on a shoestring budget, to a total of around $23 million raised, until my departure in October 2015.

What am I here to post about? Going back to my first post almost exactly a month ago, I made it pretty clear that I wanted to cover "how the whole ecosystem of startups actually works". This seems to have been lost in the flurry of press, though understandably so. Of course I talk about uBeam, it's been a large part of my life for the last three years, but also Theranos and Energous, primarily as prominent but differing examples of the outcome of a system that incentivizes certain behaviors that I think most people know are detrimental to our society.

Once I've managed to get some sleep, I'll get back to talking about just that.

4 comments:

  1. Did you see this?
    https://bothsidesofthetable.com/what-is-it-like-to-wake-up-and-have-the-press-ready-to-torpedo-your-business-351f27ca6d67#.i9ev2cmek

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  2. Do us a favor and stick to the story instead of making things personal. You have an interesting story, no need to detract from it with hyperbole or personal attacks.

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  3. You write really well and you certainly don't need a "journalist" to be a middle man. I hope you ignore those "let's chat" idiots and just lay it out straight. In your own way.

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  4. Thanks for sharing your experiences. I am working on getting my own start-up going and will heed some of your lessons!

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