#23 Pitching to Investors and Developing Biotechnology in High School

16-year-old Neil Mitra is on a mission to help millions of visually impaired people with his biotech start-up, EyeCane. 

Largely developed in his home over the past few years, Neil has taken EyeCane to the Canada Wide Science Fair in 2017 where he won a silver medal and he has also won the Ted Rogers Innovation Award in 2019 again for EyeCane.

More recently, he was a finalist in the prestigious MIT LaunchX which gave him valuable experience and an even more valuable network. Since then, he has secured seed funding and continues to work on the start-up with a team of talented students from around Canada. 

Neil gives advice to aspiring entrepreneurs and inventors including the emails to send, calls to make and books to read to successfully pitch to investors.

• Neil welcomes listeners to connect with him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
• Click here to visit Neil's next venture, Mitra Biotechnologies

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Transcript

Podcast Host  00:17

Hello, and welcome to the Top of the Class podcast. I'm your host Alex Cork. And in this episode, I chat with 16 year old biotech entrepreneur, Neil Mitra. This episode is packed with tips based on Neil getting seed funding for his patented invention to help the visually impaired. We chat about how his idea evolved, pitching to investors, been a finalist at my table and checks. And he's recommended books for students to dive into entrepreneurship. Let's chat with Neil Mitra. Neil, welcome to the Top of the Class podcast, it's awesome to have you on the show. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?

Neil  00:52

Sure. My name is Neil Mitra. I'm currently the founder and chief executive officer of EyeCane, which is a socially assistive robotics company, which is aiming to help the vision impaired individuals navigate I'm currently in grade 11. And really interested in biotechnology and entrepreneurship.

Podcast Host  01:07

Okay, so yeah, it's a it's a big topic and makes me think that I'm talking to someone who's possibly twice your age, you've got a company specializing in eye care to help visually impaired navigate. When you say navigate, do you mean, like, navigate by walking or navigate by driving? Or how do you mean?

Neil  01:24

Yeah, so pretty much like navigating by walking is the primary.

Podcast Host  01:28

Okay, and so is it an app or is it something else?

Neil  01:31

Yeah. So essentially, what we do is try to replace the current hatch technology systems that are currently on the market. So right now, the way that visually impaired individuals navigate it, like they use these things known as white canes, or tactile pavings. And the problem with the system is that tactile paving costs upwards of around $30 million to implement in a city such as Toronto, here in Canada. And that's in US figures. So it's quite a lot of money. At the same time. Like really, for visually impaired individuals, it's quite hard for them to navigate using tactile paving. And additionally, haptic navigation systems such as the ones which are made by our competitors, like we walk, or Sona dot, and stuff like that, what they do is they pretty much detect obstructions around the visual impairment visual, but do not actually guide the visually impaired individual. So what our solution is, essentially, we're creating a robotic version of a guide dog, essentially, we're taking a regular guide dog and creating a robot version of it completely minimal transport layer, a autonomous vehicle that a visually impaired individual can interact with. And it pretty much guides the visually impaired individual to any location that they need. So they connect a leash onto the device, and the device is just able to guide them through it. It has motors and everything to help visually impaired individuals navigate any location, regardless of the environment they are in, or in any setting. If it's outdoor or indoor, they can use it everywhere that they go.

Podcast Host  02:59

So you've created a robotic guide dog effectively, that you can program to navigate to anywhere in a city.

Neil  03:05

Yeah, essentially. And we currently have a proof of concept ready. We are right now going into the MVP stages. So our first MVP prototype is built. And our second one, which is the mass producible version is what we're currently working on.

Podcast Host  03:18

Awesome. Talk to me about the timeline for all of this. I mean, how old are you now? You're what, 15, 16? 

Neil  03:25

I'm currently 16 years old. 

Podcast Host  03:27

Okay, so you're 16 years old, and the same time as being in your 11. At school? You are also creating a robotic guide dog. It seems like there's a lot going on. Is the timeline for this, like over a couple of years. Like when did you first get into this kind of interest of helping the vision impaired? Yeah, so it sort of started back in grade seven. So I think I was like, around 12 years old. Yep, around this time. And what happened was in our school, we had the science fair, and my own grandmother was visually impaired. So I wanted to do something that could help her actually navigate and she lives in India. And it's quite difficult to get any classical technology there in India. So it was a matter of like, understanding what I can do to really help my grandmother and essentially impact around 250 billion individuals just like yourself all across the globe. So really, I just began researching, understanding the basic principles of how visually impaired individuals navigate currently, what the current devices are on the market, understanding their current policies and what they're unable to do. And pretty much understanding a way how to improve on that. And how can I invent something that nobody else has done before to really help them? So that's when I kept on thinking about what can we do for this tactile paving problem. So the initial idea was to replace these tactile paving with 10 black lines. So these tend to be classic paint lines, which effectively get rid of the infrastructure cost and save around like $29.9 million, right for these governments. And you would just have a robot able to read these lines and have a cane attached to it so that the visually impaired individual can navigate from any location in the city. So that was my first initial idea. And I patented the invention back when I was in seventh. So filed a provisional patent. And then I went away to compete at the science fair, I was fortunate enough to in silver at the Canada wide science fair, which is pretty much our national science fair here in Canada. And then from there, throughout grade eight, and grade nine, I just kept on like really developing the device, mostly through grade eight, a lot of RNG work was done in terms of implementing a GPS app trying to implement obstacle avoidance. So our first obstacle avoidance feature became fully working in around June of 2018. So that is when our first stages of our autonomous transfer start to happen. And currently, right now what we're doing is like removing the paint line, use an entirely so making it completely autonomous advocate. We have a prototype of that right now. So throughout grade eight, it was pretty much developing that initial phase. And then in grade nine, I decided found a startup. So this was, I think I was I don't, yeah, I was like 14 or 14 years old. And I decided to go ahead and found the startup. And it was a great experience. So what happened was, I entered this competition called MIT logics, clubs. So it's pretty much like this huge High School startup competition among 1000 High School startups all across the globe. And they compete to become a global finalist. So only 20 Global finals, global finalists are selected to pitch in front of investors at MIT, and Boston, Massachusetts. So our team, we were lucky enough to be selected as one of those 20 pitches there. And after that, it really sort of our progress sort of skyrocketed. In terms of the business side, we got lots of connections, lots of leads to investors. And we just kept on continuing with the RMD. Really, we really focused on the RNG, we started to get like potential partnerships, the Canadian National Institute for the blind, which has over like 100,000 visually impaired individuals and their client base, which was a huge opportunity for us in terms of the business side. And then when I was in grade 10, we just kept on developing that out and grade 11. And about august of 2020, we got officially c funded and incorporated out of the state of Nevada. So that's pretty much like a rundown of where we're currently are.  Well, thank you for that comprehensive rundown, and what a journey you've been on from starting at trying to help you grandma. And by doing a science fair to now getting seed funding in Nevada. That's a lot to unpack. And let's start by kind of going back to where all of this research and r&d took place. Were you doing this all from home? were you doing this at your school lab? We're going to universities like, how are you actually building robots conducting r&d? And you know, where does all this take place for you?

07:52

Yes. So before August, I'm funny, it was all pretty much self funded. I've worked on it in my home, in my own room, and just like going out there and just like building the robots through hand. So it's very much like all in my room.

Podcast Host  08:09

What are we using to build the robot, we use the like, things you're buying online, or?

08:15

Yeah, so pretty much like literally just find the soldering irons, finding all the like circuitry board spine, like going to the library entry to printing, I didn't have a 3d printer back when I was actually like developing the encasing and stuff like that I soon did, except there was at a point where I just kept on building these prototypes, and there had to be a more effective method. So 3d printing was a huge win in terms of like getting all the encapsulations done for a device, and like building all the chances and stuff like that, at the same time really just like buying most of like the core parts from Amazon. And then just like hard coding them, and soldering them all together using a soldering iron, and just really building it in the garage.

Podcast Host  08:56

Sounds like such an Iron Man thing to do, right? Like instead of building like a suit of armor, you're building like a guide dog or a robotic God, though, was that always the concept that you had in mind? Like after the after the black strips that you were going to do? Was that the next iteration? The robotic guide dog?

09:14

Yeah, absolutely. It was like the next big step. And it was pretty much like this, this long journey. This is like the long term vision that I had. And I decide to like, you know, start executing it and see where we go. Because really, back then what what happened was like there was a there was a lack of computation when it came to creating like this small layered autonomous vehicles back in like 2017, or back then and really going out now like technologists, progressive and more, and through really clean and smart coding, you can really utilize those computational powers that our president like just generic microchips to do something which is autonomous. So it does require a lot of c++ and hard coding to get that done. And a little bit of Python curious to make sure that this machine learning models work alongside Ross, which is the robot operating system, which is a pretty well known open source system that most robotic manufacturers also use. And and it's really a great experience in terms of going out there coding and building it. And it's a long and tedious process, especially when it comes to hardware. So unlike software where you can just have a quick push of a code, and it's there, the bug is fixed and hardware, you have to do a lot of iterations until you figure out really what's going wrong. Because even if your code is 100%, working, your robot may not work as well as intended to work. So there's a huge mechanical engineering principle, which that play alongside a software engineering problem. So both of those together create a very interesting and and unique problem in the engineering side, which is quite, which is quite fun to solve.

Podcast Host  10:51

Yeah, yeah. Well, it sounds like you need to really want to do this and need to have a lot of motivation to see all these challenges through and we'll get to those challenges in a sec. But I'm interested in like, what is your superpower? Like? What is the thing that sets you apart from other students? Is it the fact that you are able to self learn really quickly? Or you are a learner or ideation? Like, do you come up with ideas? Or are you great at delegating? Like, what would you say is one or two or three of your really core skills that has enabled you to go from a science fair back in year seven, to now being in year 11, with a biotech startup?

11:27

Yeah, so really, I would say, to summarize it in one word, it would be like to drive. So it's pretty much a combination of passion, and really just hunger more than anything. So you have to be really, really passionate for what you do. And you have to work hard. That's also a really key component, you have to be willing to make sacrifices, and you have to be willing to give up a lot of things for your specific passion. And I think my superpower code on code is really having that drive. So no matter what consequences there are, no matter what setbacks there are, I'll still figure out a way to go through them. And I'm really tenacious in that sense, especially when it comes to engineering, or when it comes to business sense in terms of getting investors because I know what I build is right. And I know, in my long term vision, I am willing to work hard to make that future better for others. So really, having that mindset, and then mentality of focusing on that passion is what gets me through.

Podcast Host  12:22

Okay, that's awesome. Let's unpack that a little bit further. Because I think that's a really interesting thing. A lot of students obviously struggle to find something that they're passionate about, it's always been a challenge for students, they say, Oh, you know, everyone tells students to just do something you're passionate about, right? Like, just follow your heart. It's such a generic advice that a lot of students receive, but so many students are like, Oh, yeah, well, I'm passionate about the environment. And it's kind of like this vague concept that they haven't really delved into that file, or they haven't really felt that visceral or emotional reaction to making a difference in the environment. So the passion, it's more, it's more of an interest phase, rather than a passion. So what caused you to develop a drive and like an intense passion for this particular project? Is that the helping people who are visually impaired? Is it the entrepreneurship side? Is that the kind of idea of building a business in high school like what gets you out of bed and says, yep, this is the thing that I am really super excited to be doing every single day.

13:21

Yeah, well, it's pretty much the simple logic that the fact that there are 250 million visually impaired individuals, which virtually have no hope of navigation, in a very, like generic sense, for just like an average individual, how they would navigate, they do not have that luxury. So really, the fact that there that I put it into my mentality that like there are 250 million people out there who need this device. So getting that gang my passion into that key area is like understanding the fact that what would I do day in and day out? If I had unlimited time, unlimited resources, what would I be doing, and really just, it would be doing what I'm doing now. So that's working on ik, and really developing these devices out, is something that really drives me. So creating something which is better for humankind in the long run is something which is truly inspiring for me. And if I had to give advice to general students, when it comes to finding their passion, it would probably be to imagine a scenario where, again, you have unlimited resources, unlimited time, what would you do? What problem or what area would you be working on, day in and day out? Imagine if you could regenerate automatically without any sleep, what will you do day in and day out? And go ahead and attempt to do it and see if you like it? I create like a shortlist of what you think would those top five things be and then go out there and do it and narrow it down to maybe one or two and pursue those and then eventually just go down to one. 

Podcast Host  14:47

Exactly. Well, yeah, process of elimination, right? Well, I think it's super interesting, though, that you have obviously addressed a number of large I'm going to guess knowledge gaps along the way, right. You've got you know what you learn at school. And I'm sure there's some students listening to this been like, did he learn how to like soldeu stuff and buy stuff off of Amazon and create a company and hard code these things? Did you learn all that at school? Or do you learn a lot of it outside of school?

Neil  15:13

So I would think, first of all, all the engineering stuff I had to learn outside of school, because pretty much I would have to wait until maybe University until I got into that hardcore engineering principles there. And additionally, coding and stuff, they don't teach you in school. So I had to learn coding, self taught myself how to do coding and everything. And yeah, so really, like outside of school, most of my learning was done, when it came to, you know, the physics aspect of the device, the mechanistic principles behind why the device really works. And the software engineering portion, the coding portion, the computer science portion, all that was done pretty much through my own passion, and like really learning that, and self teaching myself, what I would say that school really helped me in was an English class. So and art class, actually those two classes really helped. Which is, which is something that

Podcast Host  16:03

Surprises people. Yes, I could imagine. Yeah,

Neil 16:06

yeah, exactly. And here in Canada, we also have to take like these course electives. And one of the like, the most popular one is Introduction to Business. So I also took that and all those courses, they're they're also like very language heavy. And like a bit arts focus, if you could say, this is more like the application portion. But in terms of English and art, what do you really develop is the art of like, explaining to other people what you are working on? Yeah. And like pitching to investors and stuff like that really articulating your language of your thought process. And how you work is truly something that stems out of those English and art classes, art classes really help when it comes to marketing. There's a lot of science behind art. And if you're able to exploit that, when it comes to your marketing for your business, it has a huge advantage over your competitors. And additionally, when it comes to like the actual business principles, in Introduction to Business, I learned really a lot about just core basics. And the first principles when it comes to business. Because I never came from a business background. My parents never came from a business background, I was always more in terms of the science side. So science and math and engineering side. So like really coming into that business side was a was a true experience. Because at the end of the day, science and engineering and r&d is excellent. But if you cannot apply it to the real world, there is virtually no point in doing r&d. So that's one of the biggest eye openers for business that anybody can have.

Podcast Host  17:33

So what were your go to resources when you were trying to self learn all of these things? I'm going to guess there was like a young Neil Mitra, who was on Google being like how to code right? You know? Is that where you started?

Neil 17:46

Yeah, so really like my first coding experience, actually, I think it was like back in grade five. So we did have like, so the reason why I didn't say like any coding languages was taught because like, in grade five, they did teach us a bit of HTML. So HTML is a markup markup language that isn't necessarily a programming language, it's just to go very technical on that. But yeah, so really from HTML. In grade five, I didn't like it too much. But then grade six, I started like it. And then grade seven, I knew I had to learn some other stuff in order to do what I was trying to build. So my, my first major programming language was JavaScript. So learning the basics of it, and then going ahead and learning, literally jumping straight to C and c++, because those were really core computer science principles, a lot of algorithms or data structures. And I like those a bit more, because they were fun to do. And it wasn't so much of memorizing syntax as it was as like really understanding, like the problems more. And at the end of the day. That's what I required more when it came to creating algorithms, which were computationally efficient for my current startup and the current robotics portion of it. So really, from there just sort of exponentially started to learn Java on I started to learn Python, and all those other programming languages, all the major programming languages. And from there, I started building those Android apps and really like that the key source to all this was YouTube, and YouTube has like great free resources. And really, you can learn anything from YouTube, at least when it comes to computer science. You don't necessarily need to even go to like computer science boot camp or anything like that. You don't have to pay for anything. YouTube has tons of great resources. They're like World Class instructors teaching there for free, and I would highly recommend anybody if they don't know where to start. Just do a simple YouTube search and you will find like a perfect choice and stick to that tutorial. The hardest thing about any learning anything new is sticking to it. You'll be really excited at first but then halfway down, like you're probably get demotivated, do not lose that momentum. Keep on going through, keep on learning it. And I promise you won't regret it. At the end of the day.

Podcast Host  19:47

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, that's the real challenge, right? When you ever learn something new and then it's hard and then you don't want to let it anymore because it's hard, but I guess when you know where it's going to be used with the applicant. They're all that's when it can be like that motivation to keep you learning, which is really good. Yeah, it seems like coding is like the new superpower in terms of like talking about superpowers, again, for young tech startups, how important has it been for you to kind of get a solid base in coding and computer science?

Neil 20:20

Yes. So coding is very important. When it comes to like when it comes to deep tech, so really, our our startups up in itself as a hard tech startup. And we have a deep tech component, when we're like implementing this AI software stuff like that's really when it comes to the software engineering side, if you want to run something, you have no code. And you can have like other people besides like, the initial startup founder to begin with, who who knows code or like, you can have other people who do know code and make them your technical co founder, because at the end of the day, like, sometimes there might be a time constraint. And if you're going to build a startup, in my opinion, it should be something which is really r&d intensive, because those startups are the ones that really innovate. And creating something like, besides just software is truly something that the world requires right now. So biotech industry is a great example of it, it's very hard, it's very hard to get something out to the market in the biotech industry, because of its hard r&d that is required. So really, to innovate, really, to survive in the competition, you have to create something which is innovative. And essentially, you were putting science into action. There. So you're combining science and engineering with entrepreneurship, and making it happen.

Podcast Host  21:31

So but wouldn't it app be innovative? Like, do you need to create something like an actual product, something tangible that you can hold? For it to be considered our end date?

Neil 21:42

Yeah, I mean, like, it depends on what you're actually building, right. So if if your company aims to build like, you know, another, like AI company, which is able to analyze marketing records, or is able to analyze consumer preferences, there's tons of competition out there, there is no way that you can, like, even get an addressable market size, for that type of company anymore. It's almost become like a small business, those type of startups, if I'm being like, realistic about it, and, and VCs, they always keep on turning down software startups, because of that reason, there are a couple of which survive, because they're actually good. And they actually have like, reasonable traction. And if you're going to create a software startup company, you have to have traction. And speaking to a lot of investors speaking to a lot of advisors, they've also mentioned this, like without traction, a software startup company is or like any startup company is essentially worthless. And for startups, for software startups, especially they need that traction, they need to have daily active users, they need to have even better like, possibly revenue already. So that that's something that really is required for a software startup. But there is also you can have a hard tech component when it comes to the softer side. So for example, like if you've watched, like the famous show Silicon Valley, if you're trying to create something like lossless compression algorithms, or anything, which is to do with very computationally complex projects, such as blockchain, and decentralized machine learning, or anything like that, then that would be considered something which is, you know, has a high degree of engineering difficulty. But like, the best way to assess it is that if it's there on the market, what a lot of people purchase that product? And if the answer to that is yes, then go out there and build it. But probably that solution is going to be very difficult to solve. Because at the end of the day, if a solution is that great, somebody else has to be doing it already. So that that's what it looks like the time crunches there, especially when it comes to a software related journal.

Podcast Host  23:42

Yeah. So what I'm getting from what you're saying there is that like, if you have got the two parts in front of you of r&d, or creating something like a robot, or going down the path of purely software development, you're probably much more likely to go forth with the robot just because there's not as much competition and like it's so I think there's so many people building apps because it sounds I guess, low cost, I don't really know, I've never built an app myself. But essentially, like you could code an app yourself and put it out in the marketplace. And hopefully it gets picked up. But a lot of them as you say don't and just don't get any traction and they disappear. Whereas if you've got a robot that you're working on, that's a true innovation that can really revolutionize how people live. That's when you're you've got the you hit the nail on the head, so to speak.

Neil 24:29

Yeah, absolutely. And it's important to have traction both ways. Like, really, for hard tech startups such as ours, one of the key like metrics is having institutional partnerships and letter of intense. So having ello eyes or Letter of Intent really helps create like a attraction value against the dollar amount to potentially how many people want to purchase it. So like traction is important both ways. But especially for hard tech, the application to the bigger world might be much much greater in the long term than that of software.

Podcast Host  24:59

Right. So when you Letter of Intent, don't really know that. Maybe it's just a Canadian thing. It's probably here in Australia too. But can you explain to our listeners a little bit more about what exactly that is? And it sounds a little bit like a GoFundMe page, right? Or like a, you know, like Kickstarter or something like that, where you've created a product, and you're asking people to pre purchase the product. But you're saying like, from an organizational standpoint, it's more of like a letter of intent.

Neil 25:24

Yeah, exactly. But essentially, for letter of intent, when it comes to our process, like a letter of intent is essentially like a non legally binding document. So it's non binding. However, investors really like ello eyes, because it gives a sort of, it gives almost like a psychological sort of factor to the individual who is signing that Li, that they want to purchase it. So it's giving your intent that, okay, I want to purchase this device, if it's available in the market, and this date, or whatever. And especially if you get institutions on board, institutions, usually always keep their promises. So that increases your valuation. And a good example of this is the company called boom, supersonic. So they are a startup company, which is developing supersonic airplanes, and commercially available supersonic airplanes. And they had their first prototype as a cardboard prototype. And they were able to get ello eyes from Boeing, Airbus and all these huge players. And that really skyrocketed their evaluation and they were able to close like over 10s of millions of dollars funding, because they had those ello eyes. So ello eyes are really important for a hard tech startup, because it validates that people actually want if it's on the market,

Podcast Host  26:37

right? So okay, there's a student sitting out there somewhere who's like, okay, Neil's obviously had a couple of decision very, very important decision processes, like forks in the road, so to speak. Yeah. Is there any, like two or three momentous forks in the road that you've had? And what were your choices in that moment? And why did you choose what you chose?

Neil 26:58

Yeah, so the biggest part was participating in science fair. So that's one of the first major one because without it, I don't think I Kane would have really existed. Because with that, like it, it really got my inner passion starting to work when it came to the field of biotech. And I was the major one, the second major one was definitely like, it was entering that competition, entering MIT launch x. So over here in Waterloo, they had a chapter here in Waterloo, and it was pretty much this club called flow boat, which was high schools, which was like Waterloo, his first high school startup accelerator. And it was like their second year running it. So I decided to join it. And they were running their MIT launch program for the second year, we were lucky enough to make it as previously mentioned. So that was like our, one of the biggest moments because we got so many investor leads through that. And probably like, the third biggest is probably like, having a like building that network. So having the skill of communication and having the skill of networking, which is a huge part of getting in contact with individuals that have leads to other investors, and ensuring the fact that your company gets like

Podcast Host  28:06

funded into future rounds, and make sure that you have like a clientele base is also very important. You definitely could be that kind of solo scientist sitting in the room, you know, soldering couple things, tapping away at code, and still creating a great robot, but a robot that might not actually get to anyone, because there's no money or backing or network. So that is your decision. You're like, Okay, I need to open my project to the world and really put myself out there. What was your process for preparing yourself to do that kind of thing, right? Because you obviously had the passion and the drive, but then learning how to, as you said, you know, English class was perhaps helpful for this, right? Where you have to kind of say, all right, I've done all the coding, and I've done all the soldering and whatnot. But people probably aren't that interested in that. They want to know, the actual benefit to people who are visually impaired. They want to know how much it's going to cost. They want to know, obstacle avoidance, all these kinds of things. Right. So what was that whole process like for you, when you were first starting to pitch it to different people? And I'm sure they were throwing questions at you. They were like, Oh, damn, I haven't really thought about that yet. Like, that must have been a pretty intimidating process and have quite a steep learning curve.

Neil 29:14

Yeah, so really, like that portion start to happen right after like, we won that competition and MIT lunch x. So immediately after that, I like I would recommend anybody to read books. So the best way to get good at business to get good at networking is to read books. So the first book that I read in that business world, was How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. amazing book. Yeah, an absolutely amazing book. And I recommend it to anyone. It teaches you the art of networking, and it's really beneficial, especially when you talk to investors and stuff like that. And the second part, the second book that I read was Pitch Perfect. So the book based on like how to pitch to investors, I forget the author's name, but it's a really, really good book, especially if you want to know how to pitch presentations. And that book is great because like, it will help you a lot an investor pitches and making sure that the investor gets what we're talking about. And that I started to read, it went down to like the hardcore economic basis, if you will. So I started reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad, like in around when I was in great tech, so it wasn't too long ago. And I also read one up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch, which is an excellent book, if you were interested in terms of the stock market, understanding, like how the, like, the market works, really. And then I read zero to one by Peter teal, which is a phenomenal book, it pretty much goes to the entire process of understanding if your company is going to be like the next big tech really like you making sure that your company becomes successful in the future, and assessing that if your startup idea is really worth pursuing. So definitely recommend zero to one by Peter teal to anyone. And another book, just to add into the business stuff is deep work by Cal Newport, that's a great book in terms of productivity, if you ever need motivation, or anything like that, I read that book, and really, just through reading books is probably like the only, I would say, fastest and cheapest way to learn business really well is by you know, reading books, and there's tons of like, free resources that you can get or even go to your local library and borrow those books from the library and read them and you will be able to understand really the side basics of business, which a lot of people a lot of startup founders aren't aware of. And if you're aware of that, investors will appreciate you way, way more than any other founder. So that's something to keep in mind.

Podcast Host  31:40

Yeah, yeah. Well, take me to, I guess one of your latest investment pitches where you're talking to VCs as a 16 year old, that must be interesting process, right? where you're like, you know, you're obviously come across very articulate, and you know, your stuff. But I'm sure that there is that kind of like, Oh, this kid's only 16 type of thing, you know, when you go into the meeting, so yeah, what is that whole scenario? Like? How does that typical meeting playout?

Neil 32:08

Yes. So really, when it comes to an investor meeting, like you have to be prepared, you have to know in and out of your device, you have to know in and out every competition? If you fail, one question, there are going to be there's going to have like doubts being raised all over the place. So you have to know what you're talking about. Because at the end of the day, like think about it, if you yourself, had your own hard earned money, would you invest it into the thing that you're building? Yeah. And what do you invest it into the pitch that you just did that, like you just hypothetically gave to yourself. So really, putting yourself into that scenario helps you create really good pitches. And it's a really iterative process to get a perfect pitch done. But once you have that perfect pitch, or like a pitch, which is close to perfection, no page is absolutely perfect. But making sure that it goes to that point of perfection, you have something ground solid done. And and for me really hitting those questions really hard in terms of the technical knowledge. At the same time, the business knowledge was something that really I would say, quote, unquote, impressed a lot of these VCs and angel investors, and all that's really impressing them is something that is a key point to keep in mind. And when it came to the issue of my age, like when I'm 16 years old, currently in high school is like I would say, if you have already, like filed so many patents of non provisional patents and all that, and you've invested so much time and energy already, and you've like taken it from a very small, like starting point to what it is now and really pursuing it, investors will see that. So it doesn't really matter in your age, but you have to like you have to like it, like you can't do entrepreneurship for the sake of getting into a university or you can't do entrepreneurship for just the sake of making money, or anything like that, like you have to really like it. Otherwise VCs or angel investors, they won't invest in you. because nobody's just going to give money to a person who just wants to go to university with a startup or just wants to make more money. Nobody's gonna give you money for that. So you really have to like it.

Podcast Host  34:02

And when you're going to a VC or an angel investor how much I don't know if you can tell me this but how much are you generally asking for? Is it kind of like a shark tank scenario where you go in there and give them your pitch? And you know, say I am offering 5% of my company for this amount of money that type of thing or like what's the kind of deal you trying to broker?

Neil 34:22

Yeah, so I unfortunately cannot like get the exact full disclosure.

Podcast Host  34:26

Yeah, rough kind of estimates.

Neil 34:30

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So like our funding rounds like currently seed funding rounds ready startup goes from around 50 K to like 100 K and us figures to raise their initial round. So we have raised our initial round, then like a series A which is right after this. The seed round can range between anywhere between like one to 10 to $15 million. When it comes to series A and Series B can can be anywhere between 20 to 30 million. Series C can be anywhere between 40 to 50. And series D is like four series C Series D is like anywhere between like 70 to $100 million plus in funding. But obviously that's like, once you have all the traction and stuff, do you only go to Series B, C, and D and so forth till IPO? So that's when you go on to the stock market. But yeah, like, really, when it comes to those investor pitches, there are two things that have to keep in mind one, which is the amount of investment amount that you want. And two, what is your post money valuation? So in Shark Tank, they say that, oh, give me $100,000 for I don't know, 1%? Yeah, this company, right? What you would say in investor pitch would be like $100,000, at a $10 million post money valuation. So $100,000, a $10 million post money valuation basically means that once they've invested that $100,000, your company is valued at $10 million. So if you do $100,000, divided by 10 million, you get your 1%. So really, through that, like that's what generally, what people do, when it comes to like that investor meetings, so just having that initial funding amount, and then your post money valuation, which is essentially like, just like restating that, oh, I want $100,000 for 1% of my startup. So yeah, in terms of investor pitches, you just really need to know what you're talking about, be prepared, and be likable. That's a huge part of it, just be really likable. And a lot of it when it comes to the early seed stage, when you don't have too much traction. It's a lot investors in vest a lot based on your emotions, if they like the founder or not, is the person something that they would love to work with? And all those emotional factors really run around? So like really targeting those emotional factors is really important, especially in the seed stage.

Podcast Host  36:46

What do you think students should have lined up prior to reaching out to VCs or angel investors? Like, should they have a registered company? Should they have a patent? Should they have like, a pitch? You know, ready to go? Exactly? well rehearsed? And we'll practice it, can you give them like a couple of tips to avoid? I'm sure I'm sure there was probably, I don't know, you might want to share a little bit of an insight into perhaps a pitch that didn't go so well. Perhaps the lessons you learned from that, and what other students might be able to avoid if they were going, you know, down this path

Neil 37:19

as well. Yeah, so like know your deck very well, like the pitch deck that you're gonna present. So what time which happened was a funny thing that happened, like one of the worst pitches that that I ever gave for EyeCane back when we were trying to raise our seed funding round was that, like, we recently updated a pitch deck. And we finished the update, literally 10 minutes before an investor meeting. So it was like, I didn't have enough time to rehearse it. So it wasn't the finest fish that ever gave. So having that rehearsal done, is very, very important. Like, yes, extremely important to having that we are still done. And make sure you have to some degree proof that you are working on it. Essentially, don't be like piranhas. That's Yes, advice.

Podcast Host  38:04

I just listened. I just listened to bad blood actually the audible so yeah, there knows. If you're interested in VCs and startups, that kind of thing. Yeah, bad bloods a very interesting book to read or listen to. But yes, make sure that you're actually producing something that can be reproducible, and that you can sell to market, which they didn't really have. So that's good advice. That's tip number two, is there any other tips that you give,

Neil 38:26

besides like creating something. So that's like creating something would be like having those partnerships having those like agreements and those pre orders and having the patent setup and stuff like that, showing that you've really worked on creating your initial prototype, and people want it and really like, the third part is just having having a likeability. So be charismatic, be really like, don't be super professional, try to make your pitch like a conversation. And in most cases, sometimes you've pitched without any pitch decks. And it worked really well, like the investor, they first did, like our first major investor for our seed round. So like the current investors invested in us, the current venture capital, firm, solid growth, LLC, we pitched them on the phone. And that was our first meeting. So we had no slide deck, nothing. It was just me talking. And my team just like listening and answering a couple of questions. And they have wanted a second phone meeting. And then finally a third one, which is where they said they want to do that. So that like, we never really had to even show our pitch deck for the investor that actually invested in us. Right. So that's the very funny part about raising your initial round. A lot of it is showing off your likability factor showing that you're really passionate about what you do, because that is when investors will invest. Because at the end of the day, if you're not honest with yourself as to why you're doing it, you cannot show that same level of honesty to others. So that is why it's very important to make sure that you have that passion.

Podcast Host  39:51

Yeah, I know. Enthusiasm is priceless commodity, particularly in this kind of industry. And I, I think I think in particularly in r&d and tech startup Age isn't as much of a factor in some respects, like, as long as they say that you're capable that you know your stuff, and that you're innovating. They're like, okay, you're 16. Who cares? Let's get to the numbers of what's actually happening here and how we can invest in the product, right?

Neil 40:16

Yeah, absolutely. Like, at the end of the day, VCs and angel investors, they don't care what your ages, as long as they can see an opportunity, they'll judge like a 20 year old, or like a 30 year old with an MBA from Harvard, as much as they'll judge a 16 year old is very, very unbiased. They just look at the business. And that's it.

Podcast Host  40:34

Yep. And in terms of like, finding these investors and finding Angel funds, do you just kind of like Google investment funds nearby? And kind of like, I don't know, this is what I would probably do. If I was trying to find investments. I know you got a great network from being part of MIT and Jags. And I'm sure it's like, primarily referral based. But is there sometimes the odd cold email or like cold call and be like, hey, look, I've got a new great invention that I'm working on. I've had some patents done. Would I be able to pitch to you guys sometime next week? Or, you know, what's the process to getting those meetings happening?

Neil 41:08

Yeah, so like, ironically, the thing is, like, for the investors that also like, that'd be fun, Miss Jen invested us. They weren't from any other referral or any investor lead that we previously had, we were just like searching and hunting through. Like really a Google, Google is not like the finest place to start. It's best if you start building out that network. But we were just searching for like this consultancy and like these angel investment funds and all of these areas, and we came across a consultancy firm and Ben like we just had to cold email them. And it worked. So cold emailing isn't a bad idea at all, especially when you're but be good at cold emailing have some really good practices when it comes to cold emailing, there's great articles online, that you can read all about cold emailing. And that's frankly, where we also learned it from. And it works cold emailing sometimes works like occasionally, like you'll probably have a 25% success rate on average, if you're really good at it. And I don't say that to demotivate anyone, I'm sure. Like, if you're willing to learn it, you can definitely do it.

Podcast Host  42:06

There's nothing that you can't learn. It's interesting what you're looking at cold emailing as like a learned skill, right? It's not just finding the email and just typing away and sending anything, right like there's a certain formula and a certain art to sending a very, very good cold email that tries to elicit a response. Because the end of the day, like that's all you wanted to get as a response. And that starts a conversation. But I think you might have a couple of tips, which is like, keep it short and sweet. Try and set up phone conversation, like a pretty simple call to action, right? Those kinds of things can make a pretty solid cold email. But certainly like as you said, there's a lot of resources out there. So students should before blasting VCs and angel investors with all these cold emails, take the time to learn what a good email actually looks like. Can you talk to me about how the team grew? And how long they've been involved? Is it mainly students? Do you have some adults involved and how you got them on board?

Neil 42:59

Yeah, so our entire like team initially started off like full of high school students. So six high school students like starting from late 2018, we had a lot of team changes. In fact, from that original team, only one person still remains from that very original team, who's currently in University at the time, he was in grade 11. So now he's in university. And he's currently studying Software Engineering at the University of Waterloo. And he's a great, he's our chief technology officer in software engineering. And he's a great person, his name is Eric. Shout out to him. And he's a great guy. And he's a really smart engineer. And yeah, so like, I work with him a lot in terms of the software side, and implementing everything in in our, in our software, transfer layers and stuff like that. And right now, our team consists of five other students. So snake Shah, who's our chief development officer, Cynthia Murphy, who's our chief financial officer. And we also have shift Patel, who's our chief technology officer. In our hardware design. We have Richard Wang, who's our chief marketing officer. And we also have REM Betty who's also our co Chief Marketing Officer, and their grades go from grade 12, which is Snee grade 11, who's myself, Richard, and Schiff, and Sophia and a TED, which is Aryan. So we have a pretty diverse range of people who are working on the problem. And they're quite motivated to solve the problem that we're aiming. So

Podcast Host  44:25

there must be times where people kind of doubt themselves or is there none of that? Do people just have like, complete confidence in themselves in the product in the team and they're like, ah, regardless, we can make a difference to the world.

Neil 44:38

I think like in a perfect scenario, like you should always have that mindset that regardless of your age, you can still do it. But obviously, like, if a setback comes you have to remember why you're doing it in the first place. Like you have to look back at like really just calm down your nerves and think on a logical basis of why you're doing it. And business is like a huge thing which is always repeated. Don't let emotions run you Always make sure that your logic always really operates you are more than your emotions do. So that's something to keep in mind, when it comes to business, I'm not gonna say entrepreneurship is to really have that mindset in place, think logically, don't go on to like a sort of unproductive Street, just because something isn't working, you should try to solve that problem. And at the end of the day, like, there will always be harder problems to solve. So always realize the fact that problem that you have cannot be the hardest problem that you are currently facing, there will always be a harder and harder and harder challenge. And simply accepting the fact that there is no perfect result is something to keep in mind. When it comes to business. Like there's no perfect result in terms of like an engineering problem, it will obviously pop up once again, and again and again. And there will always be improvements to be made.

Podcast Host  45:51

That's good advice. Now, besides the books and your experiences in different competitions, I'm still going to talk about in my table objects, we're going to get to that eventually. But I'm interested in who your mentors are who the people around you where that might be, I don't know, I don't want to be age discriminatory or keep talking about it. But I'm sure there was a couple people who were, you know, maybe 1020 years, your senior, perhaps your parents, teachers, other people who have been entrepreneurs before an entrepreneurship community. Like Yeah, who did you kind of go to for advice during this whole process that you were starting a business and, you know, pitching to investors and that kind of thing?

Neil 46:27

Yeah, so I never really had like it as a reason I should not my parents are never into, like, they're not interested, like the business side. My, my dad's like, my dad's a professor at the University of Waterloo. And he's very much in terms of like the literally like in the sense of mechanical engineering and all that area. So I got, like, advice in terms of the r&d portion, I understood how to make R&D very well, because from a very young age, like beginning from like, grade three, grade four, I started doing like all the hardcore, mechanical engineering principle stuff, yes. And all that and learning how to apply, like really just the end of the day, it's pretty basic math, until you start getting into the calculus stuff, which I'm not going to go into too much. But, yeah, like, really had that base already there. So I knew I could do the science work and everything like that. But the business side of it, I didn't know too much. So really just networking and outreaching. And just simply ask questions, because people know where you are, as a starting entrepreneur, people know that you need to build that network. And the right people will always be open to doing that for you. But there'll be open to help you, they'll be open to connect you to leads obviously have to keep in mind that people are busy, and they won't respond to your emails 100% of the time. But yeah, like keep that in terms of mind. That to reach out to people, you have to be likeable. And you have to build that network for an early age. So for me, it was really just participating in MIT launch x, getting in contact with those mentors, attending events is a huge part. So obviously now during COVID-19, once this pandemic ends, I would highly recommend entrepreneurs to go out and network at these networking events at huge conferences and get in contact with a lot of people friend network as much as you can, because you'll start to meet many great people who really want to help you.

Podcast Host  48:14

Yeah, absolutely. Well, MIT Launch X. Let's talk about it. Talk me through that experience. How you prepared you were finalists, did you win anything at the competition? or?

Neil 48:24

Yeah, so the competition is pretty much like if you become finalists, you get a priceless asset, which is like all these investor connections, and everything like that. And I'd recommend like, especially for like really hard tech startups, it's very worth it. Because most of the investors there and leads there are like pure heart tech investors. So like hardcore microbiology, startups, or material science startups, they should go ahead and like really, really participate in that. Because like those investors

Podcast Host  48:50

Not like a software app taught kind of startup, it's more for people who are creating things.

Neil 48:54

Yeah, for sure. But if you are trying to do software, like I know for a fact that the competition is much more like hardcore there, like I believe, out of the 20 startups that were finalists, I think there's like only three or four, which were actually like software based. So it's definitely much more difficult to take the software because the investors they also know that software is becoming riskier and riskier each day, but a bit of an exaggeration, but yeah, and really the experience of like the launch x, I'd recommend it to anybody back then, like we participated in MIT launch x clubs, which is the global competition. Unfortunately, MIT logics clubs as they no longer have that competition anymore, but MIT law Jax is still running. So that's like now that I think they made it into a summer program. So you pretty much create a startup and you can spin off a startup from there almost like an incubator program. There's a demand for high school students. So I would definitely recommend anybody do it. It's a great learning experience. And if you're interested in entrepreneurship,

Podcast Host  49:52

do it for sure. So in terms of competing in the actual competition side of things, what are they wanting to say is it just like pitch deck and that kind of Shark Tank style, or is it more in depth, they want to see your numbers or that kind of stuff as well.

Neil 50:07

So really, you have to go in there like an investor pitch. So you have to show your prototype, you have to show like your numbers and everything NSH like isn't in a stadium, so, or like not in a stadium, but like in a large lecture hall. And there's about 100 to 150 people that you're pitching to. So don't let your nerves get on you. Yes, huge part and making sure that you have that public speaking skill. And be fearless when you're on on the actual stage itself is something to keep in mind. So constantly rehearse, you can never get enough practice. So keep on practicing and practicing and practicing, and do really good practicing, and make sure you're good at it. And then of that, once you feel that you're satisfied, you know that it's good, then you can make sure that any investor invest in, in that deck. Because if you yourself intrinsically know, in your soul, at that pitch, what you're doing is true, anybody will go ahead and invest in it eventually. So that's something to really keep in mind to keep your mindset up there is you have to be satisfied with your own work that you create.

Podcast Host  51:11

Yeah, so pretty much you are going to get to the finals. If you are a like a brilliant speaker, be you have a great pitch deck, see you have a great prototype. And they like they can see that your product is meeting a need or solving a problem like actually realistically has application in the real world.

Neil 51:30

That's the really the final pitch that you have to do. So once you're a global finalists, when you're pitching at MIT's literally like that, but like submitting to MIT Launch X as well, you have to make a five minute video pitch. So we actually really good in terms of video pitching as well. So yeah, again, same skills apply, you have to show off your prototype, you have to show your numbers, you have to show that you're a great speaker. And if you don't do that, like unfortunately, you will get selected.

Podcast Host  51:54

So it seems like there's a lot of different things. I mean, it's such an interesting competition, right? Because there's no right or wrong answer. Like it's purely based on the skill set. And the product and every everyone's going to have very different products, right. Like you're they're addressing, you know, product vision impaired, and there's probably people out there who also, you know, doing completely something different to what you're doing. And yet the judges, they are trying to compare the two even though they're apples and oranges in terms of like, actual problem that they're trying to solve. So is there any, like one or two tips that you would give to students who are interested in something like Mr. Table objects, or a similar type of competition, obviously, like the public speaking side is super, super important. The video pitching side super, super important, but is there any kind of message or tip that you think students should be including in their presentations that would help elevate their project?

Neil 52:44

I would say like really read the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Yes, like tynax, any presentation, any pitch deck or anything like that? And really just practice those by two best advices that I can give anyone? Yep, there's no shortcut way. There's only a lot going on. Yep. Which is just hardcore practice. There's no secret trick or anything. Everybody follows the same path. You have to work smart. And you have to work hard.

Podcast Host  53:10

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So my next question is, how do you balance all this with school? Are you running the economics classes now? Where you are running the tech classes? Or, you know, how are you making this all work alongside your schoolwork?

Neil 53:26

Well, firstly, I wish I was running the classes in person. Yeah, but yeah, it's pretty good. So far, like I'm currently studying for my AP exams. And yeah, because like, I really like taking exams a test. Like for me, I find tests to be a perfect way to show up what you know. And really, like, understand, and realize the fact that if you know what you're talking about, and if you know, like, these things, which are quite important, at the end of the day, I feel like school students, they have a very negative outlook, when it comes to tests and quizzes and stuff like that, I treated those as positive. And having that positive mentality is very important. Otherwise, you simply won't be able to like, balance all these things. So one thing that helps is you have to have a passion for like your entrepreneurship side. And whatever thing you're getting in terms of your extracurriculars, and you also have a passion for school, you pretty much really have to be at or about learning new things. And that's not a bad thing. A really just having that passion is very important. And having the skill to talk to people is also very important.

Podcast Host  54:31

100% and what's next for you? What's the future hold for Neil as well as Metro biotechs and ik and and everything like, I'm sure you've got next steps planned out already.

Neil 54:42

Yeah. So Mitra Biotechnologies is currently like another startup that I'm founding and that one like it's currently in stealth mode, so I can't reveal too much about it. But it's to do with medical diagnostics. And that one's like really hardcore, really strong microbiology, material science area, and that It's very exciting. So really, for me, I would say the future is like, what expect happens to EyeCane is that we're most likely going to like after we have sold our products, which have CRB products and stuff like that, we hope to sell the company eventually, to a larger player who can really, really develop out our company. Because at the end of the day, what we're developing requires a high capital cost and high r&d and high manufacturing costs, and high maintenance. So through that system, we need somebody who has those in built resources already. Because at the end of the day, in the long term, it does become like a low maintenance job. But you need that very high, almost like 100 $250 million total in funding to have those factories, jobs and supply chains built up, so probably slotted to some company, which already has that set up and ensure that they are able to sell it. And at the end of the day, get it into the hands of the visually impaired all across the world. That's what's going for EyeCane what I see in the next two or three years. And for Mitra Biotechnologies I don't know too much. It's too early to tell right now. But I'll definitely keep you updated.

Podcast Host  56:08

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think students would love to follow along with your story. And these the best place to do that LinkedIn.

Neil 56:14

Yeah. So LinkedIn, I also have Twitter. My my Twitter ad is pretty much Neil neitra underscore. Yeah, those are probably the best places to reach out to me to network with me. And yes, but

Podcast Host  56:24

awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Neil, for joining the top of the class. It's been a fascinating insight into the world of a 16 year old pitching devices, making a massive difference in the area of biomedical technology and hopefully helping vision impaired people around the world. And I'm sure you're going to go on to do some pretty awesome things. So thanks so much for joining us, and I look forward to sharing the episode far and wide.