Boston Herald

By Jennifer Heldt Powell
Boston Herald Business Reporter

I confess that, although I know business gurus say a good business is built on a solid business plan, I’m still working on mine.

I’ve thought about it, talked about it and even written a draft or two. But I’m busy. I have a business to run. I don’t have time to just sit and plan.

Maybe the potential of winning $5,000 or more could provide an incentive.

There are dozens of business plan competitions to provide motivation for those who have yet to do what business planners say should be the first step in starting a business. Who couldn’t use some extra cash? But these contests have more to offer than the prize money.

“It forces you to put together a good business plan,” said John Rainey, senior business adviser for Clark University’s Small Business Development Center. “And it’s an opportunity to have other people look at it and give you input. With most contests, there are several stages. The first one is usually a simple review of the written plans.

At later stages, entrepreneurs typically make presentations to judges, who often include investors and other business experts.

“The prize money itself isn’t the goal,” said Christine Sullivan, executive director of the Enterprise Center at Salem State College, who launched a competition for North Shore businesses three years ago. “It’s to get your plan showcased in front of a lot of people who are influential and can get your business to the next level.”

It worked for David Bean, chief of SemiNex Corp, who won Salem State’s first competition. One of the people he met through the contest recently became a major investor in the high-power semiconductor laser business. Now, Bean is ready to move ahead with the plan that won the competition. He plans to hire 100 people in the next five years.

Bean wasn’t looking to win the $5,000 prize money when he entered the contest.

It was more about networking and being a part of the local North Shore Business Community, he said.

The bragging rights and the publicity he got as a finalist, and then as a winner, were a nice bonus.

The key to winning business competitions is having a solid plan.

You have to have a good product or service.

You have to know your market.

You have to show that you know how to meet the demands of that market.

You also have to show that you have a good management team with the experience to carry through with the plan.

You have to be able to present that plan well both in written form and as a live presentation.

At the very least, it’s good practice even if you don’t win.

You can find out about competitions through business organizations, local universities and even Internet listings. Some are open to anyone, while others are limited to certain types of businesses or categories of business.

Use caution, Rainey advises. Make sure the contest is offered by a reputable organization that will take steps to protect your privacy. Also make sure you have protected yourself with the appropriate copyrights and trademarks.

Salem News – Sacrifices for Success

By Christina Torode
Staff writer – Salem News


As local entrepreneurs wait to hear if their business plans pass muster with judges of this year’s North Shore Business Plan Competition, the winners of last year’s competition have a few words of advice:


Be prepared to sacrifice … big time.


Since winning the $5,000 first prize in the 2005 competition last May, SemiNex’s founder and president David Bean has gone without a salary for the past year with startup costs for his semiconductor laser technology business estimated at around $200,000.


Custom Medicine Pharmacenter co-owners William and Mary Beckman, who took the $2,000 third prize, have also scraped by, forgoing salaries and spending $250,000 on the buildout of their compounding lab in Beverly.


BioPoint Solutions, the Danvers software company that landed the $3,000 second prize, followed a similar path. “We came up with $200,000 to spend on product development and legal fees associated with starting a business and that amount just let us scrape by,” said Doug Brown, co-founder, president and chief executive officer of BioPoint. “For anyone starting out in the technology space we’re in, I would tell them that they need at least $400,000 to $500,00 to really get your business going.”


But along with the financial struggles over the last year came significant milestones for each of the startups.


SemiNex Corp. emerges from stealth mode
The Middleton company won last year’s coveted prize, then went underground. Last week, however, SemiNex came out of stealth mode with a new Web site and some major customer wins.


SemiNex, which makes pencil-eraser-sized semiconductor chips used to power lasers, promoted its technology during the business plan competition for cosmetic use in lasers to reduce wrinkles and acne, but since then the company has developed several applications for its product.


SemiNex’s first deal was with a medical customer. Recently, the military came calling.


“In both cases, I can’t name the customer or how they’re using our chips, but our technology can be used in laser radars used by the military and there are people interested in using our technology in free space communications where laser light is used to communicate between towers on buildings, for example,” said Bean, president of SemiNex. The technology can also be used in laser targeting and guidance systems, according to SemiNex’s Web site.


The company recently shipped hundreds of units of its chips to the medical industry and military customers, but it took a year’s worth of development and related manufacturing costs funded by Bean and co-founders Dan Pulver, director of engineering, and Don Freeman.


“The investment community is a lot slower to invest than we had hoped and that forced us to bootstrap the operation and really hunker down and focus on development and improving the product,” said Bean. “In that process we’ve been able to increase the power of the laser two to five times over competitors’ (products) and therefore reduce the cost of our product because you only have to use one laser powered by our technology in comparison to having to use two to five lasers to get the same power from other companies’ technology.”


With a product coming out of production and in use by two customers, Bean is ready to go back to the 40 or so venture capital firms and angel investors he’s met with over the last two years. He hopes to raise $500,000 to commercialize the company’s product and hire part-time accounting and administrative help, as well as engineers.


The money the company has spent so far covered development, patent-pending and incorporation costs and related legal fees, he said. The $5,000 prize from the business plan competition went right into product development.


“For those going into the (business plan) competition this year, I would say be farther along in the development process than we were,” he said. “I think it makes a world of difference with investors.”

SemiNex Sets New World Record in Laser Diode Power

4.5 WATTS OF POWER ACHIEVED AT 1550 NM FROM A SINGLE SEMICONDUCTOR DIODE LASER


Middleton, MA – SemiNex Corporation today announced the achievement of greater than 4.5 watts of optical power from a single laser diode at 1550 nm wavelength. These results compliment SemiNex’s earlier results of greater than 4 watts of optical power at 1450 nm achieved in 2005.  

“We are very pleased with these latest results”, stated David Bean, President of SemiNex.  “These results exceeded our expectations based on theoretical models and we were surprised that the process yield may also exceed expectations, especially for our first process run at this wavelength.”  

These results validate SemiNex’s theoretical models and design techniques.  SemiNex markets infrared laser diodes with wavelengths between 1300 nm and 1600 nm.  The 4.5 watt results compare favorably to conventional laser results of 0.8 to 1.5 watts.  “This represents a 3 to 5 fold increase in laser performance”, says Bean.   

SemiNex fabricated this product to fulfill an extremely difficult customer specification.  “Our customer is extremely pleased and looks forward to a continued relationship with SemiNex”, said Bean.  

Higher power laser diodes enable laser systems that are smaller, more powerful, and more efficient.  These new SemiNex lasers may open new markets for laser devices and mass-market applications for infrared lasers.  Infrared lasers are used in medical, military, telecommunications, and industrial applications.  Specific applications for these diodes include: medical lasers for aesthetic procedures, free space optical communications, LIDAR military applications, and pumping sources for diode pumped solid-state lasers (DPSSLs).  

SemiNex featured in Mass High Tech

A BOOTSTRAPPED MIDDLETON COMPANY RECENTLY MADE ITS FIRST MAJOR SALE AS IT ATTEMPTS TO PUSH ITS LASER TECHNOLOGY INTO THE GROWING MARKETPLACE KNOWN AS “WRINKLE ERADICATION.”


by Dike Henderson
Mass High Tech Journal

A bootstrapped Middleton company recently made its first major sale as it attempts to push its laser technology into the growing marketplace known as “wrinkle eradication.”

Now SemiNex Corp., which has developed prototypes for a more efficient consumer laser treatment, is focusing its business plan to partner with vendors who would then “sell” the services much the way marketing teams created Tupperware parties and “Botox Happy Hours.”

A motivated individual will invite friends and family to the house and demonstrate the SemiNex technology that removes wrinkles. Those convinced of its effectiveness can get a treatment right in the living room. Later, that consumer can host her own event.

“The work itself is done by a technologist, not a full physician,” said Bean. “This approach has worked with Botox, and we feel that we have a better technology because the tools are more effective.”

Bean declined to name his new customer, but the target that his company is aiming at is one famously served by Botox. Botox injection to eradicate wrinkles is the fastest-growing cosmetic procedure in health care, according to industry statistics. Close to 2 million people received injections each year, according to data by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

SemiNex technology calls for “laser removal” rather than injections. And company officials say they have a technology to provide “better performance and laser efficiency while drastically reducing the laser size and power consumption.” Company officials say approval from the FDA is not required. SemiNex would be entering a crowded market, as more than a dozen companies are involved in medical laser systems to eradicate wrinkles, tattoos and unwanted hair.

“We’re designed to be the Intel inside the box,” said David Bean, president of the 2-year-old company. “Our technology will be used by vendors, who will deal with consumers. This is a large field that will get larger. It’s where computers were in the late ’70s. The industry is going to explode.”

Locally, several companies are generating significant revenue in laser-treatment technologies.  Candela Corp., based in Wayland, has annual revenue of about $110 million, according to public documents. Cynosure Inc., a private company with headquarters in Chelmsford, has annual sales of between $20 million and $49 million, according to figures in a database developed by Mass High Tech.

Palomar Medical Technologies Inc., in Burlington, also sells medical lasers appropriate to hair and wrinkle removal. It has annual revenue of about $70 million.

Microsulis Ltd. is a tissue ablation (removal) company from the United Kingdom that has opened U.S. operations in Waltham. Chief Operating Officer Nicholas Johnston said the company might look at wrinkle removal, but right now the company is focusing on women’s reproductive health issues. National players include Lumenis, Laserscope and Iridex.

The fact that so many companies are making money in the field suggests a growing opportunity. “With the aging of the U.S. society, there certainly will be a growing older population with discretionary funds to spend on wrinkle removal treatments,” said Dr. Michael Miller, a physician who runs a consulting firm in Cambridge. “A marketplace will be more competitive as more treatments are developed.”

SemiNex officials say the technology component that will distinguish them is that they will provide “high-power semiconductor lasers with six times the power and half the cost of conventional semiconductor lasers.”

Investors in addition to Bean include Donald Freeman, a former chief executive at Davol Inc. and HydroCision; and Dan Pulver, the company’s principal scientist.

Mass High Tech – Direct Link

SemiNex Secures Financing for Growth

For more information, contact:
Neal Stoker
VP Sales and Marketing
SemiNex Corporation
978-326-7703

Middleton, MA (April 4, 2007) – SemiNex Corporation, a provider of state-of-the-art laser diodes for the medical, military and communications markets, announced today that it has completed funding for its first round of expansion financing, led by the eCoast Angels group.

This new funding will allow SemiNex to rapidly advance its business. “We are pleased to have the funding to deploy our technology into these broader markets”, stated David Bean, President of SemiNex. “We look forward to filling previously unmet needs for high-power lasers at long wavelengths”.

SemiNex was founded in 2003, and has achieved impressive technical results for laser power and efficiency at long wavelengths between 1300 nm and 1600 nm. SemiNex will use the funding to optimize its laser attributes and packaging to suit the needs of its customers in the medical, military and communications applications, as well as broadening its customer base. “We are actively working with customers to design SemiNex technology into next-generation systems”, noted Bean. SemiNex laser diodes are smaller and more powerful than traditional lasers, and allow system vendors to design smaller, more efficient systems at a lower cost. “We also see a huge opportunity for SemiNex to enable new applications that were previously not possible with currently available components.”

“We are excited to play a role in the company’s growth as it exploits its technology in the broader marketplace”, stated Michael Marsh of eCoast Angels. eCoast angels was joined by other individual investors and CIV Ventures of New York to complete the funding round. “We are proud to be involved with Seminex as they have focused on a very promising new market for lasers and optics and their team’s experience put them in a real leadership position within that market” noted Greg Smith of CIV Ventures.

About SemiNex
SemiNex aims to fundamentally transform key industries by displacing conventional laser technology with super-high-power semiconductor diode lasers. SemiNex enables cost-effective laser applications by providing better semiconductor laser performance and efficiency while drastically reducing the laser size and power consumption. This enables lasers to be used more broadly in high-volume applications for medical, military and free space optical communications systems. For more information, see /.

 About eCoast Angels
eCoast Angels focus on early-stage companies involved with advanced technology, e-commerce, healthcare, and industrial products and services. Members have invested in several companies since the network’s inception in 2000, organizing syndicated angel investment of over $22 Million, driving nearly $50 Million in Venture Capital investment to companies.  For more information, see www.ecoastangels.com.

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