Jacob Babcock of NuCurrent

Jacob Babcock CEO NuCurrent

3:46

we've actually known each other for some time I think the first time we talked was maybe back in I did

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research I'm saying maybe but it was probably 2016 2017 era um world was

4:00

different obviously yeah Wireless was different sure uh at that time and

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probably it still is and I'm just not as Keen to it it was kind of a magical thing of wireless charging and like many

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technolog technological advances like I can say for certain the phone I had in my pocket wasn't something I could sit

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somewhere in charge yeah not then and if it was there probably wasn't a place available to sit and charge fast forward

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to today it's a technology that from consumer standpoint uh is is youit is

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might be too strong of a word but um there's kind of expectations down the market like y just like the internet and

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Wi-Fi my favorite things is when people complain about the internet on the airplane I'm like you are surfing every

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print known to humankind yeah while you're going you know yeah it's crazy yeah um so I would imagine your world

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has changed significantly since then uh would love to get into things um with

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just uh kind of an view of yeah new current how you know some of the

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products Services where you fit in today's environment and I think it also be interesting just to understand what

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is the wireless environment say what are some of the big challenges what are some of the things that you're working

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through maybe we can start there and just talk about the business that would be awesome yeah sure so we we met I'll

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believe you in 2016 um and so to you that's the beginning of the story but to me you

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know it goes back to 2009 uh when I was at Northwestern law school and it was a class project and so you know even

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between 2009 and 2016 where you're reflecting on like the landscape at that time was still a nent Rel wireless

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charging was nent relatively unknown at that moment in time Samsung would have had their phones with wireless charging

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but and maybe even Google would have had one but Apple hadn't done it yet like the next year is when they were going to

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start and so that was uh still a nent period um and in many ways interestingly

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uh it's still a relatively nent industry um it really depends how you choose to

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segment what you're talking about so if you want to talk about it from the purview of Wireless power technology I

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mean there's billions of devices in the market that have wireless power so that's not nent right but if you want to

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look at it by by actual end product segments um really phones there's

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probably you know about half half a billion uh phones a year that ship with wireless charg ing it's a pretty

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saturated mature Market but there's a lot of other electronic devices that are

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just starting to like we think about these as waves hitting the shore and they keep rolling so the the the mobile

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phones have already hit the shore the air the earbud cases have already hit the shore yeah uh wearables are hitting

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the shore but there's still like Garmin just put out their first watch in a long time that has wireless charging Fitbit

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still doesn't whoop does um and so there's there's a mix there that wave is

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kind of approaching the shore right now people are starting to Surf it it's not crashed yet yeah um and then like an

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area I'm so excited about is smart glasses and I think it's gonna majorly

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majorly disrupt um uh consumer electronics as we know them and Commercial Electronics too for like uh

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workers but um those like the most popular ones out right now are the rayb band meadas yep and they're awesome have

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you used them no but they're they're the first ones I've seen that I'm like I would put those on my face you got to try them like even just go into a Lens

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Crafters and try them and I'm not pitching our stuff we're not in those um because they currently use pin based charging so um it's physical charging

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it's it's the old way of doing it that's a plus and a minus physical port and you you plug them in it's kind

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of that wave is going to develop because for wireless charging because what's

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really cool about smart glasses and why it's going to disrupt

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consumer electronics and and potentially displace mobile phones I mean that's Mark Zuckerberg predicts that he said by

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2030 there will be more smart glasses than mobile phones it'll replace them yeah and you know I kind I don't know if

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the timeline's right or the the exact ratio is right but I think that the idea

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is right for two big reasons one is from a first principal perspective these

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glasses they sit on your eyes your ears your nose your mouth right next to your brain so it's much closer to your entire

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nerve center and your Sensations than in your pocket like if you could choose and I could say the tech works on your face

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or in your pocket and you're buying for attention and you're buying for usage and you always want to be like if you're

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a Apple Samsung Google whoever yeah you want to be on the face right right so that's where they want to be so that's

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reason one and then reason number two is so many people wear glasses already it's already like over two billion people in

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the world where glasses every day and there's a convergence of Technology

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that are allowing it to shrink and become invisible so if you know if I told you these were smart glasses and

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they did something that was valuable to you you would wear them in a second because they're you know they look like normal glasses I mean you have your own

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exra can ofers yeah so yeah so

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these these are a little too small right now for smart glasses but they'll get

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there in the next few years and the way to do that is with miniaturizing Technologies so anyways this is a

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there will be a product coming out in January it's going to be really exciting we're in it uh with wireless charging from U definitely one of the biggest

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players in the space very cool but going back to your original question that was

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long-winded answer but going back to your original question has how have things changed well there's a lot more

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awareness of wireless charging because of things like iPhones but there are still so many untapped market segments

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where wireless charging is not just a cool feature like it is for a phone it's actually really essential to be able to

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give the customization and flexibility so that my glasses are similar to yours but different right and somebody else

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wears completely different wireframe glasses and you need to give that personality otherwise people aren't going to wear us you know an iPhone the

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only differentiation is the size and the color right people won't put that on their face no it's part of their

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personal expression and in fact talking about the phones yeah I mean I've heard people question like why don't they just

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make the phones with cases on them like well that's the personalization that's that's where they do the line for people

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I think yeah that's that's a I like that true yeah that's really interesting and then also something you said so

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technology such as putting the internet of things on your face uh you know you

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have to think about the user experience too and that's some of the challenges that I've had with thinking do I really

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wantan to right now I don't think about my glasses except where are they do I need all this other Tech and so um you

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know what we'll see in a lot of product development you think of current behaviors people have I take these I set them on my nightstand every day you on

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my nightstand is the wireless charger right so um I think it's cool to think

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about naturally I think about things that I charge today and would it be nicer if I didn't have to you know

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probably more seamless maybe you're gonna have to charge them there's still batteries but can you do it in a way that's like effortless like we did that

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with HP with their headphones yeah so they're real like it's poly HP poly so when you take off the headphones you

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just hang them on a hanger like like a nice beautiful display stand and they charge and they get device firmware updates so you don't have to

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think about like yes I'll accept the firmware and you know get updated software it just does it all for you so

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you're still charging but you're not thinking about it you're just thinking about taking them off and putting them where they belong right and so that's that's more of how people say like is

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there a chord I can cut is kind of the first right type of questions people ask

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totally yeah yeah and then you get into that second one that you're kind of leading into which is if I did have a

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cut cord what else could I do right right what what type of products could I enable like I mean I guess charging

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these by plugging them in is possible and is how the rayb band metas work today the glasses

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but this is kind of in the second category which is like what cool things can you do in smart glasses if you don't

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have to have a physical mechanical Port anywhere on here yeah if all the electronics are embedded inside and

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invisible now what cool stuff can you do and so it kind of flips that question around swim goggles yeah absolutely

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that'd be good um yeah in my mind I'm still waiting for I I don't drive an electric car but I think that's also

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what consumers are all thinking when do I just park yeah for sure there's a so we so a good source of Distinction for

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us is we um we focus on very you know pretty small things things you can carry yeah um that's a different level of

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power it has different challenges like making really miniature Electronics um so we don't do the EV charging there's a

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company called whitecity that does um they you know I was friends with the former

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CEO so I could like recommend them wholeheartedly I'm not saying good or bad about the new one I just don't know

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them but um um so but I think they're still doing well they have an adoption curve you

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know question about like how quickly can you get like an oem like a Tesla or Ford or whoever to actually you know embed

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this or is it just an aftermarket thing but there's bottom line if you wanted to pay whatever it costs to do it you could

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get it installed and you could just park your Tesla over your charging mat that lays down on your garage never have to think about plugging in your car again

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so the the physics is all there the technolog is there it's more of an adoption question of this and go to market question yeah 100% that's so

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interesting so okay so I'm G to dive into new current because for folks that don't know uh the business that well and

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I was just listening to the past couple of minutes it sounds like you make glasses and you make technology and all that type of stuff so would love to know

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just kind of like your business what is your role in this space what is your

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company's role in this space and what are some of the challenges that you're uh helping people through yeah yeah I

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like the the re redirect because it is confusing sometimes people like what do we like you're talking about whoop and

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then you're talking about honey well and then you're talking about HP wait you make all the are you like IDE or what do

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you guys do and so what we what we really you know do better than anyone else in the world is you know Drive

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Innovation around wireless charging technology and what that usually means is miniaturization improving the Energy

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Efficiency of the of the technology uh which has user experience benefits like

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you can charge your glasses faster um it allows you it allows the industrial designers to reduce the size that has to

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be dedicated to the charging and they can put other stuff there like a bigger battery or they can put other sensors

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there to make it have more functions so what we do is we work with large

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companies that are in innovators in their markets like the ones I've mentioned where they say there's

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something we want to do better or differently than what the competition is doing in the space and it involves wireless charging but like we can't get

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it done with what's available with basic off-the-shelf Solutions like okay they

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might go to a chip company like an nxp and infini and a Renaissance and they might say hey do you have wireless

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charging and they say yes we do and they're like great we'd like to put it in and they they like hand them a

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reference as that's this big you know the size of a hockey puck and I did that for your audio a um yeah

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um so SI of a hockey puck and then they're like oh yeah but this is smart glasses how are you gonna fit that in

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here they're like oh it doesn't work yeah and so they come to us and they're like does it really not work or can you do it and we're like sometimes it

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doesn't work like you're asking for too much but uh more often than not we find ways to make it work and so we're

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innovating with these Leading Edge companies um we end up doing is we uh

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Implement our technology that we've developed over the last 15 years so we have over 400 patents we have our own

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internal um design tools that's trained on our data for the last 15 years and uh

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what we do is we can really quickly design the solutions for them using our tools using our technology and then we

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give them everything they need to have it built the the design files the test protocols uh the firmware that operates

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it we give it to them you say this is yours now you can build it and when you bu build it every time you print one send us a check for royalty oh wow

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that's awesome so so you guys are doing the the first of all you're taking their big problem no pun intended hockey puck

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size big um and then you're using you're basic they're tapping into your

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knowledge base your team's Talent yeah to then say okay here's how you do that

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small in that in that example oftentimes it's yeah like solving a size problem is often where we are it could be other

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things it could be reliability it could be like hey we can fit this wireless charger in but the distance isn't good

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enough the efficiency is not going so it can manifest in multiple ways but size is a great example okay that's so

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interesting and so then um so I also like to kind of talk through products and services so that would be

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one uh what that also sounds like so you're now also giving them the tools the

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technology basically from a revenues and I'm sure it's different all over the place but in some circumstances every

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time it's used it's it's a royalty to to your words is that the primary business model

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uh it is okay was that always the case for you guys uh no so when you met us in

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in 2016 that was a loaded questions I remember at one point yeah and uh you

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might have a better memory than I do uh on my own company you definitely have a better memory than I should know my company better but um back in 2016

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though uh we we really pivoted into this business model around the 2019 time frame so pre um pre 2019 they were kind

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of too big changes in the company so uh change number one was when we started at

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Northwestern we were very narrowly focused on implants and medical devices that was the nature of the class and so

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we just thought we were we didn't even think that there were other potential customers in the world other than implant device makers so we started on

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solving a problem for charging implanted neuros stimulators which are used to

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treat chronic pain by stimulating the spinal cord or uh they could do sleep apne deep brain stimulations that helps

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Parkinson's and allheim like super cool stuff we were just a wireless power portion to get power into the body

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without harming a human interesting so we thought that was what our Market was but it's a slow Market it's a smallish

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Market yeah on the plus side they sell these devices for you know

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$20,000 so it's it's you know but still that's just 20 iPhones at a time and think how many iPhones and think how

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many thing they they develop it for 18 months and then it comes in market and so our first big thing was saying we're

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not just a med device focused company we had to lift our eyes up and we had to be shown by companies like Motorola and

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Intel and Texas Instruments those were kind of the first industry players that said you've done amazing things in

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medical device and in fact because you've been working in medical device while the rest of us have been working

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on cell phones you've been trying to climb Everest and you've gotten up to 18,000 feet we've just been trying to

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climb at you know a 5,000 foot Hill and we're at 5,000 feet but look how how far you've gone like come climb this with us

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and or show us how to climb these higher mountains and so pivoting and saying we can do

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consumer Industrial in addition to Medical that was kind of our first big change so by

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the time you met us we were already moving on to some stuff like that but the business model of what we thought we

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delivered what the product was also had to change um it changed from we because

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of the human body environment we were in the thing that we were better at at that time than anybody was making uh antennas

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coils or inductors if if you you know kind of went scientifically in nerd order like you call them in doctors but

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you can just think of them as in tennis so um therefore that's what we are good at

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designing so we figured we had to make them and sell those right widgets and then we're like man we're g to get our

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lunch eaten by large operating companies especially in China who are going to

20:29

be able to operate with much less Capital they're going to be really good at building stuff for cheap it's going

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to be really good quality like what we're GNA get in some like multi hundred million dollar capex game to build

20:42

antennas that are just gonna stolen right and so two things we did from there that let that basically turned

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into where we do to now is we said we can't just be good at the antennas because the antennas are just one very

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important maybe the most important part of the system but like most companies aren't Motorola right most companies

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have Smart Engineers but they have other stuff to do and so they don't want to do a full End to End DC in to DC out

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circuit that has power conversion and controls and all this stuff and protocol they're like give us the solution so we

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had to move up to systems from components to systems and then the second thing is he said we're not gonna build this like we're not gonna get in

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that part of the game Guess Who has better sourcing than us HP rogitech you know our customers they have they have

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control over their ecosystem they want to buy from the people they know they don't want to qualify a new manufacturer like us so we just said we're going to

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do a licensing business um actually so we're shooting this in Tech Nexus yep

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and um an absolutely pivot an absolutely pivotal introduction for our company

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that led to this change was made here by Fred Fred hawk hot HW I uh but Fred made

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he I was bitching to him and I was like um he's like what what do you need for

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your business Jacob and was probably like when I was talking to you like you know what which is a question he asks yeah like what what can I do to help you

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he's such a connector right what can I do to help you like what do you need like you know what I need someone in Chicago that understands Hardware

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because everything that's going on in this town right now is all about like social apps sure you know it's all about

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1871 no no no problem with that by the way but like where's my attention like where are the people that know what I

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need to do and he's like well would you like to meet the chairman of broadcom I'm like please and he's like okay and

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he sends a note to John Major who was the chairman of broadcom at the time former CTO of Motorola former president

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of Qualcomm you know like like and I only named like one quarter of his resume now John comes over to our office for

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like eight people at the time I guess and he comes over and we just talked and we then we talked again and talked again

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and he ended up being an investor and board member in the company and Still's a board member today and he was

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basically the one who's like hey dummy use your do what you're good at and give the rest away so like let them

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build it you invent you give them the inventions let them take it from there and so that's how we changed that's

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awesome yeah it's so interesting when you can connect with someone that has a

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different purview and especially because you're in the category of founder entrepreneur innovator and everything

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right and when you're that person You' be so close to so passionate about the thing it's like and I'm business owner

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myself and and uh I should say con or Derek and we always imagine there's some door over here where we knock on that

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and they'll say hey idiots you should be doing it this way Y and really that's kind of all around us in our networks

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and particularly in Chicago so I'm glad you transition to Chicago and Tech Nexus y because that is a path I definitely

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wanted to go down sure because um you know when we think about the different diversity of

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different business types and everything else I mean you guys are an absolute example of that yeah the last person I

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was talking to is in commercial real estate right sure you know obviously that's Chicago Wireless technology maybe

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a little bit different um and then we've got such a community here such as you know Tech Nexus uh which is kind of

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across the board with startups and venture capital and everything else like that you've got mhub right which was

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back when we first met maybe not even partyer equation it's massive entity now

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right and now we're seeing you know all the all the uh Quantum Computing and everything else going on things like

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that so we love to know a little bit about how the Chicago ecosystem has

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played into the success of new Cent or the role that it's had yeah

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um it's it's kind of hard to put your like finger on it that I gave you probably one of the most objectively

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obvious examples of John Major joining our company because of Fred on Tech Nexus I mean uh you know Fred's partner

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you know with te Tech Nexus Terry howon he's he was also a part of our we we were a we were in Tech Nexus for you

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know kind of before definitely before we work like probably in the 2012 time frame yeah like we had one full-time

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employee I was Moonlighting you know as I was a lawyer you know working in a big law firm and then at a a private company

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and I was building new current on the side so like we had one full-time employee and that and he would use a deska tech Nexus so got to know Terry

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and like and then through people like like that you you just keep kind of building out and meeting new people and

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that leads to like us meeting High Park Angels who became an investor at some point um I moved in our first office

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when we got Venture funding in 2014 is when we decided it was time to raise money because that's when we like we're

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like wait this isn't just a med device widget this potentially is a a mobile phone

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PC industrial computer Widget the Market's way bigger than we thought so we we raised funding in 2014 we moved

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into an office was looking around for the right space for us and um we were going to have five full-time people

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right away so it was like time to not just have an incubator space and um I

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met Bill phup do you know Bill I don't okay so bill phup is the uh CTO of mhub

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and he was starting he's like an MIT guy formerly at Ido he's kind of like Tony

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Stark Iron Man like in real life and um I met bill because he was doing

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something he was calling catalyze Chicago and I wanted to see what it was and it was this like really small like

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5,000 sare foot maker space with like a 3D printer in it and a laser etch

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machine and just some basic stuff and I was like you know what I don't know how much use we're GNA get out of this at

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this point I sure wish I knew who I that this existed two years ago right right but like let us rent in the same

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building as you Bill and he's like I'll be your landlord you'll be my subtenant and so so great so we met bill and the

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other people that were doing that and then World business Chicago y comes to Bill and they're like we like what

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you're doing but we have a much like do you want to move from 5,000 square feet to 55,000 square feet on Chicago Avenue

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there's this old Motorola facility we're going to create this thing called mhub so I become a board member of mhub we um

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bill becomes CCO of mhub Haven comes in Melissa comes in and um yeah and now

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today it's moving again where we saw you last where I run into you last time 85,000 square foot like really premium

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facility it's like literally and figuratively a crown jewel now it's like the end of Fulton Market where de ends

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into ashin there's this big beautiful building with the big clock tower on it it looks like a crown jewel physically

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yeah and then the the metaphorical Crown Jewel is that this is the place where

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you know makers meet or this is the place where hardware and hard techn techology

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intersects with entrepreneurs and established manufacturers so so much activity happens there and you know we I

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talked earlier about 1871 what that does for digital products mhub does for physical products and hard tech products

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and both of them are super necessary so through that I had a board meeting today

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I'm still on the board there I had a board meeting today the people I've gotten to meet through that like so it's

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one of those things where again I can't put my thumb on everything but I will say Chicago has been a very supportive

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place to um I think be an entrepreneur yep it's also an allowed me to build

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this Hardware licensing company but there's not that many of them in the world there's Qualcomm arm Dolby right

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interdigital I mean there's there's some but it's like there's no Center of Nexus it's not like you have to be in Silicon Valley or San Diego or Boston right you

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kind of do it where the talent is for us we have Motorola Talent here that's a good starting point and then sure nolles

28:57

got be sure mic phones here like those are all good places for Hardware development and that's kind of it's been a good enough place for to be a hardware

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company and it's been a great place to be an entrepreneur yeah no I think that's fascinating and um you know

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certainly uh I would venture to guess you'd be successful if you weren't in

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Chicago uh and started this and went through it um but you know in terms of

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kind of the ecos systm we have here also what I think is interesting is just the economy that we have here really caters

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to that too in my opinion in the sense that if we're all 1871 and very focused

29:32

on what's the ne next tech product that goes on my phone or the next app or even you know large software things like that

29:39

yet we've got all the physical types of businesses which pretty much everything

29:44

else but you know farming agriculture you know all the manufacturing everything else um and the uh service

29:53

that you guys are innovating really kind of sits in between a lot of that right because you need Engineers coming up with software

29:59

and things like that to help optimize circuitry Out imagine um then it sounds like all the prototyping that you're

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doing is Tech is pretty technical as well yep U But ultimately it's getting

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to Hardware type components and so being in places that can connect all that yeah

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seems to me to be an interesting interesting uh interesting space yeah I agree I remember um you know our former

30:22

mayor Ram Emanuel like he one of his like stump speech that he would give when he was doing like a tech technology

30:28

thing like at Tech Nexus or yeah whatever uh he would always say like one of the

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things that makes Chicago so so unique is that there's not one industry that's

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more than 14% of Chicago's GDP yep and he's like you just can't find like New York has overweight Finance California

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Northern California has overweight Tech Southern California has overweight uh entertainment like we don't have we it's

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a blessing and a curse a little bit we Cho doesn't have a single thing where

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we're really known yeah but we have really strong Finance with like private equity and and but and then we have uh

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really good utilities businesses here and we have enough Tech and then we have enough digital we and like there's all

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these there's a mix of the pie chart it's just more balanced economy I think than the other ones so yeah 100 perc in

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fact I might have been at the same event where he gave that spe I've heard of like six yeah yeah every say including

31:28

me that the intro to this podcast says that oh really that's so funny um but it is amazing and it's interesting it comes

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14% the right number uh I've got 133% man but it's close enough depend depends

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came out um what's the percentage point between right uh but it's also interesting and so I did have someone

31:45

here talking through commercial real estate in kind state of Chicago's uh state of Chicago as a result and one of the things he pointed about it is

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because of that diversity even though the downtown and the loop and the commercial real estate space I mean

31:58

everyone kind of knows the story right took a hit it's somewhere near as bad as it is in areas that are highly

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concentrated sure and we're totally you know he relating it to Sil value and things like that so that diversity just

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like um well it's you can look at it as a benefit for so many ways in terms of I want to be X when I grow up you might be

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able to do it in Chicago but just from a general economic perspective it's kind of like a diversified portfolio right

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and so when things are taking hits um you know we're not blown out of the water such as some of these other cities

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and things like that yeah I think you I'm I'm highly confident that uh you

32:37

could apply your microbiology lens to that too you could see it in nature I

32:42

mean you just know like diverse ecosystems they're just more resilient like I think diverse is resilient it might not produce the

32:49

same concentration can produce potentially greater outlying events both

32:55

bad and good right but so when you have outlying positive events you know which I think Silicon Valley has been really

33:02

crafted to create those right like you just you get more supercharged multi-

33:08

decacorn companies out of there than anywhere but at the same time you have you know immensely more failures you

33:15

have you know so I'm not saying one's right or wrong I think what we do get in Chicago and is probably reflected in the

33:22

culture of our city and our people here is it's like a um it's just a

33:28

resilient ecosystem because of the diversity of it yeah so nothing really

33:33

gets that opportunity to shine quite as bright yeah almost by Design or just by

33:38

you know it's just the way it is yeah 100 perc the the edgy version of that is

33:44

Chicago's grit right yeah yeah big shoulder is what what's the the famous poem where they talk about like hog

33:51

butcher for the world you know insert that here right exactly um so touch on

33:57

Chicago touch on uh your Cent touch on your I touch a little bit more on your

34:02

Ro because also while we were talking you reminded me of all the other things that you're involved in um in terms of

34:07

running a business like this uh you know one question is what's your day-to-day like and I'm sure you g get into emails

34:13

and meetings and doing podcasts and things like that what the question I want to ask is what is something you

34:19

spend a surprisingly large amount of time on

34:24

yeah I had to think about this one a little bit because I could give you a generic answer but I think though but I

34:30

wanted to give you something that I wanted to think about it because this isn't a question I get most of the other questions I get a lot this one I don't

34:36

get all the time so um what I think here is what I came down to

34:42

is building relationships and it's kind of a catch-all answer

34:48

because any given time that could be building relationships with my team with my customers with partners with

34:56

competitors it could be building relationships like the one you and I have like the one I've been talking

35:01

about with Terry and Fred um where it's like getting to know people in the

35:06

ecosystem so one day they ask you that really helpful question and it like unlocks something so the thing about

35:14

relationship building is it can't really be done super quickly and you really can't even like you don't want to try to

35:21

put any kind of like Roi measures on those things because like what are you are you measuring like what you put into

35:27

one relationship and what you get out that's probably one no good way to live and two it's probably not a good measure

35:32

anyways because it's really more about like the all the relationships you build

35:38

are you doing it the right way are you helping people when you can therefore it

35:43

will come back to you when you need help you know the universe the relationships whatever it will provide and um so I

35:51

just think I think board members like there's just so many contingency

35:58

constituencies that I have to build relationships with you know every every day um and so that's what I spend I

36:07

would say you know a majority of my time doing yeah that's awesome that's a good

36:12

answer and I obviously agree with you and I also think it's interesting I feel like I learned at young age you you'd

36:19

see some of that was well networked right you're like oh I want to be Network right they just they know all these people and all these things and

36:24

you take a step back and you're like it's not that know everyone is that they are constantly helping others any any

36:31

place they can and it and it sounds like a especially if you're growing a company and getting started you know I think

36:37

there's a tendency for people to think about well I need that help right but um

36:44

what you end up learning in time is that that is that is the ultimate Pursuit and

36:49

even if you take a look at you know the business or the company that you're working at you know for anyone probably

36:55

hopefully doing a service or product that is helping others at the end and in

37:01

most companies that is probably you know the case and so helping others directly is kind of a way to kind of Mainline

37:07

your what you're spending your date you know night to five doing so yeah um yeah I couldn't agree more and I think what's

37:12

also interesting to play this back to Chicago now I will say I've never lived I mean have lived part-time in other

37:18

cities uh but I've never spent you know more than six months in another city uh but I do feel like the size of Chicago

37:26

it's big enough to have a large influential group of people but small

37:32

enough that uh we used call it the Kevin Bacon Factor right um that you can navigate it and I

37:40

think because the community is so kind of Midwestern and supportive and things like that that building

37:46

relationships is a little bit accelerated because I think people are naturally aligned with that mind set

37:52

yeah versus my perception of some other cities that might be a little bit more cable with each other so yeah I I mean I've lived in St Louis I've lived in U

37:59

like Bloomington for college and stuff so I I haven't really lived in many other City Milwaukee I grew up in so I'm

38:05

a Midwest guy through and through you know and I get I get we get told about that from other cities and you know

38:11

maybe even other countries my experience personally though it's been I I kind of think maybe the initial approach with

38:17

people's different so maybe in the midwest like the the smile comes a little quicker like when you're like

38:23

meeting someone for the first time the pleasantries are a little bit G but or more present but I I

38:31

fundamentally think that like the more I we have an international business I spend time in China and Korea and Italy

38:38

and you know the more I meet people the more similar we we really people do want

38:43

to help each other like it almost is I think it's one of the most um rewarding things for most people is it's like

38:51

helping somebody else it my youngest daughter has a book it's called did you

38:56

fill a bucket today and the whole concept is like they they basically say everybody has an emotional

39:02

bucket that they walk around with every day and sometimes it's full and sometimes it's empty and it's a concept

39:08

for like you know being gracious and and nice to people and not bullying like that's what the moral is but one of the

39:14

things that they talk about is like that and when your bucket's low the best way to fill your own bucket is not by taking

39:20

out out of someone else's it's actually by trying to fill theirs when you fill someone else's bucket yours gets full

39:26

yeah and I think like it's a it's a simplified children's version of just saying I think people are innately

39:32

driven to want to help when they can and so I think Chicago has is a great place

39:37

for that I I have a hard time suggesting that anywhere else is much different other than maybe the way you go about

39:44

right the introductions or I I think if you're looking for help you can find it and people will want to help you if if you're good about it I think that's a

39:51

great point so okay so speaking of people uh

39:57

folks newer what is what does day in life do what type of people are so

40:02

clearly Engineers are part of that uh but what what do you look for in terms of the

40:07

people that you hire um what are some of the backgrounds what are some things that they would be excited to do for

40:14

anyone who was interested yeah so you you gota right when you asked the

40:19

question I was like I'm gonna pivot on you but you almost you pivoted it yourself so I was GNA say I'm not going to tell you about the engineers and

40:26

salespeople and Mark Mar and like you don't need to know the rules that's not important what you need to know is that

40:31

every person that works at new current kind of has a similar um way of being like

40:41

and it's extremely purposeful uh and when we hire people we hire in an

40:50

order that's different than how most people hire in terms of what we prioritize so the first thing we hire is

40:55

cultural fit for cultural fit and that's probably like 70% of the weight y of the entire decision are they

41:02

the right cultural fit for us then capabilities you know that's probably 20% of the weight like do they have the

41:08

horsepower to do it then third like the last 10% is experience like have they done something like this before can we

41:15

you know can they draw off of their relationships or their they've already built a device like this before but that's like the last

41:21

10% so in culture like what we really look for we look for people that like

41:28

really want to solve problems they're the type of person that they're definitely glass half empty they see

41:35

sorry half full they see something and they say hey I can fill the rest of that glass no one else has done it that makes

41:41

me want to do it more and it's because we're such an innovation driven company that everybody everybody has to be able

41:48

to be Innovative I mean this sounds bad I don't want anyone to take this wrong way even our CFO has to be Innovative

41:54

like usually like all right a controller CFO you need like you know do it of course we apply Gap rules but like in a

42:00

licensing business there's just not that much precedent and so even like all right well this is a slightly different

42:07

version of how we're going to collect royalties on this and so how do you recognize the revenue and when do you recognize it like creativity and

42:14

innovation has to be applied in in even the least creative positions like in

42:19

your controller position so uh creativity problem solvers uh and

42:25

then the other thing we really look for because and you probably have this in in your company it's it's sometimes hard as you

42:32

hire to continually to tap into the entrepreneurial Spirit

42:39

um we see this over and over with like founder driven companies like you know the super successful ones that you know

42:45

Steve Jobs or um uh Schultz I forget his first name uh from

42:51

Starbucks Phil Knight from Nike yeah like when they leave the company they go

42:57

but they they suck and then they come back and save them and they suck again right and in like this this Perpetual

43:03

cycle and so you're trying to like harness this founder energy or this like and so we tried to distill what is that

43:08

and ultimately what we've narrowed it down to and what everyone at new curent has a lot of is what we call ownership mentality yep it's when you're hiring

43:16

for it from someone fresh out or like young in their career you're looking for someone who says like when they when

43:22

they talk about their projects they are like taking it personally yeah like it

43:28

it wasn't like it's a week we'll ask a question we'll say um what's something that what's like the

43:36

hardest thing you've ever had to accomplish that you're like the most proud of and we want to hear them like beam about it but also say like what if

43:43

they do and how do they recruit others to help them do it because that's the type of thing you entrepreneurs have to

43:48

do and so if you want people that have kind of that entrepreneurial Vibe even if they're not starting their own

43:53

company but they're joining your business which is going to continue to change and grow and be creative that's the other big thing we

44:00

look for yeah no that is awesome I uh it's interesting back in my Consulting days I was trained on critical Behavior

44:07

interviews and we had a whole without going to the whole process that was my role in the interview process and my

44:12

favorite question was I can ask a couple questions take your time to think about the answer uh tell me about a time that

44:18

you led a team to failure was my favorite question such a brutal one right yeah that's a good one but it's

44:24

interesting um and I always said take your time to think of something if it's either from your resume or if it's from

44:30

another example and uh and then I'd also add in and I appreciate that clearly you're

44:36

a team player and you're use the word we a lot I'm gonna look for the times you're using I like you know you tell

44:43

them that yeah yeah okay it's interesting and it throws people off a little bit um so maybe I shouldn't be

44:48

asking that question but it also gives a little bit of a permission slip for that person to showcase the pride and things like that

44:55

I think yeah um and it's very very help I've found it helpful when interviewing folks that aren't used to uh showcasing

45:05

themselves right um so I'm not saying it's the best question that is a learned art no I I really like the first

45:11

question and the second question where you're like I want I'm looking for the word I as well I think it is important

45:18

especi certain people Andor certain maturity like yeah the balance of you

45:24

don't want to you are they being humble or were they really just along for the ride right and you kind of want to

45:31

figure that out and so you want them to say I when it's I or we when it's we y I like that and the and the and the the

45:37

ones when you know you've got someone that is an awesome team player they will use the eye and they will always say but

45:45

I required help from all these other folks like I did this part but you know I gotta be

45:50

honest yeah yeah exactly it's really interesting it reminds me of one of my favorite uh Barack Obama speeches it was

45:57

a controversial it's that you didn't build it speech oh yeah sure yeah like I

46:02

just think it's such a it's like yeah you built a multi-billion dollar company

46:09

yeah but you didn't do that alone where were your teachers where were your parents where were your where was your

46:15

community where was your church or synagogue or whatever it is like all those things matter the roads that you

46:20

know your tax like yep I think we we do we do

46:25

um uh uh turn you know especially big entrepreneurs into Heroes and stuff now

46:31

and they are I mean they are to me I I look up to them and I admire them and I try to learn from them but

46:36

like they all know and everyone knows it's not just them right right it can't be it just literally can't be a th% yeah

46:45

the good ones yeah um the successful ones because that's the one thing when you're an entrepreneur you you you when

46:50

you first start off you're like you're ready to eat ramen soup every day and everything else and the uh the payoff is

46:57

is if you're successful you don't get to do that anymore now you're responsible for everyone right and now you're working with others to grow them into

47:03

those roles which is something you have to I mean it's it's that's a transformation everyone has to go through yeah 100% um awesome so covered

47:12

kind of the basis of the business we talked a little bit about uh some of the by ways of backing into what is your

47:18

role in the space we talked about the types of uh clients that you're working with um that sort of thing in terms of

47:25

Wireless in general what are some things that we talked about wearables we talked about glasses what are some of the

47:32

things that you think uh folks aren't thinking about that you are seeing on the horizon Bas of perspective that you

47:38

have what are some of the things to be looking forward to yeah well as far as market segments

47:44

go like uh the thing I'm most excited about is is smart glasses but we already talked about that I'm also really

47:49

interested just from our business in the segments we're addressing most aggressively is uh PC peripherals so

47:55

just like all the wire clutter around your desk and all the um having to plug this in and you know

48:03

remember when to charge that mouse or this keyboard or that camera which

48:08

there's just all this stuff around the PC ecosystem that needs charging we're bringing that you know we work with HP

48:13

we work with log Tech and so you'll see these things coming um and then the other area is a personal audio so um uh

48:22

something that most people just aren't aware of uh if you look at your airpods or or any other version of an

48:28

earbud um you'll see physical metal contacts on those yeah it's because

48:33

that's when you drop them in the case they have to touch you know a plus and a minus contact and they have to charge

48:39

via you know the same type of uh charging methodology that has been

48:44

around for 130 years just in a small form factor so it does it's not a big pain for the user like there are some

48:52

allergies to that so people can get but that's not what we're really addressing what we're addressing is that the uh

48:58

reliability of those is the number one source of failure for these products got it and what that means is that companies

49:04

like apple and Bose and Google they put a lot of money into trying to mitigate the failure rates yeah so these these

49:11

seemingly cheap uh inexpensive Pogo pins and pads is what we call them they're um

49:20

they're actually costing a lot of money because of the manufacturing process steps the all the steps they're trying

49:26

to take to to make the failure rate less yeah but what they're really just doing is it's like holding up a bridge with

49:31

you know duct tape like it's going to still they're not fixing the problem they're just like reinforcing it a little like a little bit here and there

49:38

so I'm excited about what we're doing in that space to completely encapsulate and seal up earbuds um headphones so that

49:45

like you know why not wear them swimming like why not be able to do more with them uh make them you know less

49:53

expensive because you can take all this failure rates out of the cost equation for profitability so those are the

49:59

biggest product areas um is there a different way you want me to address it or the segments a good I think segments

50:06

is is probably maybe the most most relatable thing so um the I think maybe

50:11

the last question we can kind of wind up with because you you are in such an Innovative space I want to call back to

50:17

something that may or may not be a part of the show as I was talking about a of mine movie like I'd hire her and it was

50:22

based on someone who's ready to go looking to do I'm gonna guess there was something to do with the Northwestern

50:28

piece in there too maybe with the all all mod wait did she go to the Northwestern yeah yeah I I don't want her anymore okay to to too uh too high

50:35

futin for me no I'm just I'm just kidding H but no I didn't when we talked about it before the what I what I was

50:42

going on was she had done that New York teacher teacher fellow that's right and that she was like ambitious and she just

50:47

wanted to learn and sink her teeth into something juicy remember what I said we look for yeah people that want to solve

50:52

problems people are like I haven't seen it done before but I can get it done people that want to take ownership and I know that if she let a classroom of kids

51:00

like when she was like 20 years old 21 years old like there's no like I did Teach for America and what I learned is

51:07

there there is no job that I can think of where you go from being a

51:12

undergraduate to managing 30 people at a time you know in my case with five

51:18

different classes a day so 150 different kids a day came through my classroom and like the management responsibility of

51:26

like maintaining a classroom teaching these kids yeah developing curriculum it's like holy cow you can go to

51:31

McKenzie and like they'll teach you like the the right Frameworks but like you're not you don't know how to manage like

51:36

you know how to put Pitch decks together with good Frameworks so that's why I was like I'd hire her like is she still

51:42

available that's awesome yeah I'm also part we we've hired a lot of teachers into our group too that didn't have back

51:48

for the exact same reason I was also raised by a teacher so to me I saw kind of resilience and and the creativity

51:53

kind of absolutely you got to want it you got love what you do yeah I'm not trying to poach teachers though because

51:58

they do an important job but when people are like I'm going to teach for a couple years and my plan is to go into industry

52:04

I please uh send me your resumes so for the teachers who are no longer teachers

52:10

or aspirational people that that are hitting that 70% Mark of the culture fit what might be what are some places that

52:16

people can learn a little bit more about uh Wireless technology and things like that to kind of hit get some interest

52:22

into uh into the space um if they're preparing to you know trying to apply for job career yeah I mean we have a

52:29

career uh part of our website so that would be helpful uh for them if it's about jobs if they just want to kind of

52:34

like hear more about the technology or maybe if they were interested in something I talked about today and they wanted to like hear more about it maybe

52:42

with a more sciency angle or an engineering angle uh we have a YouTube channel it's just you know YouTube

52:49

backne current and then we organize it by different types of technology so it's a place where you can go and get um you

52:55

know usually to uh eight minute videos about different Technologies so if anyone's

53:01

curious that would be a good place to check it out um but yeah of course our job website and Linkedin are always good

53:07

places to look to for the job side that's awesome and then I think we'll probably wrap up with that uh you

53:13

mentioned kind of during this conversation that there's some exciting stuff coming out I have to imagine you're in all kinds of ndas and things

53:19

like that uh so without just closing what those are would be great places for people to kind of see what's what's

53:25

coming out in the new space that your team's involved in yeah I mean if you follow that if you

53:33

go to the YouTube or you follow us on LinkedIn I mean you'll hear the news when we're allowed to share it yeah um

53:39

so yeah we don't really get to talk these are really big product announcements from very large companies

53:44

and so the last thing we're going to do is blow their cover and like yeah like what are we what am I gon to do speak to

53:50

my like you know 5,000 person audience like when they have like 50 million people following them like it's like

53:56

I'll let them break the news like they might have a lot of blow horn than I do so um but we do as far as timing goes

54:01

they'll be um you know before it gets warm here in Chicago again there'll be two uh major International product

54:09

launches um that'll be quite exciting we'll talk about those and then over the rest of the year there'll be three more

54:15

uh and the reason I know those things is because it takes a long time to build these products and so we've been working on these for a year sometimes two years

54:21

so like it's to the point where like our work is dwindling because the the technolog is done yeah now it's like

54:27

marketing go to market getting the channels ready getting the products built and so they're switching into

54:32

different modes which is interesting time for us because we like spend so much time working on a product and then we wait like six months and then then it

54:40

comes and then it's really exciting I've experienced that in many cases as well that's awesome awesome well Jacob this

54:46

is thanks so much for the time I know you're bus guy and for show yeah all

54:51

right all right got what you want yep absolutely beautiful that was fun

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