Hi.
This is Bill Aulet, and today we're
filming at the Koch Institute at MIT.
And we're going to be talking about how
to determine your beachhead market.
Friends, it's a pleasure to have here
AJ Perez, the founder of NV Bots.
I call him the most fashionable engineer at MIT,
racking up awards and prizes.
For example, he was named to the Boston Globe's 25 under 25 list which
celebrates Boston entrepreneurs and inventors who are radically
reinventing the Boston innovation system.
And also, he won the prestigious MIT Lemelson Fellowship
that celebrates MIT entrepreneurs.
Let's talk a little bit about AJ.
AJ was one of my students here at MIT.
And he came over from the Engineering School
as a mechanical engineer.
And he's really done a great job of not only building up
a strong knowledge of engineering,
but also learning the business side of it.
This is what makes for a very strong entrepreneur.
AJ and the NV Bots team were part of the Global Founder
Skills Accelerator here at MIT.
They spent several weeks first developing their market
segmentation for their 3D printing technology.
And they found several markets that
looked like strong candidates.
Very attractive candidates, in fact.
We're the first company in the world
to build a fully automated 3D printer.
And what I mean by a fully automated
3D printer is that it requires no human interaction
in the course of operation.
When you use a 3D printer right now,
it requires that you physically engage the 3D printer.
You be there to upload your 3D model.
You be there to make sure and verify
that the print job is going well.
And then be there to physically remove the part when it's done
and then start the process all over again.
What we did is we made that totally autonomous.
What you can do with our software and our hardware
is go online to our cloud interface,
hit Print, view a live video stream of your print job
during the duration of the print job.
And then when it's done, automatically removes the part
with our proprietary robotic arm and starts up the next print
job.
Based on the example of AJ and NV Bots,
you will learn three things.
First of all, what is a beachhead market.
Secondly, why it's important to focus on one, and only one,
market and ignore the other ones.
And thirdly, you'll learn the model
that will guide you through selecting
your beachhead market.
How did you go about your market segmentation?
What areas have you looked at initially?
Engineering design, aerospace, architecture and construction
modeling, health care, and education.
So should AJ and the NV Bots team
try to attack all of these promising markets
at the same time or should they pick one
and focus all their time and resources on only one market?