Our mentors are Andre Marzili and Dylan Gunn. Our first meeting with them could have not been better. Here are some notes:

Short term:

• Our target customer segment should be proportional to our SAM/TAM estimates.
• We should pursue both companies and researchers as the early adopters.
• Finding out how the IP is differentiated, and how to protect it.
• Having  a customer in the company could be beneficial.
• Customer interviews: what features would you like? Would you buy it if we have it ready? How much would you pay for it?
• Contacting the users of other bioprinters and interviewing them about the shortcoming of the systems that they have purchased.
• Market size estimate: using web of science to identify the main authors of the field, and trying to interview them, and have them as lead clients.
• Recommendation for contacting some of the people from our list
• Visiting Boreal Genomics

Long term:

• Being on campus and ease of access to the facilities
• Keeping things in the lab as long as possible
• Staying self/government funded as long as possible
• SR&ED
• IRAP: They do free market research in addition to other resources. Andre could help with the introduction.

Also some very memorable quotes from Andre:

“We can solve all the technical problems. What we can’t solve is the customers not buying the device.”

“That sounds like a great idea is not the same as we would pay 50K for it!”