Welcome to Ignore the Confusion!
After nearly two decades running a patent analytics and IP strategy company I was invited by a successful Venture Capitalist to be General Partner at an early-stage, frontier tech VC fund.
This blog was created to document my journey from being an entrepreneur with my own consulting and software company to this exciting role.
A little background:
My perspective on investing in startups is shaped by analyzing technology through the lens of patent information and scientific literature. Throughout my career I have assisted start-ups and established companies in strategically leveraging technical information for growth, tech innovation, and intellectual property dominance.
We researched patent landscapes related to a large variety of fields including Augmented Reality (2007), Clean Technology (2008), Animal Health (2010) Light Emitting Diodes (2011), Blockchain (2012), Advanced Batteries (2013), cannabis (2017) and hundreds of other areas in between.
Often, our ability to spot trends driven by requests from organizations seeking our expertise. At the time, some of these technologies appeared uncertain, but in retrospect most of them have become lucrative mainstream investment opportunities.
In recent years, we started exchanging our services for equity, resulting in early identification and investment in highly successful companies. By tracking patent filing data over time, we gain early insights into the development of entirely new sectors.
This realization, combined with our ability to identify these categories early, assess technology through patent analysis, and mentor founders who historically lacked IP-focused strategies, led me and my business partner transition to co-founding this pre-seed frontier tech VC fund.
Our fund's premise is straightforward:
Early Investment: We invest at the pre-seed stage, often pre-provisional and pre-website. With our network of patent attorneys, tech transfer professionals, and UC Berkeley graduate students, we're the first to spot promising companies.
Cutting-Edge Tech Discovery: We employ scalable, screening software, developed at our IP analytics firm to identify emerging sectors before the mainstream catches on.
Support Network: Our team and network of entrepreneurs, tech experts, and operators work closely with startups, streamlining their journey to success.
Our fund has significant strengths, with our experience running a successful patent analytics and IP strategy firm, building innovative software, and our partner's track record with Venture Capital funds. We have an extensive network that includes exited startup founders, technical and business experts, patent attorneys, and IP specialists worldwide.
A little bit more background:
I’ve been lucky throughout my life to find diverse passions across several different areas (frontiers). Music, technology, and investing have shaped who I am today. My knowledge largely comes from the wisdom and inspiration of others.
To give back while continuing my own learning journey, I launched "Ignore the Confusion: Thoughts from Parallel Frontiers." The name is inspired by the teachings of Yoga Vasistha, which encourages us to overlook the confusion all around us and focus on the synergies that connect everything.
Why ignore the confusion?:
The name, Ignore the Confusion, was inspired from the introduction from the book Yoga Vasistha which is a discourse between Prince Rama and the Hindu sage Vasistha. The essence of the teaching in Yoga Vasistha is summed up in the following verse from the book’s introduction:
Thoughts from parallel frontiers will feature essays about frontier tech, music, and pre-seed VC investing.
Enjoy! And don’t forget to Ignore the Confusion!
Highlights from my background:
Co-founder and general partner at Future Frontier Capital, a pre seed, frontier technology VC.
Graduate school professor at UC Berkeley. Focused on tech commercialization, strategy, management, and ethics at the intersection of business, technology, and intellectual property.
Co-founded IP Checkups, an Intellectual Property strategy, analytics, and software firm in 2004.
Worked as a professional musician, touring, teaching, and recording music from the African Diaspora.
Attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the New England Conservatory of Music, and Studied abroad in Senegal West Africa. Earned a degree from Metropolitan State University in Music Performance and Ethnomusicology.
Please connect with me on LinkedIn.
A few of my favorite music videos:
Young drummers in Cite Millionaire, Dakar Senegal
