Matt Tolintino:

Matt runs Namatad which makes firefly. It is an very promising product that aids fire fighters in locating each other in emergency situations while working a fire. As impressive and innovative as the product he produces is, it was not my biggest take away from this lecture. Firstly, it is easy to see that having a stable situation can be essential to starting a business (evidenced by his ability to not take a salary for a year). Also, Money is useless if there is no unified focus for your business (evidenced by the "sheepish" way he explained the 30 million dollar pivot he had previously been a part of). finally, some ideas are just waiting for a purpose (see his explanation for how firefly came about). Some final thoughts are that he does not appear to be set up for the expansion that will likely be necessary. Also, there are likely maritime applications that have not been explored. Not only for emergencies, but for cargo container location (container logs can be a pain) etc... (if i understand the tech correctly from the pitch deck). The tech seems to have potential for explosive growth is the point i am trying to get to, which brings me to another point; he did  not have time to discuss the patent process, their defense, or how to tell if an idea is worthy of the application process. I would like to have learned more about these topics, but sometimes an hour is not enough time for everything.