Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
At 25, Randy Milbert has already helped raise $6.5 million from investors to start two software companies that subsequently failed. This time around with his own company, Soldier Vision, he’s taking a different tack.
Milbert last fall formed a joint venture with Minnesota Defense, a division of Minnesota Wire & Cable Co. in St. Paul. Minnesota Defense will receive 15 percent of revenue from the sale of Soldier Vision products, and will market products through its sales channels.
Milbert was also hired by Minnesota Defense, and splits his time 50-50 between Minnesota Defense and Soldier Vision. He will retain ownership of software-related inventions. Minnesota Defense will own hardware-related inventions.
Milbert is funneling half his salary to Soldier Vision, which he concedes is a constrained way to grow a business but appealing to him because of his experience with the two former companies. “It was so much easier to get money from the venture capitalists and the angel investors, that it was easy to lose focus on the customers,” Milbert says.
Both parts of the partnership are working on the U.S. Army’s Land Warrior project, which seeks to equip soldiers with computers and head-mounted displays to improve communication and identification on the battlefield.
Milbert has patents pending on technology that allows identification of friend or foe, and technology that identifies obstacles on the ground. He hasn’t contracted to sell anything yet, but hopes to beat out competitors in part by developing contacts with leading-edge thinkers in academia.
To get the joint venture with Minnesota Defense, he’s already shown some slick networking skills.
First he worked to develop “compelling and interesting” technology, Milbert says. Then he tried to identify anybody involved with Land Warrior. Then he started e-mailing.
“After three months of e-mailing a couple of people every day I was able to get one person interested,” Milbert says. That person, who worked for a division of the Army, invited him to stop by if he was ever in Washington, D.C. Milbert bought a plane ticket and made the presentation, getting valuable feedback from experienced military staff.
Then he put up a Web site “and made sure that people would find it when they were googling for these combat systems.” Tom Ashenbrenner, manager of defense applications for Minnesota Defense, found Milbert’s site when doing research. “He gave me a call and suggested we get together to meet,” Milbert says.
Ashenbrenner heads the two-employee unit that is Minnesota Defense, started last April after Minnesota Wire & Cable built the $2 million electrical interconnect system for the Land Warrior.
“We were known as the company that fixed Land Warrior,” Ashenbrenner says, and executives wanted to capitalize on that success by starting the division. He calls Milbert “a smart guy. He’s young, but he’s a smart guy, way smarter than I.”
Milbert is an MIT grad who started a company in high school, Comp-U-Tutor. He’d go door-to-door offering to teach people how to use their computers, and built it to about 40 clients and 120 appointments. Also in high school, he says he was inspired after hanging out with Robert Stephens while Stephens worked in virtual reality. Stephens went on to found the Geek Squad, the local computer repair service.
Randy Milbert, Soldier Vision: 651.659.6762; rm******@****re.com; www.soldier-vision.com
Tom Ashenbrenner, Minnesota Wire & Cable Co.: 651.659.6760
