Frank Paniagua: "Failure Is Not an Option"

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>> Sunny: Hi, welcome to Dog and Pony. I'm Sunny Gult assumed spelling. You can say goodbye to multiple power supplies for your laptop, cell phone, iPod, and other electronic devices. The company Green Plug has developed a power adapter hub to simultaneously power these devices, maximizing resources, and minimizing solid waste. Frank Pontiago assumed spelling is the CEO of Green Plug. So tell me a little bit about Green Plug. You started this company, this was your idea. Tell me about this chip that you guys have.

>> Frank: Actually it gets sold through the consumer electronics manufacturers, such as Hewlett Packard or Apple, or Panasonic, or whomever. They will buy the chip and put it into their power supplies.

>> Sunny: Okay. Now why is this important? Why do we need something like this?

>> Frank: Ask anybody if they like power supplies. I mean on this little jaunt down here from the Bay area, I carried four with me. Why do I need to do that? Why can't I just stay at the Hilton here, and just plug in and it recognizes my devices and charge it. Why do I have to go through security and pull all this stuff out, it's a pain. Where we predict a Green Plug enabled power supply built by a company, let's say Belkin or Westinghouse announced that they're gonna build power supplies based on our technology. They can do a three port for the traveler, which would be small and very cool. They could build one that has ten ports for your home office, they could build one that has twenty ports. The technology's totally scalable.

>> Sunny: Now this is more than just a matter of convenience though, this is actually helping the environment.

>> Frank: Gartner assumed spelling estimates three point two billion power supplies will be designed, shipped, and subsequently discarded in 2008. And they're nasty little fellows, right? There's copper and all kinds of bad little things that go in them. We don't want our children, or our children's children having to deal with this stuff. We should take care of it now. I mean we put a man on the moon in 1969, we can't fix this problem?

>> Sunny: So how did you build Green Plug into the company it is today?

>> Frank: I put my own money in, I raised about a million and a half dollars with my own money and some friends and family money, angel money. And then last December I went out for some venture capital. I picked a firm, it's a boutique firm, a small firm on Sam Hill Road called Peninsula Equity partners, just because I felt great DNA with them. We raised some more money there, and then we'll be going out 2009 first quarter for what we hope to be the last round of money that we'll ever raise and need, because revenue will begin to come in.

>> Sunny: What happens if your company fails?

>> Frank: Oh failure is not an option. Look at me. I'm five foot seven, I'm too small to go to jail, and failure is not an option. I have conviction of the heart, and we're rolling already. We've got our first adopter in Westinghouse, stood up at PG and E headquarters. We have PG and E solidly behind us, other utility companies, Southern California, Edison and Sempra, we're starting to begin dialogs with these folks as well.

>> Sunny: So what's next on your list? Guys like you don't just you know, stay with small stuff, they get bigger and bigger and bigger. So?

>> Frank: Slay dragons.

>> Sunny: Yeah.

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Seriously, what is your dragon?

>> Frank: I really can't look you in the eyes and tell you what my next dragon's gonna be. But I can tell you in my career I've slayed a lot of dragons, that's why I look so bad at you know, forty nine years old. But I'm a dragon slayer, what can I tell you. And I get a lot of joy out of fixing things that are broken.

>> Sunny: And where ultimately do you see your company going?

>> Frank: If you're asking about a liquidity event, I think that we've spent more than seven figures, way more than seven figures on our patents, and I think our patents are very, very good. I think we'll probably be acquired by a large company, or a bigger chip company. I don't want that to happen too soon, because I'm having a ball.

>> Sunny: I was gonna say, you're having a good time with all this.

>> Frank: Oh man, I -

>> Sunny: Kid in a candy store.

>> Frank: I'm just having a ball. I wake up every morning thinking I have the luckiest job in the world.

>> Sunny: So what advice do you have out there for people that want to start perhaps a company similar to Green Plug, or entrepreneurs in general.

>> I'd say go for it, you know, you got to have a well thought out business plan. You got to bounce it off you know, smart people. You don't want everybody that says oh yeah, that's great, that's great. How many people said Frank you know, it's a big idea, but you know, who's gonna get behind you? You know. So you got to take all that you know, negativism in as well, because it's constructive and it's good. And if you think the odds of what you're doing, and other smart people say you got a shot, and a shot's better than a coin flip, go for it.

>> Sunny: Well Frank, it was a pleasure talking to you.

>> Frank: Pleasure.

>> Sunny: Thanks for joining us today. And as always, if you have questions, comments, or ideas for guests, please email info@dogandpony.com. I'm Sunny Gult, thanks for watching.

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