Teru Talk Newsletter

Teru's Trash Talk

Sub-title: What I Learned in School, or more precisely, in Entrepreneur's Boot Camp. Last Friday the dozen companies that made it through the Entrepreneur's Showcase gauntlet, Teru Talk included, gave our 5 minute highly-polished Pitches to a gathering of perhaps 75 of the Sacramento region's venture capital firms, angel investors, corporate investment arms and "Persons of High Net Worth". I am here to tell you, the prep for that seemly simple, short pitch entailed some really serious, brain-wrenching work. Crushing, despondent, beyond all hope … but I can now report that every one of us, Teru included, presented cleanly and clearly, within the time allotted, and without one case of stage-fright induced apoplexy.

The Velocity Venture Capital team, Jack, Monique, and Jason, run a tight ship for their non-profit Entrepreneur's Campus program - aided hugely by Dan the Man, entrepreneurial studies professor from University of the Pacific. Week after week, they acquainted us lucky souls with the bones of a Business Plan, as lain out in the guide, "The Art of the Start":

• The Problem you are addressing: the Pain you propose to alleviate;
• The Solution you propose: your Fix for the identified Pain;
• Your Business Model: how you make $, who pays, your markets;
• Your Underlying Magic: the Secret Sauce that sets you apart;
• Marketing and Sales: your Go To strategy for reaching customers;
• The Competition: c'mon, you know you have Competition;
• Your Management Team: your key players, advisors, investors;
• Financials: 3-5 year forecast - if Everything Went Right;
• Current Status, Ask, Timeline, and Use of Funds

This grueling process is "reductive" in nature: you start with a gazillion words about all your wonders, and end up able to Spell It Out in five minutes or less. Yep, this is training in the ancient art of concocting the Elevator Pitch. I can tell you this, dear readers: this was a 10 week pruning, reshaping, and fine-tuning furnace. I mean, we are "Teru Talk" and Words are Us: brevity is not our natural habitat. It is even more certain that we desperately needed this sort of house cleaning.

Hey Rube!

Teru Talk works hard every day to Incite a Dialogue, and we need that back-and-forth chatter now more than ever. Use the channel we have constructed. Open up discussions about waste conversion related issues, pet peeves, and sore spots, accomplishments and set-backs. We are a global community addressing a rapidly growing and critically needed element - turning Garbage to Goods, and Waste to Wealth. Here's your homework: think up one Big Question that you would ask of our mountain of detailed global tracking data. Let's look to the day when Teru Talk actually gets the needed Big Data management tools in place and can effectively sort through this maddening wealth of information. As we build out our platform, we'll need to know what are your most pressing concerns - because answering your Right Tools for the Waste Conversion Job match-making problems is the underlying reason why we are constructing this toolset. Consider yourselves, all of you across our 28 countries, as our Beta testing crew.

This Week's Top Story

H2 Energy Signs Contract for 43 Bio-Refineries with 2 Sisters Food Group

Liverpool based H2 Energy Ltd has signed a waste to energy contract with 2 Sisters Food Group for the design, manufacture, construction, and operation of Bio-Refineries at all 2 Sisters' 43 factory locations in the United Kingdom (UK). 12/06/2014

The Week's News

FCC Is Preferred Bidder for Zero Waste Recycling and Recovery Facility in UK

United Kingdom (UK) Zero Waste: Edinburgh and Midlothian Councils has appointed FCC Medio Ambiente SA as “Preferred Bidder” to build a state-of-the-art recycling and energy recovery facility for processing household waste. 12/06/2014

Novozymes' New Enzyme Technology Converts Waste Oils Into Biodiesel

Denmark based Novozymes has announced the launch of Novozymes Eversa®, the first commercially available enzymatic solution to make biodiesel from waste oils. 12/05/2014

Hawaiian Electric Contracts with Pacific Biodiesel for Locally Sourced Biofuel

Hawaiian Electric and Pacific Biodiesel Technologies have signed a contract for the Maui-based biofuel company to supply biodiesel processed from waste cooking oil and other local feedstocks. 2/05/2014

Nevada County Fire Safe Council Releases Biopower Feasibility Study

The Nevada County Biomass Task Force and the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County, California, have released a Biomass Feasibility Assessment considering the development of a 3 megawatt (MWe) biomass fueled power plant. 12/05/2014

Edeniq and Global Bio-chem Agree to Jointly Develop Sugar from Corn Stover

California based Edeniq, Inc has announced signing a Joint Development Agreement with Asian company Global Bio-chem Technology Group Limited (Global Bio-chem) for the production of low cost sugars from corn stover. 12/04/2014

Boeing Conducts Test Flight with Neste Oil's Renewable Diesel-Jet Fuel Blend

Seattle, Washington based Boeing Commercial Airlines has successfully tested Finnish company Neste Oil's NEXBTL green diesel fuel as a component of aviation fuel in the first test flight, which took place in the US using a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. 12/04/2014

US DOE Awards $7MM to Develop Advanced Logistics for Bioenergy Feedstock

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced up to $7 million for two projects designed to develop and demonstrate ways to reduce the cost of delivering bioenergy feedstocks to biorefineries. 12/04/2014

Webinar Scheduled for December 10 on USFS 2015 Wood Innovations Grant

The University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Woody Biomass Utilization Group will conduct an informational webinar on December 10, 2014 to assist in application for the US Forest Service (USFS) 2015 Wood Innovations Grant funding opportunity. 12/03/2014

Netherlands Report Released on ACT Sewage Recycling System Trials

California based Applied CleanTech (ACT) has announced the availability of a third-party verification report on trials of the firm's patented Sewage Recycling System (SRS). 12/03/2014

Rookie Wood Stove Makers Get Highest Score in Design Workshop

The Alliance for Green Heat organized the international 2014 Collaborative Wood Stove Design Workshop held last month at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory. 12/02/2014

USDA Releases $5.6MM in Grants to Producers of Advanced Biofuels

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced the release of $5.6 million for this year's Advanced Biofuels Producer grants, supporting 220 companies across the US. 12/02/2014