Glenn: Hi, I’m Glenn Taylor and this is The BusinessMakers Show. My guest today is Dr. Candice Landry, Founder of 10e5. Candice, thanks so much for joining us.

Candice: Thanks, Glenn. Thanks for having me.

Glenn: Tell me about 10e5.

Candice: 10e5 is a really exciting new company. We essentially go in and help companies who create new, never seen before products for the marketplace and help them to put some structure and some system to bringing those innovations to life. Essentially, we help them transform their ideas into assets.

Glenn: Ok, new company. How new?

Candice: It’s about two years old. We are into our third year, so we are very happy about our tenure so far.

Glenn: It sounds like a really unique mission, so how do you do that?

Candice: We do that three simple ways; we help companies cultivate the ideas that they have with the talent that they already have; we help them to connect the teams that are needed to really bring that innovation to life; and also help them to engage the markets through due diligence, feasibility, and other sorts of exercises.

Glenn: What type of clients do you work with that need this sort of service?

Candice: In particular, we work with companies that create new things, so R&D companies. That might seem a little esoteric. A lot of companies that are R&D companies on the face don’t seem that way, but we work across those organizations pulling together teams from technology, strategy, legal, and finance to really help them get on the straightest, clearest path towards a return on investment. It’s essentially anyone who is involved in the innovation lifecycle who needs answers to the questions like, what’s out there? Who’s already out there doing something similar to this? What does the competitive landscape look like? A really powerful question not to be overlooked is, what intellectual capital do we already have and how can we build off of that?

Glenn: When you say intellectual property, intellectual capital, what falls into that bucket?

Candice: From a business perspective in looking at the assets there are four general classes of intellectual assets. Patents are typically often remarked about but there’s also trademarks, trade secrets, copyright. There’s also other forms of intellectual property that are just the intellectual capital; the people that you have, the talent that you have, and so really all those classes together make for your portfolio that really brings brand equity.

Glenn: Take me back a little bit. How did this get started?

Candice: I’m a scientist at heart and I started in academia in research and one of the big lessons that I learned from that experience is that, again, if you are trying to solve a problem and you want to do that consistently you have to have a systematic approach, so the scientific method of sorts. When I jumped into industry I learned about how technologies are brought to market and I learned how investments were made. When I became exposed to intellectual property and innovation strategy, from day one I knew that’s where I wanted to focus my energy. It’s really what became 10e5, it’s that passion to see those sparks actually come together into something that’s going to make businesses better or just generally enhance life, and so we kind of run on that.

Glenn: 10e5, the name. What’s the story behind that?

Candice: This is a bit for the academics at heart out there.

Glenn: For the geeky people out there, which I appreciate.

Candice: Right. So, we created 10e5 for those companies, and you may have experienced one of these big ah-ha moments that a fellow colleague has had recently.  10e5 is scientific notation for a million, so for those million-dollar ideas, that’s the behind the scenes story.

Glenn: You’ve got the doctor in front of your name, so tell me a little bit about your education.

Candice: I’m absolutely a scientist at heart, a very curious mind. I started as a microbiologist and got into pretty involved research science around how organisms interact together. From that, I learned a lot of really broad lessons from that experience and I’ve been able to translate those into industry. When I did get into industry I started in HSE with a jackup oil company and that was a very different experience from being at the bench, but pretty quickly after that I kind of navigated into finance and was an investor relations officer. I learned about the legal aspects of business and definitely about M&A and investments and these sorts of things. Then when I did go back into the field after that experience, I was able to bring together what’s happening from the technology side, what’s happening from the business side, the strategy, the legal, and these different components, and that really made for a nice background for intellectual property and innovation strategy. I had the science, the technology, the strategy, and the legal and the finance, so I was able to draw from all of those domains that are necessary.

Glenn: Absolutely. Candice, thanks for coming in and sharing your story.

Candice: Thank you, Glenn. Thanks for having me.

Glenn: And that wraps up my discussion with Dr. Candice Landry, Founder of 10e5. And this is The BusinessMakers Show.