Listen on
| Immigrant Entrepreneur: | Doctor Giacomo Vacca |
| Company: | Kinetic River Corp. |
| Place of birth: | Italy |
| Employees: | 5 |
| Age started business: | 41 |
Show notes
Doctor Giacomo Vacca leaves his hometown at the age of 16 because he always wanted to become a scientist. Leaving your country behind at 16 is not only considered bravery, but beyond courageous.
After graduating Harvard, he attended Stanford University to obtain his PhD in Applied Physics. This lead him on a path to getting amazing jobs at different companies including one that was a Fortune 100 company. He quickly realized that he was meant for something bigger. Deep down on the inside he always had an entrepreneurial drive so he quit and ventured off to create Kinetic River Corp.
In this episode he explains how he was able to gain his customers without doing much of any marketing and gives us incredible advice on immigrant entrepreneurship.
Quotes by Doctor Giacomo Vacca
I’ve always been drawn to doing things differently.
In grad school you always need to teach yourself everything and that has served me incredibly well as an entrepreneur.
I tried to ask questions and talk to as many people as I possibly could.
If I see someone who is successful or has something that I can aspire to or I can use, and I would ask how did you do that, what pitfalls did you get into?
I voraciously tried to absorb wisdom from others and that was my way of trying not to make many mistakes of my own.
Every entrepreneur makes enough mistakes of their own that they can write books.
There were many days, early on in particular where the finances were awful where it was very difficult and even in the middle of that I didn’t seriously consider giving up.
We try very hard to do more than what was agreed on and give them something extra.
Having at least a bit of a runway is better than having no runway.
Having some savings so that when you launch you ideally have at least 6 months of having no paycheck.
Learn as much as possible about what they’re going to need, and what decisions they’re going to have to make.
Learn from inside an established business.
Networks and groups are extremely useful in broadening your network, your outlook and giving you a different perspective.
Never give up.
Where to find Doctor Giacomo Vacca
Kinetic River Corp. | LinkedIn | Beamwise
Mentioned in this episode
Sean Murphy : Bootstrappers Breakfast
Consultants’ Network of Silicon Valley
BIO 2 Device: Membership is free and open to anyone in the Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology, Medical Device, Diagnostics, Healthcare, Life Science Tools, and Laboratory Service industries.
[read more] INTRO (2s):
Welcome to The Immigrant Entrepreneurs Podcast, episode 27. My name is Alina Warrick and today I’m extremely honored to bring on Dr. Giacomo Vacca to the show. His journey to immigration really started at the age of 16, when he left his home town in Italy to attend school in Canada. Since, he always had a desire to become a scientist, his best shot to become one was through the education system that America provided and still provides. But after a career at a Fortune 500 company, he became frustrated with all of the red tape and making a difference was almost impossible.
INTRO (50s):
Let’s hear all about his journey and how his company grows on average 50% a year annually consistently in the last couple of years, all grown organically. So let’s dive right in.
Alina Warrick (1m 4s):
Giacomo, thank you so, so much for coming on to the Immigrant Entrepreneurs Podcast! I am super excited and honored to talk to you about your journey. How are you doing today?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (1m 15s):
I’m very good thanks, and thanks for having me. I appreciate it very much.
Alina Warrick (1m 19s):
So let’s talk about your immigrant journey. Tell us where you’re from and when did you come to the States?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (1m 27s):
Sure. I was born and raised in Torino, Italy. That’s in the Northern part of the country. I lived there until I was 16, and then I went to Canada for two years, to an international school, and then I came to the States and that was in ’87.
Alina Warrick (1m 43s):
And so how old were you when you came to the States?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (1m 45s):
18.
Alina Warrick (1m 46s):
18? Okay. So did you come by yourself when you moved from Italy to Canada?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (1m 53s):
Yep. All by my lonesome.
Alina Warrick (1m 55s):
Awesome. And how did you make the transition or the move from Canada to the States?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (2m 0s):
Well, I was applying to college. And so I applied to colleges in the U S and I was able to get in, and that’s how I got into the country.
Alina Warrick (2m 10s):
So you came at 18 and then did you study something else in Canada?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (2m 15s):
Yeah, a school in Canada was the International Baccalaureate program, which is essentially equivalent to the last two years of high school or the last year of high school and the first year of college, depending on which country you’re from. And so I finished the high school equivalent for Italy, but I was able to essentially do the first year of college there. And then once I got into college proper, as it’s understood in the United States than I started, essentially, as a sophomore, when I came in.
Alina Warrick (2m 47s):
Got it. Got it. So where did you learn English?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (2m 49s):
Oh, boy. So I started, I guess, when I was about eight in a language school in Torino and I did it every year until I left and then once I got to Canada, then it was sink or swim. Right? So, that’s when I really learned conversationally to operate and to write a lot better as well.
Alina Warrick (3m 11s):
Sure. So what was it like growing up in Italy?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (3m 15s):
Well, Italy is a wonderful country. I think most people would agree to that. I certainly do. It’s an incredible place full of history, a full of culture. The food is amazing and so on and so forth. In the seventies and eighties, which is when I was growing up, I guess, no matter where you are from, the fashion, it was just horrifying. So I’m looking back, but of course, back then I was blissfully unaware of all of that so that didn’t particularly matter. No, Italy was great. And it is a wonderful place to give back to when I had a chance to bring my family to. So, yeah, for sure.
Alina Warrick (3m 52s):
So what made you decide to leave Italy and move to Canada initially? You said you were a 16 years old?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (4m 0s):
Correct. Yeah. I’ve always wanted, as far as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a scientist and I wanted to kind of do my own thing again, as far as I can remember, I’ve always been very independent minded. And so when I decided to be a scientist, you know, I was captivated by all of these science popularization programs. You know, the equivalent of Cosmos. We didn’t have Cosmos in Italy, but we had other programs like that on TV that were a very popular. And so I was just captivated and just absorbing as much as I could. And I realized that if I wanted to be a scientist, the place to do that is probably the United States because that’s where the top universities are, the top research institutions are and so once the opportunity came along, I decided to take it.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (4m 48s):
In fact, my mother was the one who provided the opportunity or identified the opportunity for me to go to this international school in Canada. Well, she was a principal at the time and she came across this announcement and then I applied in and got in, and it was a scholarship based opportunity. And that was basically my stepping stone to getting to North America and then eventually, United States.
Alina Warrick (5m 14s):
Okay, got it. So what did you study when you came to the United States?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (5m 19s):
I studied physics, so I majored in physics yup, in my undergrad, and then also in my PhD.
Alina Warrick (5m 25s):
Got it. Got it. So tell me, I’m sure you had a very little struggles coming from Canada to America, but I want to hear, did you have any struggle as an immigrant in the beginning stages?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (5m 37s):
Sure. Yeah. So initially the language was the biggest barrier, right? And I remember in the very first few months of being in an English speaking an environment, just like having to focus my attention, like a hawk, just to catch 30% of what people were saying. It was exhausting, you know, it was really mentally tiring because you have to constantly be, you know, initially translating, figuring out and, you know, of course eventually it just becomes second nature. But initially that was tough.
Alina Warrick (6m 12s):
And did you live in the dorms at your school?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (6m 16s):
Yeah. This is a residential program up in Canada. Sure, it was a very close-knit community, a very small school. So it was actually kind of the perfect way to ease into a different environment like college. And for me also a culturally different environment going into United States, because it was a very supportive, close knit group of both students and teachers. And so it wasn’t quite the cold shower going into college in the US from Italy, just without having any exposure to either the environment, the culture, the language or anything like that.
Alina Warrick (6m 51s):
And what university did you attend in the United States?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (6m 55s):
I went to Harvard.
Alina Warrick (6m 56s):
Got it, got it. Did you apply it to any scholarships?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (6m 59s):
Yeah, You, I mean, you apply to whatever you can so as a new immigrant, I did look into, you know, financial aid and scholarships and so on and so forth. And I found very quickly that my options were limited because I wasn’t eligible for any federal grants, for example, Pell grants and, you know, all of those. So you know, so I was cut out of a lot of the sources of aid, but, you know, we were lucky enough that my parents were able to, you know, to put the money together, to allow me to attend.
Alina Warrick (7m 30s):
And so before you tell our listeners about your company, tell me a little bit more about the path that you took, did you try to go into any other fields before starting your business?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (7m 41s):
Yeah. So, as I mentioned from an early age, I decided that I wanted to be a scientist, and eventually I narrowed that down to Physics and so since finishing off my bachelors and masters at Harvard and then taking my first steps into the real world, as it were, I was operating on the basis of, you know, being a scientist and figuring out how to follow that path. And so initially, I was actually looking to an academic career at some point after my PhD, but in the course of a PhD I sort of changed my perspective. I absorbed different experiences and kind of decided that my goals might be better suited if I were in business instead of being in academia.
Alina Warrick (8m 28s):
Hm. Okay. And then, so did out of school, did you, did you have a job or then after school, or did you just decide, are you going to have your own business?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (8m 38s):
No. So what happened was, so I got my bachelors and masters at Harvard and then I spent three years working at Exxon research. So that was my first job out of that school. And I was basically, at least in my mind, a glorified technician. In everybody else’s mind I was just a peon technician. I learned a lot and then decided that I, you know, to really pursue my goals I needed to have a PhD. And so I apply to doctorate programs and then got into Stanford and did that. So, once I went through my doctorate program at Stanford, after that, then I started a series of jobs at different companies.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (9m 18s):
So it was a startup in the telecom field that I did for two years. Then I worked for another startup in the optics and lasers field. And then I was recruited by a very large company, so completely opposite end of the spectrum. So this is Abbott Laboratories. And so I worked for Abbott Laboratories for about six years. And after that is when I started my company.
Alina Warrick (9m 40s):
Okay. Okay. Wow. What a journey.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (9m 43s):
Yeah.
Alina Warrick (9m 44s):
Okay.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (9m 45s):
So a few stops along the way.
Alina Warrick (9m 47s):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So you did research and then you worked at start-up companies and the last start-up company, you said it was what research company?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (9m 60s):
The last company I worked before, before starting my business? Oh, that was not a start-up. That was Abbott Laboratories. So this is a huge company, right?
Alina Warrick (10m 11s):
Got it.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (10m 11s):
At least that, that time it was a Fortune 500.
Alina Warrick (10m 13s):
Okay. Got it. And then what were you doing there?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (10m 15s):
So, I was in charge of a research group. So I was managing a research group for research program. So I was managing intellectual property, I had a lot of hats actually, and not just the business unit that I was working at, but also at a division level up at headquarters, which is near Chicago. So I did a lot of traveling. We oversaw a lot of different projects within my group and also across the company. It was an incredible learning arena if you will. So that’s really where I got my chops, in terms of management, managing budgets, managing people and managing projects. I learned a lot about managing, I guess, when I was there and that was something that it was by design.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (10m 59s):
So I had done research. I had done a lot of research in my doctorate, right from my PhD. I have taken research positions before and after in industry, in startups and large companies alike, but I didn’t have a lot of management experience. And so that’s something that I felt that I needed to have it under my belt before I worked for my own.
Alina Warrick (11m 19s):
Okay. Got it. So at what point did you decide I’m going to leave this gigantic company and managing all this and create my own business?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (11m 30s):
2011 is when I left Abbott and went off and, you know, hung my shingle, as they say. And started doing my own thing.
Alina Warrick (11m 40s):
Okay. So was it something that was at the back of your head all the time, or was there like a trigger point where you said, okay, I’m going to quit and I’m going to create something.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (11m 49s):
That’s a good question. So I think you back from my days as a graduate student at Stanford, I certainly got this sense that I could be an entrepreneur that I could follow that path, but I hadn’t decided yet at that point that I would do that. I was sort of in the back of my mind when I was at Abbott, it was still for a long time, for many, many years, it was thinking that I could be there for a long time. I could be there, or, you know, it could be, you know, as a career, it could be a long career, as long as they keep you, all right? As long as I don’t get laid off? So I hadn’t, I didn’t join with the intention of leaving, but I had become increasingly frustrated with, I guess, the bureaucracy and the change of direction of the company that I felt that, you know, it wasn’t going into direction that I felt it should go.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (12m 37s):
And I felt that even though Yeah Abbott like most large companies are huge amount of resources from a tremendous talent, lots of money in, you know, in various ways, in various of budgets. But, you know, they are all mostly called for. And so in order to make it big impact, it takes a long time, you have to convince a lot of people. And a lot of times it doesn’t go to the way, the way that you want. Right? It doesn’t go the way you think in my eyes or think it should. And so I felt that after enough time kind of banging my head against a wall I decided it was time to go out for myself.
Alina Warrick (13m 14s):
Awesome. Awesome. So, did you have any savings when you quit or did you work on it on this side?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (13m 20s):
Yeah, no, I had not worked on the side, but we had some savings, but, you know, the business model was initially, and to some degree of continuous was to derive revenue from Consulting to basically tie us over until we have enough revenue from product sales. And so we really started with Consulting, which is something that I could do. I had expertise. I had a diverse experiences in things that I know quite a bit about. And so I could sell that. And so that’s what I did. I started selling services of the various consulting services, technical, and also strategic for a number of years when, in fact to continue to do this today. But that, that was always, if you will, only one, one branch of the plan.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (14m 7s):
So the plan involves delivering services, consulting, but it also involves developing products and ultimately selling products and increasingly that’s what we’ve been doing.
Alina Warrick (14m 20s):
Okay. And this is your talking about Kinetic River Corp that’s correct. Okay. And that was your very first company that you started?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (14m 27s):
Yes, that’s. All right. Yeah. So you start it. I started Kinetic River, it basically to be incorporated in 2010, but you know, 2011 is when I left my day job as it were, and then started working full time for it.
Alina Warrick (14m 41s):
Awesome. And how old were you when you started your company?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (14m 44s):
Forty-one. Well in 2010 I was 41.
Alina Warrick (14m 47s):
Okay. And so tell us a little bit more about Kinetic River Corp what do you guys do and what are the products that you sell?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (14m 54s):
So we operate in the flow cytometry industry or a flow cytometry field. So that’s a field where people study cells, human cells, and mostly, but also animal and plant cells. And to use these very specialized instrumentation called flow cytometers, which are instruments, that measure cells at very high speed. And so you take a sample of blood or a sample of sails from the culture, and you can analyze the cells in the sample very rapidly. And so this is something that I didn’t even know existed until, you know, after, or even in my PhD. And so I became exposed to it through some of the work that I did it at the one startup, and then I just got hooked.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (15m 38s):
And when I worked for Abbott, the division that I worked for, the unit that I worked for was a hematology. Hematology is the study of blood. And the hematology analyzers that we developed and sold, there are flow cytometers. So, are the same kind of instrument that we develop and build now, you know, they are different technologies, different aspects to them, but, you know, bottom line, they all analyze cells. And so for the last 15, 20 years almost have been, that has been the area of my expertise.
Alina Warrick (16m 8s):
That’s a lot of scientific terminology. Okay. So I’m interested, how did you do develop that business model? How did you get into that?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (16m 20s):
Well, so, with Abbott, I spent a lot of time thinking about ways of analyzing cells and came up with a number of inventions when I was there and to develop them, as far as we could, within the company, there’s a lot more have to be invented. Right? There was a lot more opportunities that then we were even looking at when I was at Abbott. And so I decided, well, so that’s one area that I know quite a bit about. That’s where I’m going to start. I’m going to start by just like the advice to writers is write what, you know, and so the advice to a consultant will be a consult on what, you know. So sell your expertise because nobody is going to pay you for something you don’t know anything about.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (17m 1s):
So that’s where the initial impetus came from. It’s like, okay, well, I’m going to start consulting in the field of flow cytometry, but also in the field of optics, which was kind of what I’d been doing all my life, you know, since, since, before my PhD. And so being part of it is a combination of, consulting and optics or the life science applications of optics, but specifically for the products, you know, as we engage with customers. And as we talked to clients when we started getting some ideas about what we could do, that could be different. It could be protected right, from an intellectual property standpoint. And I’d also, it could be a pay differentiator in terms of products.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (17m 41s):
And so now we’ve developed at a portfolio and it is just growing all the time. And we’re adding products, as we go and we started by selling products, mostly into niche areas of flow cytometry, where nobody else is playing. And so that’s one way that, you know, we can corner a bit of the market, but at the same time, we’re developing products that have a lot broader applicability, a lot more appeal for the mass market. And so those take it a bit longer to develop and refine because they have to satisfy a lot of requirements. So they have to check a lot of boxes in other words.
Alina Warrick (18m 17s):
Okay. Okay. So who are your major clients? Are these hospitals clinics? Researchers who are your clients?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (18m 25s):
Yeah, so our main clients are researchers. So in the field of life science research in biomedical research in general, there’s this model where they are an institution or a hospital will have what’s called a core lab. So a core laboratory where expensive machines are bought on behalf of a number of users. All right. So you have a hospital or a university with 20, 30, 50, a hundred different researchers. They can’t each afford, one of these machines, but they can afford to share time on one of these machines. So the core laboratories, kind of generally is managed centrally and allocates time to the machine’s to each of the users.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (19m 8s):
So those are typically the people that we, try to sell our machines to it’s, the core laboratory directors and managers.
Alina Warrick (19m 15s):
In the health industry is booming. So that’s an awesome industry to be in.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (19m 20s):
Right? That’s, one area of human endeavor that doesn’t, typically seem to be affected very much by recessions. And this is a recession in particular is of course tragic in dramatic and so forth. But at the same time, there’s a lot of demand for I for things that can impact people’s lives and make them better.
Alina Warrick (19m 39s):
Right. Right. So you guys are a Bulletproof, you guys are set.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (19m 42s):
Oh, I wouldn’t call it a Bulletproof, but it’s a nice area to be in a nice field to be in.
Alina Warrick (19m 48s):
So in Giacomo, where do you think you got your entrepreneurial drive from?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (19m 53s):
That’s a good question. I am not sure I can put my finger on it, but I guess I’ve always been drawn to doing things differently. I guess that’s one way to, one thing you can say is that, so my path in school was very different from most people in, you know, as I mentioned, I went to Canada to finish high school and I came to the States. I did my college there and did a masters degree attached to the bachelors degree, which was again, not particularly common. And it took three years and worked for three years before going onto my PhD. So none of that is how people are normally do it. So yeah, I mean I generally look for it’s a bit like the investment advice that people give, right?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (20m 36s):
So I don’t go or where everybody is buying because you are going to be playing a lot of money for it, for those stocks. So if you look for areas that are undervalued and then you try to get in there before anybody else. So if just following the herd, you’re not going to get any deals. And so that’s a bit of, you know, in very simple words is kind of, my approach is let’s try not to go after or where everybody else already is because what’s the fun in that and this probably not that much of an upside in that direction.
Alina Warrick (21m 7s):
And did you have to raise any capital to start your business?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (21m 11s):
No, but I wish I had, well, let me qualify that answer. Right. So, and I do not raise any capital and we did not go after venture capital or an institutional investor, didn’t even go after angels to be honest. And so everything we’ve done has been self-funded initially and eventually funding from the company, right from the revenue from the company. So we became profitable right away.
Alina Warrick (21m 36s):
Wow.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (21m 37s):
And we were able to, you know, whether, you know, lean years essentially by gritting our teeth quite a bit, but we managed to continue, and to survive and to well, in fact, thrive over the last six years, we’ve had an annual growth of average of about 50% per year, which is for an organically grown company is huge!
Alina Warrick (22m 1s):
Did you say 50% a year?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (22m 3s):
Right?
Alina Warrick (22m 4s):
Wow.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (22m 5s):
So the, the first few years we’re different, were not like that. But over the last six we have managed that. So initially it was just savings and being laser-focused on getting immediate revenue from consulting services. And so all told, I think the total amount of money that I lent in the business initiative, it was about $30,000 and eventually made it a, you know, pretty soon, paid it all back. And there were a few more instances where I had to lend the company, some money, but again, all of that has been paid back. So we have no debts. Right. We have no new investors. So we were, well, we can chart our own path.
Alina Warrick (22m 46s):
That’s actually really powerful because that’s a really good business model to have. And you guys survived and thrived. And I wanted to ask, where did you, did you guys do any marketing in the beginning stages, any digital marketing, paid advertising or was it kind of word of mouth marketing?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (23m 6s):
Yeah, it was a good question. So it’s something that I constantly think about and try new things. Right. So, so initially it was just word of mouth. Just contacting the people in my network, getting the word out there eventually, you know, we initially put up a, just a very, very simple website on Weebly ages, but you know, it pretty quickly we realized, okay, we need something a little bit more professional. So we hired somebody to do a professional website for us, and so that served us for several years and then a couple of years ago then when we did a complete revamp. And so it it’s something that you never stop working on. Right?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (23m 45s):
So, our newsletters, right? So we started off with maybe it was a thousand or a thousand recipient’s and now it’s, you know, 3000, right? So we keep at it and people from trade shows, from people I meet, I used to meet at trade shows. Hopefully we get to meet people at trade shows again soon. But yeah, it’s, it’s something that you are constantly trying to improve. We never took advertising, right. We never paid for the AdWords on Google or something like that. But we did spend quite a bit of time thinking about how to optimize our luck cross section with a website and with a newsletter and, you know, with direct mailings to specific segments of people in our network and then trade shows, right?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (24m 32s):
For trade shows and workshops in our field have been very useful to kind of reach out to the people who are need to talk to. But we have been very fortunate in that a lot of, so again, it’s a little bit like having several businesses in one, right? The consulting services is one business and the product business is a separate kind of, a separate business model together, but where it’s all under the same roof, because they are synergistic, they all feed into each other. So with the service business, there were a lot of referrals. So there are people who have just and they keep doing that. They know about, you know, the Kinetic River, you know, people in my network know about us and they send people our way when they’re something that they hear, we might be able to help us. And so that that’s tremendously helpful when I try to be fair, I try to pay it back.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (25m 16s):
Right. So in saying at the time there was something that comes across my desk that I don’t know or can’t help with to try to find somebody that they might be their cup of tea. So that kind of mutual assistance is certainly a big part of the establishing and a consulting business or a consulting practice. For products it’s a little bit different, right? Because you have to, it’s a different kind of customer, it’s a different kind of news, it’s a different kind of a dollar amount and so on and so forth. So there, we had to figure out, you know, what the need was to reach to people who needed products and that we are making, and then target to them with marketing and specifically the mailers.
Alina Warrick (25m 54s):
You’re doing so much. I love it.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (25m 58s):
Well, it is, you know, a business is a tremendous amount of work. It never seems to end. It’s certainly still, it never seems to end for me, but it’s a tremendous learning ground, right? Because I’ve had to teach myself. So that’s one thing that in grad school, in grad school, you learn to teach yourself everything you need to know. Because most of the time, at least in my experience, there was nobody, there to teach it to you. And many times there isn’t anybody who actually knows. So you do have to figure it out from scratch. And so that served me incredibly well, right. In my journey as an entrepreneur, because I had to teach myself to, set aside all of the technical stuff.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (26m 38s):
Right. It’s all the legal, all the bureaucratic, like the making sure that you comply with federal paperwork, for grants. And, you know, it’s, I won’t bore you with the detail, but it’s a tremendous amount of the things that you have to keep on the tip of your fingers. And so knowing how to do that quickly is something that has served me very good student.
Alina Warrick (27m 1s):
And especially having a business in California. Oh my goodness.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (27m 5s):
I guess. Yeah. And so have experience starting a business anywhere else.
Alina Warrick (27m 9s):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s crazy. Yeah. But good stuff. Good stuff. Is it, did you have any mentors that helped you out to start your business?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (27m 19s):
I try to ask questions and talk to as many people as I possibly could. And, there were many, right. So I try to get advice from everybody I talked to. Everybody I met and it’s like, you see somebody who is successful or has something that I can expire too, or I can use. And I say, how did you do that? You know, what was your path? What pitfalls did you get into? So I just voraciously try to absorb wisdom from others. And that was my way to try not to make too many mistakes on my own. Of course, you make plenty, right? Everybody has to be entrepreneur makes enough mistakes of their own, that they can write books, but you know, talking to people at whatever stage of their journey, I’ve always found it very, very instructive.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (28m 8s):
I guess, in particular, I’ve been in very close collaboration with, for over 10 years now is his name is Sean Murphy. And I met him because he was a hosting a bootstrappers breakfast. And he still does it actually costs in the many cities across the country. But the one that I attended, I started attending this is, goes back more than 10 years ago, it was in Mountain View. And it was just a place where people get together, he moderates, he and Theresa moderate and people come with, Hey, I don’t, you know, I don’t know if I should incorporate as a C corporation or has an S-corporation or an LLC, what do you guys think?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (28m 48s):
And so it was, you know, five, 10 or 12 to 15 people around the room and say, well, you know, this is what I went through. This is what I can tell you. So this is back and forth of advice, questions, and advice. And so that was extremely helpful. And then of course, with Shawn, he also became a co-founder of another company that we started together called BeamWise. So we’ve had an extensive collaboration and partnership ever since, but I found that he was, you know, very tremendously helpful in terms of the amount of things that he’s seen in terms of startups and businesses and the things that he advised us on when we were getting going.
Alina Warrick (29m 25s):
Okay. So you just dropped another nuggets, you have another company?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (29m 33s):
This is a company that I started with Sean, and two other fellows. So BeamWise is a company that has some synergy with a Kinetic River, but quite different in terms of the business model that we actually develop software for optical system designed. So it’s to help people design complex assemblies, complex instruments, if you will, that are optics based. And so of course, that’s one of the things we do a Kinetic River. And so we’ve had a lot of use for, for BeamWise. And so that’s where the synergy comes in.
Alina Warrick (30m 3s):
Okay. So do you still have that company?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (30m 6s):
Yeah.
Alina Warrick (30m 6s):
So you run two companies.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (30m 8s):
That’s right. Yeah. So I am, I run primarily Kinetic River, so the president and CEO or whatever. And so that’s my main focus, but with BeamWise, I’m a Chief Science Officer, so I advise on, you know, what is the application? What should we be thinking about in terms of features and so on and so forth.
Alina Warrick (30m 30s):
Okay, Yeah. So I’m looking back at your Immigrant Entrepreneur career and knowing what, you know now, would you want to change anything or do anything differently?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (30m 41s):
Yeah, I would start with a lot more money.
Alina Warrick (30m 48s):
Valuable advice.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (30m 50s):
Well, that’s not always easy to – easy to say, but not easy to do of course. Right. ’cause you know, who has to set aside, quarter a million dollars, or two, you know, for a rainy day for a rainy year or two. And if I had that, of course it would have saved me a year or a nervous breakdown or two. So it’s certainly, I paid a price for not seeking angel capital right away, or ever. Right? For boot-strapping and doing things essentially, completely on my own, I mean, we did have a family to help financially for a while. And so that was extremely helpful and very, very much appreciated it, but we never had a big chunk of money that came from an investor.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (31m 34s):
And so that meant that it was difficult. Initially, eventually we started getting into a very good groove. We found, well, basically we developed enough and the perfected enough, the initial, very early stage of our technology that we could start getting grants. And so we started getting grants from the NIH at a good clip and so that’s been a tremendous health for us over the years. So once we hit that stride, things really started blossoming. Right? So we started hiring people, we expanded, we were able to do more with what we had. So it, everything changed quite rapidly, once we hit that, but it took a few years.
Alina Warrick (32m 17s):
Hmm. Got it. Got it. So grants really helped you guys to propel it to you today to go to the next level.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (32m 23s):
Yeah. So, you know, a start-up is, not the same as every other start-up so if you have a software based start-up, so you can keep your, your expenses very, very low, you can do everything in the cloud, or you don’t have to hire a lot of people necessarily can do, you know, virtual or remote work. When you’re doing a hardware startup, it’s a hundred times more difficult. It is expensive, particularly as you get into the later stage of development and you just, you know, you can’t do it alone. And so it is helpful to have the government to recognize that startups of this kind need help. And so the NIH does, and the NSF does, and, and other agencies of the government to also do, and select proposals that seem promising.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (33m 11s):
And that is a fantastic vehicle. You know, the scale of the SBIR or the small business innovation research program has been fantastically helpful, not just to us, but to tens of thousands of companies all around the country.
Alina Warrick (33m 24s):
Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that. So I’m really interested to know how do you look at a failures and how do you overcome them?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (33m 32s):
Mmm Hmm. Well,
Alina Warrick (33m 35s):
This is deep.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (33m 37s):
Sure, sure. It is a deep question. I mean, does, there’s all sorts of kinds of failures, right? You can, I mean, you can spend a lot of time on a proposal and then it comes to nothing, right? So the worst kind of failure, I think that, so you generate a lot of proposals and a fraction of them will be accepted and then, you know, you deliver them and the way they pay you, hopefully, and I have not had the displeasure of being stiffed by too many people. In fact, when something was commissioned and we delivered, we were always paid. Where I had the displeasure was where we’ve, I’ve, might’ve spent 50 hours on generating an extremely detailed proposal with all the plans and all the details, and I give it to the customer or the prospective customer and then they say, this is fantastic.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (34m 28s):
You know, you know, we’ll, you know, we’ll sign this in the morning and then never hear from them. And then you realized that, you know, they gave the debit to the other two or the other bidder or to your competitor. Maybe even using the very literal proposal that you spent so much time on as a blueprint for doing the work? So, you know, it’s a lesson, you learn pretty quickly. So, you know, you don’t spend 50 hours in the proposal without pay. And so that became a new policy, right? So you spend enough time to give the customer a sense for what what’s going to be in a deliverable and make sure that you get paid adequately for it, but you certainly don’t give them the blueprint until they put some skin in the game.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (35m 9s):
But, you know, so I guess that’s one way to say that, you know, if fate, this may sound trite, but it’s really true where a lot of stereotypes are true in many ways, at least they’ll have a nugget of truth. And so the triteness is that, you know, a failure is a learning opportunity and it’s really true, right? So from that particular failure, because I spent all this time and got nothing for it, I learned that I shouldn’t be spending so much time on our proposal. And so I never did it again. And so on you learn, right? And on you live. So it’s a matter of not feeling beaten down too much by any particular setback. I guess the overarching principle for any failure is, you know, never give up, right?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (35m 55s):
It’s absolutely the rock bottom thing. And it’s also a trite, a stereotype or a cliche, but it must be part of what an entrepreneur does. If you give up, on the overall arc of what you’re doing, then all bets are off. That doesn’t mean you should continually pursue something that is doomed to fail. Right. Once it’s clear that that is the dead branch, then, then it should absolutely be abandoned. But that doesn’t mean you give up on entrepreneurship or give up on your company or give up on your dreams, you know, there’s giving up and giving up.
Alina Warrick (36m 27s):
Did you do at any point in time in your entrepreneurial ventures ever have a day that you wanted to give up or did you kind of just pursue and move forward after all of these failures and mistakes?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (36m 41s):
Well, there were, many days early on, in particular where, where the finances were like awful, where it was very difficult, but even in the middle of that, I didn’t seriously consider giving up. It was like, okay, well this is a really tough, how do I get out of it? Right. Not how do I abandon ship, it’s how do I steady it? Now, how do I keep it afloat? How do I get out of this pickle without throwing in the towel? And so that, I guess what’s kept me going is just the fact that I was very adamant about not giving up.
Alina Warrick (37m 21s):
That’s powerful advice. Thank you. Thank you. So let’s switch gears and talk a little bit about successes. Are there any successes that you would like to outline from your Immigrant Entrepreneur journey?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (37m 34s):
So when you do something that you feel is the best that you can do and the customer or client recognizes that and he acknowledges it, that is a tremendous rush, right? It’s a wonderful feeling of validation, right? So I would say that those are the, some of the most, the most rewarding moments is when you, you are a sweat, took us through to bone and you get to something that is generally in a lot more than one of the customer actually asked for, because that’s how we operate. This is another thing that we do is we try to do above and beyond, right. We try to make sure the customer is absolutely thrilled with the results, even at our expense, even to the detriment of our profit, because that engenders good-will, and that engenders repeat business in that engenders referrals.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (38m 28s):
And so we generally, I specifically, but the company as a whole, we try very hard to do more than even what was agreed on and gives them something extra, right. So that they can be really happy with the results. And so once they received that and say, wow, there’s this really, this is a really awesome, and that’s a great feeling. So there is absolutely fantastic. I’d have to say that personally, some of the most rewarding feelings for me come from, from invention, right? Because I’m an inventor is it’s kind of how I decided to be an entrepreneur is by following kind of the ideas that I had. And the very first invention I wasn’t an entrepreneur than yet, that was still working at for another company.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (39m 10s):
But I got my first, the acknowledgment, right? So the patent issues and then US PTO says, congratulations to you The patent was issued, that was the first one that I received. I felt, wow, they’re, it is. And it says, here I am an inventor. Maybe you felt all of your life, but now it’s in print. It’s the government that says this, it must be true.
Alina Warrick (39m 31s):
Did you frame that? Did you frame it?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (39m 34s):
Oh, yeah! We’ve framed it. Yeah. So, I have 54 patents now on the wall. And so, but every one of them is, is like, this is great, right? This is something that we can point to as evidence that we are very innovative, right? We create things out of nothing. And that is one of the things that, you know, certainly in technology, entrepreneurship is a very important, it’s important to have something, to differentiate it to you and to differentiate your products, there’s various ways of doing it, but in tech, you generally have to have a novel idea.
Alina Warrick (40m 6s):
Thank you so much for sharing that. I noticed something very interesting when I was looking through your LinkedIn profile. I saw that you speak Chinese, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, and obviously English. Where did you pick up all of these languages?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (40m 24s):
Oh, that’s going to like my hobby almost. I can’t say honestly that I speak fluently any of those, except for Italian and English, any more. At some point I did speak fluently German, rather fluently and more or less fluently Chinese. French may be so-and-so, and Spanish so and so. But it’s always been absolutely a fun thing for me is that I was always fascinated by languages and I couldn’t get enough of them. I studied English in Germany in school and then I picked up Chinese and the study data and traveled to Taiwan and China to learn it better. So it’s always been, you know, it’s been a lifelong thing for me picking up languages. I’ve always enjoyed it.
Alina Warrick (41m 5s):
Wow. Wow. And Chinese, I mean, that’s something completely different from all the other ones.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (41m 11s):
Right. Exactly.
Alina Warrick (41m 12s):
Awesome, awesome. Good stuff. So is giving back either volunteering time or giving back to the community is something that is a part of your business values.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (41m 22s):
So I would say that it’s more than a part of our business values. It is the entire reason for of being of the business, right? Because what we’re trying to do is to create solutions that help people fight disease, to help people stay healthier longer. And so the entire business model is aimed at making sure that there’s as wide an impact as we can of that particular thought and urge. And so, you know, we are doing what we think is ultimately going to result in instruments and products that hopefully it will be adoptive very widely and where they were adopted, they can make a big difference.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (42m 10s):
And so that’s really the underlying current is, is why are we so passionate about what we’re doing is because this is not another, this is not another gaming app, not there’s anything wrong with games, but there’s a different importance between something that is something that you do in your leisure and something that your mother or your father or your sister’s life depends on. There’s clearly different levels of importance to that. And so I think that is where our entire ethos comes from in terms of values and being passionate about what we do.
Alina Warrick (42m 50s):
What are some of the things that you would advise the next aspiring immigrant that wants to start their own business listening to you right now?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (42m 59s):
Yeah. So if they want to, if they want to call me we can be on the phone for several hours, but I would say that having at least a bit of a runway is better than having no runway financially, right? So whether it’s borrowing some money from family or friends or having some savings so that you can launch and have a lot, I don’t know, six months, ideally at least have not any paycheck whatsoever, that would certainly be advisable. I would also advise them to get as much experience as you can, but not let that be an excuse, not to start.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (43m 42s):
Right. So, as I said, I started my entrepreneurship journey in my forties, in my early forties. I actually started it before that because I started learning about it and study and talking to people. And as I mentioned, or anybody to talk to me, I’d been their ear backwards, trying to find out how they did it, or what would advice they had for me. And so I did that for several years before I actually jumped ship. And I would advise them to do the same. I would advise them to learn as much as possible about what they’re going to need, what they are going to have to do? What decisions they are likely to have to make, and essentially put as much in place as possible before they leave the comfort and security of their existing paycheck. You know, there’s some entrepreneurs that are jumping too, you know, starting a venture right out of school.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (44m 26s):
For some it works. For some it bombs horribly. I wouldn’t advise it. I would advise him to get experience in the field that they’re interested in and really learn from an established business, from the inside of them established business, what’s going on, to become an expert in some area and find out what is still out there in terms of unmet needs. Once you have the inside scoop and what that is, then you can take a job and figure out a way to fill that need on your own.
Alina Warrick (44m 58s):
Yeah. So that’s valuable advice. Thank you. Thank you. And where did you find those mentors and you mentioned to you met at some of the trade shows, but did you go into any meet-ups or any groups, or did you join any groups like that? Or where did you find your mentors?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (45m 15s):
No, that’s actually a very, a very good question. So I didn’t mention that one of the very first thing I did after I left my job, at a very large company was, I don’t even remember how I found out about it, but maybe through an email or somebody forwarded to me, something that was, a consultant’s groups here in Silicon Valley, it is called the Consultants Network Of Silicon Valley to come out and seeing the speak. And I met a lot of very interesting people, most extremely helpful, and certainly plenty of have wisdom and experience there, not all of them are necessarily on their own as consultants, but many of them with plenty of advice. And so that kind of community and group of which I’m still a part of that is definitely one that I’ve drawn a lot of mutual wisdom from.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (46m 2s):
And like that, there were others that are the bio to devise to, or for example, it still runs, even though it’s in pandemic mode, it’s a meetup dedicated to medical devices and the new pharmaceutical innovation and the medical instrumentation. And so that’s kind of a meetup is another place where I met a lot of people. In fact, I met the first person, I hired for Kinetic River at that meet-up and just got exposed to a lot of interesting ideas. And so these kinds of networks and groups are, I think, extremely useful and broadening your network or broadening your outlook and giving you a different perspective.
Alina Warrick (46m 41s):
Awesome, so powerful. So it’s a wrap up. I have to be super, super fast and easy questions if that’s okay with you?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (46m 49s):
Sure.
Alina Warrick (46m 49s):
Okay. What time do you normally start your day?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (46m 51s):
You mean what time do I get into the office or at a time when I get up?
Alina Warrick (46m 54s):
At what time do you get up?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (46m 55s):
I get up at about 6:00 or 6:30?
Alina Warrick (46m 59s):
That’s awesome. How many employees do you have?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (47m 2s):
We have five. We’ve had six, five, four. It kind of fluctuates, but we were more or less steady right now. We’re at about five, six, and we’re going to look into a new phase of expansion next year.
Alina Warrick (47m 14s):
Awesome. Awesome. Love it. How often do you want to TV in a week?
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (47m 19s):
Oh, that actually the one thing that I allow myself to wind down and chill. Right now, I have a decent size commute to and from work. And so by the time I get home and I’m like, I’m done. Except when I’m not done and I have to do another report before I go to sleep. If I go to sleep at all. So that does happen, but not every day, thankfully, but there’s a lot of times when you don’t have to keep working after I get home. And that’s just the nature of the beast.
Alina Warrick (47m 52s):
Yeah. So the last question leads me to your working schedule. How many hours of work do you normally put in it say in a week on an average? I know it fluctuates.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (48m 5s):
Yeah. So 60 or 60 plus.
Alina Warrick (48m 8s):
Hopefully it’s not a hundred plus!
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (48m 11s):
No, it has been a hundred plus on very, very few occasions.
Alina Warrick (48m 15s):
No way.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (48m 15s):
Yeah. It has been absolutely crazy. There are some projects where there’s just so much work to like getting up to go to the bathroom was a challenge and so those are like 14, 15, 16 hour days. Thankfully there’s not too many of those. You never know. Although there are, thankfully there is not that many, all-nighters that I’ve had to pull any more. In my earlier days, you know, grad school and all of the early work years, I have pulled quite a few and they are, they’re awful. I hate it. Yeah. But you got to do it. In fact, I pulled one just, just about four months ago again, because it just had to be done by a certain deadline and that there’s nothing else that I could do.
Alina Warrick (48m 55s):
Yeah. Yeah. And, and you’re also pursuing the quality work, so I’m sure your quality work speaks volumes in all of those dedicated hours or so
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (49m 4s):
You kind of have to sleep, you know how to do some, some decent quality work. And so, you know, once we get into, well, I need to crank this out, then you try to time it, so that you do your thinking work when you are still awake and then you do your turn, the crank word for it when you’re in the two or three in the morning.
Alina Warrick (49m 23s):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Giacomo, thank you so much for coming on my show that you are giving back into the, so so many ways and changing the world in many ways. Thank you so much for what you’re doing out there and you’re such an inspiration to so many immigrants listening to you. Thank you.
Dr. Giacomo Vacca (49m 42s):
Alina has been, it has been my pleasure and joy. I’m the one to thank you for reaching out to me. It’s a great to talk to you and I appreciate your initiative. I certainly hope that some people get to get something out of this if a, if they hear.
Alina Warrick (49m 58s):
Thank you.
OUTRO (49m 58s):
Alrighty guys, thank you so much for tuning in. I just wanted to ask you if you can give me a quick shout out wherever you’re at listening to this podcast. I’d love to give you a shout out as well on a future episode of mine. Also, if you’re an Immigrant Entrepreneur listening to this show and would love to be featured on my podcast go ahead and email me and we’ll get connected. I’ll see you guys on next time for another exciting and impactful episode, take care.
[/read]
