DAVID CREASEY EPIC CEO INTERVIEW
How involved are you in data analysis to help understand what’s happening in the
DC I’d recommend adopting the three principles that have guided me throughout my career and got me to where I am today. The first is curiosity and a thirst for knowledge about your chosen technology and its applications that can do something meaningful, and which can therefore be monetized to create a business. Second, make sure you have good mentors who will look out for you and give you the opportunities to develop and succeed in your career. Finally, and this comes from my passion for sport, is the awareness that you can’t do it on your own. You need to create and be part of high performing teams. From product development to shipments and support, it takes having the full team on board to keep the promises we make to our customers.
AC
process?
A large part of our recruitment is now in this area as we are spending an increasing amount
DC
of time discussing what goes on between the front of our instrument and the customer’s sample. Our focus is on helping customers design their experiment to get the right result, and then enabling them to interpret their results to find the answer they require. Helping customers through this process of turning science into answers is key for our future development.
How do you see the future of Wasatch Photonics?
AC
David Creasey, CEO of Wasatch Photonics
Fortunately, we are in an opportunity-rich environment, with opportunities of two types.
DC
The first are what I call “keeping the lights on” opportunities, which will give us some short-term impact. The others are bigger opportunities with longer term implications. Obviously, for sustainable growth we need to consider both types. But with opportunities come decisions, which basically means placing some heavy bets on some of these application areas. This in turn means getting the right balance between the scientific and commercial voices within the company, and in some cases, we will have to get better at saying ‘no’. But in making these decisions, we are fortunate in having a very healthy and growing academic business with an ever- increasing loyal band of customers, who are now starting to do a lot of our marketing for us through their publications and through word of mouth.
If you started again, what would you do differently?
AC
Although I’m very proud of the success our product line has enjoyed, in the beginning, I think
DC
I was too ambitious and too much of a perfectionist. What I wanted to do was to create a perfect portfolio of products before we hit the market, which took too long and added undue stress to the staff and on the cash flow as we ended up being late to the party. I’ve since learned a lot about the 80/20 principle - that is, to focus on getting 80% of the portfolio right really quickly and worry about the other 20% later. So, if I started again, I’d release parts of the product line as an entity sooner, rather than waiting for the whole portfolio to be complete.
What’s your advice for the next generation of entrepreneurs?
AC
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ISSUE 38 | Q3 2024
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