Mike Francis Podcast Transcript
Mike Francis joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, Home of The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive today’s guest is Mike Francis. Mike Francis is a four-time founder and currently serves as the CEO of Nanotech Materials at Nanotech. He leads efforts in developing innovative material breakthroughs that reduce energy consumption, lower CO2 emissions in buildings and enhance fireproofing critical infrastructure and fire prone states with a diverse background spanning multiple fortune 500 companies.
Mike has built and led teams across various functions, including product development, commercialization, marketing operations, and P& L responsibility for organizations with over a thousand employees.
Well, good afternoon, Mike. Welcome to the show!
Mike Francis: Thanks, Brian. Appreciate you having me.
Brian Thomas: You bet. Appreciate you jumping on. I love doing these podcasts and we get to talk a little bit about some really cool things you’re doing today. So, jumping right into your first question, Mike, you transitioned from leading teams in fortune 500 companies to founding startups. How did your corporate experiences shape your entrepreneurial journey?
And what motivated you to make this shift?
Mike Francis: You know, every, if you have an opportunity to work for a big company prior to joining a startup, I think it’s great. I think it’s a great experience. And also, you know, you get to collide with the people that could become your first customers. So I had the opportunity to work for several fortune 500 companies.
I was very much an entrepreneur. So, I was able to innovate internally and, you know, I was able to see kind of where good ideas came from. I was able to see the team dynamic, build teams, figure out how to get money. Now, it was all from an internal perspective, but it’s still, you know, still forged a lot of the skills that I use today.
But even more importantly, is it gives you an opportunity to do it. You know, create the network, create the connections, and really find those people that will give you tailwinds along the way as you start your own entrepreneurial journey. You know, I was very, very happy for, you know, the first 5 or 6 years within my corporate career.
And then there was a shift that happened, and I can’t really put my, you know, my finger on it, but I felt that there was something missing. And I’ll, I’ll never forget the moment, you know, I was, I was sitting in my office, I was thinking about my paycheck, my benefits, my three kids at home, and I just felt this weight knowing that I could never leave and knowing that I couldn’t, you know, I didn’t have what it takes to actually step out of my own.
And it was quite a pivotal moment for me. And at that exact moment, my wife of now 20 years, he sent me a very, very simple text message. And she said, I support you. Go do it. And, you know, the tears started flowing. Great, wonderful wife. And, you know, then I had to kind of figure out what, you know, what I was going to do.
And I think that moment really became kind of the starting point of my own journey, and it wasn’t that there was anything particularly lacking from a linear career within, you know, the fortune 500s that I worked in. But I always felt that there was something missing and when I went home that night, you know, still a little bit unsure my daughter, Clara, who is, you know, now 10 years old.
So, she was a little baby at the time. I went into her room. It was pitch black. And I just wanted to hold her. So, I was working very long hours. I was getting to the office, you know, before the sun rose and I was getting home, you know, when it went down, I wasn’t getting the opportunity to, you know, be present with my kids.
And I picked Clara up and because it was very dark outside and we had the blackout curtains, I held her in my hands and look down at her sweet little face. And I couldn’t recognize her. I couldn’t picture her in my mind’s eye. And that was the moment where I knew that I had to make a change. I wasn’t going to be the dad that wasn’t in control of his own time.
And that became my why. I think it’s crucial for all entrepreneurs to find their why. You know, my why at the time, you know, was to be. In control of my own schedule and control of my own time. And it’s evolved from there, from being in control of my own schedule, my own time to not only that, but also making, you know, an impact you want to create teams, you want to create companies that have impact and that’s really how it kind of transitioned and evolved.
It was a great experience in those fortune 500s, but you couldn’t pay me any amount of money to go back to them. Cause I love creating, I love building, and I love finding that purpose in my own, in my own journey.
Brian Thomas: That’s an amazing story and I appreciate that usually I set this podcast up with that 1st question and we get a little back story of the guest and that was amazing you had a family that you loved you had a wife that believed in you had that some of that great experience and you took a leap of faith and I think that’s awesome and so continued success.
And Mike, nanotech focuses on reducing energy consumption and enhancing fireproofing through material science. Could you elaborate on the key technologies you’ve developed and their impact on building sustainability and safety?
Mike Francis: Yeah, we have a patented particle, so our technology is in the particle itself.
We started nanotech out of a garage. So, we’re a true garage startup. What we produce is, you know, a fine white powder. So if you can picture a scenario where in a two car garage and there’s white powder going everywhere, and we’re in our breaking bad jumpsuits. And, you know, it was very, very much a kind of a breaking bad situation, but it was, it was such a memorable time.
You know, we were self-funded at the time and we, you know, sold our first bucket of our, one of our coatings to, to NASA and it was blended out of my old beer tanks, you know, we had to get, we had to go to target and get a bunch of different blenders, you know, we were curing it in our home ovens, we were doing what it took, you know, to, to get to that first customer.
And shortly after that, we got our 1st round of funding. So, we got our 1st round of funding and then we’ve had multiple rounds after that. And what the technology is, is it’s a particle that can go in different carriers. So, things like paints, polymers, acrylics. You know, drywall, sheetrock, et cetera. And the primary thing that it does is it stops the heat from transferring through.
So, we have a line of coatings that we’ve developed. These coatings range across the thermal or heat mitigation spectrum. So, we have a roof coating, which stops the heat from penetrating into the roof. Through that very low thermal conductivity, which we’ve shown to reduce energy consumption on the HVAC by up to 50%.
So we are very much in the built environment space. You know, 40 percent of all U.S. CO2 emissions comes from the heating and cooling of buildings and homes. And we are at the intersection of providing a return through sustainability, where we can reduce energy consumption, which lowers the bills, which lowers the CO2 footprint.
And really, there’s no controversy around that. And then if you go on the opposite side of the heat mitigation spectrum, that same particle. Loaded into very similar coating can also fireproof to about 1, 800 degrees Celsius or 3, 272 degrees Fahrenheit. I’m a really big fan of fringe markets and so where we’ve gone after at the moment is anything that is made of wood we can fireproof.
One of the things I’m very proud of is when we started this, you know, we always had a heart for California and we saw all the things that were happening in those fire prone states. And we’re 1 of the main manufacturers, the main providers of fireproof coatings for the state and the government entities there to fireproof their wood infrastructure, because we have.
Very environmentally friendly, there’s no smoke and it just stops the heat from penetrating through. And so if you look at what we do, we stop heat, we stop heat from entering buildings and we stop buyers at the, at the other end of the spectrum from causing devastating damage.
Brian Thomas: That’s amazing. And I love when people come up with this idea and a solution to a problem.
And I think it’s awesome that we’re able to make the world a better place, obviously, but make it safer, more sustainable. And that’s just awesome. I love this sort of thing. When people come up with something that’s going to improve everybody’s lives in some way or fashion. Next question. I have for you.
You emphasize the importance of scaling people alongside technology. What strategies have you employed to build and lead effective teams? And how do you foster a culture of innovation at Nanotech?
Mike Francis: Yeah, so great technology will sit on the shelf without great teams. Teams, and I have found this multiple times across my 4 different startups, you have to cultivate and grow people just as much as you’re cultivating and growing the technology.
So, hard tech, the space that we’re in is very hard, right? And unless you have people that have the entrepreneur mindset. You’re going to have a difficult time finding the right people to scale where you need to go. And, you know, a lot of times we’re tempted to hire the really pretty resume. We’re hot, we’re, you know, we’re tempted to hire the, you know, the person that has ran lots of, you know, businesses and business units.
And what I found time and time again is that Many times those people get caught on what I call startup island, but they’re very used to the resources. They’re very used to having people around them. We’re at the end of the day. We need people that have that garage mentality, that grittiness, that resilience.
It doesn’t matter when you join a startup. You have to have that startup mentality in order to be successful. And so one of the things that we do here at nanotech is we make everyone empowered to be their own founder within the overall business that allows us to go quickly and allows us to allow, you know, the employees to make mistakes that allows them.
To create their own stories and storytelling is such a big part of the entrepreneurial world that when they go home, you know, they’re not telling the story of nanotech. They’re telling the story of how they became a founder within a startup and that mentality is really what we seek out educational background or experience are great.
But the number 1 thing is if you can have that startup mentality and that resilience to get it done.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. Thank you. And I love that culture that you’re building there. It’s amazing. You know, the Steve jobs quote, and I never get it right, but, you know, hire great people to do the great things, you know, let them do, let them have that autonomy to do something, make some mistakes along the way, but build a great culture of innovation.
And I really appreciate that. And Mike, last question of the day, looking ahead, what are your strategic goals for nanotech materials? Are there new markets or technologies you’re exploring to further advance the company’s impact?
Mike Francis: Right, so I have a very simple mind when it comes to building a strategy, you know, it’s who your target customers, what are their needs?
How are you different and how are you going to execute? And then we build off of that by saying, how can we create a very, very, very simple vision for, you know, the area that we want to attack. I am a huge fan of fringe markets. So, I like going for the fringe and then going in and I like areas that we win.
Our strategy at nanotech is to start with the roof on the building side, so we’re very much at scale. We have nationwide distribution. We have multiple fortune 500s that are using us. And then once you have the roof, you can go across the building envelope. To create the most energy efficient buildings in the world, a lot of the energy usage and built-up carbon are already in the built environment.
They’re in buildings. And so, if we can reduce the energy consumption by mitigating the heat that is penetrating through, we’re in a really good spot. So, our whole strategy is to start with the roof. We’re doing our second set of walls for a big company here in Houston. So, then you have the roof, then you have the walls.
We have a patent filed for a clear coat, which is going to go on windows and solar panels. Let’s the light through, keeps the heat out. And then all of a sudden, you’ve started with something simple like a roof. And over time, you’re able to go across the entire building envelope to reduce the energy consumption.
And then on the fire side. We’re very focused on fire prone states. We’re very focused on California. And our next phase of growth is going from state to state and working with the DOTs that are equivalent of the California DOTs to really make an impact in those communities. And the reason I love the fire piece of it so much is, you know, we’re never going to be the solution, but we have an opportunity to be a big part of the solution.
And as we’ve spent more and more time in those fire prone states, you listen to the stories, you listen to the community, you listen to the people and you start seeing those faces. And what that has done for us is it’s driven us to a very mission-oriented organization. We’re able to attract some of the best talent because there’s no controversy around energy efficiency.
We want more energy efficient buildings. We want to reduce the CO2 emissions. We want to protect lives and we want to protect infrastructure. So, we will continue moving forward with our strategy to go across the built environment, specifically around buildings, and then slowly moving into the most impactful areas that we can affect on the fireproofing side.
Brian Thomas: I really love the technology that you’re building. You’ve got a great vision beyond just what you had started to in your garage. And that’s what I’m so excited about to follow your story and definitely going to have to have you back on the show again next year. I’m just really excited about that. And Mike, it was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Mike Francis: Thank you, Brian. Appreciate it.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Mike Francis Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
