View this post on Instagram

Founder 2 Founder is a dine-around series we're launching in 2020! In our series, we'll hear from founders who have achieved major milestones in the life of their startup. The event will begin with networking, followed by a meal, and conclude with a guided discussion of how our guest founder navigated their startup through major milestones like buying, selling, and merging. We showcase a variety of founders, including founders who are women and people of color. Our first event is January 14, 2020 at 7:00 pm CT at Local Lime in Rogers, AR, and we'll feature Dr. Nashlie Sephus. Nashlie, a Mississippi native, is currently the Applied Science manager for Amazon’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) initiative. She landed at Amazon through Amazon's purchase of her startup, PartPic, where she was the CTO (Chief Technology Officer). Nashlie and her team developed the image search feature in use by Amazon today. The amazing thing about Nashlie is that she's breaking all the rules, and rewriting them as she goes. Join us as we hear about her journey from Maker to Founder through the acquisition of her startup by Amazon.Ticket price includes a fixed-menu including salsa and queso blanco stations, build your own fajita and taco bar, and beverages which includes two alcoholic drink tickets. Space is limited. Don't wait get your ticket! ———>click link in BIO . . . . . #precipiceip #founder2founder @phenomenashlie @thebeanpath @findingnwa @fayettevillear @bentonvillearkansas @nwaalive

A post shared by PRECIPICE IP PLLC (@precipip) on

View this post on Instagram

Yep, we did that. All in one day 🔥

A post shared by Precipice IP (@precipip) on

View this post on Instagram

This month, we want to talk protecting designs! The focus of competitive advantage in many science and technology startups is, not surprisingly, on the science and technology. Many sci-tech startups choose to protect the innovative function over the innovative form, and I think that’s a huge miss. Design patent protection can be effective and affordable, since the attorney’s fees are usually much lower than utility patent filings, and once issued, no maintenance fees are required to maintain the patent. There are numerous innovative areas of focus for which a design patent strategy could work, and in our recent blog post, we touch on 4 and use Google’s patent portfolio to illustrate our point. #1- The Desktop Graphical User Interface 👈🏿 The first shocking example of using design patents is protecting the layout of the desktop webpage. When you look at Google’s design for the Google Search user interface, you might be shocked at how simple the innovation actually is. But that’s kind of the point. The layout was novel and non-obvious at the time, and thus qualified for design patent protection. For a sci-tech startup willing to invest in a little creativity with their user interface (i.e. webpage), a design patent can be a useful tool in building even the tiniest of competitive advantage in the market. Keep in mind design patents are not to be functionally unique, but rather novel in form rather than function. U.S. Design Patent No. USD607465 👉🏿 Visit the link in our profile for more information about Precipice IP, and talk to an intellectual property professional about how design patents can protect your startup's innovations. #startup #smallbiz #smallbusiness #tech #intellectualproperty #scienceandtechnology #techtransfer #techstartup #foundersfollies #patents #trademarks #ip #protectyourtech

A post shared by Precipice IP (@precipip) on

 
 
View this post on Instagram

"If You’re Not Careful About Where You Get Your Talent, Your Startup May Not Survive." Building a team in a sci-tech startup comes with a few hidden dangers, here are a few: 1) Hiring Friends Into Your Startup 2) Hiring From Your Competitor 3) Collaborating With Others However, when these issues are managed well, your startup could thrive 🔥. Here's an excerpt: A few months back, I hosted a group of Science and Technology startup founders for happy hour. As we threw back Old Fashioneds and Manhattans, we discussed the ever exhausting task of running an emerging company. Some of the founders shared stories of founding and starting their companies with longtime friends. Some founders shared other experiences, like using contract employees to execute on technology and design strategies. And some founders even bragged about hiring away employees into top leadership roles from their largest, and closest competitors. Smart founders know you can’t build a company alone, not a strong one anyway. It takes a solid network and a talent pipeline to bring innovative products and services to users and customers. But if you don’t carefully think through how you go about building that pipeline, you could put the future of your company at risk... Check out my more of my article on Medium to learn what you can do 👊🏿 http://bit.ly/2VXEjTs #startup #ownership #collaboration #intellectualproperty #technology #sbir #scienceandtechnology

A post shared by Precipice IP (@precipip) on

P2_GREY_TREE.png