When launching a company, the decision about whether to go it alone or court investors is pivotal; Subodha Charles has done both and learned the many lessons that each path offers.
Going it alone, for example, “teaches discipline like nothing else,” he says, and also underscores the importance of every hire, every decision, every dollar spent. This path’s pay-offs include bolstering creativity, a scrappy mindset, and a “laser focus” on identifying and solving real problems.
In partnering with investors, Charles chose to skirt the “typical venture capital route” in favor of people who believed in the mission they helped to finance. This resulted in collaborations that emphasized scalability and stability rather than growth at all costs.
Today, Charles is both a faculty member in the Department of Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, and cofounder of Alta Vision energy company, which expanded into the Pearl Cluster, a group of companies operating across energy, construction, digital services, and other sectors, with offices in London and Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Charles is also one of Computing’s Top 30 Early Career Professionals. In the following Q&A, he describes
Key elements of a successful patent application, including detailed specifications; flow diagrams; use-case scenarios; and clear, defensible claims about the invention’s novelty and non-obviousness
How building multiple companies taught him the importance of early hires, why clear communication is more valuable than charisma, and how culture exists not in cafeteria menus and game rooms but in how your team performs when things go south
The essential role of people in a company’s success, including finding the right leaders who share your vision and bring deep domain expertise
How his approach to mentoring his students involves focusing on what they’re excited about and treating them not as learners, but as collaborators
You have been awarded four patents by the USPTO. Can you share the process of developing these patents and how they contribute to advancements in network-on-chip (NoC) architectures and hardware security?
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