By Romi Mahajan, CEO, ExoFusion
When ExoFusion’s other Co-Founders and I got together to discuss the possibilities of Commercially Viable Fusion (CVF), we had an open and honest conversation. It was not one that necessarily had to lead to the formation of a company; in fact, a very likely and even satisfactory outcome would have been NOT to start ExoFusion and to continue in our inertial path, me as a marketing and strategy consultant and the other three as well-respected and productive members of the academy. No one should search for a reason to start what will be an exhausting endeavor. The reasons should present themselves and be compelling enough to dislodge the current paradigm.
Now that ExoFusion is a revenue-making, funded company looking to power CVF in collaboration with other private fusion companies, governments, national labs, and other entities, we do a quarterly recalibration- to ensure that our initial principles are intact. Our latest meeting was revelatory- not only are these principles intact, they are even stronger than they were when we started.
This is not a tract about the importance of mission and of unwavering commitment. I’ll leave that to the back-of-the-book business crowd; instead, this is a suggestive piece- one borne of my experience in running a science-based company. Though a marketer by profession, I cannot find a better term to use than “The Twin Theses.” Nothing as grandiose, mind you, as Wittenberg but important perhaps nonetheless.
We started ExoFusion with extremely clear intention and focus, both of which are bound up in our twin theses. The first thesis is scientific, the second pertains to business model
Thesis One: Scientific
– To get to Commercially Viable Fusion (CVF) the key is confinement.
Thesis Two: Business
– ExoFusion powers the CVF Ecosystem with IP, Design, Simulation, and Licensing.
Simple and straightforward. The first thesis represents 100+ years of cutting-edge scientific discovery, invention, and conviction. The second thesis represents our core skill-set but doesn’t obviate us from one day building fusion machines, if that is what the times call for.
Our patent portfolio, spread across Magnetic Confinement, Divertor Technology, Metallurgy, Neutron-Sources, and others is highly thematic: Confinement, Confinement, and Confinement.
Our Go-To-Market strategy is about helping the ecosystem put the pieces together to achieve higher confinement.
While this might seem abstruse and confusing to anyone who isn’t familiar with Plasma Physics, that’s not the point. The point is that these twin theses power the company and the preponderance of our actions.
This is my first science-based company. The twin theses help me lead the way. Will we be successful? That remains to be seen but it won’t be for lack of clarity or focus.