Mission

Heron Scientific, Inc. helps technology-driven companies invent new products and bring them to market more quickly, at lower costs, and with greater customer response.

 

 

How

I bring a practical focus to innovation, drawing from a broad business and technical skill set.

I improve the quality of decisions in the organization by translating technical judgment into business terms, and back again.  I ask “why?” all the time, to make sure that we’ve identified the most basic goals for a program, to open it up to new and innovative solutions.  Most importantly, I solve for the system-level goal – revenue, profit, brand identity – leveraging any technology that will deliver the best return on investment.

What

Working primarily with materials and device technology companies, I facilitate ideation, creation and execution of their next big thing.

My goal is not to maximize technical performance, but to deliver enough technical differentiation to maximize customer value. My development projects typically come in with lower costs than initially budgeted, and in about 25-50% less time.

Why

I want to build things that make a difference in people’s lives.

I am an idea guy who likes it best when others come up with better ideas than me, and we all work together to polish them into something truly great.  My goal is push in every way possible to make my clients successful, so they can make their customers happy.

Build something new and better

I help companies scout for innovations and hone their early stage technology development programs with ideation, open innovation support, and IP and technology landscaping.

Examples include:

Result: Higher revenue, lower cost products

Develop products faster

 

Innovation cannot be scheduled, but people underestimate how much faster it can go.

I help companies accelerate their R&D by identifying and alleviating the technical and business bottlenecks that stand in the way of product development.  I rely on processes such as Failure Mode Effects Analysis to prioritize projects by risk, and the Delphi method to estimate effort.

Most important, though, is good communication.

Every technology company has experienced the pain of poor communication, where huge fractions of the R&D budget pour into features that the customer doesn’t value.  It doesn’t have to be that way.

A single person on your team, with an outside perspective and the ability to understand the finance, marketing, and technical details, can save tens of millions of dollars of wasted effort by eliminating implicit, incorrect assumptions. Less jargon. More meaning. Better performance.

 

Result:  Cheaper failures, faster successes

Understand what you are investing in

We advise investors on the ROI potential of up-and-coming technologies, using a well-defined process that evaluates risk-at-maturity, quantifying technical viability, market competitiveness, scalability, and ability to execute.

We specialize in energy storage, materials, and device technology, especially for new-to-the-world technologies and markets.  We also offer customer diligence services to validate product-market fit.

Result: Better risk-adjusted value, transparent processes for clear communication with investment partners

 

About

Heron Scientific, Inc., is a boutique consulting company optimizing the path from invention to market.

The principal of Heron Scientific, Inc., Dr. Seth Miller, has a Ph.D. in chemistry from Caltech and a long history of invention, with over 70 issued US patents and over 200 US and international patent applications.  Dr. Miller has worked in technology development for Texas Instruments, Inc. and the venture-funded semiconductor startup Zettacore, and has co-founded and raised funding for several new starts.  His patented and trade-secret innovations have been embedded and shipped in billions of dollars of product worldwide, and have saved tens of millions of dollars by reducing process cost, eliminating reliability problems, and preventing schedule slip.  Dr. Miller brings perspective from his work in a broad array of fields, including display technologies, semiconductors, medical infusion, battery materials, image recognition, and gas separation membranes.  He has written for the MIT Technology Review, and served as an expert witness, including twice testifying at trials.

On a project basis, Dr. Miller collaborates with a select group of extremely talented specialists in business development, marketing, and manufacturing, as well as specialists with modeling capability or deep technical expertise in physics, engineering, and mechanics.

Contact

For inquiries, please contact:

Heron Scientific, Inc.

Longmont, CO 80504

inquiries /at/ heronscientific.com

720-432-4332

Blog

Below are some thoughts on business and innovation.  Also take a look at Seth’s personal blog on technology and society at perspicacity.xyz