Aaron Crumm

Aaron Crumm intends to make major strides marketing AMI's fuel cells in the next twelve months.

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Filed under: Aaron Crumm | Adaptive Materials, Inc. (AMI) | Ann Arbor, MI | Defining New Markets | Energy | Twelve Month Goals

In this brief two minute segment (download iPod compatible, 8MB), Aaron Crumm, CEO of Adaptive Materials, Inc. describes what he would like to see AMI achieve in the next year. First, they will move to their new production facility. They also expect to make some big partner announcements along with demonstrating successful product demonstrations for new markets. He is particularly excited about opening real paths to markets because that has been missing in the fuel cell industry to date.

Aaron Crumm describes AMI's go-to-market strategy.

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Filed under: Aaron Crumm | Adaptive Materials, Inc. (AMI) | Ann Arbor, MI | Defining New Markets | Energy | Making Substitutes

In this nine and a half minute segment (download iPod compatible, 50MB), Aaron Crumm describes how Adaptive Materials, Inc. (AMI) builds its business by bootstrapping. He uses electronics as an example. In electronics, the adoptions cycles are rapid, offering the opportunity to introduce fuel cells multiple times in a given year. Further, there are customers with acute energy needs who are willing to pay substantial premiums.

AMI's original funding source, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), was one such customer. DARPA funds high risk, high reward projects. AMI was fortunately able to hit its milestones and pitch additional rounds after the initial funding. Currently, they are at the stage of doing evaluations and field tries for actual use.

For most markets, however, AMI is now pursuing partnering strategies with firms who know those markets and their needs.

Manufacturing and production play a central role in AMI's business plan. AMI's CEO, Aaron Crumm, explains why he believes they can successfully produce the first commercially viable, small form factor fuel cell.

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Filed under: Aaron Crumm | Adaptive Materials, Inc. (AMI) | Ann Arbor, MI | Defining New Markets | Energy | Making Substitutes

In this 10 minute segment (download iPod compatible, 53MB), Aaron Crumm discusses the central role of manufacturing and production in AMI's business plan. He starts off by noting that, in spite of all of the hype about fuel cells, no one can actually buy one. The big challenge has been manufacturing. AMI has patented a process for miniaturizing solid oxide fuel cells and has already begun piloting production with plans to soon move into a 40,000 square foot facility.

The key benefit of the solid oxide fuel cell is that it uses inexpensive, readily available materials: ceramic and propane or butane. The challenge is in forming the ceramic in the small sizes required. Aaron expects that the new facility will allow AMI to move into orders for thousands of units. However, given the size of the current battery market, he believes that producing millions of units is not an unreasonable expectation.

Adaptive Materials (AMI) makes fuel cells that provide a 10x improvement over battery power. Aaron Crumm, AMI's president, describes how the company started and how the company has protected its IP.

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Filed under: Aaron Crumm | Adaptive Materials, Inc. (AMI) | Ann Arbor, MI | Defining New Markets | Energy

In this 8 minute segment (download iPod compatible, 41MB), Aaron Crumm lays out the value proposition for Adaptive Materials, Inc. (AMI). AMI makes fuel cells for the military and high-end electronics applications. Fuel cells typically provide ten times (10x) the energy per weight as batteries resulting in a substantial weight savings for users. AMI has developed a unique, patented process for making fuel cells with ceramics and propane. The use of ceramics grew out of Aaron's PhD work at University of Michigan.

In a manufacturing business, like AMI's, based on unique processes, patent or intellectual property (IP) protection is critical. Aaron views patents as the rite of entry to compete in the market. They allow him to negotiate with large firms that might otherwise swallow his markets. The protect his core business by providing road blocks to near competitors and a ring fence to keep them out.

In future segments, we will discuss AMI's manufacturing and distribution strategy.