An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Be confident in your decisions, but don’t be afraid to change your mind. Confidence is key in building a company, but the ability to gather information and make smart decisions is absolutely critical. Many great companies are the result of pivots. While most people think of a company pivot as a large change in vision, important pivots can also happen around engineering, marketing, and messaging.
As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ben Sorkin, CEO of Flux Marine.
Ben Sorkin grew up spending summers in upstate New York on Lake George, where his passion for boating and tinkering with engines started from a young age. By 2016, while studying mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University, Ben was leading a student project to build an all-electric outboard motor. After spending some time with Tesla and designing electric propulsion systems for the office of Naval Research, Ben hung up the corporate hat and focused everything into Flux Marine to continue development of his electric outboard motor and eventually bring those motors to market. Ben’s design would go on to win the Electric Boat Association of America’s Wye Island Challenge in 2019. Under Ben’s leadership, Flux Marine has received numerous awards and been invited to several accelerator programs. The company received a Catalyst Grant from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, was part of the 2018 MassChallenge cohort, was honored at the 2020 Rhode Island Business Competition and has received an Innovation Voucher from the RI Commerce Corporation. After five years of development, Flux Marine introduced its all-electric marine outboard motors at the 2021 Newport International Boat Show where the company took home two awards for best new product and best new green product. Ben currently leads the Flux Marine team from the company’s headquarters in East Greenwich, Rhode Island.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?
I grew up spending summers in upstate New York on Lake George. I always loved boating and tinkering, so I became the local “fix-it” kid. The history of marine technology and modern engineering innovations excited me, and so I rescued a 1961 fiberglass Glasspar G3 from a barn and restored it along with its antique Merc outboard. I brought it to a handful of boat shows while also using it as a platform for learning and innovation. In college, my passion for boating led me to explore the applicability of e-mobility technologies in the marine world, which resulted in a merger of experience, passion, and ambition into what has become Flux Marine.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Winston Churchill once said, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” When going from idea to launch, each successful milestone becomes the most important step, until it is accomplished, and the next milestone comes into focus. For many entrepreneurs, hitting major milestones like a working prototype or funding round can feel monumental, and it should, but when these major milestones are hit, I like to remind myself that these accomplishments don’t signal the end, nor even the beginning of the end. But, as the idea grows into reality, these inflection points may indeed represent the end of the beginning.
Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
Alfred Lansing’s book “Endurance” gives the first-hand account of Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 expedition through the Antarctic. As the title suggests, the sheer persistence that Shackleton and his crew demonstrated is an inspiration. From a leadership perspective, Shackleton may have had the ultimate say as the captain, but he recognized the importance of all the men on the team. Ultimately, his commitment to each and every one of them is what made him a true leader. It has been said that, “for scientific discovery give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel give me Amundsen; but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.” The clear takeaway here is that Shackleton inspires survival, and in going from an idea through launch and scaling, the most critical aspect is sheer survival and perseverance.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?
Smart people generate great ideas. But individuals rarely build companies. I like to say that it takes a village. In order to build a successful business, you must surround yourself with a network of supporters, partners, and employees that can help to fill knowledge gaps, split responsibility, and take pride in being part of something larger.
Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?
If you must look up whether an idea has already been done before, then it hasn’t been done well enough. This generally means there’s an opportunity — Google was not the first, second, or even third search engine.
For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.
In the early stages of taking an idea and running with it, I like to come back to Steve Blank’s book, The Four Steps to the Epiphany. These first four steps are, customer discovery, customer validation, customer creation, and company building. The importance of talking to customers cannot be understated, as this is the synergy that can turn an idea into a business. Diving into the mechanics of the company and product building aspect, there are a multitude of ways to go about these challenges, and often there is no singular answer that covers all industries. For patents, I think it’s important to read examples of patents but at the end of the day, having a really solid patent attorney is instrumental. As an entrepreneur, your job is to turn your idea into a business, so it’s important to rely on experts in a handful of fields as part of that journey, including patents. To source a good manufacturer, have many conversations and reference checks. Building hardware is not easy, and each conversation you have with a potential manufacturing expert will also help you learn. Distribution is tricky — the easiest path can be to follow your industry’s norms, but sometimes innovation is required to have the greatest impact in product distribution. On the other hand, it can be dangerous to break too many norms in specific industries. In addition to spending time on customer discovery, also spend time having discovery conversations with retailers, distributors, and manufacturers. These conversations will help you understand the current white space in your industry and may very well help you shape the direction of your business.
I believe that location is also important, and that building a strong, local network is key. We’ve been lucky to find tremendously valuable partnerships and resources in Rhode Island — from local partners and suppliers like the team at IYRS School of Technology & Trades in Newport, RI who help create the fiberglass housing for our motors, to the support we’ve received from Rhode Island Commerce, which provided us with nearly $50,000 in innovation grants, being able to tap your local network can be hugely helpful for an entrepreneur starting out.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
I’ve received hundreds of helpful hints, tips, and suggestions over the course of my journey. A few of those that I’ve found most helpful (even though some may seem obvious):
Move quickly. Often, response times can seem trivial. A quick email response back, or a follow-up the next day. In business, and especially entrepreneurship, a one-day delay can make all of the difference. Taking quick action has led us to numerous opportunities that have helped shape Flux Marine’s trajectory.
Be confident in your decisions, but don’t be afraid to change your mind. Confidence is key in building a company, but the ability to gather information and make smart decisions is absolutely critical. Many great companies are the result of pivots. While most people think of a company pivot as a large change in vision, important pivots can also happen around engineering, marketing, and messaging.
People are paramount. When my journey started, it seemed like raising money would be the hardest thing, and that if we could do that, everything else would follow. Raising funding is great, but what that allows you to do is start the real work. Great companies are the result of great people, and the time a founder needs to dedicate to building a strong team cannot be underestimated.
Your network is your strongest asset. When you have an idea, and even as that idea grows into a business, talk about it! Tell your friends, family and associates what you’re up to and why you’re doing it. You might find that your passion spreads like wildfire and encourages people in your network to help you in many different ways. There have been so many instrumental people in our venture, for whom their involvement originated over a simple catch-up conversation. Some of our most influential investors, mentors, and partners stem from my network that was built up in the many years before starting Flux Marine.
Illegitimi non carborundum. Not quite Latin, but the caveat holds true. In any journey that has the potential to be disruptive, there will be far more people that say “no,” and only a handful of true early supporters. As you build, the supporters will increase, but so will the naysayers. It may not always be easy, but take this in stride, and don’t let them grind you down.
Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?
Market research and customer discovery. Research to see if something similar exists, and if it does, think about why it hasn’t succeeded and what your value proposition is. From there, customer discovery is key. Get out of the building and talk to potential customers about your idea to see if it has legs. This early discovery process will create intrinsic value to your mission and put you in a strong position to build an MVP and scale.
There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?
While I’m sure there are plenty of great invention development consultants, my recommendation is to build a network of individuals that have backgrounds and skill sets applicable to a variety of industries, as well as find opportunities to interact with your intended customers so you can create a knowledge base that helps you refine and explore your ideas.
What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?
I would say this often depends on your space and network. Many first-time entrepreneurs can find themselves running in circles chasing venture capital funding just to pitch ideas. Especially for high-risk technologies, I am a fan of bootstrapping early on to produce an MVP and achieve initial customer validation. Doing these two things in a very lean manner will put you in a great position to open doors for venture funding and you’ll be well on your way to building something massive.
Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
I’d like to think we are just starting to make the world a better place. At Flux Marine, we are trying to make the world a better place through sustainable innovation. We believe transitioning to a carbon-neutral society is critical, and we are committed to being part of that transition by developing sustainable marine transportation technologies that enable consumers to buy the best products that are also zero-emission, without compromise.
You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
I would really encourage the tinkerers and innovators out there to think about how they can develop processes and products that are disruptive, but also sustainable. Convincing consumers to purchase something for the sole reason of it being sustainable is a difficult task. As innovators, we bear a responsibility to develop technologies that can improve the lives of consumers while also catalyzing a shift toward global sustainability.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
Jimmy Buffett. The ability to take what you love and turn it into a profession and empire is inspirational, especially when it involves the Earth’s oceans.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Making Something From Nothing: Ben Sorkin of Flux Marine On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
