In this episode, Elise Strobach, co-founder and CEO of AeroShield, joins Shubha Chakravarthy to share her journey from lab discovery to clean tech startup founder. Drawing on her experience as a mechanical engineering PhD at MIT, Elise discusses how a breakthrough in transparent silica aerogels evolved into a venture-backed company tackling one of the world’s biggest energy inefficiencies—heat loss through windows.
Tune in to listen to Elise's thoughtful and actionable takes on:
- How the path to commercialization happens in the real world
- The big, unsuspected factor that can make your breakthrough marketable
- Key pivot points that drive commercialization impact in the research phase, and how to capitalize on them
- How to do customer interviews the right way
- The surprising secret to making your innovation attractive in the commercial market
- What big adverse events can teach you, and how to turn them to your advantage
- A killer strategy to optimize your grant outcomes
- How to use grant applications to also build customer traction
- How to build your execution roadmap when dealing with uncertain funding outcomes
- A secret to overcome imposter syndrome
and much more!
