Young Entrepreneur Has A Better Idea. Now What?

DAVID GREENE, host: Now let's meet a young entrepreneur who's facing a different set of challenges. Meredith Perry turned 22 this month. The college grad has started a company around a technology she invented. Perry's company is called UBeam. That's spelled with the letter U. As NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports, UBeam is hiring and entertaining funding offers(投资者), but also dealing with pressure from the big guys.

YUKI NOGUCHI: It's a hot summer morning. Meredith Perry shows up to our meeting at a coffee shop dragging what looks like a giant tool chest behind her.

Ms. MEREDITH PERRY (UBeam): Well, the system itself probably weighs about like 10 pounds, but with the case, it's like 100.

NOGUCHI: Perry pulls out her invention: A transmitter(发射器)that can recharge wireless devices using ultrasonic waves(超声波).It's like Wi-Fi, she says, except instead of delivering an Internet connection, her device transmits power over the air. I'll let her explain.

Ms. MEREDITH PERRY (Entrepreneur): So, what happens is, the ultrasound, which vibrates(震动) the air, vibrates what's called a piezoelectric transducer(压电式转换器). And what happens is the ultrasound will vibrate the piezo crystals(压电晶体),and the crystals will move back and forth, and that will generate an electrical current(电流).

NOGUCHI: Perry says the idea came to her when she went to class with a dead laptop and no power cord. She wondered, why can't I recharge without a cord?

Ms. PERRY:And it's 2011, and if we have quote-unquote(所谓的) "wireless devices," they should actually be wireless.

NOGUCHI: It's one of those ideas that seems too elegant and simple to be true. Perry is used to fielding skeptical questions(质疑).No, the waves don't cause cancer. Yes, she's filed for patents. And yes, it's been tried before but not using ultrasound.

Her set up consists of two toaster-size(烤箱大小) boxes, and it seems to work.

Ms. PERRY: And there it goes.

NOGUCHI: Wow. A volt meter(电压表) registers charge. Perry's story is very unusual. She just turned 22 and she's a woman starting a high-tech company, but she downplays her youth and gender(性别).

Perry seems to have always gone through life on fast forward. She was just in Houston running a zero-gravity experiment for NASA, where she was a student ambassador. She flew in a plane that went up and then down at very high velocity(速率)

Ms. PERRY: It's called the vomit comet for a reason.

NOGUCHI: Things at UBeam also happened swiftly(迅速的).This past April, she won an invention competition at the University of Pennsylvania. Her idea caught the eye of Walt Mossberg, a technology columnist(专栏记者/作家) for the Wall Street Journal. He asked her to present within three weeks at All Things Digital, a conference he runs that's like Mecca(麦加,众人渴望去的地方) for the tech industry. 

UNKNOWN MAN: So let's bring out UBeam.

NOGUCHI: Arthur Perry, her father, says as a child, Meredith wanted to invent things, like an umbrella you could use while biking. He recalls her at age eight reading a book by Louis Sachar.

Mr. ARTHUR PERRY: She loved it so much she somehow found out his phone number, called him up and actually spoke to him on the phone. At age eight, you know, that's Meredith. Not enough to read the book, she had to speak to the guy who wrote it.

NOGUCHI: Meredith Perry has no background in electrical engineering. She's self-taught by reading online, mostly Wikipedia.

In the business world, she's like a guppy(古比鱼) navigating a shark tank. Fortune 500 companies already called to issue veiled threats(含蓄的威胁),telling Perry she ought to license her technology to them.

Ms. PERRY: And they also know that you have zero money, and they have tons of money, so you'd lose in a lawsuit.

NOGUCHI: Perry often turns to a team of mentors(导师) from school and at other companies. They say she's a quick study and good at listening to advice. Still, it's a lot of responsibility on her young shoulders.

Ms. PERRY: I literally feel like I'm bipolar, like, every single day, because I'll go from like an extreme high, thinking like this is going to be a billion dollar company to like this is totally going to fail like half an hour later.

NOGUCHI: One huge decision weighing on Perry right now is where to take funding. She has an offer from a private equity firm(私人股权公司) but is meeting with other potential investors. She's also trying to hire three engineers and an experienced business partner.

Ms. PERRY: There are about eight billion decisions that you need to make daily. Like, I'm the janitor(看门人) and I'm the CEO. And everything you can possibly think of from, like, what logo should I chose to who should I hire, to should I take money from this person to what lawyer?

NOGUCHI: Meredith Perry says she's determined to make UBeam succeed. But she also has four other business ideas she'd like to get to.

Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.
 

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