www.therecord.com
May 15, 2010
By Chuck Howitt, Record staff
First in an occasional series tracking the trials and tribulations of an early-stage technology company in Waterloo Region
WATERLOO — Matt Rendall could have had his pick of a number of jobs in the engineering, high-tech or advanced manufacturing fields.
Among the first graduates of the University of Waterloo’s mechatronics engineering program, he was schooled in one of the most advanced and difficult engineering programs at a university that wrote the book on the subject in this country.
If engineering was a sport, mechatronics would be the premier league. Students learn how to design computer-controlled robots, automation systems, tiny devices called micro-electromechanical systems, even prosthetic limbs. Grads are like first-round draft picks, signed to million-dollar deals.
“It’s the most challenging subject matter I’ve ever been exposed to,” says Rendall.
Better yet, Rendall was in the co-op program, alternating studies with work experience over his five years at UW. His resume was bursting with experience in the aerospace, automotive and power production fields.
Forget begging for interviews and grovelling in front of human resources people. Companies should have been lining up at his door.
The 26-year-old Toronto native could have started with a job paying a salary in the high five figures, maybe even six, with a full benefits program, expense account and the security of a regular paycheque for years to come.
Instead, for the past year he’s been working 12 to 15 hours a day, seven days a week, for no pay and no benefits. Granola bars, reheated spaghetti and peanut butter and honey sandwiches fuel his body, bolstered by adrenaline and countless cups of coffee.
He still has a place to sleep at night, but neighbours rarely see him. He’s cashed in what little he has from his retirement savings plan, maxed out his credit card several times and borrowed money from his parents.
Social life? Not a chance. Rendall’s job is his entire life. It’s his date on Friday and Saturday nights and his escort to the school prom.
Thanks to money earned in UW’s co-op program, he doesn’t have a huge student loan to pay off, but he’s still staring at a debt of $15,000 and the clock is ticking.
“I’m at the point where I can’t do this much longer,” he says. “The pressure is on now more than ever to make something happen. I’ve cashed out all my reserves.”
Rendall is chief executive officer of Clearpath Robotics, a firm he launched last year with three other mechatronics engineering grads from UW. The company makes robots, also known as unmanned vehicle systems, for universities, industry and governments.
It was around 2005, while in his second year at UW, that Rendall caught “the robotics bug.” A classmate was looking for help to enter a robotics competition. Rendall signed on.
They took a small, remote-control race car, gutted it, and installed a micro-controller, cameras and sensors so that the car could guide itself around a race course based on the software they had written for it. It took home the trophy over seven other entries.
The bug that invaded Rendall morphed into a full-fledged virus. He joined the UW robotics team. The team built everything from small miniature tanks that could navigate obstacle courses to large 450-kilogarm all-terrain vehicles. It entered international competitions in Michigan and California.
“It was a really exciting time for us,” says Rendall.
While on the team, Rendall met three other mechatronics engineering students – Ryan Gariepy, Bryan Webb and Patrick Martinson. Each shared a passion for robots and devoted all their waking hours outside of class to the curious machines.
“We thought, wouldn’t it be cool if we could do this for a living?” says Rendall.
Dreams of running his own company had lurked in Rendall’s mind since he was a child. At 12, he was a magician-for-hire. As a teen, he ran his own clothing and landscaping businesses. At UW, he sought out smaller firms for his co-op terms so he could learn a range of skills.
Upon graduation in 2008, he found the ideal program to further hone his skills. The Masters of Business Entrepreneurship and Technology program at UW takes technology geeks like Rendall and turns them into captains of business. Courses on marketing, accounting, raising capital, protecting intellectual property and finding customers backstop the curriculum.
Rendall’s thesis went right to the heart of the matter. The topic was launching a robotics business. “It was a perfect fit. It was like they designed the program for me,” he says.
A scholarship helped pay half the $30,000 tuition cost and gave him a coveted seat at the Accelerator Centre, a business incubator at UW populated by entrepreneurs like him.
While Rendall learned how to be the next Mike Lazaridis, his three colleagues who were a year behind him, finished their undergrad degrees.
Then came a break. Before graduating, Rendall learned of a UW professor who was looking for a robot to test water quality. Drawing from the skills they gleaned in class and robotics competitions, the four founders began working on a prototype. It looked like a small catamaran with three black boxes on top. It became their first sale. This in turn led to second sale with the University of Calgary.
The Clearpath team initially envisioned cracking the industrial market, but the university sales gave them an idea. In most engineering courses, it’s easy to find motors for students to take apart. Not in robotics. “There really aren’t any products off the shelf,” says Rendall.
At the same time, robotics professors were wasting a lot of time trying to make generic hardware devices for students to use.
So Clearpath set about designing a robotic teaching tool for educators and students. The team drew on the complementary strengths of each founder. Rendall is the marketing and business development guy, Gariepy the software expert, Webb the electrical geek and Martinson the mechanical dude. A rotating cadre of co-op students rounded out the team.
Soon they came up with their flagship product, a viable robot, tailor-made for educational purposes. UW, McMaster University and the Royal Military College inked deals to buy one.
More recently, Clearpath has sold larger robots to the University of Toronto and York University, so master’s students have prototypes to test their research in areas such as lunar mapping and navigation.
Despite the recent sales, Clearpath is not out of the woods financially. Almost all revenue has been poured back into the business or to pay the rent. Not long ago, the company was spread over three locations — Martinson’s house, the UW robotics lab and the UW Accelerator Centre, where most of Clearpath’s equipment was squeezed into a tiny 280-square-foot office.
Earlier this month, the company relocated to a much larger 3,400 square-foot space in the Tannery building in downtown Kitchener.
The move and the work involved in getting several orders out the door made for some long days. Webb was up for 52 hours straight, Martinson got eight hours sleep over four days and Rendall worked 8 a.m. to 4 a.m. Food was an afterthought.
Rendall can’t stand the site of spaghetti anymore. Every Sunday for three months straight he made a huge batch of spaghetti at home and brought a giant Tupperware container to work. Martinson did the same with egg-salad sandwiches, then just started bringing hard-boiled eggs.
Despite the hardships, Rendall wouldn’t trade his situation for anything.
“If I had taken an entry-level engineering job or a business development job or a business analyst job at another company, even the best job there, I wouldn’t be learning as much as I’m learning now.”
