9UNP0399SD_Matt_Younkle

- Jeanan Yasiri: We'd like to thank our media partners, Wisconsin Public Television and their University Place crew for taping today's lecture. I'm very pleased to introduce our special guest this afternoon, Matt Younkle, who's an inventor with an eye for business. Matt's product development work has spanned a wide range of industries, from space research to networking software, to draft beer. Matt's successes have resulted in the first food to ever be grown in space, and the world's fastest retro-fittable beer tap, more commonly known as the Turbo Tap. Matt's work and innovation, intellectual property, patents and the commercialization of new products have been featured in many popular media, including USA Today, Popular Science, the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, CNN, CNBC, Fox News, Chicago Sun Times, and even the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Matt is president of Y Innovation, LLC, an invention and new products incubator. He's past president and founder of Lamino Technologies, LLC, the developer of the Turbo Tap. Lamino was the 2005 winner of the Chicago Innovation Awards, and Turbo Tap was named the top invention by both Popular Science and Time Magazine. Matt is a Badger. 

He's a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with degrees in computer science and electrical engineering. And he has been awarded 13 US and international patents. Now, I asked Matt specifically to come and talk to us about his journey as a student entrepreneur, and all the lessons that he has learned that may translate to some of the ideas that you have. So please join me in welcoming Matt Younkle. 
(applause)

- Matt Younkle: Thank you, Jeanan. And thank you everybody for coming out to hear me talk today. The first time I ever stood up in this very room, I was a student here. It was back in 1995. 

And it was the first annual -- Prize for Creativity. That year, I invented a product to make it faster and easier to take thickness readings of metals. Very dorky kind of engineering stuff. At the awards ceremony, I placed in a three-way tie for fourth place. That might sound impressive, until you realize that there were only seven competitors in my first year in the contest. So I'll let you run the numbers on that one. Maybe I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. How many of you have heard of the -- Prize for Creativity, or the -- Prototype Prize, or the Brill Business Competitions. Any of you? Some of you. 

These are some great opportunities for you. This is a class, I guess, about entrepreneurship, so you're presumably here because you're interested in it. And this is a way, as students, you can I guess have an outlet to bring your ideas forth to the forefront. This years -- Prize took place about a week ago, right in this building. And the first place team walked away with over $11,000 in cash for their efforts. A lot of money. They developed a product that made it faster, easier and safer to spray pesticides on fruit trees. The second place team, they were some backpackers. And they created a new type of backpack that was able to convert both into a bivee and a camping chair. And they walked away with $9,500 in a cash prize. 

So you know, clearly, there's a lot of money to be made in these contests. But more importantly, it gives you an opportunity to get up in front of the world, in a room like this, and present your creation to everybody else. Now, at some point during your career, possibly at several points, you're all going to be faced with a very important decision. And that is, should you choose to take what I call the corporate path, or should you choose to take the entrepreneurial path. And what I mean by that is, should you choose to go and work for a large organization, one with nice offices, nice office furniture, and a 401k, and annual performance reviews, and bonuses, and raises, and that sort of thing. Or should you choose to set out on your own, or work with a small team. A team that probably can't afford to pay your salary, much less retirement benefits, but a group that's totally committed to bringing a new product or service to the world. And I realize, I'm an engineer. But it really doesn't matter, your background. Whether you're in engineering or even in non-profits, the fundamental choice is the same. 

Do you go to work for the big, established organization, or do you go and set about changing the world yourself. In many circles, I'm best known as the inventor of the Turbo Tap. Jeanan mentioned that. I want to show you a video. And unfortunately, I need to break away from the presentation to do this. But the Turbo Tap is a product that pours draft beer up to four times faster with less waste. This video should give you a good example of how the product works. So it's able to pour the beer very, very fast. The fundamental principles have a lot to do with engineering, and some other things. But the product itself is in use all over the world. 

It pours tens of millions of beers every year. So from here, I think a bit of history might be useful. So let me get back into the presentation. All right. The Turbo Tap, I guess the history goes back to 1995, when I was a student. I was waiting in a line one summer night at the UW Memorial Union Terrace for a draft beer. And the line was moving very, very slowly. I had a bunch of ideas kind of leading up to that, after my second-to-last place in the -- Prize. But this is where inspiration really struck for me. And that bit of inspiration on that summer night became my -- Prize entry in 1996. 

And I won first place. I won first prize. I won $10,000. And that brought me a little bit of notoriety, and I was able to use some of the money to apply for a patent, and that sort of thing. But in 1997, I ended up graduating. And rather than pursue the Turbo Tap, it kind of got put on the back burner. Instead, my background is computer science. I went to work on an Internet start-up company called Vosaic. Some of you may have heard of a company called Mosaic, or a browser called Mosaic. It's kind of out of the same technology group. 

This was Video Mosaic, it was one of the original streaming media companies. My groups was one of the first groups to ever stream video over the internet. Everyone does it today, but it was a big deal back in 1997. After that, I worked on another

- That company got bought by a video conferencing company. After that I helped start another software company, and all that time, the Turbo Tap project really stood idle. It wasn't until the internet bubble burst in 2001 that I had a chance to pick up and get back started on Turbo Tap. In 2002 I formed a company, Lamino Technologies, this is my first laboratory for the Turbo Tap. Formed a company called Lamino Technologies and the purpose of that company was to commercialize the Turbo Tap technology. In 2003 I raised $200,000 of seed capital to carry the project forward. 

In exchange for raising that money, I had to give up the 33% of my ownership in the business. So you've got to give and take, I guess, to make stuff happen. But I was able to use that money to do a lot of additional R&D, as I like to joke, Research and Drinking. 

(laughter)

 And I also was able to apply for a number of additional patents. We struggled for a while in terms of finding the best way to bring the technology to the market. The original thought was to license the technology to a big brewery, everyone said, "Oh, you should just sell the technology to Anheuser-Busch, or sell it to Miller." And we thought we could do that, or maybe to a draft beer equipment company. But we ended up with a lot of dead ends pursuing those paths. The other way you can get a new technology to market is to manufacture and sell it yourself. 

That's ultimately what we ended up doing. It took a while to really get any traction. It really wasn't until about 2005 that we started to gain some traction in the marketplace. So just like that, after ten years, it was an overnight success. So I guess the reason I'm telling you all this is because, when you're walking this entrepreneurial path, the first lesson you learn is that things are going to take longer than you expect they're going to take. And I think there are two reasons for that. One reason is that there's really no one way to get from, if you're doing something new, there's no real roadmap to get from Point A to Point B. You zig and zag a lot. And that's okay, because when you're zigging and zagging you're learning new things. You're learning what works and what doesn't and your product ends up being stronger at the end of it. 

The other reasons is that, the rest of the world doesn't usually operate at the pace of entrepreneurs. We like to see change occur now, we want to see new things take hold immediately and the rest of the world isn't like that. So when you're walking this entrepreneurial path, things will always take longer than you expect. The corollary is that things will always cost more money than you expect they're going to cost. But that's a story for another time. Okay, so, let's have a little fun here. Let's say you've come up with an idea, come up with a new idea. I'm sort of a germaphobe. So let's assume that this idea is some sort of advice that's able to sanitize the handles on public restrooms, so you don't have to worry when you're walking in and out of the restrooms, kind of, who the last person was that touched those things. All right, so you've got this new idea. 

What's the first thing, if you're in my shoes, what's the first thing you would do with this new idea? Anyone, I'm just going to throw that question out there. In the middle. 

-(inaudible) 

- Younkle: Brainstorm, so you're going to figure out all the different things your product can be. Any other thoughts? In front. 

-(inaudible)

- Younkle: Bingo. The first thing that I like to do when I come up with a new idea, is research the heck out of it. I want to know what the market is for it, I want to know what else has been done in the space. One of the big ways that I'll do market research is via a patent search. And you can search for patents online. But one of the fun things, actually, one of the neat things about the UW campus, is that Wendt Library is classified as a patent and trademark depository library. It's one of a handful of libraries in the country that's specially set up to research patents. And the librarians there are specially trained in doing this. 

So if you come up with an idea, this is a great place to go and start and to do a little bit of research on it. So, I've been talking about patents, but who's ever seen a patent in this room? We've got one, anyone else? A couple people. Where have you seen these things, just flapping around? Wendt library? Your dad has a patent, that's fantastic, that's great. And no doubt, if you know somebody that's involved with patents, you see them all the time, because it takes a lot of time. But if you haven't seen one, I'll show you one today. This is one of the later Turbo Tap patents that got issued. 

I'll point out some of the big features. This is the first two pages. The first page is kind of a summary page, with everything that's contained in the patent. The bottom of the page, you can see kind of a drawing, it's kind of a summary drawing. There's an abstract that has a summary, written summary of what it is. At the top an important thing is the patent number. You can see the 7040359. That's 7,040,359. That's the way the patents kind of get organized at the US Patent and Trademark Office. They're numbered sequentially. 

So that means there are over 7 million inventors that got issued patents ahead of me, in this case. And since a lot of people ask, yes, there is, in fact, a US patent #1. This is a patent that was given to a guy by the name of Samuel Hawkins for working with a product called potash, some sort of chemical that's used in making soap, I guess it was really important in the late 1700s. The fun thing about this patent is that it was signed by George Washington. You can see his signature on there. So it's very cool, there's a lot of history you can see if you do this sort of research. So getting back to the Turbo Tap patent. Kind of zooming in on the top half of that cover page. You see the number. The other two important things on any patent are the date of the patent, that's the date the patent is issued, it's a date that the protections of the government, of the patent process, kind of take place for you. 

And the other important date is the date of filing, which is kind of off on the left middle there. So, August 11th of 2003. The reason the filing date is important is because that's how you compute the expiration date of patents. Patents expire 20 years from the date of filing. So this patent has about another 13 years or so of life on it. It will expire in August of 2023. So now that you have, you've done all this research and you've figured out

- Let's assume that you've done the market research, you've done the patent research and you haven't found anything else out in the market that's exactly like your product. What's the next thing? Who would go ahead and try to file that patent right away before someone else could steal your idea? 

Anyone who would do that? If you're not going to do that, what would be the next thing you would do? But no one wants to do that, but they don't want to do anything else. Well, if you don't do anything, you're going to lose all your rights to your idea and someone else will invent it, and then you'll go, "Well, I thought of that! I thought of the Snuggie!" Well, the next thing that I'd do with these is, I work on prototypes. I don't go and file a patent. Filing patents are very expensive, and you want to make sure that whatever you're filing a patent for works. Just because you have an idea in your head or on paper, you actually need to build it and test it and test it, and that sort of thing. The original Turbo Tap prototype that got entered into the Shoes Prize in 1996 was very, very crude. 

About the only thing that it could do was demonstrate the core principles that allowed us to pour draft beer faster. But we couldn't even demonstrate it with draft beer. Because the College of Engineering wouldn't allow us to bring a keg into the building. So we had to use root beer instead. Now, using some of the money that I'd won with the Shoes competition, I was able to build some progressively better prototypes. This is one of them. Probably about three or four in all. But the fourth prototype was really a masterpiece. It was just like a work of art, this prototype. And fortunately, I couldn't find any pictures of it. 

We even designed this last prototype to be portable. So, instead of the big kind of gas tanks, we had these little CO2 cartridges that we could use to pressurize the keg. And this prototype got dusted off in the fall of 1997 when we were able to land a meeting, kind of unexpectedly, with some top executives at Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis. Since it had been a few months since we last used the prototype, my partner Chris and I thought it would be a good idea to dust it off and test it out to make sure it worked. So the day before we were set to head out to St. Louis, we went out and got a keg of Bud Light, and hooked everything up. And we were having problems with the prototype, we couldn't believe it, it really wasn't working. But we put our heads together and made some adjustments, some tweaks here and there. And by the second half of the keg, the last third of the keg, as were kind of pouring all these beers, it was working really well, so we were ready to go. 

Things got interesting for us, though, the next day at the airport. We had this kind of crazy-looking prototype at security. Along with these pressurized gas cylinders. So you can imagine what it was like. Now, we had no intention of checking our prototype. We didn't want the baggage handlers to lose it or break it or anything like that. But we did manage to talk our way through security with all this stuff. Now, mind you, this was in 1997. If we had to do that today, there would have been no way we would've been able to get through security. Things got more interesting, though, once we got on the plane, when we realized that our portable prototype wouldn't fit in the seat in front of us underneath, and it wouldn't fit in the overhead compartment. 

So again, some more salesmanship and creativity was required, but suffice it to say we had a few unhappy flight attendants when the plane took off for St. Louis. When we arrived in St. Louis, it was like a dream come true. We got treated to an insider tour of the brewery, complete with tastings. We got treated to lunch in the executive dining room. And then after all that, it was show time. Our once-in-a-lifetime chance to demonstrate our product to the largest brewery in the world. I brought along a carefully-worded prototype presentation, it was in one of the slides. Kind of stepped through the history of the Turbo Tap and the technology and the market, and how Anheuser-Busch, most importantly, would stand to make millions and millions more dollars if only they would license this technology for us. 

And then it was show time, time to do the demo. So one of the guys in the room rolled in this fresh keg of Budweiser, and we hooked up the Turbo Tap. I'd love to tell you how we just dazzled everyone with this great display of fast beer pouring technology. But we didn't. When we hooked up the Turbo Tap, all we poured was foam. Granted, we were pouring foam very quickly, but all we could pour was foam. So my very big, embarrassing lesson that we learned in this process is to prototype early, prototype often, and make sure your prototype works flawlessly. When I got involved with the Turbo Tap, when I picked it back up in 2001, 2002, I was finally able to figure out what went wrong at that meeting with Anheuser-Busch. And in creating version 2.0 of the product, rather than just build three or four devices, I used some engineering dorkiness and computer fluid flow analysis to test out literally hundreds of designs. And from there I was able to prototype and test out dozens of those and kind of cross-bred and took the best features until we ended up with what's the modern-day version of the product today. 

It was a lot of work and a lot of testing, but the fun part about working with beer is, the only way to know for sure if a prototype is going to perform is that you have to use real beer. So that meant that I always had to have a keg of beer on tap in the lab. So prototype early, prototype often, make sure it works, it really pays off. By 2004, it seemed that Turbo Tap 2.0 was really ready for primetime. My partner Todd and I had been demonstrating the product at various bars and restaurants around the city of Chicago. We even ended up with some more meetings with the big breweries. We got a meeting with Miller, we got a meeting with Coors, and we ended up with another meeting at Anheuser-Busch. They were much more impressed the second time around. The bars and the breweries were great, but we knew the place where Turbo Tap would really shine would be in a stadium environment. Bob Dunn probably talked to you about sports stadiums, so this is where you have lots of people, trying to get lots of beer in a very fixed amount of time. 

So a big opportunity for us. With a ton of networking we were able to land a meeting with some executives at the United Center in Chicago. And we did some demos and they really liked the product. But the problem though, for us, with the United Center, was timing. By the time we got this meeting, it was late spring, the NBA season had finished up, the NHL season had finished up, and we really just didn't have a lot of opportunities to work with the United Center. Fortunately, the guy in charge there, John Curr, really liked the product, and he asked us if we knew anybody at Wrigley Field. We said, no, we didn't know anyone, but he said he would arrange a meeting. And so, a couple days later, I got a call from the folks at Wrigley. Now at Wrigley Field the concessions are run by, at that time, were run by a company called Airmark, they're a national food service company. And the general manager for concessions at Wrigley Field was a guy by the name of Kurt Radel. 

Kurt gave me a call and said, "I'd really like to see a demo of the Turbo Tap." I said, okay, no problem. I have a lab in downtown Chicago, I'll just drive down, I've got a keg on tap all the time. I'll happily take you through a demonstration of the product. He said, "You know, I don't really like to park in downtown Chicago. Do you have any other place I could see the product closer to Wrigley Field?" Fortunately, my partner Todd had a house in Lincoln Park, and inside at Todd's house, in his garage, he kept a fully-functioning Turbo Tap prototype. We called it our "Lincoln Park Lab." This is a picture of me and Todd and Todd's son and Todd's dog the minute that an old prototype of ours was exploding inside Todd's garage. Beer went everywhere, so it was a big, big mess. 

But Kurt liked the idea of the Lincoln Park lab, so we set up a demo for the next day. From firsthand experience at Wrigley Field, Todd and I knew that the number one selling beer there was Bud Light. So in advance of the meeting we went and bought a keg of Bud Light. And the next day, Kurt showed up with a couple of his concession managers and we started pouring beer. We thought the demo wouldn't last very long, so were surprised when everybody stayed until we poured, beer by beer, through the entire keg. They were kind of mesmerized by the Turbo Tap, never really seen anything like it before. They really liked the product, but Kurt said, "The only way we're going to know for sure that the product is right for Wrigley Field is to try it out at Wrigley Field. Our next home stand starts next week. The bleacher section at Wrigley Field represents the highest-grossing, the busiest concession stand in all of Major League Baseball. How would you like to try your product there?" 

We said, "That would be great." That was the break we had really been working so hard to get. But we weren't in production with the Turbo Tap at that time. So we had to round up all of our prototypes, just to have enough, and we still didn't have enough to outfit the concession stand in the bleachers. But we rounded up all these prototypes and in the week leading up to the next home game, we were able to get the Turbo Taps installed. The rest of the summer, we spent a lot of time behind the concessions counter at Wrigley Field. We were there observing the way the product was being used, counting the beers poured, taking down notes and everything else. In between innings when the rush was on, a lot of times we'd kind of get roped into shoveling nachos and hurling hot dogs and that sort of thing, so it was interesting work. It wasn't glamorous work, but we learned a heck of a lot by being totally immersed in that environment. One of the big things we learned was that, not only was the beer being poured faster, but the folks using Turbo Tap were wasting a lot less beer, too. 

In fact, when we ran the numbers, we learned that the keg yields on the Turbo Taps were increasing by about 10% to 15% on average. So that's huge amounts. Now we have two selling points for the Turbo Tap, sell more, waste less. And armed with that data and the glowing reviews from the folks that were using it and the management, we had the confidence to take Turbo Tap to the marketplace. And to go into manufacturing with it. And all that from a meeting in a garage. So the lesson that I learned here is that you really need to work hard to find these early adopters, like Kurt Radel, like Wrigley Field. So work hard to find your early adopters and get your product out into the real world. That's when really, really good things start happening. In early 2005, we went into production with the product, and we landed our first true paying customer. 

It was Gund Arena. Actually, right now it's called Quicken Loans Arena, the Q in Cleveland. It's the home of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Like I mentioned, at the time it was called Gund, after Gordon Gund, the original owner of the --. So if I call it Gund or Quicken, it's the same sort of thing. Since it was only Todd and me working for Turbo Tap at that point, we needed another set of hands, so we hired Todd's brother. He fortunately was available. And the three of us packed up all of our tools and all of our Turbo Taps and bunch of draft beer equipment and we drove out to Cleveland to do the installation. When we got there we really couldn't believe what we saw. The draft beer system at Gund Arena was one of the most neglected draft beer systems we had ever seen. 

This picture only starts to scratch the surface of what we saw. I don't have a lot of the really nasty stuff. But you can see some of the black mold growing on some of the beer lines and that sort of thing. This is what we were up against when we got there. One of the bigger issues, though, was, well, I guess you need to understand the Turbo Tap is a retrofit product. It attaches to the existing draft beer system. So when we got there, we decided, well, we should pour a beer through this existing draft beer system just to see what it's like. And when we poured the beer, it looked not so much like beer, but more kind of like a carbonated apple juice. Just didn't look quite right. And even worse was the smell that was coming from this carbonated apple juice. 

Kind of had this sour odor. You could smell it from about six feet away. So at that point, we were kind of faced with this decision. We could certainly install Turbo Taps here, and they'll pour their beer faster and they'll pour their beer with less waste. But do we really want to have our product associated with someone that's drinking kind of what amounts to this sour-smelling, carbonated apple juice? So we really thought it was important to get everything right with this. So we put a game plan together. We knew we were going to be there a little bit longer than we thought, so we went and rented a corporate apartment a couple blocks away from the stadium, and we just set about meticulously going through every piece of the beer system, just to clean it and get it working correctly. So this is Todd and Steve in the corporate apartment. In those buckets are all the taps, we call them faucets in the industry, the draft beer faucets. 

And we're going and making sure that they're working and cleaning them and everything else. One of the things that we learned, too, with respect to cleaning, is that the Gund beer system had not been cleaned properly in about five years. Draft beer systems are supposed to be cleaned meticulously every two weeks. So this system had about five years of buildup. Just to give you an example of what we were up against, this bucket has some clear water in it and it's hooked up to one of the beer lines, some of the tubing at Gund Arena. We started to run chemicals through it and circulate some of the cleaning stuff through, and after about 30 seconds, that's what the water in that same bucket looked like. So that's the stuff that was coming out of that draft beer system. But by the end of going through and really paying attention and getting everything right, step by step, the beer was looking good, the beer was pouring great, it was tasting great, it was smelling right. And everybody at Gund Arena was just really, really happy with their new Turbo Tap beer system. So the lesson learned here is to really sweat the important details. 

We could've just installed and left, and it really wouldn't have done anything for anybody at the end of the day. Again, faster apple juice, essentially. But by sweating these details we were able to have a happy customer and have a happy customer for life. The other lesson you're probably thinking that you've all learned now after having seen this, is when you go out and drink draft beer, what's going on with that draft beer system? So, should you ask the manager or the bartender, "Do you know when the last time this system was cleaned?" It's probably a good thing to ask. And if you happen to get a beer that just doesn't look right or just doesn't smell right, by all means, send it back. You'll be sending a message to the owners there, and you'll be doing everybody else that goes to drink draft beer there a big favor. So, do that, too. Getting up and running at Quicken Loans Arena was a big deal for us, but shortly after that we got a call from Wrigley Field and they said, "We want to place an order to have Turbo Taps going all over Wrigley." 

So while there was still snow on the ground at Wrigley, we went in and did a big Turbo Tap installation for them. In true Chicago north side versus south side fashion, the White Sox organization heard that the Cubs were getting Turbo Taps, and they called us up and said, "We need to get these things, too. Can you have them installed by opening day?" And we said, sure, no problem, happy to do that. And by summer of 2005, word really started to spread about these new beer taps and the Wall Street Journal ended up running a cover story about the product. And that was really good for us, we got a lot of calls from customers and that sort of thing, it led to a lot of great things. And today the Turbo Tap can be found in a majority of professional sports stadiums across the country. From baseball to football to arenas, basketball, hockey, it's all there. Over the years, Turbo Tap's been named the top product of the year by TIME magazine, Popular Science. It's been featured in dozens of, actually hundreds of newspapers, dozens of magazine, including such esteemed publications as FHM and Hooter's magazine, believe it or not. 

I want to make sure everyone's still awake, that's why I put these in here. Jay Leno's mentioned the Turbo Tap in his monologue not once, not twice, but three times, and I'm kind of hoping for a fourth mention now that he's back on the air. And I've also been able, I've been invited on the air to talk about pouring beer faster, a fun topic. Let's see, this is CNN, CNBC, Fox News, and even "The Big Idea" with Donny Deutsch, an interesting program if you've never seen it. But bringing the Turbo Tap to market has also given me the pleasure, the opportunity and pleasure to stand here today and talk to you all about my journey down this entrepreneurial path. So, I guess the lessons again, just to summarize. Everything's going to take longer than you think it's going to take. Prototype early, prototype often, make sure it works. Find those early adopters and get your product out into the world. And sweat those important details, and you'll be in very good shape. 

So whether it happens today, tomorrow, next week, ten years from now, you'll all come to that decision of choosing between a corporate path and the entrepreneurial path. And when that happens I hope that you're able to follow your passions and choose wisely. So thank you very much for your attention, I'm happy to take any questions. 
(applause)

- Yasiri: I'm ready to pass the mic to whoever wants to ask a question first. 

- Hi, my name's Dan. Just a question. When you guys were cleaning out the system in the Cavalier's stadium, did they pay you extra for that? 'Cause I don't think, when you mentioned your job, I don't think they hired you to clean the system out for them. 

- Younkle: No, we didn't. And that's what I'm talking about, sweating the important details. I don't think they even understood, really, what needed to be done. So, no, we didn't charge extra. We didn't really cover our costs in that one particular installation. But early on, again, had we not done that, would other stadiums have been interested? So those are the sorts of decisions, you need to weigh the pros and cons when you're trying to get a product out to the market. 

- Hi, I'm Logan. And I was wondering, does the Turbo Tap work differently with the amount of foam that's left on the top of the glass with the different kinds of glasses? I know especially in the last few years there have been a lot of almost innovations with glass types and trying to keep the amount of foam down on the top of the beer. 

But does it work differently with the different kinds of glasses that are out there? 

- Younkle: Shape of the glass can be important. It can kind of change how you calibrate a draft system to pour. Now, you mentioned something that's interesting and I'll give you my version of Beer 101. How many people here think that it's best not to have any head on a beer when you get it? Anyone think that? You call it a collar. Everyone wants to get, "Oh, I'm paying for a beer, I want it to be full with beer all the way to the top." Well, in fact, the best way to have a beer poured is to have some breakout of that carbon dioxide, and that's called the head or collar of the beer. So these glasses that you're talking about, actually, I think there's a Sam Adams one, it's designed to actually continue to allow the CO2, the carbon dioxide, to break out of the beer. 

Now, I could go into some really interesting

- if it's not breaking out in the glass, it ends up breaking out in your stomach, if that makes sense. So for any of you that drink beer and sometimes get bloated or that sort of thing, a lot of times if you're drinking straight from a really ice cold bottle of beer, and then that carbon dioxide doesn't have a chance to escape until it hits your warm stomach, and then it all comes out. So, same thing with beer in a glass, you kind of want to see that breakout of CO2 taking place. So that's, I guess, more than you probably needed me to answer, but I could talk about beer for hours. 
(laughter)

- Hi, my name is Mindy. I just had a question about the entrepreneurship process. Do you think it takes any type of skills to become an entrepreneur? 

And if so, what skills would those be? 

- Younkle: I think it's useful

- I've seen entrepreneurs that kind of come from all sorts of skill sets. Broadly speaking, you want to be a good communicator, you want to be able to show some leadership, you want to be creative. What does that mean, to be creative? I think we're all creative in our own way, so it's finding that kind of passion. Ultimately, I think it ends up being, you really want to be following something that you're passionate about because there's so many bumps in the road. If it's something you're just sort of casually interested in, well, you know, I'm not so interested in sanitizing bathroom handles, I had this great idea for it, but I'll just have someone else run with it. Those entrepreneurs don't get very far. So if you can come up with something that you're getting pulled toward. 

The difference between passion and duty, right, duty is something you have to do, passion is something you just kind of get... There's a duty over here, but the passion is pulling you toward that direction. So that's what you want to find. 

- Hey, how's it going, my name is Aiden. This is pretty close, I have a quick question. Does it work for beers that are tapped under nitrogen, like Guinness or -- or anything like that? 

- Younkle: Yes, it can. It wasn't designed for that, though. It's an interesting story, because we went down

- Guinness in the USA approached us about the technology and asked us if we could make it work with Guinness. 

And we had to make a few other tweaks to the general beer system, but we, in fact, could pour a pint of Guinness in under two seconds. Now, Guinness, though, you still have this breakout, this kind of cascading of bubbles that takes place. So that wouldn't happen instantly, but we could get the beer in the glass with the cascading starting in about two seconds. The problem was, everyone at Guinness USA

- who here has ever had a Guinness, just out of curiosity? Everyone, wow, I guess it is Wisconsin, right? A lot of people, I think the stat is something only like 15% or 20% of people in the US have ever really had a Guinness. And, you know, if you go over to Europe there's a lot more people that drink it, they're much more accustomed to it. And the reason sports stadiums don't sell Guinness is because it pours too slowly. So Guinness USA had this brilliant idea, if we can pour these faster, we'll put Guinness in sports stadiums, and we'll have all these other people that never tried Guinness before, have an opportunity to at least try it. 

They might not like it, but they'll at least have a chance to try it. So, we went down this path and ended up going over to Ireland where the big Guinness headquarters is. And all the marketing guys there kind of looked at it and said, no way, can't do it. They've spent so many millions of dollars promoting this slow-pour, two-minute sort of thing, that they didn't want to have this other technology that kind of went against all this marketing spending. So we've used it with Guinness, but we've never really had any real traction with it. 

- Yasiri: Can you talk about what you're working on now, Matt? 

- Younkle: Oh, I always have lots of projects that I'm working on. As far as the beer-related stuff, I've got it working on a product for draft beer inventory. And I'm also working on stuff related to the draft beer quality space. So, as I showed you at Gund Arena, what happens there happens in a lot of places around the country. 

There are some places that take great care of their draft beer system, but a lot of places don't take great care of it. So I'm working with a partner in Chicago on trying to improve draft quality, both through using technology and just using hard work and education and that sort of thing. 

- Yasiri: I think that that closes our questions for you. This isn't a beer glass, it's a coffee mug. 

- Younkle: Well, it depends on how you look at it, right? If you're creative enough... 

- Yasiri: You could probably, this would be your way of smuggling beer into Engineering Hall. 

- Younkle: I didn't say that, not giving anyone any ideas here. 

- Yasiri: I know everybody joins me in thanking Matt Younkle. 

- Younkle: Thank you.
(applause)