Read the summary and watch or listen to the interview here: https://www.crowleylawllc.com/podcasts/from-engineer-to-entrepreneur-to-angel-investor-mario-casabona
Voiceover: Welcome to the From Lab to Patient Garage to Market podcast with your host, Phil Crowley. In each episode, we will discuss professionals serving the tech startup market and the various issues of importance to those companies. You can find this show on all the major platforms. Including YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and on our website, crowleylawllc.com.
Now here’s the host of From Lab to Patient, Garage to Market, Phil Crowley.
Phil Crowley: Hello and welcome. Thanks for tuning into our podcast. We try to bring to you experts in the area of the life sciences, technology startups who have perspectives on developments in those areas to give you some ideas about, what are the issues to focus on, perhaps what mistakes to avoid, and to [00:01:00] basically demystify the process.
To help give you the confidence to go forward and take that first step on your way of taking your great ideas to the marketplace.
Phil Crowley: Today, I am delighted to have as my guest, Mario Casabona. Mario has participated in many phases of commercializing technology. You started out as a test engineer, went on to form his own very successful company that was acquired by Honeywell.
He stayed with Honeywell for a while and then the entrepreneurial bug bit him again. And he went off and did some other things, serving on boards of other technology startups, starting his own tech accelerator, participating as an angel investor. And Mario has tremendous experience in this area. In fact, I just saw a comment by the publisher of a tech newsletter here in New Jersey.
[00:02:00] Commenting about Mario’s experience, and she said that if anybody can help a startup learn how to be financeable, it must be Mario Casabona. And I’d like you to stay tuned for our discussion, because at the end of our discussion, I’m gonna ask Mario to give us some tips that he’s learned in his long and very successful career as an innovator to help you on your journey.
Mario, welcome.
Mario Casabona: Thank you, Phil. I really enjoy, will, enjoy this opportunity and glad to be here. Very much
Phil Crowley: mario, we have this unusual relationship in that we were both eighth grade classmates back in the day at St. Valentine’s School in Bloomfield, New Jersey. And you went on to initially go to.
A particular high school and then you had some decisions to make and I [00:03:00] think that the decisions and the way you went about it are so interesting that I would ask you to share that with our audience because it reminds me of a wonderful book by Angela Duckworth called GRIT, and I. You have shown that throughout your career, and if you would share that story, I think it’d be really instructive.
Mario Casabona: I failure. You’re very kind. Thank you. Yes. It’s a journey. It’s life journey. And frankly it started, I’m an immigrant. I was born in Italy and parents and I, when I was five years old, we immigrated to United States primarily. To to make it much better for me for my future.
And my mother and father sometimes reminded me of that, but we we immigrated to Brooklyn, New York when I was about 12, 13 years old. We immigrated to New Jersey and what was even more interesting is that we [00:04:00] immigrated to a part of New Jersey. Which was not Italian, but it was all Polish.
And that’s how I got to meet Phil. And I’ve known him, all these years now. Really interesting. And because my parents were somewhat religious Catholic. They wanted me to continue my high school in Catholic, Catholic high school. I went to Essex Catholic High School.
I was there for about two years. But during those two years. I was more in, in a career path that I really didn’t wanna be, I really wanted to go to college. I wanted to be an engineer. And by the way I knew I wanted to be an engineer early on. I would take apart TVs. I would try to put ’em back together, and I wasn’t able to put ’em back together, but I was able to take ’em apart and there’s a meaning to that.
Later. So what I would do is take apart TVs. I would take apart bicycle, I would take apart things, and in most cases I could pull ’em together again. And in some [00:05:00] cases I just couldn’t do that. But in any case, went to high school, went two years to Essex Catholic High School and I was in a different career path and I wanted to go to college, university.
So what I did and Phil alluded this. Earlier, what I did is my junior year of high school, instead of going back to Essex Catholic High School, which is located in Newark what I did is I showed up at Bloomfield High School. I enrolled in Bloomfield High School, forging my parents’ signature and that was the way I was able to get more into a college prep.
Curriculum and it was, yeah, it was interesting going from a private school to a a public school. I learned quite a bit in doing that, especially in some negotiations. It’s it was interesting. Left went to Bloomfield High School, graduated. Was able to get into Fairleigh Dickens [00:06:00] University.
I was in their engineering curriculum. Became bs, EE and then Phil, should I continue
Phil Crowley: or I. Just sure.
Phil Crowley: And with respect to your career pathway, starting out in the electronics industry. Yeah.
Mario Casabona: Okay. Really I graduated college and I was excited. This is in, I was excited by the radar dishes on top of a building.
At ITT in Nutley, New Jersey, and I said, I wanna work there. So it turns out in between for about six months, nine months, I worked at a biotech company and then I was able to get into ITT Avionics, which is a defense contractor. And I was and my background is electromagnetic fields in waves.
I became a design engineer at ITT. It was a, an ex interesting experience. I probably was the junior engineer [00:07:00] amongst a lot of senior engineers there. Learned a lot and a design engineer. And I was there for about two to three years. And they wanted to promote me to systems engineering.
And I said no. I really, I’m convinced my world is to be a design engineer. That’s my career path. So I left and I went with a commercial avionics company. In northern New Jersey. I was there for about two to three years, and they wanted a they wanted to put my equipment that I had designed into manufacturing, and I said no I don’t want to go into manufacturing.
I wanna stay in development. So I left there and I went back to ITT, the same group that I, the RF design group. And I was probably there for another two or three years. And then I heard this company that was a spinoff of ITT called Curis and Al Alterman, and they were located in Wayne, New Jersey.
So I moved over to [00:08:00] there to Curis Alt Alter, which is a spinoff company. I was there probably a total of three to four years. And in between during that time period, I started out as a design engineer, and then I ended up being manager. The automatic test equipment. And what how I ended up becoming a manager is interesting.
My supervisor, my immediate supervisor, bill Sullivan, who was one of my mentors, and that’s another thing through life, you have a lot of, you, you have several individuals that are mentors. And you don’t really reflect on that. Mentorship until you look back and you say, if it wasn’t for this individual, maybe I wouldn’t have had the courage or I wouldn’t have had the inspiration.
But bill Sullivan I’m probably two years working for him, reporting to him. He comes in one day and he taps me on the shoulder and he says, Mario, we need to talk. At that point, I’m there two, three years thinking, oh, what did I do now? So [00:09:00] I sat down at his office.
Now I, you don’t know when your boss says to you, come on in. I need to talk to you. So I went into his office, sat me down, he says, Mario, I’m gonna be honest with you, you’re a much better manager than you are a design engineer, okay? Shattered my. Phil at that point I was like two or three days depressed.
I thought I was the hotshot engineer. And in reality, within six months he ended up reporting to me. Okay. Now, whether that was a setup or not, I don’t know. Maybe he wanna be the manager, so he picked me. But that’s really looking back. Remember I mentioned that I was, that I would be able to take things apart?
And sometimes I wouldn’t be able to put ’em together again. Yes, that was a sign that maybe I’m not so good as an engineer, but I’m definitely much better as a manager.
Phil Crowley: Okay. You know that [00:10:00] realization. That comes through. Reflection is an important part of your journey, Mario and I think that it has led you on the journey to try to use your skills with people to help other people and to go forward.
How did you, what inspired you to go out and set up your own company? That seems like another big step forward.
Mario Casabona: The thing that I learned, jumping from one company to another, it wasn’t jumping, but never, you never burn your bridges. But going from one company to another, and then with a spinoff, you find out that the real key to success is understanding your customer and providing the service you promised to your customer.
So customer focused. And that’s what I was, becoming manager, delivering a product. And when this larger company acquired Cures and [00:11:00] Alman their I thought their focus was more on internal controls, internal management and not the customer. And I I did have a spout with the president at that time.
Not the original founder, but the enterprise president that came in. And I said, Nope, I could do this better. I’m done. I enjoy the customers. And what I did is I spun off at that point, I had three options. I had two kids, wife, family, to support. What do I do?
And I had three options. I had first option was put together a business plan pitch deck, go out and pitch and raise capital. The second option was to go to a bank with the same business plan and try to raise capital, get a loan and try to raise capital that way. But then I have to put my house as collab collateral.
And the third option was just bootstrap. [00:12:00] Take my vacation money. As much as my my wife at that time wa was not wasn’t willing to take the risk.
Mario Casabona: I still did that and with two weeks vacation started electro radiation incorporated. And within like two or three years, I already had hired about 25 engineers in the local New Jersey area.
’cause at that time. It was a hotspot for the defense electronics industry. So I started electro radiation in the defense industry, jamming, anti jamming, radar navigation. We were the experts in the industry. And sold it 23 years, 23 years later, 2004 to Honeywell Aerospace. And I was at Honeywell for about three years.
And they wanted to take, there’s a pattern to this. They wanted to take the technology that we had developed and go into manufacturing. And at that point I [00:13:00] said, okay, my staff is, by the way, Honeywell hired all of my staff That was part of the package. And they wanted to transfer now the technology into manufacturing.
And I said, Nope, nope. I wanna stay in development. I like customer relationships business development. So I left in good terms by the way, and I said, now what do I do with myself? I’ve got a, I have a great exit. And I could either start another one, two companies. Or I can start giving back.
Alright. And Marielle,
Phil Crowley: let me hold you right there. Okay. So that we can take a brief pause. And I’d just like to acquaint our listeners with Crowley Law. We are a boutique law firm of experienced lawyers who are passionate. About helping life sciences and other technology entrepreneurs realize their dreams to take great ideas from the [00:14:00] laboratory bench to the patient’s bedside, or from the garage to the marketplace to enrich the lives of thousands or millions of people.
I’m a former research physicist and so I have a soft spot in my heart for innovators ’cause I know how hard it is. To create new knowledge. And as an experienced corporate lawyer who’s worked on Wall Street at the law department of Johnson and Johnson, and for now more than 10 years at a law firm that I found it, I know how difficult it can be even to take great ideas and get them to the marketplace.
And so we know that innovators need help. So we have a website, crowleylawllc.com, that has a myriad resources, free resources, including an ebook that has gotten a lot of positive responses. It’s called the Top 10 Causes [00:15:00] of Failure for Technology Startups and How to Avoid Them. And also links to this podcast and other podcasts, and we certainly hope that you will sign up to subscribe to our podcast because one of the things that troubles me is seeing innovators.
Put off getting experience counsel to help them with the result that they’re, they get taken advantage of. And I think that’s so incredibly unfair. And so we’re dedicated to helping them prevent that. And so it’s the website, Crow lake law llc.com. And please remember, we’re here to help. All right, Mario, let’s go back to your story.
So now you’ve left Honeywell because they have hit you with the words that you don’t like to hear, which is now it’s time for us to go into [00:16:00] manufacturing. And so you’re off on another innovative experience. So tell us about that.
Mario Casabona: I was in the defense industry for. More than 25 years. So I really wanted to change my career path.
So at that point, it’s, what do I do again? I could start an another company or two in in my lifetime, if you would, and, or I could take part some of my discretionary funds, if you would, from the sale to Honeywell and give it back to the ecosystem. To the tech startup ecosystem.
Mario Casabona: And so I decided to become an angel investor.
And and I would invest through Casabona Ventures. So I started another organization called Casabona Ventures and I joined. It’s interesting in life you’ll learn that, that you’re not an individual, is not the smartest person in the room. There’s people much [00:17:00] smarter than others.
In the room. So what I decided to do, besides being an angel investor, is I wanted to join a group of angel investors that have diverse background that I can continue learning, I can learn being an angel investor. And I can also learn on, on, on the technologies. Okay. So I joined Jumpstart New Jersey Angel Network.
And that was in 2007. I. In 2009, I became the chairman of Jumpstart, New Jersey Angel Network. And I was chairman until about 2012.
Mario Casabona: And then there was a competitive RFP request for proposal from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority to create New Jersey’s First Tech Accelerator. So I wrote a proposal.
Responded to the RFP and it was competitive and [00:18:00] we, I we won the proposal, the the RFP and we launched a company called Tech Launch, all one word. Raised the fund. I had to do three separate funds. And it was interesting ’cause then I learned. So I was angel investor, learned how to be an angel investor, maybe not so smart, but learned how to be an angel investor.
Then I wanted to learn how do you raise capital? So I literally raised one fund for the first year, and then the second year, and then the third year. So three separate funds, and I learned quite a bit. And we we put we launched if I remember correctly, I think it was 23. Companies at that time.
And and it was a actually six, four month. It was a 16th week accelerator. Very interesting. We, in, within a month or two, I already had 60 mentors on board. By the time we were done, [00:19:00] we had about 150, 160 mentors. And what was interesting is that most of the mentors were either successful entrepreneurs, angel investors, or business advisors.
All: Okay?
Mario Casabona: So did that for about three years. At the end of three years I had it with raising a fund, although I did. And I realized that most of the applications we got were apps. At that time, an entrepreneur graduates from college, university and says, I can do an app in a weekend.
And guess what? It just doesn’t work that way. It is just, yes, you can create the wire frames, you can create the basis for that app, but eventually you have to look at the marketing aspects. You gotta, you have to look at the, does the market really want something like this?
Or you’re adding value? The I didn’t like the way Tech Launch was going, so what I did is I pivoted to Tech Launch 2.0, made it into a business accelerator. Where we actually provided [00:20:00] mentoring. We had, I think it was 26 bullpen events, just like Shark Tank. We had it all over the state of New Jersey at different universities.
We had collaboration with meetups and we did that through the pandemic. It went virtual, so it was a little bit easier. And then after that, I realized probably about two years ago, I realized that. My value added as the business accelerator was diminishing primarily because other uni universities, other VC firms, other angels were creating their own mentoring programs.
So I decided to put it on hold and focus on my angel investments. Keep in mind, all this time while I was doing tech launch, I was also doing Angel Investment.
Phil Crowley: What sorts of technologies did you tend to focus on? Did you stay in your own berry patch, in the electronics and RF sort of [00:21:00] world, or did you venture out and try some other things?
Mario Casabona: Really tried some other things. I got into alterna, alternative energy, renewable energy. I got into med tech, excuse me, some biotech, digital. Health actually my portfolio I’ve invested in about 50 tech related companies and so I was really opportunistic, right? I thought the the idea was great.
I thought the founders were great. They made sense. The business model made sense. And and what I realized is that I probably, I. I’ve made a better return on investments. Investments Yeah. With companies that I was able to associate with, I was able to provide some value. Okay. Early on as a mentor, most companies basically need the same type of mentoring, but as they grow a year, two years into it.
The same mentor [00:22:00] that was done in the very, very seed stage is probably not the same mentor two or three years later. So I realized my real value added is in the deep tech, hard tech, defense, tech and aerospace. ’cause that’s where I came from. So I still kept some relationships and connections in that area.
So now my, my my investment interests probably over the past year and a half, have really been more focused on areas that I can really add value regarding connections, business development, and the normal startup mentoring.
Phil Crowley: The thing that impresses me about what you’re able to contribute, Mario, is that the technical education that you received at Phil Dickinson and as an engineer, in your experience, really helps you to be a creative problem solver.
And that combined with your natural ability to deal with people is just such [00:23:00] a a powerful. Said of tools to help young companies that are willing to listen, to really benefit from understanding some of the key factors that lead to success.
Phil Crowley: And so what I wanted to do was to ask you to, if you could, looking back at your long and successful career, are there kind of some indicia of success that you have seen in companies?
That you think distinguishes the ones that are more likely to succeed from the ones that are less likely to succeed, given the same level of success of their technologies.
Mario Casabona: So what the, one of the important factor is persistence. Commitment. And the reason it’s very important when I look at investing in a company I look at the management team.
Okay. And what’s really important is that if you’re [00:24:00] committed and persistent, even though, and you’ll always find hurdles, you’ll always find reasons why you should stop and had given the second thought, and maybe not continue, but if you’re committed and persistent, you’ll pivot. So if you run into a problem you’ll pivot.
You’ll modify you’ll work around it. And if I can an analogy. So when you’re you’re on the road and several mountains up, up the up the road, you look at it from a long distance, it looked like a hill. And you look at that hill and you say, wow, I could really con, I can climb that hill, right?
So it’s, you get closer and closer, you realize that it’s not a hill, it’s a mountain. Okay? And then by that time, you’re already committed. You’ve put your money into it, blood, sweat, and tears. You’re committed. What are you gonna do? You have to climb the rest of that mountain. So [00:25:00] I, that, that’s the analogy I always look at and say from a distance it doesn’t look that bad, but when you get real close, you realize it’s a lot of work.
Phil Crowley: And do you have to be willing to do that of all your activities? What do you like most about what you do?
Mario Casabona: Learning. Okay I am, I’m getting a higher education and and it’s costing me a lot of money. It’s cost me a lot of money but what’s interesting you know what, you just reminded me, Phil, going back to the engineering background.
And I do give some career guidance to high school students, and what I tell ’em is you want a technical background because with the technical background. Teaches you is a methodology to make things happen, a thought process. So you don’t just jump into it before you jump into it. You wanna know how you’re gonna get there.
Does it really make sense? And then [00:26:00] if it does, then you do it. Okay? But don’t go too deeply into it because nothing will ever happen. But it’s a technical background is they teach you the methodology. Okay, so what was your question, Phil? I diverted here.
Phil Crowley: No, that, that’s a great explanation of some of the things to focus on.
What about mistakes to avoid or indicia that kind of people are headed in the wrong direction or. Some factors that would cause you as an angel investor, not to invest in the company.
Mario Casabona: I, I look very, again, the team, right Phil? I always look at the team, look at how they’re committed, persistent knowledge of the marketplace, knowledge of their technology and their ability to listen.
- Okay. Now at the end of the day, and I always [00:27:00] mention this to who, whoever I’m mentoring or talking with I indicate to them I’m gonna give you some guidance, I’m gonna give you some feedback, but at the end of the day, whatever you decide, you have to own it. So it’s very important to me that the entrepreneur is listening and then making their own decision.
And ownership of their action. That, to me is very important. It’s not important if I’m right or wrong. Okay? What’s really important is that individual or that company succeeds, and if I was able to give them some inclination of guidance I’m successful at, I, I feel successful.
That’s number one. Then number two when I do invest, I. Th these entrepreneurs are teaching me. I’m learning things. I’ll mentor someone that, that’s developing a cancer drug. Do I know anything about that cancer drug? No. But there is a certain way of [00:28:00] building a company, guiding that mentor, but I’m learning a little bit of what that individual knows.
Same thing. I invested in a materials company in South Jersey. I. I’m learning quite a bit about material. I was I was a design engineer. I invested in another company, again in South Jersey a spinoff of Lockheed Martin. And they’re doing microwave integrated circuits now.
I thought I was the expert. Oh, guess what? I was the expert maybe 20 years ago. I. Okay so you know, part of the whole angel investing. Besides helping companies grow, give ’em some seed capital, some guidance is I’m learning. Okay,
Phil Crowley: Mario, this has been fascinating.
Phil Crowley: The time has really flown by. I am so glad that we were able to have this discussion if.
People want to contact you [00:29:00] to benefit perhaps more from your perspectives and mentorship. How can they get ahold of you?
Mario Casabona: My if what you’re, if you want to introduce me to your company, send me an executive summary, one page, two pages, fine. But send me an executive summary. If you’re looking for mentorship.
Let me know that upfront. Send me an email. My email address is Mario, M-A-R-I-O, at casabona ventures.com. Casabona Ventures, all one word. I.
Phil Crowley: Super Mario, thank you so much for being a guest today. I hope that our audience has really taken to heart the practical guidance that you were able to provide to help them take steps to make their ventures successful.
And thanks to all of you who are joining us for today’s podcast, please if you like [00:30:00] this subscribe. Also see us. At crowleylawllc.com just remember. We’re here to help.
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