Micro-Ant's Charles McCarrick on Innovation and Opportunity in the DIB

Welcome to RADICL’s new newsletter, DIB Innovators.?

Every other week, we'll publish a newsletter that breaks down actionable lessons from our conversations with DIB innovators who are driving technological advancements and keeping our country safe.

In our first edition, we dive into our interview with Charles McCarrick, Founder, President, and Chief Scientist at Micro-Ant, a company that develops and manufactures custom antennas. Here are the top takeaways from the interview.

#1: Prepare for Long Processes

"We're subject to whatever restraints that the prime that we've partnered up with, whatever the decisions they want to make. And in a way, I can't blame them, because if you want to get some sort of an approval, the CA approval, our strat approval, whatever, this is a long, arduous process. We have to supply a lot of data and a lot of going back and forth, and it's like getting something patented. You get it rejected three or four times and, you know, they really haven't looked at it.?

“So there's a lot of that red tape and paperwork that's, quite frankly, it's unnecessary and it delays and it hurts innovation. Those are the things that are the most challenging to us. Not the innovative part, not creating something that's unique or something that would be of enormous value to the end user, but getting through all of the red tape paperwork and the relationships."?

Actionable Takeaway: Sometimes major milestones or deliverables are the hardest won. Prepare for lengthy, involved external processes as much as you can and try to streamline things that you can control so that you don’t burnout or miss a crucial step along the way.?

#2: Have a Plan in Place

"Process and planning. Those things are critical because the one thing that you need to be able to do is to have a process in place that gives you reliable, consistent product. It's okay to innovate. I mean, you and I could sit down and innovate with 100 ideas, but only one of them is going to be able to make it through the process chain to become a successful product.?

“So what I mean by that is, even if you're a small company and you can't afford a quality department, you should at the very least understand what quality metrics are, especially if you're in any kind of a technical role or leadership role, executive officer role, even at the early stages, because quality is, more than anything else, is the thing that sets the character, the tone, and I think the eventual success of the business. It's the thing that will drive culture."

Actionable Takeaway: It’s important to make a plan and try to have set processes in place. Not only will this make things more efficient, it will help you get at least a baseline of quality, even if you don’t have a lot of resources to do a full quality control workup.??

#3: Don’t Be Afraid to Protect Your Intellectual Property

"You don't ever, ever, ever give your intellectual property away. You don't sell it, you don't rent it, you don't lease it, you own it. That's it. You make sure with any contract that you put out there that those are your terms. Now you're going to have customers come to you and they're going to say, well, look, it's our policy. We own the intellectual property.?

“I had to learn to say, okay, sorry, go buy it from the other guy. But invariably, they will realize that it is more important that they have use of the intellectual property than they have ownership of it, because in the end, ownership doesn't necessarily mean control. I'm the living proof of that, because in spite of these contracts that I've had with these private contractors, they still take the intellectual property, which is an unfortunate thing."?

Actionable Takeaway: Your ideas are your business – literally and figuratively. There will always be customers, competitors, or any number of other parties who want ownership or control of your ideas. However, it’s important to keep that ownership for yourself. Protecting your innovations will help protect your business.?

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