Alumni Profile: Blade Kotelly (E'95), Founder 1minute40seconds

"Whether you're designing a car, a remote control, a service organization, any time you make something, you're always making it for people. Understanding the principles of design enabled me to basically make anything."—Blade Kotelly (E95).

For Blade Kotelly, anything includes building what he believes to be the simplest, most powerful online platform to create video content. His company, 1minute40seconds, is designing a web-based SaaS product that allows users to quickly insert text, music, videos, or images into a video-template. A finalist in this year's 2011 $1 million MassChallenge startup competition, the team is working hard to put the finishes touches on their product.

After Kotelly graduated with a bachelor's degree in Human Factors (now known as Engineering Psychology) from Tufts, he spent the past 9 years a visiting lecturer at Tufts and MIT. From this experience he believes that engineering students who also have a liberal arts experience are versatile and able to apply both sides of the brain into their design process.

"Tufts students have an openness to how they approach problems and come out of college with a broad, adaptable thought process. They're able to be good leaders in a team and good followers as well. They can learn from their experience and are open to change."

It's not surprising then to find out that the 1Minute40Seconds team consists entirely of Tufts personnel—two of Kotelly's fraternity brothers and three Tufts interns.

"Everybody at my company is from Tufts," Kotelly said. He explains that his staff is exceptionally skilled and they have a fresh eye for the details. "Even my most technical person is from Tufts but his style is slightly different than most technical individuals. He's got an appreciation and a passion for the human element within technology."

1Minute40Seconds started primarily because of Kotelly's passion for the human element of design. He could not find himself a perfect fit in the job market. "I've mainly had jobs that I had to shoehorn myself into," Kotelly said. "I really sought out interdisciplinary experiences where you have art and science and business and technology fused into one role. I didn't ever want to be focused on just one role when you can do so much more by connecting the dots across the business. However, most businesses don't usually hire that type of person."

Now Kotelly has acquired angel investors and summer interns, and his design process is on the move. He explains the progressiveness of his concept in terms of Ford's first automobile.

"The other companies that are trying to do it are doing it in the wrong direction, I believe." Recalling a Henry Ford quotation, Kotelly said "If you asked people in at the turn of century what they wanted for transportation, they would have said, "faster horses." No one would have said they want a "car." The idea is that you should look at things very differently in order to innovate. We're thinking about building race cars when everybody else is trying to make faster horses."

As 1Minute40Seconds throttles into MassChallenge, consumers will soon determine how fast the engine of this company can reach profitability.