Innovation Breakfast » Innovation

Breakfast Discussion: Funding Flexibility

bobbie — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 14:19:01 +0000

Every week we have some fascinating conversations at Innovation Breakfast. We do introductions, and get to know you and your company but the far-ranging discussions on the industry are among the most compelling reasons to come out to Waltham for coffee on Friday mornings. In keeping with the “Funding Friday” theme (#ff$), we asked for people’s thoughts around getting funded. One experienced entrepreneur told the story of his funding adventures, calling funding a black art, what works once, might not work again.

There are various “happy endings” in funding from the entrepreneurs’ point of view. Funds to go forward building a company. The sale of a company or the product or the IP. The incorporation of technology or the product into another company or another product. Sometimes the intended or expected outcome gets kicked to the curb and something else happens. Looking for funding? Maybe it will end up in a sale. Looking for a sale? Maybe you will end up with partners. People looking for funding need to keep their options open.

The Last Innovation Breakfast…And the First

bobbie — Fri, 21 May 2010 21:51:51 +0000

You always try to go out with a bang…and, boy, did we ever. Bill Warner’s talk on “Startups from the Heart” was fantastic! (Videos are below the break.) And well received by our largest crowd so far. (Yes, we opened up “ticket sales” quite a bit beyond the usual small group.) And, if you were there, you heard us say that Innovation Breakfast is ending. But, wait, what’s that on the horizon?

Starting in June, we’re kicking off a new model Innovation Breakfast. We’re going to partially adopt the #OpenCoffee model and move Innovation Breakfast to Waltham’s Cafe on the Common (677 Main Street, at the corner of Main and Moody.) Over this weekend, we’ll be switching out the Innovation Breakfast website to support this new model. More soon! (Oh, yeah, and suggestions welcomed, nay, encouraged!) And, if you aren’t already a Cambridge “OpenCoffee at Andala” regular, check it out on Meetup.com for the scoop.

More soon!

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Bill Warner: Building Startups from the Heart

bobbie — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 02:52:20 +0000

Our May 21, 2010 Innovation Breakfast will feature TechStars mentor and serial entrepreneur, Bill Warner. Bill will be discussing how to “Build Your Startup From the Heart.”

Much of the advice that entrepreneurs get regards how to “follow their head.” How to make logical decisions about their business. This month’s Innovation Breakfast talk will look at tools for the other part of the startup equation: how to follow your heart. Bill Warner will discuss his theories about where the energy comes from within founders, and how to use that energy to make a startup most successful.

RSVP now: this will be a popular event! (Also, interested in funding your venture? Check-out this great event too!)

In addition, in keeping with our continuing innovation theme, attendees also have the opportunity to purchase half-price copies of the book, “Drawing On Brilliance”. Discover a treasure trove of patent lithographs – discarded by the U.S. Patent Office, then rescued from destruction by Randy Rabin. Randy and Jackie Bassett uncover the secrets to innovation success behind the Wright Bros., Heddy Lamar, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, W.H. Carrier and hundreds of others.

William (Bill) J. Warner is the founder of Avid Technology, Inc. and Wildfire Communications, Inc., FutureBoston, Inc, and Warner Research, LLC. Avid (Nasdaq: AVID) makes video, audio and film editing systems that make, manage and move media. Mr. Warner won an Emmy from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 1993 for the development of the Avid Media Composer. In 1999, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented Avid with the Oscar® for its success in transforming the editing process in filmmaking. Mr. Warner accepted the award and was shown on the worldwide telecast.

Wildfire developed an innovative electronic secretary that used speech recognition to manage one’s phone calls and messages. Wildfire was sold to Orange, PLC in 2000.

Since 2000, Warner has shared his time between work with non-profits, and a focus on helping entrepreneurs.

In 2002, Warner started a shared-space center for entrepreneurs called the Collaboration Space at Warner Research. This center is now called the Brickyard Collaboration Space and provides low-cost space to early stage entrepreneurs. Many successful companies have started here and moved on to get additional capital for growth.

In addition, Mr. Warner has acted as an angel investor for eight startups, and for three non-profits. The startups are in such diverse areas as 3D animation, email-based blogging, event networking, ad insertion for online videos, visual environments for nightclubs, shared calendars, and compensation design and management. The non-profits are involved with historic/current mapping of Boston for planning purposes; a film school, and an open-source mechanical design approach for new vehicles for people with disabilities.

Mr. Warner is also working on book about entrepreneurship called “Intention and Invention.” It explores how to optimize the connection between what drives an entrepreneur, and how they go about making inventions that spring from that drive.

Mr. Warner has been a long-time trustee of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council, and has taught classes for entrepreneurs through that organization. In 2008, Warner created and co-chaired the MassTLC Innovation 2008 unConference.

Mr. Warner attended MIT and received a BSEE degree in 1980. Mr. Warner grew up in Millburn, NJ, and is an avid cyclist and photographer.

December Breakfast Discussion

bobbie — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:32:29 +0000

When we asked Branko Gerovac to share some of his research into the data behind the Massachusetts Innovation Economy, we knew what we were getting into. Discussions with Branko and a look at Empirical Reality, his innovation blog that takes a hard look at the numbers can sometimes come off as depressing to Massachusetts innovation cheerleaders, and he freely admits it. But to move ahead, we need to understand where we’ve been.

Gerovac looks at data from places like the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Standard & Poors and mixes it with information culled from a wide variety of studies. Recent blog posts included information from the Wall Street Journal, the Moneytree Report and the Kaufman Foundation.

At our recent Innovation Breakfast, Gerovac looked at Massachusetts tech sector employment (breaking it down by county — yes, Middesex county looks a lot like Santa Clara), where tech founders went to school and the average age of founding a tech company. (45 percent of technology companies were formed by people in the 35-44 year old range.) The “depressing” graphs showed serious declines in tech employment, “ouch” comparisons between Massachusetts and California, and Seattle, and other tech hot spots like Michigan(???) in areas like our ability to keep grads here.

But an interesting thing happens when we have knowledge. The room wasn’t depressed. Immediately talk turned to what we can and need to do.

1) We need anchor companies, old and new, to keep grads here the requisite average 16 years before they will found their own company.

2) We need to focus more on building companies to grow, versus building companies to sell.

3) We need to deal with the non-compete issue.

4) We need to foster a culture of collaboration versus competition. Instead of the zero sum game, we need to grow the pie big enough for everyone to have a piece.

5) We need to make sure that tech is getting its fair share of the funding money. (Bio-pharma and alternative energy are great but the time to liquidity is far greater as are the start-up costs.) Tech is where the best bang for our buck is.

What can you do? What do you think?

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The Future of MA High Tech

bobbie — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:12:11 +0000

The Future of MA High Tech Conference (download video here or check out the #MATechHub tweet stream), or MA Tech Hub for short, was held December 7th at the offices of Communispace in Watertown. (For those of you who have never been there, their conference space/lunchroom is decorated like Fenway park, complete with Green Monster in the back).

Communispace CEO Diane Hessan kicked off the festivities by noting that her company has hired 40 new employees this year, showing that the tech industry has been quicker to recover from the economic downturn than other sectors.
She was followed by Donna Cupelo, New England Regional President of Verizon, who echoed Diane’s assessment, and noted that tech growth can fuel growth overall, or as she put it, “Innovation has an agnostic impact.” (An interesting turn of phrase; I would have said “a rising tide lifts all boats”, but that’s just me).

Jack Wilson, President of UMass, discussed the Government/Business/Academe collaboration that brought about this conference, while taking the opportunity to show off his new Droid.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick delivered the keynote address, noting that the staff at Communispace had provided him with a new avatar for his Twitter account (not Denzel Washington, as he had hoped, but ex-SNL cast member Tim Meadows). His speech focused on the importance of the tech industry in Massachusetts, noting that it is made up of 10,000 firms employing 178,000 people, and makes up 18% of the state’s GDP.

During a brief Q & A after the speech, one of the audience noted that Apple marks its products with a “Designed in California” label, and suggested that Massachusetts firms do likewise. The Governor agreed, citing Harmonix’s “Rock Band” as an example, but noting that New Englanders tend to be more reticent about such things, saying “We don’t like to brag” (Red Sox and Pats fans, fee free to disagree with the Guv). When another questioner asked Patrick to sum up his view of the MA tech industry in one word, he responded, “I’ll give you three: We invent things.”

Professor Michael Goodman from UMass Dartmouth followed Patrick with his summary of the report prepared by the UMass Donahue Institute Economic & Policy Research (you can download your own copy here ). Some highlights of the study:

The IT industry is second only to healthcare in the number of jobs provided, far above financial services and post-secondary education.

Those surveyed in the report ranked California and Massachusetts first and second, respectively, as representing the regions of the world presenting the best opportunities for innovation and growth, with India, China, and Israel rounding out the top five.

Of those who preferred Massachusetts as a location for IT business, respondents cited access to cultural amenities, access to world-class research partners, presence of world-class business networks and colleagues, presence of strong school systems, availability of skilled workers, and ease of commute (!) as factors.

One of the biggest challenges facing MA tech firms vs. California is that access to venture capital and funding is perceived to be a major obstacle in Massachusetts. A number of focus group participants believe that venture funding on the East Coast is much more “risk averse” and the Commonwealth’s history as a leader in enterprise software and other more traditional products makes funding riskier new endeavors even more difficult.

Following Professor Goodman’s presentation, there was a roundtable discussion with Gregory Bialecki of the state’s Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, Colin Angle from iRobot, Dave Balter of BzzAgent, John Halamka from Beth Israel and Harvard Medical School, Rich Miner from Google, and Jeff Nick from EMC.

The discussion began by noting some of the major changes in everyday life in the past 10 years due to IT (in 1999, there were no smart phones, YouTube, or social media). Boston’s legacy as a center for higher education was cited as both a benefit and a drawback; Balter said that marketing degree programs have not kept up to date with advances in IT, and he prefers that employee candidates show their skills in “connectivity, not creativity,” and “if he hires one more person who can’t convert PowerPoint to a PDF, he’ll kill himself.”

Angle said that the state needs to create more incentives for the students who come to Boston to study to stay here after they finish their education. Miner’s recommendation was more “anchor companies”, like Wang and DEC of years past, to attract entrepreneurs. During the Q & A, after the roundtable, Boston Globe reporter Scott Kirsner stirred the pot by raising the issue of non-competes; would eliminating them spur innovation in the state?

Jeff Nick’s response was that there are good and bad non-competes, and cited numerous companies started by ex-EMC employees, though when pressed by Kirsner, he declined (or refused?) to name any, and bristled at the suggestion that these companies were started by “disgruntled” former employees. Miner countered by saying “Any non-compete is a bad non-compete,” though this is a moot point for Google, as non-competes are not enforceable in California.

One suggestion from Balter: rebranding the term “IT”, as he feels it is outdated (Innovation Technology? Business Technology?)

A final thought: driving home from the event, a radio commercial from Foxwoods Resort & Casino asked musicians to submit their entries to a contest to remake John Pizzarelli’s ubiquitous “The Wonder Of It All” jingle. Could MA tech firms do something similar, jointly sponsoring a local songwriter to come up with a “MA Tech Inside” jingle for all the Roombas, Bose headphones, and Boston Scientific stents?

Some other posts, stories, etc.:

Xconomy

Scott Kirsner

Nat Hefferman, Mass Innovation Nights MIN-ion

What Do The Numbers Say About Innovation?

bobbie — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 01:58:36 +0000

There has been a lot of discussion about the state of innovation in Boston and Massachusetts. The expressed concern is that Boston is losing its innovative edge compared to other innovation centers, such as Silicon Valley, Seattle, and others. Branko Gerovac will lead our next Innovation Breakfast,Friday, December 18.Some people assert that there isn’t really an innovation problem; Massachusetts is just as innovative as it has always been; it is more of an image problem that can be solved by better marketing and branding. Others say that we just need to do a few things to improve the environment for innovation, e.g., hold meetings, plan new initiatives, organize social events, etc.

Both approaches are well meaning. People genuinely want to improve the situation. Unfortunately, though it may feel good to be doing something, neither approach identifies or addresses the root causes for the innovation doldrums.

This talk will present and discuss empirical data that compares several regions of innovation across the United States, and we will begin to look at symptoms and root causes for the differences between the regions. Come prepared to share your views on innovation.

- – -

For over 25 years, Branko Gerovac has led developments at the forefront of technology and market advances, and regularly produces game changing innovative products across the interplay of computing, communications, and media. He has held senior executive positions, providing leadership in technology development, business planning,
product development, and customer and partner relations. Previous positions include: Chief Strategy Officer and Founding CEO, Blackwave Inc.; Vice President of Research and Chief Technology Officer, SeaChange Inc.; Associate Director, MIT Research Program on Communications Policy; Visiting Scientist, MIT Media Lab; FCC Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service (ACATS); Consulting Engineer, Digital Equipment Corporation. Gerovac holds several issued and pending patents. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Physics from Brandeis University, with graduate coursework in Physics, Formal Logic, and Computer Science at Brandeis and Harvard Universities.

For a view to some of the data Branko referenced, check out Empirical Reality.

East v. West Innovation: Our Kick-off Event

bobbie — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:38:43 +0000

What a great group we had! A big thanks to everyone who helped to promote it beforehand here, (and here), and those who attended and contributed to a great conversation on “Entrepreneurship and Innovation in 2009 and Beyond: Massachusetts vs. Silicon Valley”, lead by Ron Croen. Thanks so much, Ron. It was an informative and enjoyable conversation, and a great way to kick-off our new monthly event.

We captured much of the conversation on video and uploaded it in chunks to our Innovation Nights YouTube channel. (We did manage to correct the lighting somewhat as things progressed.)

Others also captured the conversation, you can listen to it here, or here. One of the Tufts blogs picked up the video too.

Love to get your feedback and ideas for future conversations!

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We can do better: Ries at the Stata Center

bobbie — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:18:05 +0000

Eric Ries of The Lean Startup fame spoke at MIT last night. (Kudos to Tom Summit from Genotrope, and others, who brought him to town.)

Ries’ talk went heavy into developer-land (playing to the house) but was attainable by everyone in the room, even the marketers and MBAs, his favorite targets for poking gentle fun. The insights and the lessons learned from his experiences focus on continuous deployment can be applied in lots of places.

He set the tone for the evening with the jaunty statement, “Most start-ups fail.” No secret there but delivered with a smile and at the beginning of a talk, he seemed to be whispering to the room, “Except you.” He wisely pointed out the similiarities between visionaries and “crazy people” and often in entreprenurial ventures, there is little difference. Ries says that we tend to indulge in revistionist history, turning successful entrepreneurs into people who were able to see how they could turn “the ridiculous into the obvious.” His start-up definition had more to do with the “extreme uncertainty” that entrepreneurs live in than the great idea.

His lessons learned talk focused on an un-named startup that “achieved failure” evidently spectacularly through a series of shadow beliefs, namely 1) we know what customers want and 3) we can accurately predict the future. The team of super-bright folks looked fabulous on paper but things went awry to the tune of millions spent/wasted. He asked for hands to see:

How many people have business plans? (lots of hands)
How many people have business plans with spreadsheets showing revenue projections? (slightly fewer)
How many business plans have 5 year revenue projections? (even fewer)
How many show year 5 revenue projections of at least $100 million? (one)

Ries noted that when he asks this same question in Silicon Valley, all the hands are still up at the end. (One of those east coast, west coast differences? Our kick-off Innovation Breakfast speaker, Ron Croen, is going to be addressing this difference as well.)

Ries moved on to talk about his second company, the much more successful IMVU, which spurned long development cycles. The first iteration came out in 180 days and through continuous deployment methodologies (a form of agile development), continued to produce updates seemingly every 20 minutes. (We happen to know through experience that the end user experience was a bit dismal through much of the early iterations but Ries points to the better product at the end.)

All-in-all, lots of great take-away for the innovators in the audience. And Ries’ blog gives a steady stream of good stuff too.

Innovation Profile: Preserve Toothbrush

bobbie — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:49:36 +0000

Innovation Breakfast will be reviewing innovative products and company concepts, and we want you to help. Tell us what you think! Where does each product/company/inventor fall on the Genius or Kook scale?

Company: Preserve. Based right in downtown Waltham, Preserve creates various eco-friendly home and health care products from recycled plastic. From cutting boards and colanders, to razors and toothbrushes, Preserve’s products are beautiful and eco-friendly.

Product/Concept: The new Preserve toothbrush comes in a package that can be reused as a travel case, and, when the toothbrush needs to be replaced, serves as a mailer to send the toothbrush back to the company to be reprocessed.

Our “good cop” thoughts: Love the eco-friendly concept and our pretty aquamarine toothbrush fits nicely in the hand, as well as any of the various toothbrush holders we have in the house. The idea of the packaging serving double duty as a travel case is great, especially since we’ll need it to mail the toothbrush back to the company for recycling. So the container goes right into the bathroom vanity drawer rather than the wastebasket. We threw nothing away when the toothbrush entered our house, except the small strip of tape that sealed the case close. When the time comes, need to remember to mail it back to the company using a prepaid mailer downloadable from the company website. Neat idea for a toothbrush subscription plan — one toothbrush sent at regular intervals.

Our “bad cop” thoughts: Not much here to whine or complain about. As with any inexpensive physical product, the first concern is usually availability but all the zip codes I tested showed a wide variety of stores carrying the products (locally everything from Target and Shaws to the independent Theater pharmacy in Lexington center.)

Will I remember to send it back to the company? Maybe, because I’ll be using it everyday but put in the hands of one of my kids or my husband and it might end up in the wastebasket and off to the landfill before I know about it.

And, who’s the poor soul at the other end of the line who gets all the used toothbrushes mailed to them — ewww. Does the company really see enough returns to make a difference? How many toothbrushes does it take to make a plastic picnic table?

And as for the toothbrush subscription plan — wouldn’t it be eco-friendlier (and cheaper to ship) to get all four toothbrushes at once rather than individually mailing them?

What do you think?

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