Our February Innovation Breakfast speaker was Shawn Broderick from TechStars.  Based in Boulder, TechStars came to Boston last year and Shawn has been a fixture in the Boston Innovation Economy scene ever since.  TechStars provides seed capital and mentors for a class of startups every summer. The TechStars decision makers look for companies they think they can help get off the ground and onto the next level.

For #InnoB4 (our February Innovation Breakfast), Shawn trekked out to Waltham and sat down for a good old conversation about TechStars, entrepreneurship and innovation.

One story Shawn shared led to his sharing the website StartUpVisa.com.  Evidently, more than one entrepreneur accepted into the TechStars program from overseas has had issues getting here.  Humph.

Check out our Innovation Nights video channel on YouTube for comments from Shawn’s session and our other events!

While Mass Innovation Nights is unabashedly pro-all-things-MA, we took a more global approach, at least this month with Innovation Breakfast.  Our “conversation leader” was Lucian Wagner, general partner from Eurous Ventures, and one of the go-to folks involved with Launch in US, an organization devoted to helping European companies launch in the US and find local partners.

Lucian walked us through his top 10 thoughts on thinking global early on in the entrepreneurial process.  While there was the almost standard admonishment to make sure your company/product name are  “appropriate” in all major cultures/languages (Lucian’s example was that  the Rolls-Royce Silver Mist would have been Silver ‘Crap” in German but fortunately, the name was switched to Silver Cloud) he also extended a lot of practical advice on locating your company, hiring, firing and partnering.  Also, don’t forget to reserve your international domains.

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As is the now usual pattern at Innovation Breakfast, it’s the back and forth and Q&A that turn up some of the more interesting conversations and information.  We’ve embedded several of the clips from the event below.  Check them out!

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Of particular interest was some of the conversation comparing Silicon Valley and Massachusetts.

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Or Massachusetts versus New York.

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It’s a conspiracy.  At least it seems like it.  Another speaker change for our January event. Ah, well.  But you roll with it and everything turns out great in the end. Our Innovation Breakfast series is still pretty new but we’ve already had two great conversations and networking get-togethers.  And, January looks to be another good one, even if we have had to change our speaker a couple of times.  So, third time’s the charm. 

Our topic is ” Going Global Early: 10 Reasons for Thinking Internationally while in Start-Up Mode  -  What US founders should consider when they launch their companies in order to facilitate subsequent international growth.”

Our speaker is venture capitalist Lucian Wagner, General Partner, EUROUS VENTURES.

Lucian has a truly global outlook with an extensive set of contacts in North America, Europe, and Asia. Lucian is a venture capitalist and entrepreneur with several successful start-ups to his credit. Before that, he has had 20 years of experience in various sales & marketing positions in the semiconductor industry. Lucian was born in Germany, educated in the French school system, and went on to earn a B.Sc. in International Economics from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University (with a minor in Russian) and an MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France.

Lucian has a truly global outlook with an extensive set of contacts in North America, Europe, and Asia. Most recently he co-founded the Launch in US Alliance, an organization focused on helping European companies successfully expand into the US market.  He is currently on the Board of Directors of Oxxius SA and is a Managing Director of MentoNet, responsible for the Eastern portion of the US.

Before joining EuroUS Ventures he was a co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of Prodgeny, Inc., a start-up in the area of supply chain traceability for electronics and automotive manufacturing. He also launched US operations for itemic AG, a German semiconductor software company and was responsible for their worldwide sales and marketing.

In 1999, he co-founded and became CEO of FabCentric, a Yield Management software company, where he raised several million dollars in VC funding and which he grew to more than 25 employees before it was sold to another publicly traded software company in late 2001.

Lucian spent almost 20 years in the semiconductor industry, holding a series of positions with increasing responsibilities. Initially he was assistant to the VP of European Sales & Marketing of GCA Corp, the largest lithography tool manufacturer at the time. At ADE Corporation, a metrology tool manufacturer, he started out as General Manager of European Distribution & Service and later moved to Boston in the position of Worldwide Marketing Manager.

Lucian was born in Germany, educated in the French school system, and went on to earn a B.Sc. in International Economics from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University (with a minor in Russian) and an MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France. He lives in Wellesley, MA and Herrliberg, Switzerland.

Unfortunately, Shawn Broderick from TechStars has a conflict so Stephan Dietrich, President, Neolane, has kindly stepped in for our January event.  Shawn will be making it up to us at a future event — just building up the excitement a bit, right, Shawn?

Meanwhile, we’re so excited to have Stephan speaking — he’s got some great ideas for the conversation on January 22 and it promises to be a good one.

Stephan Dietrich’s leadership and passion have become hallmarks of his 8-year tenure at Neolane. He brings 15 years of enterprise software and marketing expertise and a broad range of management experience in the high-tech arena. As President of Neolane Inc, Stephan is responsible for driving Neolane’s corporate vision, worldwide marketing strategy and international business development.

Stephan and his team work directly with major clients to design, optimize and enable their best marketing relationship strategies across multiple channels. His expertise is most developed in the retail/etail, travel, business-to-business industries.  A recognized thought leader, Stephan is regularly interviewed in high-level publications and has spoken at several major US and European marketing events, such as NCDM, the Annual eMarketing Conference, the European E-Commerce show, the Retail and Catalogue show and Direct Marketing events. He is often quoted by major trade publications like CRM Magazine, DMNews, and Direct Marketing Magazine covering the relationship marketing industry as well as in the general business press.

Previously, Stephan was president of Cubicsoft and co-founder of AGDS, a company sold to Peregrine Systems, now HP. Stephan holds a Master of Science degree from Ecole Centrale de Paris and earned his Master in Business Administration from the College des Ingen.

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 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

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.

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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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:

1. How many people have business plans? (lots of hands)
2. How many people have business plans with spreadsheets showing revenue projections? (slightly fewer)
3. How many business plans have 5 year revenue projections? (even fewer)
4. 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.

We’re kicking off the Innovation Breakfast series with a terrific presentation from Ronald Croen, entrepreneur, leader and business adviser based in Silicon Valley who has been named the Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Tufts University for the 2009-2010 academic year.

Ron was founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Nuance Communications in Menlo Park, California, now headquartered in Boston. Nuance is the global leader in voice automation technology and applications, providing software and solutions based on the technologies of speech recognition, speech synthesis and speaker verification. His experience spans various sectors in information and communications technology beyond speech recognition, such as operating system and enterprise software, new media and Web 2.0 businesses. He has been involved with companies across the life-cycle, from start-up, to very early stage angel and venture funded growth businesses, to medium and large public companies. Ron has served as a Board member of public companies such as Logitech, the maker of computer mice, control devices and peripherals, and of private companies such as ForaTV (smart Internet video), Sidestripe (social search) and Snapbomb (blog marketing). Ron earned a J.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a B.A. from Tufts University.

We’ll be kicking off the first Innovation Breakfast at 8:30 a.m. with coffee and networking.  RSVP now.  Spots are limited.  (If you can’t make it afterall, please let us know so we can give your seat to someone else.)