Networking; Entrepreneurs; Tech Transfer; Innovation; 02/18/08 - PHOTOS and Events

442_ Startup Capital: Family, Friends and Fools...or...?
Entrepreneurs specifically, always face the challenge of credibility early on. David Cohen, a serial entrepreneur, co-founder of Tech Stars and founder of Colorado Startups understands that challenge, firsthand. David points out a number of the comments (often not heard by the new entrepreneur)... who are these people?, what are they building?, you know, it’s two guys in a garage – are we really going to buy something from these guys?. Just getting great people around them is a big challenge. There are lots of startup companies that are coming out of the woodwork and I think the smart ones go and find great advisors and bounce ideas off of them. Those people are pretty easy to find, but there are so many companies looking for help, sometimes it’s a challenge to find the right people to help you. And if they’re looking for funding, of course you see one percent of people getting funding from angels and VCs, that’s a tough road. Most companies need money to get rolling and they do it with ‘Friends, Family & Fools’; and I think that’s right. You should start and get to the furthest out value point that you can with as little money as humanly possible, to show a prototype and some progress. Most people who need more money say $500k or so, tend to approach angel investors, that’s the range of money typically that angel investors can put together. Listen for more TechStar solutions... LISTEN 2/18/08

441_ Teaming Up, Pooling Resources Leads to a Creative Solution
We were looking at how we could build this device and this bio reactor. Our original idea was to purchase a device from a company and then modify it to fit our needs. In the process of doing that we realized it would cost us over $100,000. It had way more capabilities than we needed. So that led us to think about building our own bio reactor and how could we do this. I actually had a team working on this and we came up with a design that enabled us to apply these mechanical forces in the least expensive way. So we got together, came up with the idea, built it and are actually growing cartilage. This was done by Dr. Stephanie Bryant's team at CU in Boulder. She was given the New Inventor of the Year Boulder designation, at the recent CU TTO Awards banquet. Stephanie went onto point out her greatest lesson learned. Working with a group from different backgrounds. I think that not one of us could have come up with the invention on our own, but by teaming up and pooling our resources we were able to come up with a creative solution that allows us to patent it. Without the team I don’t think we would have been able to come up with that. Listen now... LISTEN 2/18/08

Related Links: CU TTO Award Photos || CU TTO Channel || CU Tech Transfer Office || Find It || Keywords: Stephanie Bryant, CU TTO, Team, Cartilage, Chemical, Biological Engineering > Bytes: 29056839 LISTEN

439_ Welcome to the Sustainabilty Era - Defined and Debated
Addressing Climate Change for Sustainable and Profitable Business is no simple matter. Differing definitions and understandings along with misunderstood concepts make it challenging for some. Bud McGrath, Executive Director of CORE and Graham Russell, Director of the CORE Foundation discuss what is going on in the Clean Tech and Sustainability space and clear up many of the misunderstandings. Regardless on your position on the topic, the rules of business are changing. Climate change is at the height of media attention and has become an important part of current business trends. Companies are recognizing significant opportunities by creating new sought-after products, realigning the way they operate, and reducing their energy costs. Companies are finding that managing the risk of climate change and lowering their impact on the environment allows them to gain investor confidence, reduce their exposure to non-compliance, and increase their profits. The most significant conference (SOS) with world-renowned leaders will be in Denver February 27 - 29...w3w3.com will be there. LISTEN 2/11/08

437_ Colorado is as Quintessentially Entrepreneurial as We Could Ever Imagine
Our mission here is we have a responsibility of educating future business leaders to tackle the complex problems of tomorrow. And at the heart of that is entrepreneurial thinking and critical skills, approaches and innovation. Paul Jerde, Executive Director for the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship, Leeds School of Business at CU Boulder gives the credit to his team and his predesessors. Last year, MBA enrollments were up 60% and still climbing. Paul went onto explain," We launched the “Sustainable Venturing Initiative. We then launched the “Clean Tech Venture Challenge”, a business plan competition in the clean tech sustainable space, and began to do a number of other programs." The Clean Tech Challenge is really a program element of the Sustainable Opportunity Summit. The operative word in the name of this summit is 'opportunity'. Sustainability in the past may have been thought of as something having to do with environment and regulatory threats, but what’s happened today is businesses are looking at it as a necessary element of creating and pursuing opportunities and that is what the Summit (SOS) is all about. listen now.... LISTEN 2/11/08

444_ Imagination, Innovation, Invention: Your Ultimate Expression

Imagine tackling the problem of making cavities or pores that are one nanometer or smaller so that we could do things to molecules on the same size and scale on which they exist. Dr. Douglas Gin, Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado and the Gin Research Group actually made membranes with uniform pore sizes that are less than 1 nanometer, to do things like clean salt out of water, to clean small molecules, contaminants out of water – and even to remove really small molecules, toxic chemical warfare agents out of the air, but to still allow water, vapor or sweat to go through in a very, very selective fashion. Doug said, "What I think is really great is working with people like Dave Allen and the people at CU TTO. They’ve really wanted us to pursue this work and they’ve been very supportive in getting these ideas patented and getting them to the right people to begin evaluating them for real commercial applications. It took coming to Colorado to work with the Chemistry Department and the Chemical Engineering Department as well as working with some local startup companies and technology development companies in the Colorado area that allowed me to do, what I considered the ultimate expression of what we tried to do with our nano force material over a decade ago. 2/18/08  LISTEN

Related Links: Gin Research Group || CU TTO Award Photos || CU TTO Channel || CU Tech Transfer Office || Nanofiltration Membrane   Keywords: Douglas Gin, Nano, CU, Tech Transfer, Gin Research Group, David Allen, Nanofiltration > Bytes: 18650491 LISTEN

443_ Venture Capital, Angel Investors and Getting Involved The Rockies Venture Club annual meeting has been the place to connect with others creating Colorado success stories. For nearly twenty years, through many market cycles, the CCC has been a great place to connect with others starting and growing Colorado-based technology businesses. Jim Franklin started with RVC in 1992 with no contacts and is now the President of RVC and has a robust Colorado technology network. Hear Jim Franklin tell his story of how the contacts he made at RVC -- and the CCC in particular -- have resulted in 100x return to shareholders, 100+ jobs in Colorado and an economic impact of over $100M to the state of Colorado. Jim feels the key is to get involved. When I first showed up and didn’t know anyone, I just raised my hand and said, ‘how can I help?’. I started off on the government affairs committee where I met Eric Weissmann, who is the founder of Decisioneering. About two years later, I became the CFO of Decisioneering and that was the company that I ultimately became CEO of and we sold to Oracle with a very successful exit. RVC has the Colorado Capital Conference coming up on May 22, 2008 – a true showcase event. Jim shares some great networking advice... 2/18/08  LISTEN

Related Links: Colorado Capital Conference|| Crystal Ball || Rockies Venture Club || Entrepreneur Channel ||   Keywords: Jim Franklin, Crystal Ball,Decisioneering, Colorado Capital Summit, Oracle, Entrepreneurs, Rockies Venture Club, Technology > Bytes: 12860084 LISTEN

440_ Going From Yoga to High-Tech: From Yokohama to Boulder

Her first business was a yoga studio in Yokohama, Japan. Gwen Bell, a serial entrepreneur went on to explain; After 3 years she realized she needed a web site and so she entered the world of “tech”. Since then she has created a small design firm and ended up doing blogging, branding, all sorts of work in the tech world. Today she is a member of the TechStar team.
      The TechStars success rate has been extraordinary. In 2007, seven of the ten team have done either venture or angel funding. It would be wonderful to get a team of women hooked up with TechStars. Now based in Boulder, that is exactly what Gwen is focused on accomplishing. David Cohen and the other founders of TechStars are delighted to have a person like Gwen working on this. This is a wonderful opportunity with a number of perks...$10 - 15,000, surrounded by incredible mentors from Boulder to the Silicon Valley and tons more support as well as connections. The application to apply takes only a few minutes to complete...do it now! 2/11/08  LISTEN

Related Links: TechStars Home || Apply Now || Entrepreneur Channel || GwenBell.com   Keywords: Gwen Bell, TechStars, Entrepreneurs, David Cohen, Startups, Mentoring > Bytes: 8519160 LISTEN

438_ Economic Development a Key to Making Important Decisions

He came from New Orleans with the Katrina refugees, after spending some time in Boston as a visiting professor at MIT, he landed here in Colorado just after co-founding a couple companies. Dr. Michael Larson, Professor of mechanical & aeronautic engineering and El Pomar Chair of Engineering and Innovation had many choices before deciding to come to CITTI. Before taking the position, with his desire to develop ideas that he would come up with, but also to help others do the same, it was very important to him that if he was at a university, the Tech Transfer office would take a very progressive view toward stimulating that kind of activity among the faculty. Michael talked with David Allen and many of his staff and found that really is the case. He appreciated the help they are giving him now and also just their general attitude toward economic development role that the university can play. Dr. Larson was awarded the New Inventor of the year, Colorado Springs Award by CU TTO. There are many facinating ideas for economic development in this interview and Mind Studios is one of them. 2/11/08  LISTEN

Related Links: UCCS: Engineering & Applied Science || Mind Studios || CU TTO Award Photos || CU TTO Channel || CU Tech Transfer Office   Keywords: Michael Larson, UCCS, Mind Studios, Mothers of Invention, CUTTO > Bytes: 19514830 LISTEN