Innovation in a Recession

McKinsey beat me to it! I just wrote a blog for Soapbox about innovation in Cincinnati that will hit your inbox some Tuesday in January. Interestingly enough, the big brains at McKinsey wrote an article that used a similar metric to track innovation, patent applications.

Harvard's Tom Nicholas did an analysis on innovation in downturns, using patent applications in the 1930s as an example. Unfortunately, during the Great Depression, patent applications slowed significantly as investment in R&D was reduced and people took fewer risks.

If necessity is the mother of invention, now is the time to invent!

To read Tom's full article on Innovation Lessons from the 1930s, visit McKinsey at: http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Strategy/Innovation/Innovation_lessons_from_the_1930s_2266

Microsoft makes software free to start-ups

Weekender Alex Keenan found a great deal on Microsoft software.

According to IT Business Edge, "Microsoft’s newly launched BizSpark program is looking to kindle the esteem of some small business owners across the globe.

According to CNET News, the initiative will be open to private companies that have been in business less than three years and bring in less than $1 million in yearly revenue. Eligible organizations must be nominated by a Microsoft partner company. Participants in the program will have free access to production licenses and technical support for several Microsoft products, such as Visual Studio, Windows Server, SQL Server and Sharepoint, reports Computerworld. The licenses are free for the first three years, after that the companies in the program will have to pay."

See the rest of the article here: http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/hdw/?p=3508

Google's CEO talks about innovation, competition, and Google

In this video interview with James Manyika of McKinsey, Google's Eric Schmidt talks about everything from competition, to innovation, to global issues surrounding the future of the internet.

A few highlights:

Schmidt starts off his view of the future, asking the question: "If people have infinitely powerful personal devices, connected to infinitely fast networks, connected to infinitely fast server rooms... What will they do?" His take: these super devices will allow the consumer to make decisions easier and faster, fundamentally change how companies market to consumers, and considerably speed up the rate of change in the world. No matter how powerful, he notes, they won't replace human insight.

In his interview, he stresses that while marketing to the long tail can be profitable, catering to the 'head' is still important. In fact, contrary to some of Chris Anderson's work, he believes that hits will become Super Hits as a result of the global reach of the internet.

He also talks about management at Google and how critical it is to keep an open, loosely organized culture to sustain innovation, avoiding siloed divisions. He also stresses the importance of deadlines to get things done ("otherwise you're a University"), and views created crises as tools to get through the knothole. (Hmm... crises that are artificially created? Crazy deadlines? Sounds like InOneWeekend!)

His take on work-life balance? There is no balance. Executives that will do really well in his view love the crises.

Probably most interesting are his comments about policing the internet and the potentially tragic balkanization of the internet. Different countries have different laws... how do we stay connected without building police states around our internets?

To see the video of McKinsey's whole interview with Eric Schmidt, click here: http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Googles_view_on_the_future_of_business_An_interview_with_CEO_Eric_Schmidt_2229?pagenum=1#interactive_google_schmidt

Celebrating 50 Years of Computing History

If you had the chance to attend Judy Estrin's talk a few weeks ago about her book Closing the Innovation Gap, then you heard quite a bit of solid information about the need to strengthen the basic research infrastructure in the US. In her book, Estrin lobbies for a renewed focus in the US on basic research that allows breakthroughs, like the Internet, that require 30 years to incubate. As the US competes with the rest of the world we compete with the massive populations of India and China that, due to their sheer size, have more honors students than the US has students. We need a strengthened infrastructure to build a strategic workforce and not just a commodity workforce.

The University of Cincinnati will host the conference Celebrating 50 Years of Computing History next week, November 10th and 11th. At this conference you will have the chance to hear from some of the original researchers that made the breakthroughs that allow computing as we know it today. You'll also have the opportunity to understand some of the foundations that Estrin discusses and just what the scope of basic research is.

- Andy

Don't forget rural society

The McKinsey Quarterly just came out with a great article about entrepreneurship - in rural India and China - and how important rural society is to overall economic growth. A sharp contrast is drawn between China's approach in developing investing in its agrarian villages and India's still poverty-stricken outlands.

Excerpts from Tarun Khanna’s article:

“In China, for instance, the government actively spurred the village economy, largely through agricultural-reform measures implemented during the 1980s.”

“India, however, has not. The nation’s government has failed to invest in its villages. The farmers who sold their produce in a mandi in Bangalore live a daily struggle for existence in their home villages. Today, 89 percent of all rural households do not own a telephone, and 52 percent have no domestic power connection. The average village is two kilometers away from an all-weather road, and 20 percent of rural habitations must walk for miles to obtain safe drinking water, have access to it for only a few hours a day for much of the year, or have no access at all.”

“Instead, India should seek to empower its villagers and nurture entrepreneurial activity, while also taking advantage of its strengths in the private sector. Corporations need a seat at the table of village reform—even multinationals, because the task of reform is so enormous. Outright foreign direct investment, by Düsseldorf-based Metro AG, for example, should be welcome, as should joint ventures, like the one between Bharti Enterprises and Wal-Mart Stores. Such businesses, together with local ones, can lay the foundations for a modern agricultural supply chain linking the village farmer with the urban market.

Only then will India, and not just its global cities, rise.”

About the Author
Tarun Khanna is the Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at Harvard Business School and author of Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India are Reshaping Their Futures and Yours, published in 2008 by Harvard Business School Press and Penguin Books India. This is an adaptation by the author of a broader perspective on India and China that appeared originally in an online publication of the Center for the Study of Globalization at Yale University.

You can read the full article here:

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Nurturing_entrepreneurship_in_Indias_villages_2237

Net net: don't forget about rural economies! In fact, according to the USDA, rural America is home to a fifth (49 million) of the nation's people, comprises over 2000 counties, and accounts for 75 percent of the America's land.

- Elizabeth

Obama’s support of start-ups and technology

Now that the results are in, let’s take a look at what’s in store for start-ups and technology. The following is from the economic section of Obama’s website, much of which focuses on investment and incentives for technology.

You can view his entire economic policy here: http://origin.barackobama.com/issues/economy/index.php


Technology, Innovation and Creating Jobs

Barack Obama and Joe Biden will increase federal support for research, technology and innovation for companies and universities so that American families can lead the world in creating new advanced jobs and products.

Invest in the Sciences: Barack Obama and Joe Biden support doubling federal funding for basic research and changing the posture of our federal government from being one of the most anti-science administrations in American history to one that embraces science and technology. This will foster home-grown innovation, help ensure the competitiveness of US technology-based businesses, and ensure that 21st century jobs can and will grow in America.

Make the Research and Development Tax Credit Permanent: Barack Obama and Joe Biden want investments in a skilled research and development workforce and technology infrastructure to be supported here in America so that American workers and communities will benefit. Obama and Biden want to make the Research and Development tax credit permanent so that firms can rely on it when making decisions to invest in domestic R&D over multi-year timeframes.

Deploy Next-Generation Broadband: Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we can get broadband to every community in America through a combination of reform of the Universal Service Fund, better use of the nation's wireless spectrum, promotion of next-generation facilities, technologies and applications, and new tax and loan incentives.

Support Small Business

Provide Tax Relief for Small Businesses and Start Up Companies: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will eliminate all capital gains taxes on start-up and small businesses to encourage innovation and job creation. Obama and Biden will also support small business owners by providing a $500 “Making Work Pay” tax credit to almost every worker in America. Self-employed small business owners pay both the employee and the employer side of the payroll tax, and this measure will reduce the burdens of this double taxation.

Create a National Network of Public-Private Business Incubators: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will support entrepreneurship and spur job growth by creating a national network of public-private business incubators. Business incubators facilitate the critical work of entrepreneurs in creating start-up companies. Obama and Biden will invest $250 million per year to increase the number and size of incubators in disadvantaged communities throughout the country.

Venture funding cut backs... and start up opportunities?

This is a great article from The Economist about venture capital funds cutting back and how start-ups are reacting with layoffs. You can always count on the Economist to be balanced... This author points out that the start-ups who DO survive Armageddon will benefit from fewer competitors. There's a whole Inc. magazine issue from earlier this fall that profiles companies that did well starting up during recessions. The net net: no more sweet VC deals with a simple powerpoint - start thinking of businesses that can gain traction with limited capital (maybe your own?).

See the whole article - with nifty pictures and graphs - here: http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12474626

Fright night in the valley
Oct 23rd 2008 SAN FRANCISCO From The Economist print edition

Having learnt from the dotcom bust, technology entrepreneurs hope to stay afloat this time around

HALLOWEEN is still a week away, but homes throughout Silicon Valley are already adorned with images of witches, skeletons and assorted ghouls and gargoyles. Horror stories have also been plentiful in the Valley, courtesy of the region’s high-tech companies. On October 21st Yahoo! said it would cut its staff of around 15,000 by at least a tenth. Given the internet firm’s woes—its third-quarter profit fell by 64%, to $54m, as online advertising withered—the cuts were perhaps inevitable. Equally striking has been a wave of lay-offs at much smaller start-up companies, which are bracing themselves for a coming recession.Unlike firms in most other industries, which have not seen a severe downturn since the early 1990s, tech companies still bear the scars of the dotcom bust of 2001. The folk that ran them then learnt painful lessons that many of today’s entrepreneurs appear to have taken on board—and that managers in other companies would do well to reflect on. Chief among them are the importance of swift and deep cost-cutting; of focusing scarce resources on core activities; and of convincing investors that your business strategy is a winner.

Given that entrepreneurs tend to be tireless optimists, even experienced hands need a scare. And they are getting it from the venture-capital outfits that have backed many fledgling firms. Sequoia Capital, a leading investor in start-ups, began a recent presentation to bosses of companies in which it owns a stake with a Halloween-style image of a gravestone carrying the words “R.I.P. Good Times”. Sequoia went on to urge the executives to cut costs fast so that their firms would not run out of money before becoming profitable. Other venture capitalists are echoing its message. “Rule number one is to take immediate measures so you can stay in the game,” says Mike Speiser of Sutter Hill Ventures, another VC firm.

Life will be hardest for the many start-ups that are still in the red. Those that need more capital soon will get it only at a very high price if they can get it at all, as venture capitalists tighten their purse strings. According to the National Venture Capital Association, a trade group, and PricewaterhouseCoopers, a consultancy, VC firms provided $7.1 billion of funding in the third quarter of this year, but are likely to cut that amount in coming months.

Venture capitalists are feeling the pinch too. They are finding it harder to unload the stakes they own in start-ups. Big companies which are themselves short of cash are extremely wary of splashing out on the minnows in VC firms’ portfolios. At the same time, investors are shunning initial public offerings of venture-backed firms (see chart), which have fallen to their lowest level since 1977. Experts reckon that the market may remain comatose until at least the end of next year.

All this explains why the bosses of several start-ups have started to wield a big axe. Redfin, an online property-broker, and AdBrite, a web-based advertising network, which both had about 100 employees, have slashed their headcount by 20% and 40% respectively this month. Pandora, a music-streaming business, and Searchme, a visual search engine, are among the rapidly growing collection of other start-ups that have also announced job losses. Deep cuts like these may be painful in the short-term, but they are better both for profits and morale than repeated rounds of small lay-offs. In 2001 many firms trimmed too little, too late.

Of course, slashing the workforce now may not make sense for some start-ups. Those focused on areas such as gaming and health care, which may be less vulnerable to a recession, are likely to keep hiring. And companies making big lay-offs could still add new heads in some areas. Announcing a 25% cut in staff numbers at Zillow, another property-related website, Rich Barton, the company’s chief executive, said in a blog posting that the firm would still hire people in ad sales and other revenue-generating roles.

Another useful strategy is to shed projects that are not central to a start-up’s business. Executives at Jive Software, which produces online collaboration tools for corporate clients, say it is now far better at scrapping initiatives that do not seem to be paying off. Once these have been placed on a “kill list”, there is no further discussion about them. In the past the lack of a formal process for canning ideas meant that many lived on, absorbing time and resources better spent elsewhere.

Elon Musk, boss of Tesla Motors, a start-up that recently began producing an electric sports car, learnt useful lessons from the dotcom bust. He steered PayPal through the early days of the shakeout by maintaining a focus on its core online-payments business and by ditching plans to develop other offerings. Thanks to this discipline, PayPal continued to grow and sold itself to eBay in July 2002. At Tesla Motors, he has delayed plans to add an electric sedan to its product-range from 2010 to mid-2011 so that the company can concentrate more resources on improving margins on its existing car and on expanding its profitable business of building powertrains for other carmakers—a decision partly inspired by his experience at PayPal.
Mr Musk is also trimming jobs at Tesla. “You need to show investors that you have been super-frugal with their money,” he says. More than ever, entrepreneurs need to be able to reassure VC firms on the basic principle that their business models can in future throw off far more cash than investors have pumped into their firms. Mike Kwatinetz of Azure Capital Partners, a VC firm, reckons that many of what he calls “carpetbagger entrepreneurs”—inexperienced youngsters who turned up in Silicon Valley in recent years with a view to getting rich quick—will come a cropper in the downturn because they do not have the foggiest idea of how to turn a profit. Yet Mr Kwatinetz is bullish about the prospects for those start-ups that manage to survive the crisis. They will face a much less crowded field and their managers will have honed their moneymaking skills in the harshest of all environments. He is on the lookout for firms that could become the next Bill Me Later, which Azure Capital bought into in 2001. Founded the previous year, the company lets internet users make online purchases without using a credit card. After surviving several ups and downs, it was sold to eBay on October 6th for some $945m. It is such Croesus-like sums that make start-ups worth all the toil and trouble.

Cincinnati City Manager Gets It: See his post on Soapbox

I just had to share this post by Milton Dohoney, City Manager of Cincinnati. I've had the opportunity to hear him speak on occasion and have found him to be extremely articulate and innovative - in his support of LEED (Green Building) Tax Incentives for Cincinnati - and here in his perspective on the importance of entrepreneurship in the long term economic growth of our region. He recognizes that headquarters that sustain our economy are not imported, rather they are mostly created by local founders.

See the actual post on Soapbox here: http://www.soapboxmedia.com/blogs/posts/1bmiltondohoney38.aspx#comments


SoapBlog 1 - Ideas + Determination + Affinity = HQs

Posted By: Milton Dohoney, City Manager, 11/4/2008

People with even a passing knowledge of Cincinnati can easily recite that we have professional sports teams and they might know that we are bordered by a river. They are aware of the universities, but they could guess that because one would logically assume a major city would have various institutions of higher learning. When those who are only remotely familiar take a closer look, either by visiting us or doing a web search, they are genuinely surprised by the number of corporate headquarters (HQs) that are located here.

Major Corporate HQs are a significant asset for our community and when we talk about luring other HQ operations here, everybody sees that as a good thing. What’s not to like about expanding the skyline as well as bringing jobs, investment, and new talent to expand our capacity. The Regional Chamber, the City’s Economic Development Office and others charged with growing our pie of prosperity are primed to move towards any viable leads.

If you research company headquarters around the country and probe why they came to be in those places to begin with, you will find that many of them are in city x because their founders are from those cities. They grew up there or came there for college, developed an idea for a product, were determined to make it a reality, and because they liked the city where they lived, they launched their new enterprise there. So from the basement, garage, or virtual office a once budding enterprise blossomed into a giant corporate presence. In the beginning they probably had a healthy dose of skeptics that the ideas being put forth would ever explode but that scenario has been repeated over and over throughout the annals of business lore. I read just the other day about the two young men who began Google in their city with a $100,000 investment from someone who believed their idea could work and now both young men are each worth $19 billion. Hmmm.

So while we are roving the universe looking for corporations who have outgrown the space, talent pool, politics of their current home or simply need a new strategic location to continue the growth of their company, we must also cast an eye towards Price Hill, Carthage, Hyde Park, and Mt. Washington. While we’re at it let’s check in with UC, Xavier, NKU, and our research hospitals to find people who are developing intellectual properties that can be spun off into the future Humanas, Scripps, or Procter & Gambles.

We need local people bitten by the entrepreneurial bug who have ideas that can be translated into viable products or services that can be sold in the global marketplace. We need them to have the determination that they will not accept anything less than success. And we need them to love Cincinnati and have a desire to take their talent and let it flourish right here in the Queen City. While the naked eye might be tempted to dismiss the 5 or 10 person operation starting out, the visionary will see it as the 5 or 10 thousand person HQ 15 years from now. Admittedly, we may be able to lure someone here in less time than that, but you can never underestimate the true impact of a homegrown headquarters that has an affinity for where they are located.

For all of that to happen of course, our climate must include venture capitalists, angels, creative legal support, and systems that strive for fluid functioning not status quo mentalities. As we labor to recruit companies and grow companies, the talent that accompanies it will also help us to expand the culture, synergy, and can do spirit that any progressive city needs.

There is room in Cincinnati for a headquarters epidemic. The thing is, the person whose hand you shook in that business meeting last week in one of our neighborhoods or in downtown just may hold the key to help make that a reality.

Great Local Start-up News – Soapbox Media

If you’re trying to stay current on innovation & entrepreneurship news in Cincinnati, try subscribing to the always free and always relevant Soapbox Media e-magazine. Every Tuesday they push great features on start-ups and other topics out to thousands of readers. They were also one of the first to report on InOneWeekend.

Check it out: http://www.soapboxmedia.com/
Email Sign up: http://www.soapboxmedia.com/about/signup.aspx

Great Logo Development

Steve just ran across this site and I wanted to share it with everyone - http://logotournament.com/ - it's a logo design site that's perfect for start-ups.

This site allows you to submit an amount (example $300), a time limit (example 7 days), and a few characteristics from their guidelines (feminine, simple, colorful, sporty, modern, serious) to freelance designers who compete with multiple designs - using your comments on their drafts! It speeds up the creative process for logo design and is a great way to get an inexpensive first-round logo professionally developed.

For a great example, click on My Scorecard (one of the projects). This is Steve's friend's logotournament - pretty cool.

If you have other helpful sites for the group... let us know!

Closing the Innovation Gap

A number of InOneWeekenders along with a sizable group of regional entrepreneurs gathered at Via Vite Saturday for lunch to discuss Judy Estrin's book, Closing The Innovation Gap. Great discussion. I'm looking forward to digging into the book. Rather than rehash a number of ideas again, you can read my synopsis of Estrin's thoughts here.

I did want to bring up a couple of important ideas that Estrin surfaced during the course of our discussion. Innovation comes from teams much more than from individuals. To that end, someone asked how important diversity is to innovation. The generally accepted answer is "very," and Estrin agreed. She put a spin on the response, though, and added, "not for the reasons you would think."

Diversity is important, but that diversity is particular. In particular, cognitive diversity is important to innovation. Bringing together broad perspectives and experiences adds much more value to the innovative process. Sure, that probably means gender, racial, and ethnic diversity, but not simply because of the color of our skin. It is our collective experience that adds value.

I immediately thought back to our July weekend and could see how all of our participation in InOneWeekend brought together people that would otherwise never have met. We shared and contributed our broad experiences to a collective effort that none of us could have accomplished alone.

- Andy

Have you heard about Wallstick?

What do your walls say about You? Philanthropist and entrepreneur, Meredith Holthaus, thinks they could say so much more. Wallstick, a large format true-color adhesive print, allows you to take personal and meaningful moments and easily display them on your wall. To take the idea to the next level, Meredith leveraged relationships created during InOneWeekend to generate a plan.

With the kickoff of InOneAfternoon, a number of entrepreneurs came together for two hours of brainstorming and planning. The outcome produced a number of Wallstick ideas to support Holthaus' efforts and the structure for a format that allows entrepreneurs to regularly support each others' efforts. InOneWeekend showed us that a group of 100 can quite deeply and thoroughly vet an idea and create a business plan in one weekend in a way that a solitary business owner might not be able to do in 3 or 4 years. Does the same hold true for smaller or more focused efforts? I think so. Meredith walked away with a number of new ideas.

What I think this means for the Cincinnati entrepreneur community is that our efforts will become more and more visible to each other and the larger community. The top down efforts like Cincinnati's Agenda 360 to unite and direct regional growth efforts are necessary. Approaching regional growth from the bottom up with efforts like InOneWeekend and InOneAfternoon round out a full set of offerings that will inject some vibrant energy into the local community and regional economy. The region has a lot of great people looking to make a difference, and efforts like InOneWeekend and InOneAfternoon provide a forum to bring many of these people together.

- Andy

Posted using ShareThis

[Reference] Terrific Article on Web-based Photo/Album Experiences

http://mashable.com/2008/08/12/tools-for-viewing-photos-online/

For anyone who is looking for a great blog to follow as 'web 2.0' entrepreneur - Mashable.com is your best resource for measuring up your competition and staying on top of the newest services.

The link above showcases online photo viewing websites - there may be some great concepts for us to integrate in Lifespoke.

-R

Tearing Down To Build Up

How do you get 100 driven, motivated, energized leaders, all with their own ideas, moving in the same direction? You send ‘em to boot camp and hand ‘em over to the drill sergeant.

That’s exactly what happened to us at InOneWeekend. Pretty much everyone has experienced creative brainstorming sessions that generate ideas where “no idea is a wrong idea.” Well, I’ll tell you that you can have wrong ideas and wrong approaches. And our drill sergeant made that clear within the first five minutes. No, scratch that. Within the first 60 seconds.

All we had to do was distribute some index cards among us. In 60 seconds. That’s it. And we got 10 points for doing so. There were four stacks of cards sitting on the table at the front of the room. Just get up out of our seats, pick up the cards, and start spreading them around. Make sure everyone got one. 60 seconds. 10 points. The clock started. We all – every last one of us – just sat there. For the first 10 seconds you could hear a pin drop outside of our facilitator yelling, “you can start now,” a couple of times. Our minds were not free. And all the “leaders” in the room were followers.

Here we were at an entrepreneurship event and we were waiting for someone to tell us what to do. Sheesh. The odds of a successful weekend plummeted. At least as we sat there individually in our seats.

Jeff Stamp facilitated the creative session and idea generation event. Jeff, an inventor and entrepreneur himself, taught entrepreneurship at the college level, a concept I always thought strange. I mean, how do you teach something that seems to need to be a part of a person’s character? This guy changed my mind by minute two.

Why did we just sit there? Well, Jeff had flashed a slide that said the person sitting in the third seat from the left in the third row needed to accomplish the task. Then another slide flashed that said to distribute the green cards, of which there were not enough to go around. We all waited for the third person from the left in the third row to figure out who he was. Fair enough – if you’re waiting for somebody else to change the world. The only task was to distribute the cards. The finish line to win the points was 60 seconds.

Distribute cards. 60 seconds. 10 points. Everything else should have been irrelevant. The third person from the left in the third row could have been any one of us depending on our frame of reference. And who cares what color the cards were.

Not only did Jeff break us down and create a bunch of followers out of a bunch of leaders, essentially putting us in our places, he then put the pieces back together and had us functioning in teams where the parts added up to much more than the whole. We were excited, bonded, with no more pride I might add, and generating an amazing number of great ideas.

Oh, there were those who tried to hold on to their egos, and, oh, were they shut down.

“But here is the problem with this approach…”

“NO PROBLEMS, JUST SOLUTIONS.”

“But I think…”

“NO TIME. MOVE ON.”

“But…but…”

We all moved on.

There would be no subversion of the team to anyone’s ego or agenda. A couple of hours later we had our concept in an online scrapbooking web site. We continued to break into different groups to brainstorm, rank, and share features, as our distributed groups collaborated using a Google Docs spreadsheet. We functioned as a team. And the team became “our” team as it strengthened through the weekend.

Amazing.

- Andy

InOneWeekend 2008 Keynote Part I

Click to Play

Roy Gilbert, Director of Global Operations for Google, kicked off the 2008 InOneWeekend event in Cincinnati! 100 people, 3 days, 1 startup

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov), Flash Video (.flv)

Tags: startup, innovation, venture capital, seed stage, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, creativity, cincinnati

InOneWeekend 2008 Keynote Part II

Click to Play

Roy Gilbert, Director of Global Operations for Google, kicked off the 2008 InOneWeekend event in Cincinnati! 100 people, 3 days, 1 startup

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov), Flash Video (.flv)

Tags: startup, innovation, venture capital, seed stage, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, creativity, cincinnati

InOneWeekend 2008 Keynote Part 3

Click to Play

Roy Gilbert, Director of Global Operations for Google, kicked off the 2008 InOneWeekend event in Cincinnati! 100 people, 3 days, 1 startup

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov), Flash Video (.flv)

Tags: startup, innovation, venture capital, seed stage, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, creativity, cincinnati

Congratulations to all

First I'd like to say congratulations to the participants of InOneWeekend. WOW! You all did a super job of pulling together and creating a fabulous new business with a wonderfully creative concept. No egos, no arguments, just a lot of teamwork and dedication.

Second I'd like to thank Elizabeth, Steven, Jeffrey, Bill, and everyone else on the IOW Board for all their hard work. The weekend was so well orchestrated and executed -- you made it look easy! However, the amount of work that went on behind the scenes was no less than superhuman. Applause to everyone!!!

This weekend was a first for the Greater Cincinnati region, but I sincerely hope it will not be the last. We need this type of support for nascent entrepreneurs and InOneWeekend is a much-needed tool for the economic development of this area.

I'm looking forward to the next chapter in the story of Lifespoke.com -- the first few steps in the journey of a successful tech start-up.

Below is a link to the story that appeared in Friday's edition of the Cincinnati Business Courier. It is a great story and one that deserves to be told and retold for years.

http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2008/07/21/story6.html?b=1216612800^1670376

How did I miss the press release???

I'm curious to read the Lifespoke press release. Can someone post the URL?

Thanks

There is No Finish Line, the Journey is the Reward

We are now a T+7 days after the phenomenal InOneWeekend event -- and without a doubt, the event exceeded everyone's expectations. The title for this post is from a poster I received when I was at Apple Computer in the late 80's -- and it clearly rings true for InOneWeekend. It did not end on Sunday and for 100 people, their journey continues, hopefully much richer and more interesting than before.

LifeSpoke.com will continue to form and evolve with the help of all IOW's. More importantly, there are 100 people who are more aware, more confident and more energized about how start-ups work. It is not rocket science -- it is elbow grease - physical and intellectual -- that creates companies. Now there are 100 people who are ready to try it out.

There are 100 people that have learned to fail fast (we did it many times over the weekend.) Here are three quotes that illustrate the core of InOneWeekend:

"I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward."
Thomas Edison

"Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must first be overcome."
Samuel Johnson

"The follies which a man regrets most, in his life, are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity"
Helen Rowland (1876 - 1950), A Guide to Men, 1922

One final note. This was an incredible team effort. It may seem that some contributed more than others and vice versa. But there was no scorecard about the number of ideas, who coded the most lines of code and who put in the most hours. Your presence at the event was valued! The measure of success lies in the future. Did LifeSpoke.com succeed? How many derivative ideas, companies, start-ups, efforts came out of this weekend. Is Cincinnati better than it was before July 11, 2008?

These questions do not necessarily need to be answered -- but for all of them, I believe the answer is very positive.

Good luck on your journey!

My best birthday gift ever

Firstly, I must really thank the organizers and the event facilitators for such a wonderful event. I am a graduate student in University of Cincinnati. Entrepreneurship had been a distant dream to me for quite sometime now. Things suddenly changed on July 11th when my friend and fellow participant told me that there was a vacancy to join the group for InOneWeekend. The best part was that this happened on my 25th birthday. I got the best gift ever.... the opportunity to be a part of something big!! :)

To begin with I was quite doubtful whether 100 people can really come together and zero in on a single idea. The brain storming sessions were awesome. It was amazing to see people come up with creative ideas. This thrilled me and motivated me. When "LivingHistory.com" (the idea which recieved max votes and an idea which set the core purpose of LifeSpoke) was born on Friday 11:50pm, I was quite frankly excited and also unsure whether we can proceed to the next phase. Then the Saturday morning brainstorming sessions set a path for what we needed to do. It felt great to see things shaping up. By Sunday evening, it was all set and the presentations by various teams were so professional and it was hard to believe at the end of the day that I really had been a part of something big and something different.

I had come to this event with a motto to learn how a company can be set up. I might not have given real contributions to the company so far, but I have learnt a lot of things. As a student, I can take back lot of these experiences like interacting with enterpreneurs, being in team meetings, brain storming, voting, team work and so on..... invaluable lessons learnt in just 3 days. By far the best birthday gift I ever got..... thanks a lot for the opportunity :)

Hoping to contribute more in the immediate future. :)

Kapil

AND THANK YOU!!!!

And I got so carried away posting my experience that my exuberance made me forget the most important part:

THANK YOUs!!!! ... to Elizabeth for creating the opportunity, to Steve and the Board for supporting her vision, for "GOOGLE Roy" for a great kick-off speech, for Jeff Stamp's excellent facilitation, for all the student assistants, and for U.C. for putting up the facility.

Sincerely,
Pamla Winther

Pamla's Experience w/ InOneWeekend

As I clean house and get personal things in order this weekend that were down-prioritized last to make room for InOneWeekend, a video of last weekend is replaying in my head. I have - while vacuuming and scrubbing - found myself smiling and laughing right out loud as I reminisce the amazing exercise IOW provided. Here are key points I find noteworthy:

- We were 100 driven, opinionated people, and yet quickly after ONE idea (of a few dozen) was selected as "it", we acquiesced and threw ourselves into business groups that embraced the new business and got our arms all around it. We were more interested in a positive outcome than our own egos.

- We worked HARD. And food, and sleep, and personal things really did fade into the background as we prioritized getting the goal we had set for ourselves, accomplished.

- Individually, our diverse contributions came out initially in the context of who we 'usually' are or what we 'normally' contribute. In record time, because of the dynamic of the group setting and the insane timeline, I found myself digging deeper and trying to act and react differently than I typically do under pressure. I came away with a commitment to relax and enjoy the journey from here on out, more than the destination. (Thanks "team Mgmnt/Ops"!)

- I people-watched and anlayzed myself ....and we would have a ball during some parts, then turn right around and struggle with elements of the process because the timeline was simply too short for the kind of 'correctness' we are used to providing when we are assigned a block of work....like making the numbers work in Finance, or calculating accurate Sales projections, or Mgmnt/OPS' dilemna of envisioning the business development over three phases and the personnel needed for that (Launch! w/ a Committee; Phase 1 w/ 3 people; Phase 2 w/10+ people) - only to find that Sales had a different picture in mind of staffing?! And what about that market research? We had to S - T - R - E - T - C - H and remember it was, after all, a 3 day exercise.

- We discovered the 'product', we named the baby, and the super tech team (few, yet effective) gave us a gorgeous "UI". We did that in record time. I was/am tickled to be a part of that whole team. I'm grateful for the ones I worked closely with and sorry I did not get to know others of you, better. As a direct result of IOW, I have begun to develop some new, value adding friendships...some of which will inevitably lead to business opportunities.

I highly suggest every city try an "InOneWeekend" to create their list of 80+ great new entrepreneurial ideas to go after!

The 30 second ad that Evan's friend, Dan, helped me produce in "Garage Band" needs cleaned up before it can be an icon or stream from the website. (Everyone I know in studios was on vacation this week!) Once it is cleaned up, I'll shoot it back to Steering Committee so they can determine whether it qualifies to be put up at the website or not. Hey....free advertising!

So we did this without a paycheck. WE PAID TO BE THERE. That defines the entrepreneur, though the very financial freedom that enables us to keep innovating must be the successes we achieve. Let's (all) make LifeSpoke a success over the next year, so we stay plugged into what we began as a group.

Important 'Aha' for me: I kept wanting more "givens" from the onset of our project, but I also realized that without those we had the opportunity to see who the natural leaders were - not that everything said and done is etched in steel and 100% correct and the way forward. Nonetheless, because no standards or frameworks were prescribed, folks took turns stepping up and making assumptions and drawing conclusions and setting a precedent - none of which would
have had wings if a framework and 'givens' were handed to us from the onset. I realized (sometime Sunday) that it was the PROCESS we were enjoying (or not) and learning from and that all the particulars that must be addressed to make LifeSpoke a viable, profitable business will come in due time, sooner than later, but not in those first three days. We did plenty. Breathe.

I would do it again. I would do it again with all of you. It would be very interesting to see what we as a group would improve, were we to do this a second time (Elizabeth? Steve?......)

Warm regards,
Pamla Winther, HOPS Technology Inc.
513.207.1441

Volunteers & School Supplies Needed

Hi Everybody!! Wanna help children and youth in Over the Rhine and the West End go back to school with everything they need? Please help by coming to Washington Park for the Over the Rhine Festival on 8/2/08 and to our back 2 cool school supply give away on 8/23/08.We need supplies bookbags and most of all VOLUNTEERS. Please let me know how you can help. Peace and Blessings, Vanessa Sparks 513-365-4764

Tom's post

Tom Terrific said...
Observations...there are many. Here are my top three:

1) Equal parts imagination, energy and passion get you a simmering, quivering ball of potential. Toss in direction, support and a sense of urgency and you get incredible results.

2) To be truly effective, you have to have people and process that address the friction points between departments. Otherwise, the machine slows and progress is overestimated.

3) Regardless of circumstance, leaders emerge.
July 19, 2008 5:36 AM

Bryan C's post

freeagent said...
Absolutely fasinatingly Amazing...So many came together as the "Force of One". "True Grit of Humanity's Core Ability.Bryan CHey all, glad to feel like my days are back on track, only to meet the heat... Been having monsterous energy drink and social interaction withdrawals. For sure, one awesome event I am proud to have been a part of. I suppose I served the event in a free agent capacity, asking where help was needed and filling the gaps from a-z not to mention, adding in a little inspiration into each group. Have to say, saturday morning was questionable to me to continue, I looked at the picture of the puzzle pieces and asked myself what could I do to inspire and be an intrical part with everyone in making this into something really worthy. After a few self doubts and minutes and a hard look inward, I pressed onward, sipped another mocha monster and was instantly locked once I felt the potential and character of everyone present and entering the same spoke of the wheels of life. It should never be the issue of not getting ones ideas illuminated but to illuminate an idea into a single combined force and focus on the build at hand. Reminds me of barn raising as a child, yes, I am that young and found I can still run circles around you all 20 somethings....still and mostly, I super enjoyed the meta and mental battery recharge from all the energy (moster drinks too)and most of all, to see who it was that would take my generations place in the reality net of the world. After all, mark my words, it is soon to be a very different place...what is today, will be different tomorrow. and mostly, "For Every Door There Is A Key... I applaud each of you and thank you for your tolerating my presence and hope I gave a little touch to each somehow... I am ready to do this again but have to have just another week of recoup....lol...Prof. Jeff Stamp was excellent, Jeff, Hats off buddy, you welcome in my world anytime. It was a humanistic common sensory and feel he emits to allow people to open their own selves up to that which they each posses and know, far deep internally. He has such a manner so as to show a horse where the water is rather than leash lead, bait or push and is an ability I hold close myself and can identify with but most of all, very very excellent educationist, narrationist and guider by knowledge and inspiration, they simply have not created the words to explain his style and I'm glad, helps in providing the scene of instant apprehensions yet, was there every step of the way silently guiding from 0-omega. I can fully identy with his style and need to give people an ability to focus, if only for a second at a time or through an entire complex series of event, Jeff, I hope they did'nt break the mold after you...Steve B and Elizebeth E, I commend you for needing to show the world (and a group fo brightness) that this would somehow be different than anything else out there. Your energy's were that of staying with the crowd no matter what, hell or high waters, we were all going to create something, small or big, simply mattered most was to get the group(s)to feel the power as one...and so we did... I know there is no way you ever thought something like LifeSpoke would emerge and I have to say, I am glad to see it was not spin and truely is and will be a unique thing ever evolving. You guys did your part and I hope to keep one of the life long connected relations with you all, each and everyone... you have all soemhow breach my social closed life, you are my friends... Futurist and Visionary~IdeationistCheers,BC
July 18, 2008 12:45 PM

Reflections on the IOW Experience

As a participant in this inaugural InOneWeekend event, I thought I'd write up some thoughts on the experience and what it meant to me.

Getting ~100 Type-A personalities in one room to assume some semblance of structure was no mean feat, but Jeff Stamp directed the first evening to an impressively effective conclusion. Ideas may be cheap, but good ideas are invaluable. Surprisingly, we had quite a few really good ideas, which makes me think that Cincinnati might just be on the cusp of a new era of entrepreneurship.

Once the idea was selected, I fully expected a significant degree of defection from IOW by those who weren't convinced that it was a viable concept or felt disenfranchised by having their own pet idea discarded. I was amazed that nearly everyone returned Saturday morning to start in on the hard parts: business case development, technical production, market research, financial projections, and so forth...all the stuff that makes a business more than just a concept on a whiteboard.

When we divided ourselves into technical and business groups, it became pretty obvious that we were understaffed on the technology side. So, for our little rag-tag group of tech folks to have accomplished what they did in the time they were given was an impressive combination of coordination, prioritization, and pure brute-force coding.

Saturday seemed to move pretty fluidly, but I think those of us outside the web dev room didn't really appreciate the pace at which we were supposed to be working, as Sunday seemed very rushed to finalize a lot of bits right before the final presentation and wrap-up (I know I could have used another hour...or two...to tidy up the Powerpoint deck). However, at the end, I think most people in the room felt pretty great about what they had accomplished in about 34 hours of actual work time. I know I was astounded that so much order and creation could emerge from what looked like so much chaos.

Given that LifeSpoke, the result of our labors, is now a living, breathing "ongoing concern," it's hard for me to think about IOW as a complete experience...because it's not complete. We're continuing to build and plan and create with the hopes of establishing a brand new, successful venture organically grown from a "why not?" approach to entrepreneurship. But, if I try to evaluate the weekend on its own merits, my personal experience seems best described by a few words:

Connections: Meeting and working with people from all over the region with a dizzying array of backgrounds has introduced me to an entirely new network of relationships, gravid with promise and opportunity.

Adaptation: Working on a project that nobody could have prepared for in advance is exhiliarating, since it evens out skill and experience differences to some degree and greatly democratizes participation. Flexibility was rewarded and those who insisted on a preconceived notion of process or product were forced to evolve their thinking and compromise (at least with themselves) as the overall group moved forward.

Ownership: Ownership can be helpful if it engenders commitment to the end objective, and that's the sense I got from the IOW weekend. Ownership of ideas, however, can be an obstacle to compromise, and, thankfully, I didn't observe much of that at all. And that's an amazing thing given the nature of the motivated, successful, driven people that populated the event.

Diversity: As a business professor (operations management), I tend to focus on a subset of the concerns of the organizations that I work with and teach about. So, it's always amazing to be reminded of the full scope and range of skills and knowledge-sets needed to craft a business in all its glorious detail. From operational technologies to financial strategies to PR tactics and beyond, there is so much to be known and to do, and this group embodied that professional diversity. Also, there was tremendous social diversity in the room, which helped ensure that LifeSpoke wasn't merely something that would appeal to a small niche of like-minded, homogeneous professionals. Research on new service development has shown that team diversity is an important determinant of the success of the product being developed, and that bodes extremely well for LifeSpoke's potential.

The last question I heard people asking at the end of the event is this: "Would you do this again?" Most people were enthusiastic. While I personally think IOW represents an essential ingredient in the success of our region -- i.e., the nurturing of an innovative, entrepreneurial business community -- my response is tethered by more mundane responsibilities and is, therefore, fairly simple: ask my wife.

Looking back on InOneWeekend 2008

All I can say is wow. And thank you. And congratulations.

This was probably the most significant experience I’ve ever had – and believe me, I’ve had some. There is so much to say about the amazing people I met, what I experienced, and what it meant to me. I have more business theories and start-up ideas running around in my head right now that I just want to take a digital recorder and capture everything so that I don’t forget it. I’d write it, but I have also never been so tired before in my life. It’s a good tired. A happy tired.

We did it. LifeSpoke is launched and people are registering for Beta right now. I can’t wait to get a Beta invite (and I’d better, LifeSpoke guys - because I’m pretty sure my name is one of the first that registered) because I’ve seen the UI and how awesome it is and … just like my thoughts about InOneWeekend, I can’t wait to get all my stuff in one place.

Andy Erickson, one of the participants who worked mostly on the business model and industry part of the business plan, and a really insightful blogger who writes two major blogs as a profession, came over to my office the other day to do a podcast to capture the reason why we, the Board of InOneWeekend, decided to go with a non-profit model. He said it would take about 25 minutes. He lead with, “Why are you doing this?” We started at 5pm and wrapped up at 8pm. So many life experiences and professional experiences – the reasons why I believe InOneWeekend is the right model for inspiring new venture creation and regional economic growth - were bottled up inside and once I got them out, I just felt spent. And suddenly, de-stressed. I had been holding all of this in for so long and it just felt great to get all of those thoughts captured so that I could rest knowing that I wouldn’t forget something important. Really, the answer to that question is three things: I love innovation. I love entrepreneurs. And I love Cincinnati.

Through my experiences as an entrepreneurially-minded person, a strategy & innovation consultant, and a venture capitalist, I have come to certain conclusions about what works and what doesn’t. What is the most important thing for making a start-up work besides a great idea? Great people with shared values. And that’s what the Board of InOneWeekend is made up of. Great, brilliant people with shared values. Once I got them on board, everything else fell into place. We started in April and we put the event on in July. And it was incredible.
We invited everyone – students and professionals from all backgrounds – and 100 people built a company in 3 days. And that company, LifeSpoke, is absolutely amazing. www.lifespoke.com

We came together as strangers. We built a company in 3 days. How? I don’t even know where to start.

All I know is: I will never forget InOneWeekend 2008. I’ve learned more about people, about business, and about myself from this group than I have in the three years that I’ve been a venture capital investor. So, I’d like to say thank you. Thank you and I can’t wait to see you in August!

Cheers to you – you are the best – go InOneWeekend 2008 and go LifeSpoke!


Elizabeth

InOneWeekend