The INOV8 blog tracks the latest news and trends in technology and innovation throughout the world
From Jeff Amerine, IA advisor and officer with the University of Arkansas Technology Licensing Office:
Well folks, this is the first of a weekly blog series that will be posted every Thursday. In the spirit of not using real words that could be found in the dictionary, this weekly rant will be called “Techpreneurship.”
I define techpreneurship as “an incurable addiction to high stakes gambling with the hope that unproven bleeding-edge technology may change the world”…..And sometimes it does!
So who am I? My name is Jeff Amerine and I am a recovering seven-time serial techpreneur. If recovery is a 12-step process, I’ve reached about step 4. Part of my recovery process has included becoming a technology licensing officer for the University of Arkansas, an advisor for Innovate Arkansas, and an adjunct instructor in entrepreneurship for the Walton College of Business.
The transition has been therapeutic. My mission now is to ensure those that follow me in their addiction to techpreneurship avoid the land mines that I stepped on, and the outright boneheaded mistakes I made along the way.
This blog will highlight best practices, trends in fundraising, hot technology sectors, and real life stories of success and failure in the world of technology entrepreneurship. I hope those that take the time to read and follow the blog will challenge me at every step.
My opinions and perceptions are my own – so please fire away with your comments and remarks. Hopefully we can advance the understanding of this affliction known as “techpreneurship” together.
Well, enough of the introductions and background mush. This week I want to highlight a book I recently read by Web Ross of Little Rock. Web is a senior, seasoned executive with decades of experience in running a variety of heavy industrial businesses across the country.
Along the way, Web was a senior advisor, board member, an investor in two successful technology-based startups. Web decided a few years back that the time was right to capture these inspiring stories in a book entitled “Rescuing the American Dream – The Entrepreneur’s Way.” The book is an easy, engaging read that is hard to put down. It details the tenacity, character, teamwork, and luck required to build a viable technology-based business from scratch.
The book is more than a documentary or a cookbook. In my mind, the life lessons Web covers apply to any size business. The key messages of hard work, taking care of the team, service above self – all of these are messages we as Americans need to internalize, especially now.
I would encourage you to check out Web’s site at http://rescuingthedream.com and consider buying his book. If you are planning to do a tech startup, you’ll be glad you did. If you just want to be inspired by tales of “against all odds” success stories, this book is for you. Read it and let me know what you think.
Until next time..
Please share your thoughts, ideas or suggestions in comments. Learn more about Jeff here.
Thanks Jeff – I hope that your techpreneurship BLOG becomes popular throughout our Region.
Here were my Top 10 Takeaways from a panel, which was recently moderated by Janis Machala of Univ. Washington Tech Transfer Office. I thought that your techpreneurship BLOGers may appreciate her points:
10. Bringing together money, talented managers, and good engineers/scientists is a difficult task.
9. Some of the unpopular stereotypes of both scientists and business people have an unfortunate basis in the truth. Scientists can be tremendously naive, and often don’t realize that the technology they have is not a final product—and that a lot of development has to be done to bridge that gap from their lab to the market place.
8. The most important element to a successful company is a harmonious relationships between all the people involved. A company that recently spun out of the ultrasound toothbrush technology, even though the company raised about $23 million, infighting between management, the board and the employees destroyed this very sound technologically and financially company.
7. Even though the business people have all the money, everyone must treat the technical people nicely to succeed.
6. To be a good entrepreneur, a scientist or engineer must have a lot of enthusiasm about the commercialization process and be able to communicate about the technology at different levels of sophistication.
5. The scientist or engineer must also be willing to put their own money into the venture, and be willing to fight for success. Everyone needs persistence, passion and fire in their belly—to succeed.
4. When you have a technology or a value proposition and are taken out to a meal by a money person to discuss it, order good food, business people will respect you for it.
3. Biofuels will be important in the future, but not for a few more generations of technological progress, Desalination of water, which is prohibitively expensive in energy right now, will also be a good bet for investment.
2. In biomedicine improved diagnostics that can lower health care costs by finding problems earlier is something to keep an eye on—much more so than extravagant bioengineering research programs.
1. Ultimately, a lot of success comes from just the right blend of ideas, people, and timing. Napoleon once said he’d rather have his generals be lucky than good, and that really applies to startups as well. There is so much luck in everything we do that it is frightening.
Charlie Cook
UAMS BioVentures
http://www.uams.edu/bioventures
Go Hogs!!
Charlie
Thanks for sharing these tips! This is exactly the kind of spot-on insight we all need to consider. I will try to keep the blog interesting and topical. Keep slinging the good inputs – I really appreciate it!
Jeff
Jeff,
Congratulations on getting the new blog up and running! I look forward to reading more great techpreneurship tips!
Jared Greer
Tears for Life, LLC
Thanks Jeff. I had no idea about Web Ross in Little Rock. Sounds like Web would be a great guy to ask to speak at one of our Tech Meetings? He could sign some books, share some wisdom and entrepreneur war stories.
[...] Techpreneurship: Installment 1! | Innovate Arkansas blog.innovatearkansas.org/2009/08/20/techpreneurship-installment-1 – view page – cached Well folks this is the first of a weekly blog series that will be posted every Thursday. In the spirit of not using real words that could be found in the — From the page [...]
Jeff,
This is great. This type of dialog is much needed. I will forward your email and the link to this blog to several people. Would you want to, and if so, is there a way we could highlight/connect you to GVD? Good luck.
Steve
Jeff,
Good stuff. This is what our country needs, now more than ever. True help won’t come from big business & big government.
Let the entrepreneurs arise!
Did he really just start his video, “I am a rich man”?
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Jeff, this is great, I am looking forward to reading his on a weekly bases. I think this will be a great resource!!
Folks
Thanks for the feedback and interest. Each week if you have suggestions regarding blog topics or interest items – fire them at me. My email is jeff@innovatearkansas.org.
Jeff
[...] at the UA, made it required reading for his class. Web was even the subject of Jeff’s very first Techpreneurship installment here in INOV8. Read more about Ross and the book [...]