November 2009 Archives

The kick-off event of the University of Colorado's New Venture Challenge featured a talk entitled  "How to Pick a Business Worth Starting" by local Boulder entrepreneur Paul Berberian. Held November 11 in the Courtroom of CU's Law School, the Deming Center hosted about 200 attendees including students, faculty, staff, and members of the local business community recruiting interns. We are pleased to feature a blog post covering the event by Joanne White, a member of our executive committee, co-founder of TribeVibe and blogger for Mediamum.net.

The 2009 CU New Venture Challenge began Wednesday night with a full house in the Wittemeyer Courtroom at the CU Law Building to hear Paul Berberian deliver the rousing and interactive session called, "How to pick a business worth starting."

Paul 's first slide, "how to pick a winner," set the tone for the evening. A kid with his finger up his nose, nearly up to the knuckle, brought lots of laughter. Paul continued to describe the essences of what types of businesses were worth pursuing, how to choose one that suits you, and a few hard realities of working in a startup. He talked about his failures. His personal reflections on one business experience selling plastic name tags which resulted in him marrying with a "negative dowry" was one many entrepreneurs see as a reality. Luckily, that experience appears to be humorous when it's eclipsed by successes. And Paul has had a few, to say the least.

Paul is onto his sixth business (solar panels), and admits he's the guy who wants to have lots of money raining on him. For him, that's a key aspect of the type of business he chooses. He said though, that there are other factors that weigh in for consideration when deciding on a business to launch, and that the audience should look for something that suits and fits in all areas of who they were, and what they wanted to achieve. He described the process of looking at 14 different companies over the last year or so. One example was a company that produced bulletproof vests. "I'm a pacifist," said the air force veteran, "I did that stage of my life and want to move on to other things." So, while the bulletproof vest company might have been a strong one, it didn't go further on his list to investigate.

In a highly engaging presentation, Paul invited the audience to ask questions and be interactive throughout - and they did. Numerous times Paul was asked to offer more detail on specific process, and simply to ask additional questions. Paul answered everyone, and kept a perfect balance of information, entertainment and informality so no matter where you were in your business journey, there was value in his message.

The broader message that while you have nothing is the best opportunity to go out on a limb and start a business was directly aimed at the students in the room. Paul's encouragement was a great beginning to CU's New Venture Challenge for 2009/2010. Following the presentation, everyone headed upstairs to network, enjoy some refreshments, and chat with some local startups looking for interns.

Paul Berberian was the perfect beginning to the CU New Venture Challenge and fired up the anticipation for next week's pitch evening. A number of people have registered their intent to present their budding idea at the event, being held in the ATLAS building at 6pm on Wednesday 18th November. All members of the campus, and the broader community are invited to come along, hear ideas (or present their own), and network with others to hopefully start something that could be the next big thing. As long as, according to Paul Berberian, it isn't selling plastic badges.

Amy Cosper, Editor-in-Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine,  paid a visit to the Deming Center a few weeks ago.  She attended our Deming Board Breakfast in the morning (more on that in a moment), followed by a series of discussions with Deming board members, entrepreneurship faculty, MBA students and recent alumni. 

Entrepreneur is the largest-selling business magazine on newsstands in America. Its print circulation has been increasing in a declining industry. Additionally, Entrepreneur reaches millions of online subscribers. In about a year and a half as Editor-in-Chief, Amy has engineered an amazing reorganization and strengthened the magazine's positioning. 
Surprisingly, Entrepreneur appeals to a diverse age demographic. Her view is that the term "Entrepreneur" inspires an emotional reaction at many age levels. 

(As an aside, the magazine's latest issue featured Kim Jordan, founder of Colorado-based  New Belgium Brewing Company, who recently gave a talk at the Leeds School of Business.  New Belgium is a remarkable company -- built from its start on the fundamentals of sustainability.)

During Amy's visit with students and alumni, Leeds School alumna Sarah Schupp joined us.  In an undergraduate Leeds School of Business business plan course, Sarah founded University Parent, which enables universities to more effectively communicate with the parents of their students.  (She also won the business plan competition here at the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship in 2004.) Launched mainly by bootstrapping, University Parent now serves more than 100 universities!  

Needless to say, we at Deming, and Amy, learned a lot at about Boulder's particularly entrepreneurial climate and how the local business community so supportively engages with the entrepreneurship program at the Leeds School of Business.  Amy is always looking for good stories about entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship and I believe she left with a sense that she'll be hearing many more from Boulder.  

JOHN MULLINS: GETTING TO PLAN B

As I mentioned, the day began with a Deming Center Board Breakfast.  Our VIP guest speaker that day was Prof. John Mullins  from the London School of Business.  His latest book, Getting to Plan B,  co-authored with Randy Komisar of Kleiner Perkins, has just been published by Harvard Press and is available in bookstores everywhere.  John is an entertaining speaker and this latest book, as well as his previous book, The New Business Road Test, are both insightful, thought-provoking handbooks on the realities of starting new businesses. We've had the pleasure of having John visit and speak to us in the past and look forward to the next opportunity.  He always inspires great discussions.

ENERGY INSTITUTE LEADERSHIP COUNCIL & RENEWABLE AND SUSTAINABLE ENERGY INSTITUTE

Two weeks ago, I participated in a meeting of the Energy Institute Leadership Council (EILC) of our Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI). The Leadership Council is a select group of corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, advisors, scientists, policy makers and academics that provide high-level governance and strategic direction to the University of Colorado at Boulder Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI). Created to merge the private sector's market-based experience and perspective with the innovative research capabilities of the scientists and faculty at CU-Boulder, the Council provides a powerful leadership team for RASEI.
 
The Deming Center plays a central role in promoting and supporting private sector engagement and commercialization activities on behalf of RASEI. 

Now - if that's not enough for one week in the life of an entrepreneurship center director -I've also recently had the pleasure of meeting with a faculty delegation from universities in Poland including The Silesian University of Technology  and the University of Economics in Katowice.  I will soon be addressing about a dozen visitors from the University of Paris - Sorbonne.  

These opportunities were inspired by relationships built between these schools and the University of Colorado at Boulder. Additionally, these schools' representatives are interested in learning more about entrepreneurship education, technology commercialization, and the many things that work so well between our university and the entrepreneurial community in Boulder.  

Why does the Deming Center find itself so involved in these diverse external activities?
 
Because of the fundamentally important role of entrepreneurship in making a productive impact on society, based on the results of outstanding research and discovery. Our Center has the privilege of being a catalyst and a connecting hub toward that end. We create benefits for our students by being able to open doors and showcase their capabilities.  And in turn, we bring value to the business community by making it easier for them to engage with and support the university, and to tap into the talent pool and resources that we have.