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JumpStart 2013 Denver's economic development strategy continues
1376_ 4.17.13 - There are more than 25,000 Denver businesses and enterprises, approximately 420 of which have more than 100 employees. However, the 420 firms with more than 100 employees represent nearly 50 percent of the total jobs in Denver. Compared to the U.S. economy, Denver has a significantly higher concentration of persons employed in the energy, healthcare, information technology, finance and professional/business services fields. These firms generally produce high-value products and services. Employees of these firms tend to receive higher wages and are required to hold advanced educational training. Top concerns of Denver’s employers include a strong educated workforce, safe and energetic business areas, and reasonable operating costs as compared to other parts of the state and country. In 2013, OED will continue to focus on retaining three groups of businesses: (1) the largest private and nonprofit employers; (2) high-growth sector companies; and (3) firms with soon-to-be expiring leases. A continuous outreach campaign to owners and C-level executives will demonstrate the city’s commitment to the business community while identifying issues and highlighting the benefits of operating a company in Denver. We are setting focus on the best strategies to advance economic prosperity for the city, its neighborhoods, residents and businesses. The 2013 JumpStart strategy provides a clear signal to the community as to how we are working to build a stronger Denver, with jobs and housing opportunities for all. And, JumpStart 2013 is a road map for our staff — it drives the work plans and priorities for all OED staff divisions. Because economic development is a continuous, multi-year task, this year’s strategic plan also includes a separate longer-term plan that sets forth our strategic direction for the next three years. You’ll see that our 2013 initiatives relate directly to this broader three-year plan. Similarly, our future annual plans will also support the long-term strategy. JumpStart 2013 clearly builds upon our successes from last year. We again have seven main sections, or what I refer to as “pillars” of economic development. Each of our pillars for 2013 includes a series of bold, forward-thinking strategic initiatives to help us accomplish our important mission. The OED will continue to engage in partnerships with business industry groups, including better support for renewable and traditional energy companies located in downtown Denver. This heightened focus will result in more business leaders choosing to live, work, play and stay in Denver.
RELATED LINKS: Denver OED || JumpStart 2013 Denver || Greenprint Denver || Entrepreneurs || KEYWORDS: Paul Washington, Denver, Office of Economic Development, Jump Start 2012, Business Retention, Small Business Advocacy, Business Recruitment, Sustainable Neighborhood Development, Business Lending, Workforce Development, Key Strategic Projects, bytes=6260927
LISTEN TO: Paul Washington, Executive Director, OED, City & County Denver

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From Scholarship Funds to 2nd Stage Growth...

Penny Lewandowski Second Stage Development and Growth
1373_ 4/10/13 - We're here with keynote speaker, at the ACG Denver's April Luncheon, Penny Lewandowski director of entrepreneurship development for the Edward Lowe Foundation. Lewandowski works with entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs) as they develop creative ways to grow their communities by serving second-stage businesses. She is a frequent speaker on the topics of building an entrepreneurial culture, as well as the importance of working with growth companies. She also directs the foundation’s Entrepreneurship Team and manages the technology services for the organization. It's been six months since Lewandowski was in Denver, Larry asked for an update on what's happening with Colorado Companies to Watch. Penny said, "Tomorrow evening we will be at the Governor's Residence with all of the finalists - and I think we have 184 finalists. We had a record number of nominations this year. Colorado is always out front when it comes to nominations. Then on Thursday we're going to be judging those companies, and they go through a pretty intensive process with that. We'll probably make an announcement in the next several weeks after we do the judging."

ACG Denver’s David Sloan Scholarship Program. Set your goal to become an ACG Scholar! Each year the Denver Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) awards one scholarship to a promising 1st or 2ndyear student at each of five area graduate business programs, in the amount of $2,500 annually. The scholarship is renewable for a second year based on both the academic performance and the career ambition of the student. To be eligible for the award, the recipient must be currently enrolled in one of five programs with a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or better...Listen for much more...
RELATED LINKS: ACG Denver || M&A Channel || ACG Denver's David Sloan Scholarship Program || Colorado Companies to Watch || ACG Photo || KEYWORDS: Penny Lewandowski, Entrepreneurship, Second Stage Companies, Edward Lowe Foundation, Colorado Companies to Watch, ACG Denver, David Sloan Scholarship, University of Denver, bytes=2751741
LISTEN TO: Penny Lewandowski, Director of Entrepreneurship, Edward Lowe Foundation

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Tech Transfer proof-of-concept investments work

Tom Smerdon, success in marketing new ideas
1364_ 3/13/13 - From a business person's point of view, the Technology Transfer Office is one of the most important things that the university provides, for business, individual professors and students, with everything from awards and recognition but most importantly really helping them along when they come up with an idea. Larry is with Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President of the University of Colorado Technology Transfer Office in Boulder. Tom said, "There are a couple of the things I'd like to bring to the listeners attention. One, which we're really excited about, is the recent acquisition of a CU startup. F5 Networks has acquired LineRate Systems, a Colorado startup that’s developing technologies around what’s called software define networking. F5 noted that the networking technologies will help bring superior service agility, application intelligence, and programmability to software defined data centers. The thing that is exciting about this is, not only was this a startup basically out of Computer Sciences and Electrical Engineering here on the CU Boulder campus, but the company was also an early recipient of the Proof-of-Concept investment from the Tech Transfer Office. This was the first money into the company which really helped it acquire some critical equipment early on and facilitated the development of the technology that was later further developed in its Louisville office and ultimately the subject of the sale to F5. This is one of the success stories for Tech Transfer and we're really excited for the company and the founders. A couple of events that are coming up; we are doing our Tech Transfer Awards a little differently this year. Previously there had been a single awards event covering the system campuses held in Denver. This year we're going to have campus focused events, so we have the Boulder Awards event which is scheduled for April 1st. This is in conjunction with the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship. The program, Entrepreneurship Under the Microscope, is an evening event with a keynote speaker and we will be awarding the Inventor of the Year, New Inventor of the Year, and Company of the Year during a fun networking event with CU-Boulder faculty and students, and members of the Boulder entrepreneurial community. We have the second awards event planned... there's more...
RELATED LINKS: CU Technology Transfer Office || CU TTO Channel || TTO Blog || LineRate Systems || KEYWORDS: Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President, Tech Transfer Office, University of Colorado, Technology Transfer, LineRate Systems, F5, Awards, bytes=4401426
LISTEN TO: Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President. Tech Transfer, University of Colorado

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New knowledge generates new direction

Rick Duke & Kevin Smith, Venture Capital Money
1349_ 2/13/13 - Part 2: As the companies we work with learn, the models sometimes change and new knowledge generates new directions. What we've learned working on the CID4 model is that there are great technologies in the state of Colorado. There are incredible entrepreneurs trying to get those technologies out. The one thing we are short of, as many people are, is investment capital. If we had more investment capital to put to work through CID4 we would, but we are limited. So we branched out and created a class of client that we work with. Which would be a company that takes advantage of our consulting service, for no charge as well as some of the programs we run as opposed to getting direct capital investment that we talked about earlier. Those programs include office hour programs which we conduct at both Boulder and Fitzsimmons, where individuals can come in an have one-on-one consultations with subject matter experts. We also do a lot of work on business plan development and make introductions to potential financing sources. In our view, the model that CID4 started with trying to provide active hands-on management, now we're continuing to expand on that, but also not invest but providing guidance. Rick Duke is very active in helping to raise finances, but there's a lot of confusion about what venture capitalists are doing today and what they're not. Dr. Duke said, "Venture capital changed dramatically around 2008-09 and I think there was an expectation it was going to come back in a relatively short period of time. And I think it surprised all of us when we haven't seen the return of venture capital at the level that it was in the late 90s and early 2000 period. Most notably for Colorado, at least in the life sciences area, we don't see much in the way of that initial lead VC firm that we had and enjoyed during that early 2000 period. That has really forced us to go out to the coast to look for venture capital money for our client companies. Or, actually to look at some of the angel investors and angel investor groups that have been forming recently here in Colorado.." .Listen for much more...
RELATED LINKS: CID4 || CU Technology Transfer Office || CBSA || CU TTO Channel || TTO Blog || KEYWORDS: Rick Duke, Kevin Smith, CID4, Colorado Institute for Drug, Device and Diagnostic Development, Colorado Life Science Industry, Bioscience Discovery Evaluation Grant program, CU Technology Transfer Office, Proof of Concept > bytes=8753217
LISTEN TO: Richard Duke & Kevin Smith, CID4

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Supporting Colorado Life Science Industry

Rick Duke & Kevin Smith, CID4 Investing
Supporting the Colorado Life Science Industry...
1346_ 2/7/13 - Larry sat down to get an update from Kevin Smith, President & CEO and Richard (Rick) Duke, Ph.D., Founder & CSO - CID4 [Colorado Institute for Drug, Device and Diagnostic Development] a 501-C3 non-profit organization, launched back in 2009 with a mission to support the growth of the Colorado Life Science Industry both in terms of numbers of companies and numbers of jobs. Kevin explained, "Over the period of time since we started operations we work with companies, both to invest in and provide active management, to help guide them through the valley of death, when they're running out of cash but before they can actually access larger amounts of investment capital. So far we've invested in six companies - put $2 million to work. Those companies have created 65 direct jobs and they've attracted $20 million in investment capital into their businesses and used to grow their businesses here in Colorado." Rick said, "I think what sets us apart from other types of organizations like this is that we provide active management to our portfolio companies or project companies for that matter." A lot of that technology is early spin outs out of the University of Colorado or other research institutions where you've got a faculty member who is an entrepreneur and inventor, but doesn't necessarily have the experience in starting a company, or managing the operations, or developing a business plan, or product development plan. This is where CID4 often takes a fairly active role. Getting the company off the ground. Initiating operations and literally pitching the company to both angel investors and venture capital investors - with the goal of graduating them, raising a significant amount of capital to where they can now move out on their own." It's important to understand that CID4 is a not-for-profit company and what that means is the money that they invest in a portfolio company, if there is a return on that investment, rather than that traditionally being shared with the management of the venture capital firm, in fact, in our situation, that money goes back into technology development. This is unique from a number of... Listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: CID4 || CU Technology Transfer Office || CBSA || CU TTO Channel || TTO Blog || KEYWORDS: Rick Duke, Kevin Smith, CID4, Colorado Institute for Drug, Device and Diagnostic Development, Colorado Life Science Industry, Investments, CU Technology Transfer Office, bytes=5738060
LISTEN TO: Richard Duke & Kevin Smith
Colorado Institute for Drug, Device and Diagnostic Development

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Get Ready... Set... Go...

Women's roles and behaviors in technology commercialization
1339_ 1/22/13 - Today Lucy Sanders, CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT along with Larry Nelson, Director of w3w3® Media Network are interviewing Jean Hammond an entrepreneur and angel investor. Jean is a co-founder of the Boston forum of Golden Seeds (which invests in women-managed businesses) and a member of Launchpad Venture Group and Hub Angels. An investor with an active portfolio over 50 companies, she has served on the Board or as a Board-level advisor with over 20 of these firms. Jean's been working on a new non-profit that she recently launched called Learn Launch. Helping drive the support ecosystem by matching entrepreneurs with investors and other resources, Jean meets with hundreds of entrepreneurs a year. As a part-time entrepreneur-in-residence at the E Center and an active mentor at TCN, TechStars, and MassChallenge, she has directly or indirectly helped dozens of startups, moving them from “idea stage” to “funding-ready” to eventual launch to become vital members of the Massachusetts innovation economy. Most recently, Jean co-founded LearnLaunch, a non-profit fostering the creation and growth of learning and education technology companies and the ed tech business cluster across New England. LearnLaunch brings together innovators, K-12 and higher ed educators, investors, students, school leaders, buyers and distribution channels, and provides structured services such as classes, forums, conferences and networking opportunities for entrepreneurs. On the board of Thompson Island Outward Bound and Boston Rising Jean supports the growth of science education and entrepreneurial jobs in the inner city...there's much more to listen to...
RELATED LINKS: NCWIT Blog || LearnLaunch || NCWIT Home || Golden Seeds Boston || Launchpad Venture Group || TechStars Boston || Heroes Channel || KEYWORDS:Jean Hammond, Learn Launch, Lucy Sanders, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT, LaunchPad Venture Group, Hub Angels, TechStars, Boston, > BYTES=15642856
LISTEN TO: Jean Hammond, Founder, Learn Launch

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TTO Covers Entire CU System

Funding biotech technologies with matching funds for startup companies
1333_ 1/11/13 - We're back with Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President of the University of Colorado Technology Transfer Office in Boulder. We are starting the new year with a look at some metrics for the past year as well as a look at the coming year. The Tech Transfer Office covers the entire Colorado University system, with campuses in Boulder, downtown Denver, the Anschutz Medical Campus and the Colorado Springs campus. The bulk of the research dollars are going into the Boulder as well as the medical campus and most of the inventions are going to be coming out of that research from those campuses. But there is still a significant amount of research going on in Colorado Springs and some in downtown Denver in terms of funded research. Tom said, "Last year we had 226 invention disclosures on a system wide basis. That was down from the year before, but still a very healthy number. Applications were a little above last year, we filed 261 applications and executed 47 option license agreements [in line with and greater than past years] but we'd certainly like to get that number up as well as the number of exclusive licenses which tend to be the real revenue generators. Last year we had 32 of those. In terms of startups, , there were ten spun out of the university system - split pretty evenly between Boulder and Denver with a couple out of Colorado Springs." This has been very steady, over the past 8 or 9 years, they've averaged about 10-11 each year. Tom is very pleased to tell us, "Most of those companies...listen for more ...
RELATED LINKS: CU Technology Transfer Office || CU TTO Channel || TTO Blog || Proof of Concept Programs || The Start-up Process || KEYWORDS: Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President, Tech Transfer Office, University of Colorado, Technology Transfer, Invention Disclosures, Start-ups, Funding, Biotech Technologies, Bio Science Discovery, Evaluation Grant Program BYTES=6922974
LISTEN TO: Tom Smerdon, IA VP, TTO University of Colorado

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For the holidays, Charm and humor over true grit...

Angel investor, strategic advisor and board member Video
1328_ 12/20/12 - Silicon Flatirons, ATLAS, NCWIT, and Quick Left present Wendy Lea as our featured entrepreneur with moderators Brad Bernthal, Brad Feld and Jill VanMatre. Speaker: Wendy Lea, CEO, Get Satisfaction Wendy Lea is the CEO of Get Satisfaction. Wendy founded The Chatham Group, where she currently serves as an angel investor, strategic advisor and board member for a long list of startup companies. Wendy chairs the board for women's entrepreneur group Watermark and serves on the board of Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund (SV2.org). She has been recognized as a Top 100 Woman of Influence in Silicon Valley. Entrepreneurs Unplugged is a meeting place where faculty, students and community members with technical backgrounds learn about and get involved in entrepreneurship. In particular, the program offers students and faculty an opportunity to learn how a successful start up is created as well as an opportunity to network. Each Entrepreneurs Unplugged meeting features food, drink and - most importantly - an experienced entrepreneur to discuss his/her start-up experiences. .
RELATED LINKS: Silicon Flatirons Center || Get Satisfaction || Event Photos || Foundry Group || KEYWORDS: Brad Feld, Wendy Lea, Silicon Flatirons Center, University of Colorado, ATLAS Institute, Jill VanMatre, Brad Bernthal, Entrepreneurs Unplugged, Video, Watch Entrepreneurs Unplugged with Wendy Lea, CEO, Get Satisfaction
Watch Video Entrepreneurs Unplugged, Wendy Lea

 

Cash flow is vital

An entrepreneurial blitz in the tech scene
1314_ 11/23/12 - Larry interviewed Daniel Feld a serial entrepreneur. Larry asked, "With the economic times we've gone through these past few years, what do you think are the biggest challenges that companies face today?" Daniel was quick to respond, "I think there are obvious answers to that, but I think some of the biggest challenges are just staying in business. Keeping cash flow coming in, whether that's from outside sources of capital, from investors of some sort - or from cash flow from your business. You have to have cash flow to keep the lights on, so that's just an obvious one. I think a less obvious big challenge today is getting the attention of consumers. There are so many different ways to reach out to consumers today. And, consumers are constantly being bombarded by messages across the different channels. First of all, knowing who your target audience is, is critical. Knowing how to get to those folks in a meaningful way, and connect with them to attract them to your brand or your solution, is also very critical." Larry turned the table and asked, "What are the greatest opportunities for businesses today?' His reply, "The biggest opportunity as well as the biggest challenge is, there are so many ways today, to connect with consumers directly. Having the expertise to figure out the strategy and the tactics to use those channels, whether it's using social media - and there's a lot of variety and different ways that you can track customers and speak to customers. But I think the fact that you have direct access to customers and that customers have a large megaphone out to the world themselves, means that companies really have to be on their toes about how they interact and respond to customers. Finding the right tools and the people to help them take advantage of those is a critical opportunity for people." There's more great advice, listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: Daniel Feld History || Foundry Group || TechStars || PivotDesk || In the News || KEYWORDS: Daniel Feld, Mobius Venture Capital, PivotDesk, Foundry Group, TechStars, Venture Capital, TV, Radio, Print, New Product Blowout, Branding, Packaging, bytes=4655128
LISTEN TO: Daniel Feld, Entrepreneur

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Mid October Denver Startup Week

These are non-profit organizations that lend money to small businesses
1290_ 10/3/12 - We are talking about Jump Start 2012, with Paul Washington, Executive Director in the Office of Economic Development for the City and County of Denver. This is part 2 of this discussion. Paul said, "- In mid October during Denver Startup Week, OED will publish their capital matrix where we have identified all of the investors that have done business or provided capital to Denver based businesses over the last five year period. This matrix has over 100 capital sources, which will be a great tool for the small business community. That's at the venture capital level, angel capital and mezzanine, senior debt financing, it spans the whole gambit of the balance sheet. Additionally Denver OED will identify what they term as their 'big league gazelles'. These are the highest billed companies in Denver that we feel deserve special attention and focus. One of the things we've been learning at the VC roundtable, as well as trips to Silicon Valley, is that it's important for a region to celebrate the successes that have been had for venture backed companies." Paul spoke of a business lending program, but there is one other initiative that they are focused on, to be unveiled in early 2013. This program is called the CDFI Initiative. CDFI = Community Development Financial Institution. These are non-profit organizations that lend money to small businesses, many times when banks cannot. And banks are finding it increasingly harder to lend to the small business community because of the various regulations that have come out since the down turn in 2008 at the federal level...Listen for more details...
RELATED LINKS: Denver OED || JumpStart 2012 Denver || Greenprint Denver || Entrepreneurs || KEYWORDS: Paul Washington, Denver, Office of Economic Development, Jump Start 2012, Business Retention, Small Business Advocacy, Business Recruitment, Sustainable Neighborhood Development, Business Lending, Workforce Development, Key Strategic Projects, bytes=6260927
LISTEN TO: Paul Washington, Executive Director, OED, City & County Denver

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