Archive for the ‘Innovation’ Category

The Collective Power of Passion

Posted: May 5, 2013 by Amanda Greenwell in Innovation, People, Startup
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AmandaGreenwellPassionate startups are spreading like wildfire in the region due to the courage of entrepreneurs to gain self-awareness, take risks, and turn great ideas into great businesses like never before. Passionate entrepreneurs work on their ideas constantly and now they take action to launch their ventures fulltime.  Like entrepreneurs, the community has developed great ideas for enabling startups like UpTech and the Brandery to accelerate the next big ideas into reality.  These organizations are startups as well and provide many tools and programs for entrepreneurs to follow their dreams.  The empowerment of entrepreneurs manifests itself in the following ways:

  • Exciting regional collaboration, the Ohio River is no longer the Ohio Ocean
  • Young talent moving into (and back to) and staying in our region
  • The great balance of exciting business opportunities and quality of life
  • A thriving entrepreneur community in the Northern Kentucky / Greater Cincinnati.

Amazing things happen when you follow your dreams. Northern Kentucky University’s tag line says it all: “Dreamers welcome.”  When you welcome dreamers with open arms, give them the tools to succeed, there is an unparalleled power that only collective passion can bring.

Three essential characteristics make up the personality of a successful entrepreneur:

1)     Self-awareness:  Do I have what it takes to be an entreprenur? Successful entrepreneurs have done the hard work to become aware of their talents, gifts, strengths, and weaknesses.  They get clarity on what they want and what they don’t want.  Embarking on a journey to discover who you really are, will only pay dividends in your career and your relationships. Tools like Tom Rath’s book Strengths Finder and programs like Startup Weekend help you discover your inner entrepreneur

2)     Passion:  What do you love to do?  What activities do you engage in that causes you to lose all track of time?  Successful entrepreneurs often get criticized for working all the time, but they do not feel they are even working at all!  Ask a true dreamer about their passion and their eyes light up, enthusiasm erupts, and their conviction wins you over .

3)     A great idea: Do you have the next Google or Prius in your head? Highly self-aware and passionate entrepreneurs generate great ideas almost automatically and continuously.  They clearly see real-world problems and are driven to fix them. These passionate and self-aware entrepreneurs seem to see around corners and invent incredibly effective products and services to solve difficult and complex challenges.

If you have done the work to embark on the journey to self-awareness, discovered your passion, and have the next big idea, seek out the organizations that can help you make your great ideas come true. The Greater Cincinnati Venture Association website provides an inventory of the region’s entrepreneurial assets in their “Greater Cincinnati Entrepreneur Ecosystem” link. Although the Brandery’s application process closed on May 1st, entreprneurs can appy online to UpTech, Northern Kentucky’s Startup Accelerator until May 24, 2013. Check out more links on this column’s website at http://www.cincyentre.com.

Inventing the Close Shave

Posted: April 21, 2013 by Chuck Matthews in Innovation, Leadership, People
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UC Chuck MatthewsOne of my all-time favorite examples of the quintessential entrepreneur is King C. Gillette.  He embodies what I like to call the entrepreneur’s 3-D vision: drive, determination, and dedication.  His entrepreneurial journey parallels the timeless challenges facing entrepreneurs then and now.  He epitomizes the three essential tasks of the entrepreneur both at start-up and as the venture matures – creativity, leadership, and communication.

Previously, I introduced the core elements of the entrepreneurship process: focus, environment, the entrepreneur, and the engagement/execution process. Even with a clear focus (product and services, customers and competition), an entrepreneur must continually assess an uncertain and changing environment (business, economic, legal, political, social, and technological factors).

Central to all of this is the entrepreneur.  That the entrepreneur must simultaneously wear multiple hats is legendary in the lore of new start-ups. With so many distractions, let’s take a closer look at how the entrepreneur applies concepts of creativity, lessons of leadership, and achieves clarity of communication.

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US Bank Business Watch April 7, 2013

Posted: April 10, 2013 by Bill Cunningham in Ecosystem, Innovation, Leadership, Startup, Technology
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Kelly Leon of  WKRC Channel 12′s US Bank Business Watch program interviews Bill Cunningham, Founder of OneMorePallet.com and Shop Foreman for the Greater Cincinnati Venture Association.

Mi Amor

Posted: March 3, 2013 by Ray Attiyah in Innovation, Leadership, People, Startup
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ray attiyah“Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.”

– Dale Carnegie

Shortly after my wife and I began dating, she took a trip to Costa Rica. After a few days of missing her, I decided to call her, and practice my Spanish. Someone answered, “Hola!”  I responded (in my best Spanish,“Mi nombre Ramon.” The confused party responded “Que?” The silence seemed like it lasted for eons. Finally, my wife-to-be answered cracking up. The person who answered the phone told her I asked for “mi amor,” my love.

The word “amor” derives from the Latin root for the word “amateur.” Amateurs, of course, are typically contrasted with professionals, especially in terms where professionals do their work for a business while amateurs do it simply for the love, the amor.

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Your Early Adopters Don’t Matter

Posted: January 6, 2013 by Micah Baldwin in Innovation, Startup, Technology
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Micah BaldwinIn Colorado, every year Liberty Media has a day-long program where prominent startup people get together to hear interesting talks from interesting people and eat a solid lunch.

One year, a super smart dude, whose name i have forgotten, talked about product design.

In the world of the internet, he said (I’m like 95% sure it was a dude), we have a culture of catering to our early adopters, and its one of the worst mistakes we make.

He went on to tell the story of the Toyota Prius. The darling of the tech set, early adopters demanded that the central interface gave data on things like energy to individual wheels, battery usage, etc.

As Toyota implemented these features, early adopters rejoiced.

But, the funny is, there are only so many early adopters. As time passed, the primary purchaser of the Toyota Prius was the soccer mom, and when asked, the soccer moms said, “Just give me a tree that has leaves that grow so that I can see the positive effect I am having on the environment by driving a Prius.”

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Cynicism and Its Impact on Success

Posted: December 23, 2012 by Tom Heuer in Innovation, People, Startup
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heuerIn our entrepreneurial leadership classes, I spend a significant amount of time discussing cynicism and its negative impact on innovation, business start-ups and people in general.  I have very rarely experienced cynicism in the classroom but more often on consulting engagements with companies who are struggling.  Recently, I had the “distinct pleasure” of engaging a cynic in a strategy session with an emerging company.  He was just “popping his chops” about all the “absolutely crazy decisions” the owners were making to cut costs and redistribute the resources to a risky but growing product line.  This encounter was everything that people had shared with me about cynics – very negative, a roadblock to success, a lot of wasted energy in dealing with them, a downer, and so forth.

Remember, this was a fledgling, entrepreneurial company fighting for its start-up life.  The company leaders initially responded to the cynic like most work groups – ignored him or praised his comments.  One owner strategized, “Let’s try to bring him into the conversation by agreeing with him.  He is important to us.”  Did I hear that this menace is important to this entrepreneurial company’s success?  (I later found out that the menacing cynic was the company’s CFO.)  As the session progressed, each participant realized how much wasted energy this guy created.  Loud disagreements, constant bickering and caustic comments accelerated.  It was destructive for this new team to hear.  As the outrageous comments continued, two guys had the courage to offer some coaching directed at his cynical behavior.  He listened, but it only served to raise his negativity.  (more…)

The New Normal for Startups

Posted: October 28, 2012 by Bill Cunningham in Innovation, Leadership, Planning, Startup
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“No business plan survives first customer contact.” – Steve Blank

Steve Blank wowed the Greater Cincinnati Venture Association meeting this week by delivering a compacted presentation of his customer development process. Steve has launched 8 companies in Silicon Valley over the last 31 After a brief stint at retirement, he assembled his life’s lessons about startups into college course, which turned into a book, which has turned into a viral movement in the entrepreneurial world to increase a startup’s chances of success.

Steve BlankAnd to top it off, this is not a get rich quick scheme for the author, as he has published his work and shared his resources in a variety of locations such as the Stanford Entrepreneurial Corner, Udemy, SlideShare and others for free. He has assembled an incredible list of resources for startups on his website that covers everything from presentations to financing to finding customers. Yes, you have to buy the book, “The Startup Owner’s User Manual” – after all, products composed of atoms and require shipping do have production costs, a for $24 on Amazon, you can have the definitive bible and handbook to guide you on the path to building a successful company. Ask any MBA student who has taken a business plan course that required a $140 textbook if this is a great deal!

A Game Changer for Startups

The traditional path for startups goes something like this:  get an idea, develop a business plan, raise some money, work on completing the product, spend a lot to take it to market, and then watch customers flock to buy your wares. The rare instances of this happening in the past (like the infamous Pet Rock) are difficult to replicate.  What is missing from the traditional path is the customer and Steve’s approach involves agile customer development in parallel to software development (or product development) to find the right business model that will succeed.

In his view of the world, a “startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.” The greatest ideas will never see the light of day unless you have customers. Finding customers who will buy and love your product as well as developing the right channels and message become far more important than the cool mySQL database searches or incredible user-created content. So instead of raising $1 million from angels or venture guys and work like madmen (and madwomen) to create a product in a secret lair, Steve suggests that you “validate your hypotheses with experiments.”  Separate the things your know (which he calls facts) from your faith-based ideas that you believe will work and test them with customers.

Talk to 100 Customers

Since “there are no facts in the office, get outside the building.” There is no substitute for eyeball to eyeball contact with real customers. There are also no shortcuts. Market research and focus groups are great for discovering what people thought in the past, but if you are to be successful, you have to skate to where the puck will be (ala Wayne Gretzky.) The founding team must do this – it can’t be outsourced to a consulting firm – the first hand learnings are most valuable to the founders.

So the Customer Development Process is sweeping the country. I know that Miami and Northern Kentucky Universities have started to integrated Steve’s thinking into their courses. Steve’s GCVA presentation is available on www.gcva.com as we as the links to resources mentioned above. Use these to find the right business model, and your startup will take off like a rocket!

Bill Cunningham is the CEO of OneMorePallet.com and shop foreman at the Greater Cincinnati Venture Association.

Accelerating Entrepreneurship to Change the World in Afghanistan

Posted: October 18, 2012 by Brett Smith in Ecosystem, Global, Innovation, Leadership, Social Entrepreneurship, Startup
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While the Brandery’s Demo Day served as an important launching pad for organizations from around the US, many players of the Cincinnati entrepreneurial ecosystem helped to accelerate entrepreneurship on the other side of the world in a region where entrepreneurship is not so common – Afghanistan. Over a five day period ending earlier this month, Miami University’s Institute for Entrepreneurship hosted over 60 post-graduate Fulbright students for a seminar on social entrepreneurship informally called Startup Afghanistan. The goal was to provide the best and the brightest from Afghanistan with the tools, experiences and knowledge to develop entrepreneurial solutions to some of the most pressing problems when they return back to their home country. The program was sponsored by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and administered in cooperation with the Institute of International Education.

Startup Weekend Methodology

While the Fulbright Program – the flagship international educational exchange program of the US government – offers enrichment seminars for the visiting scholars, it generally does so through traditional workshops and experiences. However, given the focus on gaining entrepreneurial knowledge, Miami convinced the US Department of State to experiment with this seminar through the use of the Startup Weekend methodology. As such, 60 Fulbright students from Afghanistan engaged in a 54-hour immersion experience of moving from idea to prototype. The Startup methodology was directed primarily through Mark Lacker and Tony Alexander. Lacker is the Altman Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship at Miami, who has become a national expert in Startup Weekends and recently ran one for the national kick-off of Venture for America.  Alexander is co-founder of three start-ups including Travelers Joy, Simple Registry and Smarty Tags and a mentor at the Brandery.

Local Knowledge to the Develop Local Solutions

Guided by Lacker and Alexander, the Fulbright students, ranging in age from 25 to 60, were encouraged to offer opening pitches to solve real problems in Afghanistan. As the US Department of State held their breath for fear that no one would pitch an idea, the students displayed incredible enthusiasm and courage by pitching 39 different ideas that were organized into nine different teams. Cutting across the sectors of healthcare, education, business and energy, the students worked tirelessly – guided by Lacker, Alexander, 2nd year mentors from Afghanistan, and peer mentors in Miami’s entrepreneurship program – to develop nine business models grounded in the day to day reality of Afghanistan. After two days, the nine teams made presentations to a panel of judges including a nonprofit university, a business research center, a manufacturing business producing saffron, a low-cost marriage business, a solar energy business, a community development bank, a plastic bottle recycling business, an Afghan consulting business, and a diabetes management business. In the end, the community development bank for farmers emerged as the winning business model.

Partnering with the Cincinnati Ecosystem

While the Institute for Entrepreneurship at the Farmer School of Business of Miami University was selected to host the Fulbright Program because of the international reputation of its work in social entrepreneurship, the success of the program was greatly enhanced because of several key players in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. In addition to Alexander, Mike Bott (General Manager, Brandery), Johnmark Oudersluys (Executive Director, CityLink), Joe Hansbauer (Executive Director, UGive) and Richard Palmer (President, Nehemiah Manufacturing Company) shared their time and experiences with the Fulbright students to greatly advance their ideas. The goals of the seminar were to advance mutual understanding of people from different countries / cultures, to build sustainable human networks, and to gain actionable knowledge of the entrepreneurial process. Given the startup weekend methodology, the local knowledge of students and the support of the Cincinnati entrepreneurial ecosystem, the Fulbright students have accelerated the rebuilding of their country and the changing of the world in Afghanistan through entrepreneurship.

What One Person Can Do!

Posted: October 7, 2012 by Bill Cunningham in Ecosystem, Innovation, Leadership, Non-Profit, People, Startup, Technology
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The Greater Cincinnati Venture Association set a new record of over 200 attendees for the Cintrifuse presentation by Jeff Weedman. Hot topics always make for great crowds, but Cintrifuse drew over 60 non-members to the event highlighting the importance of entrepreneurial ecosystem to the regional economy. The GCVA also took the opportunity to recognize Laura Baverman, the Enquirer’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship reporter, for her contributions to the entrepreneurial community. As Jack Wyant, Blue Chip Venture Company’s founder and managing director, so eloquently delivered,

“You helped change an entire region in just one decade
For 1,875,000 words our thanks is hereby acknowledged and paid!”

 As part of the team of business school professors and entrepreneurs who pen this column, we applaud all the media that have curated our progress as growing startup community.   As Jeff Weedman stated at the GCVA, “We are fighting above our weight class!” That is the dream of every entrepreneur – to appear bigger and better in the eyes of the world. Thanks to Laura and all the media sources, we read about it, celebrate it and create a culture that appreciates it!

So thanks to Laura, there would be many successes missed in the journey without her reporting. And there are many other unrecognized leaders in building the community — people who do it for the “good of the order” and because it is the right thing to do. For example, you have no idea of the thousands of hours Rich Kiley logged back in the early 2000′s (at CincyTech then known as the Regional Technology Initiative) working on Senate Bill 180. SB180 created the Ohio Venture Capital Authority allowing many venture firms to leverage the Third Frontier and create new startups, technologies and jobs. Cincinnati was fortunate to borrow Rich as an on-loan executive from P&G — or SB180 would not have seen the light of day.

Many more “Wizards of Oz” work behind the curtains towards the success of our entrepreneurial community. If I try to name them all, I will miss most of them. They may not seem to be a part of the ecosystem, but they all are doing their best to support it. They include the volunteer (and tireless) organizers of events like TEDx, Continuous Web, the GCVA, the software interest groups, IEEE and the like. The programs at Cincinnati State that create new chefs and Springboard at ArtWorks that creates business-savvy artists and creatives – make up the fabric of our entrepreneurial community. The Venture for America program (recruited by a team led by Eric Avner of the Haile Foundation) is quietly building the next generation of entrepreneurs and building a network of high energy foot soldiers for startups.

Now it is your turn — what can you do to make a difference? No one can do it all, but all of us can do something that moves the needle. I truly believe Laura Baverman had no idea of the impact of her work on our efforts and how grateful we are that she communicated so well, and understood our mission, our challenges and our personalities that produced a vibrant economy. So find something you can do well to support entrepreneurship, whether it is starting a new business, or supporting the ones that are getting off the ground. One person makes a difference and we have a lot of “one persons” in Cincinnati doing just that. Be one!

Bill Cunningham is the CEO of OneMorePallet.com and shop foreman at the Greater Cincinnati Venture Association.

Conventional Wisdom

Posted: September 16, 2012 by Bill Cunningham in Ecosystem, Innovation, Leadership, Startup
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Five Cincinnati startups participated in the Huffington Post’s Entrepreneurial Expo over the last two weeks as part of Arianna Huffington’s initiative to focus on What’s Working: A Bipartisan Search For Solutions To The Jobs Crisis.  According to Ms. Huffington, the initiative embraced the “two necessarily partisan events — the Republican convention in Tampa and the Democratic convention in Charlotte -­ as powerful platforms for presenting a fundamentally bipartisan issue: what we the people can do to accelerate job creation and fill job openings.”

The luncheon panels, hosted by NBC’s Tom Brokaw included celebrities like Jeff Case — CEO of Startup America, Andrew Yang – CEO of Venture for America, Walter Isaacson – CEO of the Aspen Institute and author of Steve Jobs biography to discuss how to amplify and proliferate the great works entrepreneurs are achieving in this effort. America has many models that create jobs and work well.

Study after study shows that employment growth comes from the small business and startup sector. Intuitively, entrepreneurs start companies because of their creativity, innovation and passion to build great products and great companies. This results in great companies needing great employees with high passion who will have great jobs .

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