Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Skip Simms, President And CEO, Ann Arbor SPARK — Ann Arbor, Michigan (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: What are the main reasons that out of the 30 entrepreneurs who apply for your services every month, 25 get rejected?

Skip: The main reasons are one, they’re not in the city of Ann Arbor. Our primary stakeholder, which provides a lot of the services, has that requirement. The entrepreneurs have to be in the city.

Two, they’re not close enough to commercialization. They still have to develop their business model and product a bit more before they’re close enough to commercialization for us to consider them. As I said, we’re called an accelerator. The idea is to identify those technology-based companies that are within a year of commercialization. Our goal is to make sure they achieve commercialization within a year or sooner. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Tim Cartwright, Chairman, Tamiami Angel Fund – Naples, Florida (Part 7)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Tim: If you’ve got an active angel investor who has the capacity and is ready to commit dollars, if [the answer’s] yes, that’s easy. You understand that. >>>

Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Skip Simms, President And CEO, Ann Arbor SPARK — Ann Arbor, Michigan (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Skip: [The entrepreneurs that come to us], everyone’s a little different in their company growth. So, all of our programs are customized. We differ from many incubators in that regard. I think the kind of consulting services that we provide are custom, too; they are specific to particular milestones as opposed to being a generic milestone plan. You know, one lesson fits everybody … we don’t follow that model. >>>

Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Skip Simms, President And CEO, Ann Arbor SPARK — Ann Arbor, Michigan (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Describe the ideal company that would benefit from your incubation?

Skip: It could be a company that’s providing a new diagnostic software that can be used in an alternative energy industry or conserved life sciences industry. It may be a company that’s working on software that helps the IT industry with manufacturing processes and procedures. It’s probably two people who have the product largely developed, but not quite finished. They have an alpha version of their product, but now they need to fine-tune it. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Tim Cartwright, Chairman, Tamiami Angel Fund – Naples, Florida (Part 6)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Tim: As I said, in southwest Florida, we had never had an angel fund prior to August 1, 2010. Just because it doesn’t exist doesn’t mean we can’t build it, not only in our region, but in the state of Florida. I think we’re emerging. I think there’s more angel activity going on. I believe that there are more entrepreneurs coming into the state and that there are more and better business plans. >>>

1M/1M: VCs, Angels, Incubators, Accelerators – What WE Do With Your Rejects

Last week I wrote the post VCs, Angels, Incubators, Accelerators – What Are You Doing With Your Rejects? following which I had a number of significant private discussions which I curate here for the benefit of others who have the same kinds of questions. Overall, I think it will help the ecosystem better understand how we simply supplement existing resources and add value. Existing resources include incubators, accelerators, financing marketplaces like AngelList, and of course VCs and angels. >>>

Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Skip Simms, President And CEO, Ann Arbor SPARK — Ann Arbor, Michigan (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

I am talking to Skip Simms, president and CEO of Ann Arbor SPARK, a nonprofit business development consortium in Michigan that works in partnership with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), the state’s economic development agency, to help early-stage entrepreneurs and growing companies. >>>

Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Tim Cartwright, Chairman, Tamiami Angel Fund – Naples, Florida (Part 5)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Does your fund have any industry preferences, or is it pretty broad?

Tim: [First], I think we need to have a more robust entrepreneurial ecosystem here in the entire state of Florida.

And there are a lot of elements to that ecosystem. Not only access to early stage capital; we just need an entrepreneurial culture here. A lot of that comes from either people who report on and talk about entrepreneurship or from investing. You’re part of that ecosystem that helps us to spread the word and talk about these important topics. >>>