Business Incubator Series: Diane Dimeff, eSpace: The Center for Space Entrepreneurship, Boulder, Colorado (Part 6)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Vandana Upadhyay

Irina: Do you take equity in the companies that you incubate?

Diane: We do. Because we are nonprofit we can’t technically enter into financial contracts with our companies. But we can enter into what’s called a pledge agreement.

We’d talk to them, and the template for us is something like this: We’ll have a pledge of 5% equity in the company and then 2% or 3% of revenue for two or three years. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Diane Dimeff, eSpace: The Center for Space Entrepreneurship, Boulder, Colorado (Part 5)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Vandana Upadhyay

Irina: Would you give us more details on your three programs?

Diane: Yes. The first program is the eSpace incubator, which we have talked about quite a bit.

The second program is called the Straight to Space (S2S). In this program, we provide entrepreneurial aerospace companies both in our incubators and outside our incubator with training grants to support the training of technicians and engineers they have hired from outside the aerospace industry. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Diane Dimeff, eSpace: The Center for Space Entrepreneurship, Boulder, Colorado (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Vandana Upadhyay

Diane: Once they become an official incubator company, the mentor helps them to develop a first order strategic plan. What are you going to accomplish in the next three to six months? Whom do you need to meet in order to be successful? These are some questions we ask. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Diane Dimeff, eSpace: The Center for Space Entrepreneurship, Boulder, Colorado (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Vandana Upadhyay

Diane: The other program we have is called the Venture Design program. And this is with the University of Colorado Aerospace Engineering Sciences program. We support a number of graduate hands-on and design projects in the aerospace department, in the hopes that one or more of them will transition in the incubator. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Diane Dimeff, eSpace: The Center for Space Entrepreneurship, Boulder, Colorado (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Vandana Upadhyay

Irina: What would be an ideal company that could benefit from your incubation?

Diane: It might be one to four people who have just earned what is called an SBIR grant [Small Business Innovation Research]. They may have earned a Phase I SBIR or NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] or AFRL [Air Force Research Lab] grant, and they have a potential investor already. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Diane Dimeff, eSpace: The Center for Space Entrepreneurship, Boulder, Colorado (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Vandana Upadhyay

I am talking to Diane Dimeff, who is the executive director of eSpace: The Center for Space Entrepreneurship in Boulder, Colorado.

The center’s mission is threefold: 1) to help aerospace entrepreneurs to start new companies, 2) to develops commercial applications from the innovative technologies created within these companies, and 3) by collaborating with industry, government, and academia to provide career opportunities for high school, community college, and university graduates. >>>

Business Incubator Series: John Richards, BoomStartup, Provo, Utah (Part 9)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

John: My favorite situation is when I have a founder who is strong in technology, but also has enough business acumen to be the CEO. That is when we have the strongest team, where you’ve got a tech person who’s essentially the CEO/CTO.

The first 12 to 18 months of a company’ life needs to be very focused on customer validation and MVP [minimum viable product]. >>>

Business Incubator Series: John Richards, BoomStartup, Provo, Utah (Part 8)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

John: So, Boom Startup Capital 2010, LLC was the exact name of the entity that took in money, and then invested in each of the 10 companies in the inaugural year, 2010.

We took in enough money for the investment and a bit more for expenses. That money goes into the entity, and the entity then writes the checks to the companies to make the investments and has a little money for administrative expenses. >>>