Business Incubator Series: Ross Sanders, Bizdom U – Detroit, Michigan and Cleveland, Ohio (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Ross: [Since LLG is an online training platform for a pre-licensing exam for the insurance sales force], we can grow the company in Detroit, Michigan, but we can service the entire country and we don’t have to be in those different states in order to sell our services in those states. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Ross Sanders, Bizdom U – Detroit, Michigan and Cleveland, Ohio (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

I am talking to Ross Sanders, executive director of Bizdom U, which is a not-for-profit business accelerator, that is in some ways similar to Y Combinator and yet different in others. The founder of Bizdom U is Dan Gilbert, a serial entrepreneur, chairman and founder of Quicken Loans, among his many other companies. Bizdom U originated in Detroit in 2007 and is now expanding into Cleveland. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Jerry Creighton, Enterprise Development Center, New Jersey Institute of Technology – Newark (Part 5)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Jerry: One of the areas that works well for us is I have very strong networking here. One of the reasons I have those networking sessions is so that people come in, and they actually sit down and talk to each other. Because of that, they might learn that they have skills that others may need. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Tim Lavengood, Technology Innovation Center – Evanston, Illinois (Part 10)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Irina: Are there any financial firms that specialize in software escrow?

Tim: Very few. It’s a good business to get into. It is emerging, because software code is an asset. It is a transferable asset, unlike making something in a factory. If this code has proven commercial value, it is one of the financing options that I recommend for companies.

I am talking to a team of software developers right now who can do that kind of development work for equity. I see so many people who are trying to raise $150,000 in capital from angel investors, and I see most of it is going to go to programmers. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Jerry Creighton, Enterprise Development Center, New Jersey Institute of Technology – Newark (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: How many inquiries do you receive a month?

Jerry: I get two or three a week.

Irina: Out of those, how many do you usually accept?

Jerry: That’s a very good question. It’s a cyclical thing. Typically, 50% of them are people who will say, “I like the idea. I’ll be back in six months, as soon as I get funding.” Some people say, “We’re ready right now.” I would say that 60% of all companies I talk to come in at some point, either immediately or sometime over the year. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Tim Lavengood, Technology Innovation Center – Evanston, Illinois (Part 9)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Irina: How many of your entrepreneurs work on software businesses? And what kind of software?

Tim: It would be probably about 50% of our companies, either half or just under half. A lot of people want to hook on to enterprise software programs. Many are interested in social networking, data mining, and Web development. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Jerry Creighton, Enterprise Development Center, New Jersey Institute of Technology – Newark (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Jerry: When we hire students at the incubator, the university pays the students weekly, and then I bill the company and they reimburse the university for the students’ services.

Irina: How are the faculty compensated?

Jerry: It’s up to them. It could be free. It could be whatever it is. A lot of them, because they’re looking for student programs, could [do it as] a pro bono kind of thing. They could work together that way. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Tim Lavengood, Technology Innovation Center – Evanston, Illinois (Part 8)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Tim: We had other ways of doing our Japanese program. We could have gone there. There are other ways of doing that, but that is the way they wanted to do it. They really wanted to see the environment here, which was great, but it wound up being costly. As I said, they did it for three years. >>>