Business Incubator Series: Tim Lavengood, Technology Innovation Center – Evanston, Illinois (Part 5)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Irina: What other kind of projects students usually do?

Tim: We had a company that did consumer electronics. They had a little bug zapper that they were designing, and we had a student group that came in and helped with that. As matter of fact, they produced a patent out of some of the suggestions they made, and our company was willing to give that patent to the students. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Stephen Fleming, Enterprise Innovation Institute, Georgia Tech – Atlanta (Part 8)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: What about those entrepreneurs who don’t need or want to raise money?

Stephen: Right, the bootstrappers. We have an active community of bootstrapping companies now, that for whatever reason, don’t need to or choose not to raise money – or choose not to raise money right now. We help them. The core proposition is to build something that somebody wants to pay for, build it fast, and bring in revenue. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Tim Lavengood, Technology Innovation Center – Evanston, Illinois (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Irina: How do you usually process entrepreneurs’ applications or inquiries?

Tim: I don’t have a hard and fast rule for that because, again, I don’t want people to articulate aspects of their business that they are not yet qualified to do.

I just don’t want them to spend six hours trying to produce a financial projection for their company because I know they don’t know how. So, most of it is conversational and again, that can be over the Internet or through meetings with me here in this office. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Stephen Fleming, Enterprise Innovation Institute, Georgia Tech – Atlanta (Part 7)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Stephen: Now, phase 2 [of the Georgia Research Alliance Commercialization Program] – and we go up to Phase 4 – phase 2 is an up to $100,000 grant, again, to the university or universities. Sometimes these are joint ventures between, for example, Georgia Tech and Emory.

It is competitive, so it goes to that same committee. The biggest change between Phase 1 and Phase 2, other than the increased dollar value, is that the company has to have demonstrated its ability to raise an equal amount of money from someone else. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Tim Lavengood, Technology Innovation Center – Evanston, Illinois (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Irina: So, is it OK to come to your incubator just with an idea?

Tim: If it’s an idea and a dedication that this is going to be the dedication of a life for a while, then, yes.

As I said, these people are going full time. They have given up their jobs, if they had them, and they are going to give full-time to starting a business. If you are doing that and you have a valid technology, then I can meet with you. I usually meet with companies three to four times, so we spend few hours together before either one of us would make a decision about coming here. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Stephen Fleming, Enterprise Innovation Institute, Georgia Tech – Atlanta (Part 6)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Stephen: One of the larger donors to Georgia Tech Edison Fund is the Charles Edison Fund. That is the fund that was set up by the son of Thomas Edison. They allow us to use the Thomas Edison name. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Tim Lavengood, Technology Innovation Center – Evanston, Illinois (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Tim: So, the fourth thing we have is this peer group where companies get to learn from each other and from us. Over the 26 years we have been around, we have had more than 350 clients.

We have just in Evanston, which is a small suburb of Chicago, about 25 companies providing about 430 high-quality full-time jobs, so there is a lot of learning that takes place here. It has become a big network over the years that a company gets to come in and be a part of, both in terms of getting personnel and learning from mistakes. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Stephen Fleming, Enterprise Innovation Institute, Georgia Tech – Atlanta (Part 5)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: On average, how long does a company stay in your incubator?

Stephen: It’s all over the map. The life science companies take longer. We actually don’t have a time horizon in mind for our life science companies. They’re so dependent on the underlying science and the regulatory approval process. >>>