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Follow on Google News | Improving the Odds of Entrepreneurial Success by taking a closer look at MIT's Eco-SystemMIT's Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation is a 'proof of concept' initiative that encourages faculty research labs to work on ideas that have impact.
By: ResearchPAYS As though these numbers were not discouraging enough, then there are the private equity firms who search through the rubble of startups with the hopes of selecting a winner. Their expectations are even more somber. Of the thousands of business plans reviewed per year, startup investment firms will fund on average 4 deals per year, knowing all along that 3 out of the 4 companies will either fail or break-even after their first year of operations. So, one might ask, can anything be done to improve the odds of success for a typical startup? Lab to Market At universities the term 'lab to market' is used to describe the worn path that many young companies must endure to become successful. Their humble beginnings tell a familiar story where an unexpected mishap in a lab inadvertently inspired their startup. For some, the inspiration came from a personal experience, such as in the case of DropBox's founder, Drew Houston, who got tired of using USB drives to move files from one computer to another. Had Drew not been inconvenienced enough times, DropBox may have evolved differently or not at all. Key to his success was not just his personal revelation and commitment, but also MIT's established eco-system that was there when needed to grow his nascent idea into a global company. MIT's contribution was so crucial that one might ask, if every entrepreneur had access to a similar eco-system as MIT offers, would the odds of success improve? Surprisingly, the answer is 'not necessarily'. Ideation Just as moving ideas from lab to market are challenging, coming up with the ideas in the first place or 'ideation' requires an entirely new approach and discipline, one that MIT addresses today with the first-of-its- Recently, I attended an awards reception to honor the 2013 winning teams (http://deshpande.mit.edu/ When Drew Houston stumbled upon his vision, DropBox was just an idea, an idea that could have easily slipped out of his mind had it not been for a timely injection of funds to nudge him along to help him prove his concept further. That nudge, that tap, that light push made all the difference. That need to nurture ideation at this very initial point in the entrepreneurial process was what inspired Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande and his wife, Jaishree, to donate $17.5 million to launch the Deshpande Center at MIT. An Innovative Approach At the reception I caught up with the founder, Desh, and asked him if he was pleased with the Center's 10-year record of 110 funded projects with 28 successfully spun out companies. A successful entrepreneur himself, Desh seemed less interested in speaking about his Center's extraordinary achievements than he was of the impact his Center had among the faculty and graduate students at MIT. To him the true value proposition of the Deshpande Center was less about granting awards to a select few and more on the number of applicants who applied. He felt that the Center’s application process forced researchers to view their work from an 'idea to impact' perspective, an approach rarely followed by researchers. With his contagious smile, Desh boasted that it was not uncommon for non-winning applicants to apply a second or third time. Last year two such teams that despite not winning a grant from the Center, succeeded in launching their startups anyway. With a deep sense of pride, Desh relished that fact that his Center's influence had achieved an equally positive impact with every applicant, regardless of who won a grant or not. Through his Center, Desh had created an ‘ideation culture’, one that is often ignored and yet intimately critical to the success of any startup/eco- Surely the odds of entrepreneurial success should improve if more startups had access to established eco-systems, especially those that support ideation early on. But perhaps the lesson to be learned from MIT's Deshpande Center’s story is less about funding ideation grants and more about giving entrepreneurs a second or even a third chance to prove their concept. Just think how many fantastic ideas are tossed aside and lost forever simply because a business or grant contest is designed to select only three winners? ...or the thousands of business plans tossed in the garbage of an overwhelmed angel investor? ...or the business plans that are rejected because of an entrepreneur’ © 2013 Tom Kadala End
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