Posts Tagged: "incubators"

Failing Your Way to Success

Consider, for example, the old axiom that entrepreneurs must be unwaveringly fixated on a single goal. Most startups are built around a single product or service that is assumed (but not yet proven) to meet a real consumer need and offer a lucrative market opportunity. The CEO of that startup is likewise singularly focused on getting a fully-baked product out the door as soon as possible in order to start generating revenues while at the same time building a pipeline for future offerings. Given the limited resources in most startups, this often means that the engineers are building Version 2 of the product before Version 1 has even been tested in the market.

Edward Balassanian

January 20, 2012

Winning the Future: How States Can Promote Innovation

One approach to promoting IP protection at the State/regional level would be for the State/incubators to create targeted “IP Protection Funds.” These Funds could be used to both educate the entrepreneurial community about IP protection and to finance protection for qualifying local startup companies. For example, the fund may directly pay IP legal fees, either as grants or convertible loans, on behalf of a startup, thereby ensuring that IP protection is an integral focus of the company. Administration of the Funds, along with company qualification, may be handled through the grass-roots incubator networks that are already actively counseling the startup community. Such a Fund may also serve to bridge the gap between the under-funded start-ups that desperately need IP protection (yet do not always value it), and the patent practitioner community that is sometimes reluctant to accept under-funded ventures as clients.

David S. Nay

February 4, 2011