The Venture Edge

It looks like President Barack Obama will announce in his upcoming State of the Union address tonight that he made some mistakes during his first year in office. It is anticipated that among these mistakes will be the admission that not enough focus has been placed on getting the economy back on track. I suspect this new focus on the economy will be officially rolled out tonight. Because small businesses are considered to be a key engine of economic growth in this country (as well as the source of our greatest technological innovations), expect to see an emphasis tonight on programs that will reinvigorate small business. This could potentially be accomplished through a variety of means, including tax breaks, unemployment tax holidays, incentives for hiring new employees, improved access to capital, and much more. So, if you've got a small business here in the United States, tonight just might be your night.

DARPA -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- is well known for its technology innovations. Founded in 1958 as America’s response to the Soviet Union’s launching of the Sputnik satellite, DARPA invented the Internet (no, it wasn't Al Gore), the stealth technology used in fighter aircraft, high-energy laser technology for space-based missile defense, and much, much more. DARPA’s mission is to maintain the technological superiority of the U.S. military and prevent technological surprise from harming our national security by sponsoring revolutionary, high-payoff research bridging the gap between fundamental discoveries and their military use.

I just returned from Sioux Falls, South Dakota where the non-profit institute that I co-founded with Tim Stearns has been running a Technology Accelerator Program over the past 8 weeks.  The goal is to get 7 new technology companies through the last mile of development and launched. This week we held a deal -dating event where the entrepreneurs pitched their businesses to a series of investors. 

If you saw my previous post, "With Apologies to Mr. Richter," you know that every technology business experiences the valley of death.  But, no matter what type of business you're trying to start, you need to do a proof of concept before you go all out and launch the business and to do that you need a prototype, which is simply a working model of the business--the product or service being offered.  Why? Because you can't get good feedback from customers if you don't have something they can see, touch, and interact with. 

I have to admit that I took three days off and did absolutely no work.  I didn't even have access to the Internet or email.  It was fantastic!  I highly recommend it to all you Type A, multi-tasking, think-you're-so-productive type business people who can't be away from your networks.  Trust me, your network will survive.  Yes, you'll return to a full inbox or Tweetdeck, but, frankly, most of it you'll be able to delete without reading (saves lots of time). 

When you think of technology businesses, it's not likely that South Dakota is the first place that comes to mind.  After all, for most of you, the entire center of the US is simply "fly-over" country.  But I have had the good fortune to discover untapped opportunity there through the work I've been doing with the institute I co-founded, N2TEC Institute.