The timing of the this epiphany came during a "period of transition" in our community as there are now several organizations that support entrepreneurs; all striving for recognition, relevance... and funding.  So many people competing with each other to do good.  So much energy consumed maintaining the status quo.  It's like our collective energy is dissipating toward some state of equilibrium... ENTROPY!  It's a cloud that represents the community with everything in its place, working efficiently, and well measured.  Then something happens to change things and all of the sudden a lot of energy gets spent to achieve the next state of equilibrium. Equilibrium consumes energy.  Or rather, it dissipates it.

This process is painful.  Innovation is sacrificed for efficiency and a well ordered system.  A lot of money is spent on resources to manage the system.  And perhaps most frustrating, attention is poured into efforts not focused on why you're in business in the first place.

If this is truly an example of Entropy, then, at least philosophically, you can't do anything about it.  It's a law of the universe. It is the way of things.  

If this is true, then this reaction is predictable and therefore can be "managed".  Status quo can be the impetus for change.  Change can be embraced as opportunity.  It can be a time for the innovators to get out and make the way for change.  The key then is to learn to recognize the equilibrium in the system and look for way to focus energy on a new and better solution.  

This is the role of the innovator.  He or she is the one that gets out. Ahead of the status quo. Seeing what's next and going to find it.  To be the catalyst for the next upheaval.  To sense a state of equilibrium and realize a lot of energy could be pointed in a different direction to solve a real problem.  But unlike the profit who merely points the way, the innovator hoists the pack, grabs the walking stick and finds the way.  While the entropic crowd worries about maintaining itself, the innovator discovers a way to provide value to a willing customer.  And when this happens, the innovator has become an entrepreneur.

Now the explanation for the pause will take longer than the actual pause but stay with me.  I have been running for most of the years leading up to my certain age; basically since the 6th grade.  I know running.  I live running. Plus, I am (I think) tough.  I know what I know and there's not much I don't know...I am sure of it. But then again, what I know isn't working.  "Ummmm,  yeah," was the phrase that ended the pause.

He immediately emailed a guy that lives two hours away who had a pretty cool website and modestly boasted of a couple Olympic runners he has coached.  His name is Randy and I called him.  I asked him why a guy who coaches Olympians would be interested in coaching a middle aged guy who has nothing to prove but wants to defy age as long as possible. Throughout the conversation he said that he wants to help people who have a desire to improve and he especially likes to work with people who have regular busy lives and want to integrate a running lifestyle.  After about 20 minutes on the phone, we agreed it was a good fit.

So now I keep a daily diary and email it to him on Saturdays.  On Sunday, he emails me a workout schedule for that week.  So what's different and why would I pay for something when there's so much free information on the internet and in other resources?  I'm about 4 weeks into it and the answer is this: it's the access to someone who understands what I am going through and the accountability.  I am running more regularly than I have in many years because I know I have to upload my accomplishments each week.  Plus, when something hurts or I have a question about barefoot running shoes, I can ask him. Even though it's just email and an occasional telephone call, I know I'm not alone...

Entrepreneurship is a lonely endeavor.  It's like hitting a golf ball.  I'm told you have to think about fifty things all at once and one thing affects the other 49 in some way.  One of the things we are emphasizing in the CEG right now is to leverage our personal and professional networks to find mentors for our client companies.  Each company and each entrepreneur is different but everyone needs someone they can bounce ideas off and someone to help remind them which of the fifty things they should think about first.  Jim Collins speaks of the "council".  We call them mentors. But they are really coaches.  Sometimes it's a small group of two or three.  Sometimes you meet formally and sometimes it's over coffee or a telephone call.  It's someone you trust and someone who wants to see you succeed. It may be free or it may cost you something.  There's a guy working with me on a technology opportunity.  He told me "you can't afford me so just buy me a lunch every couple months. I gotta eat."  He has been down the path I'm on.  His advice has been very valuable.  I'm not alone...

Do you need a coach?

One of my assigned technologies was "Nonoxide Fluorescent Nanoparticles"  I still don't really know what that means.  The researcher was very patient with me as he explained free electrons, chemical nanofermentation of metal sulfides and the implications for superparamagnetics and ferrofluids. Perhaps through pity, perhaps through exasperation, he finally explained that the process was just like making beer.  That was my eureka moment.  That was a story I could tell.  A strange thing happened as I spent the next two weeks researching markets and understanding how products from rare earth metals are made.  I began to be absorbed into the world of seven syllable words.  The more familiar I became with the technology, the more I started using the language of the scientist and that found its way into my narrative and my slide deck.  The team got together to review our progress and when it came to me, they stopped me on about the third slide and asked me what the heck I was talking about.  "What do you mean?" I said and proceeded to convince them how cool it was to make heavy metals for quantum dots.  John Morris reminded me of who my audience is and they would relate a lot better to making beer than how to precipitate indium and gallium.  I guess I was proud of my new knowledge or perhaps it was just easier to use scientific language once I understood it.  I went back and based the whole message on how it compared to making beer and rather than listing all the elements that could be made, I used pictures of the products that were made from these materials.  It was a hit as were the other presentations made by the CEG team.

Here are some lessons the old dog had to learn...again:

1. It's really easy to get sucked into the world of complex technology.  The deeper you get, the more you begin to use the foreign language that is "techspeak".  You don't have to have a PhD for this to happen.
2. Practice for others - I recorded myself several times and although I got the "ahhh's" and "um's" out of the story, I completely missed the techspeak.  I must have been impressing myself with how the big words rolled out of my mouth.
3. Pictures ARE worth a thousand words.  I replaced four slides filled with a couple hundred words and about 48 bullets...with one slide that had nothing but pictures of computer hard drives, solar panels and MRI machines.  The people got it and the story was easier to tell.
4. You can't throw it together.  One 15 minute presentation took about two weeks to research, assemble and practice.  I had two of them to do.
5. It's not about you. Your job is to tell a good story to people who don't know who you are or what you are selling.  You have to meet them on their terms, not yours.  They won't be impressed with how casually you can say "superparamagneticism".  If they are, then they are thinking about that and not what a great small business opportunity this is.
6. It's not about the technology.  There...I said it again but now I really believe it.  Technology is cool.  But no one will care unless they can see a pathway to make money with it.  That's your job.

Telling a good story is about communicating an emotion.  It's the listener who gets to judge, not the story teller.  

I hope you enjoy my dog food!  It actually tastes pretty good...

One of those basic realities of entrepreneurship is the fact that you can't get there by yourself.  You will need help and it will likely come in the form of partners.  Manufacturing, sales, marketing, finance, accounting, and the list goes on.  Perhaps a typical scenario goes like this: you have a hot new technology but you need someone to help you make it.  Your intellectual property outlines a basic concept for making the product and your challenge is to figure out how to scale up in a manufacturing environment.  So you meet with a few manufactures who are excited about working with you as you are equally excited about making your stuff. You like one particular company and you sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) or a Letter of Intent (LOI) and start the process of figuring out how to make your stuff.  Through several trial runs, you determine the right mix of materials, the best temperature and pressure and your product turns out to be better than expected.  The question is who owns this new intellectual property?  You? Everybody?  Nobody?

Benjamin K. Riley has written a fine article on the Fortune Blog called Three Legal Lessons For Startups in which he goes into some detail about the importance of legal agreements between business partners and joint ventures.  Different legal agreement types carry different weight when it comes to ownership of intellectual property and it's important to understand these differences and make sure your trade secrets stay a secret.

Partners may not stay partners for ever....

By the way, this article came to me via a great newsletter called Lipper Current Weekly. It's one of the best.

The negotiations process can be taxing on the patience and sometimes, the emotions.  VC's live in a world of contracts and attorneys so they are used to it.  For entrepreneurs, the negotiation process can appear to be a profound lack of trust with a potential partner when everything leading up to this moment has been friendly.  The point here is not to base your opinion of the relationship on the negotiation process.  You are better off talking with others who have successfully survived a negotiation with this partner to find out about the relationship when everything gets back to normal.  Plus, you should do it long before you jump into a negotiation.  A good recommendation from another portfolio company will help you get through the process knowing it gets better at the end.

When checking references, ask questions that get to the "chemistry" of the relationship.  We have seen cases where VC's are very active in the management of the company and others take a passive approach once the deal is done. Neither  of these cases is either good or bad.  You may benefit from expertise and contacts offered by an active investor or you may be better off with them on the sideline.  That is up to you.  The important thing is to find out how they operate post deal so you are not surprised.

Remember, an investor relationship will last the life of your company, or at least through an exit opportunity.  It is easier to get out of a bad relationship with an employee than it will be with your funding partners so enter into the relationship with your eyes wide open.

The fight between founders over the business model and the exit strategy - I have seen companies dissolve over this one.  While Facebook survived, the friendship did not.  Things will change as a company matures and new opportunities are presented so it's not as simple as saying the founders have to agree on everything... they won't.  Someone has to be the one to make the decision and the operating agreement should spell out what happens in the event of a divorce.

Never sign anything you don't read - Term sheets are confusing because attorneys get paid more that way.  Many of them are boiler plate to begin with and sometimes contain stuff no body intended but it's in the template.  Other times, terms are put in that were not agreed to in the verbal part of the negotiation.  This may or may not be deliberate but it definitely happens.  Read everything and question everything and GET YOUR OWN LAWYER!!!!!  You will pay him/her more than you want to but do it anyway.  Just make sure to get one with experience with startups and term sheet negotiations.

Someday you may get to tell customers what they want - but not likely and certainly not when you are starting out.  It's all about what the customer wants.  That is why you need to get your idea into their hands as soon as possible so they can tell you.  If you are lucky enough to be branded as cool, run with it, but figure out how to get paid for being cool.

Be a Level 5 Leader - I leave you to read "Good To Great" for a full explanation of what a Level 5 Leader is but suffice it to say that although getting rich is a powerful motivator, the all consuming focus of the entrepreneur is for the ultimate success of the venture.

Think twice about taxing the rich - OOTG is about entrepreneurship, not politics so worry not... Geoff Robson found a great post by John Tammy on the Forbes Website, "Facebook Exposes Tax and Consumption Myths."  Most rich people earned their wealth and few waste it..which is why they are...rich.  Peter Thiel, the original angel investor in Facebook chose to put $500,000 into a company led by a young Harvard genius rather than plunk it down on a yacht.  That led to a company worth billions and employing hundreds of people who are paid well and many of which will use their wealth to start other companies.

I guess that's 5 Things I learned from "The Social Network"...

So, "there it is..."

In the early 1990's, a group of researchers at the University of Tennessee became interested in "ball lightning" which is atmospheric plasma.  They wondered if the phenomenon could be recreated in a lab environment.  From their efforts came the One Atmosphere Uniform Glow Discharge Plasma technology.  A microbiologist PhD named Kim Witenberg joined the team in the mid 90's to see if the technology could be applied to kill micro-organisms.  

Fast forward to 2008, Ken Wood formed Advanced Plasma Products, licensed the technology from the University of Tennessee Research Foundation and launched a commercialization effort.  The first product has entered the market, The TriClean Pro and is a stand-alone air purification system.

Here is a link to the report: http://www.betterworldproject.net/AUTM2010BWR.pdf

Anyway, Blue Horizon is a consulting organization for entrepreneurs and their survey is a way to generate awareness and potential leads.  But it's worth taking a look.  Check out the survey and their home page:   http://www.bluehorizonvc.com/survey.html

I don't know what to tell you if you score a 30.  I guess you could give back your investment....

My business partner Geoff Robson turned me on to Gabriel Weinberg's very fine blog.  This particular post, "Wannabe Entrepreneurs - Symptoms and Cures" is entertaining and hits home.  Those who know me will know that comment, " have you really talked to real customers lately?" resonates loudly.  There is a follow-on post, "First-timers, symptom and cures".

It's really all about focus isn't it?

Here is the link:

http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/07/wannabe-entrepreneurs-symptoms-and-cures.html

The presentation was upbeat, high energy and downright cool.  One of the judges remarked that our entrepreneurial future is in safe hands with these guys.

Enjoy LifeKraze:

Throttle Up 2010-LifeKraze from Shawn Carson on Vimeo.

LifeKraze - one of 6 finalists for ThrottleUp! 2010, which was held during the Entrepreneurial Imperative in Knoxville, TN on October 27, 2010. These guys convinced the crowd that it was "all about the points".