British Columbia Innovation Council

by Dean Prelazzi, BCIC

A couple of years ago, I met Mark Dance - former COO, CFO and Division President at Creo.  He approached me at a local tech event with immeasurable enthusiasm and described some product management training material he delivered to engineering students at UBC and his desire to launch a technology commercialization and business planning workshop for early-stage technology entrepreneurs.  This was well aligned with BCIC's mandate, and having worked for startups most of my career - and experiencing first hand some of the challenges Mark was aiming to address - I knew he was on to something.

And so it began. In partnership with BCIC (and later, with NRC-IRAP's support) Mark's workshop launched in April 2009 and has since assisted 23 companies (38 participants).  According to a participant survey, since attending the workshop companies have added 14 new jobs to BC's work force, generated over $780,000 in new revenues, acquired over $1M in investment, created 14 business partnerships and landed 44 customers (including early adopters). I'm not saying Mark's workshop is 100% responsible for this success considering the myriad of support programs these companies may have accessed in BC's technology ecosystem. But, if you speak to the participants and read their testimonials, it's clear the impact of his work has been profound and quite likely played a major role in this collective success.

The next workshop is scheduled to begin in February 2012, with a focus on Clean Energy/Clean Tech (although all early-stage tech startups are encouraged to apply). The application deadline is January 2nd, 2012.

Course Components:

• Three full day workshops: Friday February 3, 10 & 17
• Upon completion of the last workshop there is a final project, which forms the basis of three hours of one-on-one mentorship, where Mark will work with each company independently.
• Coaching session dates: Friday March 2, 16, 30

Cost

• $269 per company (value = $4,000)
• Registration includes space and materials for two lead company representatives. Additional representative = $125 (max: 1)
  
  

Five $1,000 travel bursaries will be awarded to select participants.

I sat down with Mark earlier this week to chat about this valuable opportunity available to BC entrepreneurs.

What was your inspiration for originally pulling together this workshop content? Why did you feel it was needed?

I attended a UBC Engineering advisory group meeting in late 2000 and ranted on for 15 minutes about how I never wanted to hire another discipline-specific engineer again. I wanted to hire system engineers and product managers - smart, technically-trained individuals who could either pull together multiple technical disciplines to deliver world-class products or those who can speak with customers, understand their real needs and develop competitively differentiated "winning" products.

Five years later I left Creo upon the acquisition by Kodak and went back to UBC to see what I could do to help build the tech entrepreneur community in BC.  Lo and behold, UBC had made a lot of progress on the system engineering side.  OK, I thought, now I needed to step up on the product management side.  As I see it, product management in the big sense of the word - creating, capturing and sustaining value - is the core of being an entrepreneur and a startup tech CEO.

Later I met and collaborated with BCIC (you remember?) and with your direction and suggestions expanded the course to other areas necessary to understand which ideas can become the seeds of great opportunities.

Yes, I remember.  We had a great chat and some big ideas. I was excited too. But you've never started your own company, so what qualifies you to lead this workshop?

Great question.  I am not an entrepreneur and don't pretend to be one.  However I have seen products succeed and I have seen products fail.  I believe I understand what it takes to commercialize ideas in companies both large and small - in many technologies, in service businesses and in world-wide markets.  I have seen small ideas grow into companies and those companies in turn grow.  I am passionate about helping entrepreneurs do whatever it takes to make their companies succeed.

Interesting - so then, what are the biggest challenges to success dogging startup founders/CEOs?

Not spending enough time truly understanding their customers, distilling their problems and identifying the really big pain points they face.  This is especially true of founders with technical backgrounds.

This seems pretty straight forward. What's getting in the way?

I have found that many people from tech backgrounds are uncomfortable talking to both customers and prospects.

The right beachhead customer for the technology or product will see the value you can bring to their business.  It's more of a partnership - you will create the value together.  It's then a matter of figuring out how to equitably split the value.  If the prospect isn't seeing things this way, you have either the wrong product, the wrong prospect, or both.

How does your workshop attempt to address this?

In several ways, specifically, by defining an attractive market, understanding that market's big problems, matching that insight with what the entrepreneur can do uniquely well and by identifying beachhead customers or partners who help in so many ways.

What do you think has been the participants' favourite topic and why?

The survey results from the course are all over the map on this.  But I think it is the section of the course that provides underlying theory and frameworks - such as competition, pricing and valuation- and the examples that illuminate those theories in real world practice. Throughout the workshop I share my experiences and those of the participants to illustrate the value of applying specific strategies to business challenges. This works well and keeps everyone engaged because it's real and is being related to their businesses and experiences.

What topic has the potential to create the greatest impact on the participant's chances of success?

I would guess it might be the go-to-market section where we focus on identifying and landing beachhead customers.  This is because of the importance of this milestone in a company's life. It pulls together the elements from the previous sections on market selection, competitive analysis, positioning, etc.

In your experience with past workshop attendees, where do they tend to get the most value?

Unquestionably it is in the mentoring/coaching session.  This is where we review the results of the project work (a project based on the course work) and identify the largest risks to their idea.  We then work over three sessions to reduce these risks in a meaningful way.  The sessions are all about the company and what will create meaningful progress for them regardless of whether it is by reducing technical risk, building the right team, launching a viable financing plan, negotiating partnerships, landing key customers, IP, whatever.  The sessions are all about them and their needs.

The next workshop is focused on Clean Tech startups. How are clean tech startups unique in comparison to ICT and how are you planning to tailor your workshop to this audience?

Clean tech generally requires more investment than early-stage ICT: time, money, management capability.  Therefore, they are often bigger bets which mean that spending time to think about target customers, the right financing, etc. is time well spent versus a pivot/pivot/pivot approach which can be the right approach for ICT.  We go through all these approaches and tailor the material to the audience as we go.

The basic philosophies of Lean Startup are great and apply to everyone. They aren't "don't raise money" philosophies but rather raise the right money at the right time to reduce the right risks.  The course should help work through these questions.

Describe one of your most satisfying experiences working with a startup founder/CEO.

The times I have helped a company land a key customer or partner.  Seeing the theory come into practice in terms of what the customer wants and how the company can provide it.  Hearing the entrepreneurs say "yeah, we remembered that from the course so we were prepared..."

Can you give me an example of how you helped a company land their first customer?

Well when I have helped it has revolved around identifying the right partner or customer in the first place. Then working through the positioning of the partnership or product to assure that value is maximized for the company, pricing, negotiation details, countering objections, etc.

What big company structures or processes do you wish startups made a point of paying more attention to if they could?

I wouldn't call these big company structures, as these apply to every company whether they are big or small, but I believe you really need to focus on building the right team and having a disciplined approach to customer development.  Market and team...that's it really!

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