Business Incubator Series: Interview With Julia Rosen, Associate Vice-President For Innovation And Entrepreneurship, Arizona State University, Venture Catalyst At ASU — Scottsdale, Arizona (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Julia: Maybe I should give you a bit of context about to why we’re doing this and why our programs are, perhaps, a little different from the others you’ve presented in your interviews. Of course, we are a public university. We are the largest public university in the United States. We are the only public research university in the greater Phoenix area, which is an area of four million people. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Interview With Kerry Rupp, Managing Partner, DreamIt Ventures – Philadelphia And New York City (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Kerry: So, if we take a company like Scvngr, which is among our alumni, when they applied [the founder] was a 17-year-old from Princeton who was a technologist, very savvy, visionary, but he really needed someone to build out more of the front-end sales and marketing operations and customer support side of the business. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Interview With Kerry Rupp, Managing Partner, DreamIt Ventures – Philadelphia And New York City (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Irina: What are your core benefits?

Kerry: We provide a lot of the same types of services that you will see in other accelerator programs, but I will describe them just to make sure we talk about them, and then we will talk about a couple of ways that we are different. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Interview With Julia Rosen, Associate Vice-President For Innovation And Entrepreneurship, Arizona State University, Venture Catalyst At ASU — Scottsdale, Arizona (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

I am talking to Julia Rosen, associate vice president for innovation and entrepreneurship at Arizona State University about the Venture Catalyst program at ASU.

Irina: Hi, Julia. Let’s start with a brief overview.

Julia: The Venture Catalyst is the new entrepreneurial platform at Arizona State University that combines several previously separate programs. Our first program was launched in 2004. The Venture Catalyst is a broader platform than that first program, which focused on training entrepreneurs in the greater Phoenix area. It was not necessarily a physical place where people could come and learn and advance their ideas. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Interview With Kerry Rupp, Managing Partner, DreamIt Ventures – Philadelphia And New York City (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

I am talking to Kerry Rupp, managing partner at DreamIt Ventures, which is an intense three-month location-based program where entrepreneurs receive seed funding, mentoring and peer support, and introductions to potential investors and partners. DreamIt’s goal is not only to support entrepreneurs’ efforts but to truly challenge them to reduce key risks, prove their customer segmentation, and develop strong revenue models and customer acquisition strategies. Founded in 2008, DreamIt currently runs two sessions a year, in New York City in the summer and Philadelphia in the fall. >>>

Seed Capital: Mark Solon, Co-Founder And Managing Partner, Highway 12 Ventures — Boise, Idaho (Part 6)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Do you have a preference for capital-efficient companies?

Mark: For the most part. We’re in a couple of companies that haven’t been the most capital-efficient businesses, but they’re still great outcomes. We’re not a big enough fund to play in companies that raise $50 million or $100 million. We try and find companies that can get to a degree of profitability and scale on less than $10 million.

Irina: How long on average you stay invested in a company before it exits?

Mark: It’s hard to say. Anywhere from a year to eight years. One of our portfolio companies just signed a letter of intent to be acquired. It was a 2003 investment for us. It’s going to be a company that sells for well over $100 million. That’s a seven- or eight-year-hold for us.

Irina: What is your biggest success to date?

Mark: I think all the companies we’ve exited from have been, in our eyes, very successful. Some have been bigger financial returns than others. Any time we’re an investor in a company where the entrepreneurs make money and our investors make money, we feel that it was a very big success. It’s a hard business.

Irina: What are your relationships with the startup accelerator TechStars?

Mark: I’m a mentor at the Boulder TechStars program. As soon as the companies arrive [for their three-month acceleration program] in the first week, I start spending a lot of time in Boulder working with a couple of the companies and getting to know all of the companies quite well. We’re spending as much time as we can there and we have invested in a number of TechStars’ companies.

Irina: Thank you, Mark. Fantastic insights.

Seed Capital: Mark Solon, Co-Founder And Managing Partner, Highway 12 Ventures — Boise, Idaho (Part 5)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Mark: It probably takes getting to $20 million or $30 million in sales before a larger technology company would be interested in acquiring a company. You’re going to have to get at least part of the way there. It’s hard to draw a line in the sand. At a minimum, if a company doesn’t have an opportunity to get to $100 million in sales, then it’s probably not the right opportunity for us. >>>

Seed Capital: Mark Solon, Co-Founder And Managing Partner, Highway 12 Ventures — Boise, Idaho (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Mark: It’s never too early for an entrepreneur to come and spend time with us. We have an open door. That’s what we love to do. We’re in this business because we love working with any type of entrepreneur.

As long as you’re attempting to build a business that’s going after a sizable market with a unique approach, we want to get to know you, if you’re in this region. >>>