LaunchTN acts as hub for entrepreneurial community
At Launch Tennessee, we traffic in ideas. Our entrepreneur center network, and the many industry-specific programs, cohorts and workshops it offers, is focused on meeting entrepreneurs in the community and giving them a platform to fine-tune their concepts into a workable business.
What that means is that our entire network does much more than simply talk about all the great ideas that come through our doors. Our teams buckle down with startups on two major areas of business development: innovation and commercialization.
• Innovation is exploring and fleshing out the idea that underpins the proposed company.
• Commercialization refers to the steps needed to move from concept to funding to the marketplace.
Launch Tennessee is uniquely qualified to shepherd ideas and companies through both these processes. We use our role as a convener to bring together entrepreneurs, corporations and research institutions to facilitate conversation and celebrate the possibilities for innovation. On the commercialization side, we help connect the same groups of people in order to address market challenges and solutions and to find ways to engage with the state’s research entities.
This approach fits into our overall innovation strategy, which includes the ideas that:
•Innovation is a multi-phase, multifaceted approach.
••Innovation should be market-driven.
•Innovation takes a village.
It’s a solid strategy, but like we preach to the startups we assist, every process can be improved. That’s why we’re digging deeper into the state’s entrepreneurial community and connecting to even more startups and innovators.
Recently we held a reception for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) in Tennessee, a group of folks we didn’t really know. That needed to change, because the 11 federal agencies that give annual grants of $2.5 billion for research and innovation set a very high bar, and Tennessee is home to more than 45 winners in the last three years alone. We had a lot to talk about, and we found a lot of synergy right away: One of our TENN alumni, Stony Creek Colors, is an SBIR grant recipient, and its founder and CEO, Sarah Bellos, spoke at the event about the research and development assistance she got from both programs. Another SBIR winner is Innovasan, a current TENN company and a graduate of CO.LAB and the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center.
We’re also working to maximize usage of the amazing resources we have here. Recently that’s meant working with Oak Ridge National Laboratory on everything from site tours to seeing how the laboratory can collaborate with startups to putting three support programs in place to help make that happen.
Recently at the laboratory’s manufacturing demonstration facility, we held an Innovation Connection event and discussion on 3D printing that was loaded with Launch Tennessee accelerator talent. Two presenters came through CO.LAB (Feetz and Branch Technology) and are former and current TENN companies.
All this effort is coming together in some remarkable ways. One of the most notable is the CO.STARTERS for Researchers program, which will engage graduate-level research students in the process of commercialization. The first cohort of 10–15 students will come onboard in January 2016. Over a nine-week period at Tennessee Technological University, they will be exposed to the commercialization process while also getting some intense insights on entrepreneurship, starting a business and building connections with fellow researchers, professional mentors and funding sources.
Tennessee is rich in creative entrepreneurs, skilled academics and world-class research and development facilities. At Launch Tennessee, we interact daily with all three groups. What we’re doing now is leveraging our synergy with all of them to connect them with each other. That’s going to lead to even more innovation and commercialization than we’re already seeing around the state, and further cement Tennessee’s place as a leader in tech innovation in the Southeast.
Charlie Brock is CEO of Launch Tennessee (www.launchtn.org), a public-private partnership focused on supporting the development of high-growth companies in Tennessee with the ultimate goal of making Tennessee the No. 1 state in the Southeast for entrepreneurs to start and grow a company.