Well, Iâ€™m as swamped as Iâ€™ve been in a long time, thanks to a business trip to Illinois to work with a University on commercializing a beautiful market maker website and technology for agricultural users. This was a great trip, and hereâ€™s a mish mash of lessons:

1. Universities are an untapped market. Many of you who live near universities should consider stopping by some departments to discuss potential projects for outreach to constituents. In two days, this particular university department (agricultural extension) received requests to create a bunch of sites that will become the â€œgo toâ€ sites for a variety of natural resources and recreational research. They canâ€™t do any of this on their own, and need people with good ideas to help create commercialization (e.g. advertising and premium membership) models.

2. Part of the trip involved pitching to a local venture capitalist. I helped develop the business plan and pitch. If you have yet to pitch to a VC or investor, make it part of your goals. Itâ€™s fun, exciting, and you get great feedback (or brutal feedback). In this case, the VC thought he knew what we were pitching, but didnâ€™t. Our mistake was going off script instead of sticking with our key themes and â€œstory.â€ But we also learned that this particular VC has a different mission than our particular venture, and so the fit is not there.



5. During business trips, find time to do other work so you arenâ€™t overwhelmed when you return, as I am now. I just hung out at my hotel room, when I could have done a better job catching up.

Okay, back to workâ€¦..

Write a Reply or Comment

Your email address will not be published.