I love thought provoking renditions of what the future might be like. This is a good example of how material science (and Corning) will likely play a role in our future – Ben
Our Future – Through the Eyes of Corning
April 12, 2011
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NASA Announces Results of Pilot Program With yet2.com
April 6, 2011HOUSTON, April 6, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — NASA’s Space Life Sciences Directorate (SLSD) at the Johnson Space Center in Houston announced results of a pilot program conducted by yet2.com that identified partnerships to work on six technical needs related to human spaceflight. The needs range from better food packaging materials to a portable bone-imaging device.
SLSD engaged the services of open innovation service provider yet2.com as part of a series of pilot programs during the last two years. In an effort to expand open communication and to create additional opportunities for public involvement with NASA, open innovation service provider (OISP) platforms are under evaluation.
“Open innovation has been a critical component of SLSD’s broader innovation strategy,” said Jeffrey R. Davis, director of SLSD. “This strategy has strengthened our ability to make connections with organizations to address our research and technology needs that we would not have known about using more traditional approaches. Given the favorable results achieved through this pilot study, we will continue to pursue the use of OISP as one tool in our innovation toolkit.”
Based on NASA’s specific technological needs, yet2.com acted as a technology scout, providing a broad external network of experts as potential collaborators with NASA. A relationship can be established with these contacts to develop new technologies. Yet2.com’s system also can be used to maintain established networks for future collaborations. The results from the pilot study show potential for long-term efficacy of OISP platforms.
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Driving a Successful Exit
March 29, 2011Over the past 10 years, yet2 has facilitated hundreds of transactions with the Fortune 500, on 3 continents. Most of these have been between successful start ups and a large multinationals, and they cover a wide range of technology. While each transactions is different, I thought I’d share a few navigational insights to help successful start-ups drive an exit or form a partnership.
The first thing to understand is that large companies rarely act with one voice. While they try to, they don’t. They are a collection of individuals each with motivations and fears. Most of employees of these firms have 3 questions in mind, 1) How can I represent my company well? 2) Will this help get me promoted? 3) Will this minimize the chance for me to get fired?
Usually, it’s in the best interest of the LargeCo to delay and do more diligence or testing. Unless they are about to lose the opportunity, they have every motivation to ‘do one more test’. More testing and diligence helps prevent the decision-makers from getting fired. In this sense, Large companies may be price agnostic, meaning they would much rather pay $200 million for a technology they know works, than $5 million for one that ‘needs fixing’. This is how to get promoted, and not fired. Read the rest of this entry »
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Japanese Economy after the Earthquake
March 18, 2011For over ten years I have been going to Japan frequently. I’m going again in 2 weeks. Their; technology, discipline and focus have always amazed me. This was sent to me by a friend and I thought is was worth sharing.
Don’t underestimated Japan’s capability and resolve. The below picture is a good example. The left is the state of a highway right after the earthquake. The right is the same highway four days later. Message? The Japanese economy and people will rebound from this crisis, and be stronger and better then ever.
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Google’s Self Driving Car
March 14, 2011By Anil Das of International Business Times
Search engine behemoth Google has been working long and hard on a ‘secret’ project towards making cars that can drive themselves. At this week’s TED conference, Google presented extremely rare demos of its much-awaited self-driving cars and the videos of the demos have hit the internet.
“Our automated cars use video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to “see” other traffic, as well as detailed maps (which we collect using manually driven vehicles) to navigate the road ahead. This is all made possible by Google’s data centers, which can process the enormous amounts of information gathered by our cars when mapping their terrain,” Google had said in an earlier blog post.
The automated cars, manned by trained operators, just drove from our Mountain View campus to our Santa Monica office and on to Hollywood Boulevard. They’ve driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe. All in all, our self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles, it added.
The internet gaint stressed safety has been the first priority in this project and the cars are never unmanned. The company has a trained software operator in the passenger seat to monitor the software. Any test begins by sending out a driver in a conventionally driven car to map the route and road conditions. By mapping features like lane markers and traffic signs, the software in the car becomes familiar with the environment and its characteristics in advance.
The company informed, citing the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 1.2 million lives are lost every year in road traffic accidents and technology of this kind has the potential to cut the accident rate by half.
Furthermore, this technology is expexted to reduce the time of commuting and make it time efficient. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates people spend an average 52 minutes everyday commuting to the office.
Search Engine Land has posted a video of one of Google’s self-driving cars racing around a closed course. Take a look at the video to catch a brief glimpse of the future:
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5 IP Legal Mistakes Small Companies Make When Working with Large Companies
March 8, 2011
Jackie Hutter is my favorite IP attorney in open innovation. She has done a lot of interesting deals and represented both large and small companies. Below is a great article by her – Ben
Small companies CAN effectively partner with large companies in Open Innovation…
Open Innovation guru Stefan Lindegaard recently asked me what the biggest IP legal mistakes small companies make when they are working with large companies. This is a subject very near and dear to my heart, as I am currently “moonlighting” as GC of a start up energy company that is moving toward licensing our technology into large companies. Also, as a senior IP lawyer at a multi-national consumer products company, I was on the other side of such deals on more occasions than I can count. Prior to that, I was a law firm partner representing large and small corporations in patents and licensing issues, and in doing so, I now realize that I killed more deals than I ever facilitated, a situation that is more typical of law firm lawyers than it should be, unfortunately.
In view of this multi-faceted experience, I present this list of the 5 most common mistakes companies make when working with large companies in Open Innovation.
1. Thinking you have all the answers for the large company’s problems:
As a small company, you often have only have a single idea or technology and you quite properly focus your attention in this direction. This can be damaging to your ability to do complete an Open Innovation deal with a big company, however. The large company may not care about what you see as the value of your technology because they are the experts in their products and customers. Indeed, you may be wholly wrong about why the large company is interested in speaking to you. If you want to sell or license your technology to a large company, your best bet is to focus on the specific technology aspects, and leave the business and customer issues to the other side, at least at the early stages of discussion.
2. Bringing the wrong lawyer to the table:
Very often small companies assume the lawyer who handles their intellectual property issues is the appropriate person to bring to a conversation with the big company. However, the legal skills a small company needs to obtain its patent rights are very different than what are needed to get a deal done. While protection of your small company’s IP should be paramount in any dealings with the large company, putting up complicated restrictions about the use and ownership of your IP even before you know a deal is likely to happen, which is the natural inclination of most IP attorneys, can often end up in the other party walking away before a deal is even underway. I have found the best lawyers to negotiate deals in the Open Innovation context are business-focused attorneys, who tend to be people who have served a stint in the corporate world and who might even have little experience with high-end IP issues. It can be tough to find someone with these credentials, however. As an alternative, I like to work with licensing experts, most of whom have successfully closed most deals in a year than many law firm IP lawyers see in their entire careers. These licensing experts are frequently not lawyers, but they have negotiated enough agreements to be very good at spotting the legal issues and, in this regard, they often do a better job than lawyers.
3. Putting the legal issues ahead of the business issues:
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NYC Venture Capital vs. Boston Venture Capital
March 4, 2011I recently read a great article by Dan Primack about a similar topic. I thought I would add my thoughts.
I spend a lot of time in both New York and Boston. My role with yet2Ventures allows me to visit both a couple times a month. I founded yet2.com outside of Boston back in 1999, and spend time raising money for yet2Ventures in New York.
It is not uncommon for people to think that because NYC is arguably the financial capital of the world, that is also a VC strong hold. NYC is not Palo Alto or Boston with their thriving innovation ecosystems, but it should not be underestimated. Read the rest of this entry »
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Innovation Outside of the Box
March 3, 2011Innovation is all about taking the common and regular, and changing it for the better. Here is a quick video about the reinvention of the shoe box by Puma. At yet2ventures, we are fascinated by breakthrough consumer packaging.
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3 Tips for Starting a Business
March 1, 2011I read this article and thought it was worth sharing….enjoy – Ben
(Editor’s note: Doug Collom is vice dean and an adjunct lecturer on venture capital and entrepreneurship for Wharton|San Francisco. He submitted this story to VentureBeat. I reprinted it here)
Starting companies is hard. And it’s critical to make sure that your venture is pointing in the right direction from the moment it leaves the launch pad. Any misdirection or miscue on the basic organizational steps can be fatal.
It’s a lot like launching a rocket aimed at the moon—if the launch is only 2 degrees off target at blast-off, it will miss by hundreds of thousands of miles.
There’s no end to the advice and opinions entrepreneurs will hear in a company’s early days, but three basic rules that every company founder should take into consideration:
Keep it simple – In setting up the capital structure and the first equity of the company, many founders either try to innovate or try to accommodate the wishes and desires of every co-founder and early stage employee. The result is too much complexity.
In most cases where there is more than one founder (probably on the order of over 80 percent of startups), the stock should be split equally. If it isn’t an even split, then you should re-evaluate whether your co-participants really deserve to be in the “founder” category. Establish uniform stock vesting provisions that apply equally to both founders (although maybe with some “credit” for pre-formation activities) and early stage employees. Read the rest of this entry »
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yet2.com Webinar – April 21st – Improve deal-making process
April 19, 2011Join us to hear how experienced deal-makers are succeeding, at our upcoming webinar:
Conference Preview: Successful Deal-making with Small Companies April 21, 2011, 11:00am EST.
We’ll be discussing relationship building, cross-cultural appreciation, ongoing consulting, and step-wise deal structures, among other topics. We’ve gathered representatives from both the small and big company perspectives to share their thoughts — tune in to learn how you can hasten and improve your own deal process.
Webinar speakers:
April’s webinar is an exclusive preview of a live panel discussion to be held at yet2.com’s upcoming Open Innovation conference in May, in Boston.
Register today for the Successful Deal-making with Small Companies Preview Webinar here:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/311188682