Innovation 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.
Innovation Outside of the Box
March 3, 2011
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Clean Tech, future trends, open innovation, yet2.com | Tagged: clean tech, consumer packaging, innovation, open innovation, Puma, Shoes, technology scouting, yet2.com, yet2ventures | 
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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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Users Guide to Silicon Valley
February 23, 2011Starting in the fall last year I began spending at least a week a month in the Valley. I came across this great article by Steve Blank which describes a bunch of things to do in the Valley…. it almost a beginner guide to Silicon Valley. I highly recommend the read – Ben
If you’re a visiting dignitary whose country has a Gross National Product equal to or greater than the State of California, your visit to Silicon Valley consists of a lunch/dinner with some combination of the founders of Google, Facebook, Apple and Twitter and several brand name venture capitalists. If you have time, the President of Stanford will throw in a tour, and then you can drive by Intel or some Clean Tech firm for a photo op standing in front of an impressive looking piece of equipment.
The “official dignitary” tour of Silicon Valley is like taking the jungle cruise at Disneyland and saying you’ve been to Africa. Because you and your entourage don’t know the difference between large innovative companies who once were startups (Google, Facebook, et al) and a real startup, you never really get to see what makes the valley tick.
If you didn’t come in your own 747, here’s a guide to what to see in the valley (which for the sake of this post, extends from Santa Clara to San Francisco.) This post offers things to see/do for two types of visitors: I’m just visiting and want a “tourist experience” (i.e. a drive by the Facebook / Google / Zynga / Apple building) or “I want to work in the valley” visitor who wants to understand what’s going on inside those buildings.
I’m leaving out all the traditional stops that you can get from the guidebooks.
Hackers’ Guide to Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is more of a state of mind than a physical location. It has no large monuments, magnificent buildings or ancient heritage. There are no tours of companies or venture capital firms. From Santa Clara to South San Francisco it’s 45 miles of one bedroom community after another. Yet what’s been occurring for the last 50 years within this tight cluster of suburban towns is nothing short of an “entrepreneurial explosion” on par with classic Athens, renaissance Florence or 1920’s Paris. Read the rest of this entry »
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Deloro Signs LOI For The Acquisition Of New Heavy Oil Property at the Wilkie Project
January 26, 2011Electro Petroleum is a yet2Ventures portfolio company, and it’s the key partner to Deloro – Ben
January 25, 2011 Deloro Resources Ltd. (TSX.V – DLL) is pleased to announce that the Company has entered into a Letter of Intent for the acquisition of a new heavy oil property adjoining the Wilkie project in Saskatchewan.
The proposed new acquisition includes 320 acres containing the rights to petroleum from surface to the top of the Precambrian, 120 acres containing the rights to petroleum and natural gas from the base of the Mannville to the top of the Precambrian and 840 acres containing the rights to petroleum and natural gas from surface to the top of the Precambrian. This property will be acquired from Canadian Natural Resources for the sum of $15,000.00 and the assumption of all environmental and reclamation obligations.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Ganeden Biotech’s Strain of Probiotics Proves Very Effective
January 25, 2011Ganeden Biotech is a yet2Ventures portfolio company – Ben
New Study Catalogues Evidence for Probiotic, Bacillus coagulans
Review paper supports multiple health claims for specific Bacillus coagulans strain, GanedenBC30®
Cleveland (PRWEB) January 25, 2011
A new paper examining recent research and safety data published in the peer-reviewed journal Food Science and Technology Bulletin provides scientific support for Bacillus coagulans as a probiotic. The overview supports the use of probiotics in general and discusses a specific Bacillus coagulans strain, known as GanedenBC30 (Bacillus coagulans GBI-30, 6086), manufactured by consumer healthcare company Ganeden Biotech, for its probiotic attributes. The study summarizes how GanedenBC30 supports its health claims related to safety, gastrointestinal health, immune health, joint health and includes never before published data.
“Probiotic strains have been traditionally limited to Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium,” explained Dr. Glenn Gibson, one of the world’s leading probiotic experts and co-author of the paper. “The evaluation of this recent data shows great promise for Bacillus coagulans as a new type of probiotic that’s come to the forefront.” Read the rest of this entry »
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yet2.com forms yet2Ventures investment fund and teams up with Japan’s JAIC
January 24, 2011Tokyo, Japan and Boston, MA USA, 24 January 2011 — yet2.com has formed yet2Ventures, a fund created to help Fortune 500 firms and other owners of venture capital investments drive value in their portfolio companies. We can provide follow-on investment and liquidity to help small companies grow. We are excited about this effort and believe yet2.com is uniquely positioned to help portfolio companies grow with:
- Our global network, with offices in Tokyo, Boston, Liverpool, and Wilmington
- Our IP experience
- Our technology licensing experience
- And, now our capital
Venture funding is an excellent fit with the established yet2.com market, where we help large and small companies connect on new and robust technologies.
Our first joint investment with JAIC is in Avantis Medical Systems of Sunnyvale, California. They develop and manufacture catheter-based endoscopic devices for detecting and treating cancer in the GI tract.
The yet2Ventures fund is a good partnership opportunity for VC firms and other strategic investors. Perhaps we can help your portfolio grow, too? Please contact us at:venturefund@yet2.com.
About JAIC
Japan Asia Investment Co., Ltd. (JAIC) is an independent venture capital company founded in 1981 by the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai Doyukai). JAIC’s operations are centered on three geographic hubs — Japan, Asia, and the United States. In these regions, JAIC provides financial support for companies in various stages of development from promising venture enterprises to companies with succession or business reorganization needs, or firms looking to revitalize their businesses. In addition, JAIC seeks to stimulate growth and raise the corporate value of invested companies by providing support on the management side as well. These include supplying information, consulting for initial public offerings (IPO), and business matching.
About yet2.com
yet2.com provides intellectual property consulting and licensing services to world-class clients around the globe. Yet2.com Inc and its online marketplace were founded in 1999 to promote Open Innovation, with original investments from Siemens, Bayer, Honeywell, DuPont, Procter & Gamble, Caterpillar, and NTT Leasing. The privately held company has offices in the United States, Europe, and Japan. The web site now has over 120,000 registered marketplace users including many of the Fortune 500 and over 16,000 smaller technology companies. In addition to its core team, yet2.com has created a wide network of Open Innovation partners covering many of the technology-rich countries around the world as well as relationships with open innovation organizations, technical expert networks, SME networks, technical magazines, online technical communities, and technology brokers. These provide market-wide access to technologies and needs in countries such as Russia, China, India, Korea, Brazil, South Africa, Japan, the US, and the EU. For more information, visit www.yet2.com or contact Tim Bernstein 1-781-972-0600.
1 Comment | news release, open innovation, yet2.com, yet2Ventures | Tagged: JAIC, open innovation, venture capital, yet2.com, yet2ventures | Permalink
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5 Open Innovation Mistakes Companies Make
January 5, 2011- Culture – Changing the culture to be receptive to outside ideas and technology requires more than one speech or memo. Changing the culture requires changing work habits and changing incentives. 1) Every employee should be, looking for external ideas monthly. 2) Technology leaders should be; looking for and evaluating external ideas weekly. 3) Open innovation leaders should be; looking for, evaluating and championing external ideas daily.
- Shopping Lists – Business units should have quarterly process for gathering the most critical and pressing needs, the shopping list should be aggregated across business units and the combined list should be widely available inside the firm. The process should be done bottom up annually, and it should include patents. Few companies manage this well.
- People – The best scientists are not frequently the extroverts. Find the ones who are and name them the OI Champions. Find the person with friends in every business unit and name them head of OI. OI is about people. Most companies fail here too. The head of OI at a LargeCo, should greet you with a warm smile and a handshake – if they don’t – the wrong person is in the role. Read the rest of this entry »
4 Comments | future trends, open innovation, Uncategorized, Venture capital, yet2.com | Tagged: Ben duPont, open innovation, yet2.com, yet2ventures | Permalink
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5 Traits of a Good Pitch
January 2, 2011Over the past dozen years I’ve seen a lot of business plan pitches. Here are five observations.
Dress the part: Wear a suit.
This might sounds obvious but it is amazing how many people fail to do this. First impressions are extremely important in pitching. Dressing the part helps the person your pitching to reach the conclusion that you are legitimate (read my article).
Cut to the Case: Tell me your idea in 30 sec or less
This is two fold. First, if the idea takes 15 minutes to explain, it’s probably too complicated. Second, people have short attention spans. Try and get the idea across in around 30 seconds. It will increase your impact exponentially. Remember great communication is a two way street. Leave out the useless information and make the conversation two sided. Read the rest of this entry »
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An Indication of “The New Now” – A Holiday Flash Mob
December 2, 2010A few days ago, I wrote about a new trend – the emergence of the “New Now“. I wrote about how our definition of “now” will change, how mobile computing will give us a new control of our environment, the way Tivo gives us control of our TV. We will spend less time waiting for things and more time; learning, having fun, connecting with family and making friends.
Flash mobs, like this one, are an early indicator of the “New Now”. This is a really neat clip. What are other examples of the “New Now”?
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What Sports Produce the Best Entrepreneurs?
March 16, 2011This is a great post from Rob Go’s Blog. I love his blog and though it was worth sharing.
I love playing sports (although as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more of a watcher than a doer). In particular, I love the mental side of sports. I’m convinced that sports are a great training ground for many different disciplines. I remember when I was interviewing for Spark, excellence at some sport was an important factor in the hiring process. Of course, it’s a good measure of competitiveness, but I think it’s even deeper than that.
This got me thinking about the emotional and mental characteristics that are important for entrepreneurs, and the sports that best hone these characteristics. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but there were three sports that really hone a particular strength that I see in great entrepreneurs. Read the rest of this entry »