October 26, 2009 –
Vasquez shared LaunchPad’s process.
Would-be entrepreneurs got a comprehensive look last week at what they can expect in the process of launching a new business. The insight came courtesy of Luis Vasquez, vice-president of OCTANe LaunchPad, who headlined the most recent Entrepreneurs Forum on Oct. 23.
The event was sponsored by OCTANe@UCI, CALIT2 and UCI’s Office of Technology Alliances. Entrepreneurs Forum is held regularly during the year to offer practical advice to researchers and inventors who want to move their discoveries into the marketplace.
LaunchPad is a free service that aids new and emerging biomedical and IT startup efforts by identifying and connecting people, experience and capital. Vasquez provides direction to faculty, students and staff on the process of creating a startup company by advising them on business models and business plans.
In Friday’s program, he shared LaunchPad’s approach with the audience, explaining that the process starts with a conversation about the inventor’s idea. “A lot of my time is spent doing just that,” he said. “People need to know where to start, how the process works, and what the lay of the land is.”
The next step, he told the group, is preparation and evaluation, where budding entrepreneurs receive a guide that helps them understand whether they have “all the pieces in place.” At the same time, LaunchPad is assessing whether the project is one that fits their criteria.
“We’re not trying to help everybody; we can’t help everybody,” Vasquez said. “We have limited resources so we have to decide whom we can help.”
If LaunchPad does decide to move forward, it invites the prospective company to make a 15-20 minute presentation to a team of people from industry and academia. Each member of the team evaluates the company on 21 metrics, after which Vasquez averages the scores and plots the results on a graph that compares the startup with others that have gone through the process.
This helps the LaunchPad team figure out which companies “really have legs.”
All the metrics then are ranked from “needs the least work” to “needs the most work,” giving prospective entrepreneurs a task list. The metrics also are sorted into four categories or “buckets,” as Vasquez calls them: “things you can fix; things you can’t fix; things that will take time; and things you can present better.”
At that point in the process, additional advisors join the team, including marketing, finance and management experts who work with the startup through the “acceleration” phase.
Finally, LaunchPad introduces entrepreneurs to investors who can help them find necessary financing.
Vasquez invited the audience to talk to him any time about their ideas. OCTANe LaunchPad holds open office hours 2-5 p.m. every Tuesday at CALIT2.
