Do you own or manage Technology Intellectual Property? If you are a Fortune 2000 company, university, a company seeking SBIR funding, or an individual patent holder with technology IP that is simply sitting on the “shelf”, then this six part article series is for you.
In this series we will take a close look at the six most important truths that all entrepreneurial-minded scientists and/or inventors should understand in their quest to turn their idea or invention into a home-run multi-million dollar businesses. Today, we will start with the importance of having a solid business plan for commercializing your technology IP or invention.
Make no mistake about it entrepreneurs who want to commercialize their technology intellectual property wholeheartedly believe their ideas are all similar to the David statue. Michelangelo used one giant rectangular piece of stone and sculpted the David statue from it. One could argue that he already knew the figure of David was there, he just had to chip away at the superfluous marble and voila! Similarly, an entrepreneur believes his or her idea is already a $10M/year business – the vision just needs a dose of capital or the right licensee who will pay them a fortune for it, and voila!
Unfortunately, that’s just not the way it works.
An idea is an idea. Nothing more. Certainly some ideas are much better than others based on the underlying intellectual property and problem being solved. The best analogy for entrepreneurs to use is to think of your idea as the size of a marble, and not the size of the basketball. A basketball is hundreds if not thousands of times larger than a marble. Basketballs just do not appear out of thin air. They start, metaphorically, as a marble and grow over time with much care, luck, passion and effort. Ideas definitely do eventually grow into the size of a basketball – transformed into a company with strong sales, abundant new hires, and with products and services in much demand.
Entrepreneurs have to step back and look very carefully at their ideas and visions. The healthy view is to look at their new business opportunity as the size of a marble. It certainly can grow into the size of a basketball, but like a plant, it needs watering. The business plan is the perfect initial document that details the required effort to “become a basketball” and it includes not only the capital that needs to be raised, but also the number of management team members and employees that will be required, and the effort required to build sales.
Therefore Truth #1: When entrepreneurs with technology IP look at their business plan, they not only can’t assume there is a David statue waiting to be uncovered, but also need to understand the fact that their piece of marble is not of the massive size of the David statue, but truly the size of a marble.
About the Author, Rob Steir
[...] in their quest to turn an idea or invention into a home-run multi-million dollar business. In our first article, we took a look at the importance of having a business plan for commercializing technology IP or [...]
[...] into a home-run multi-million dollar business. In our previous two articles, we took a look at the importance of a business plan to commercializing your technology, IP or innovations, as well as discussed the value of your patent to raising [...]
[...] I was intrigued with his patent and its commercial potential. I explained to him how MindForce could get involved to help him locate a licensee in exchange for a percentage of his future revenue. He looked at me and point blank said “why should I give you part of the revenues – why do you deserve such a large sum of money.” In his mind he was holding a bronzed Basketball as a fait accompli (see Blog Post #1). [...]