Building on a dream

Council for Innovation adds several more tools to entrepreneurs' workshop in northeast Wisconsin

Story by Gina Mangan

If there is such a thing as a box in which to think, Brian Hans admits he has no idea where to find it.

But one thing’s for sure. It’s far removed from his current plan to “turn poop into cash.”

The Appleton botanist latched onto a technology three years ago that he believed could turn the earth’s filth – manure, lake algae, industrial waste, and other junk – into fuel and other useable products. He went to work on the science with the goal of developing a business called EarthMimic.

But he had one problem.

He had no idea how to assemble a team to assist him. For that matter, he wasn’t even sure who should be on the team.

“There’s a very large chasm between someone like me with a bright idea and the actual way to accomplish it,” he said. “I’m a botanist, and I didn’t even know what to ask for. But I knew I needed to figure it out if I want to find the money to execute the concept. I needed a catalyst to help make this happen.”

He found that catalyst last year in Roger Orlady, an accountant who frequently partners with start-up companies and a founding member of the Council of Innovation, which is housed at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. CFI is a network of entrepreneurs, innovators, investors and service providers who have joined forces to promote the development of fast growth, high-impact businesses in northeast Wisconsin.

The networking component
The network provides a variety of programs and services for entrepreneurs and investors, as well as one-on-one support. Those services include helping entrepreneurs and innovators develop connections, introducing them to the technology, research and resources found at the university level, and helping them access investors throughout the state who focus on early stage companies.

Orlady and other members of CFI helped Hans gather a team that includes Orlady himself, a University of Wisconsin-Madison chemist, engineers, intellectual property lawyers and a former executive of a major company. With the technology research now completed, Hans said the group is in the process of developing a solid business plan that can be presented to the investment community.

“In science, a catalyst makes the rate of reaction happen much faster,” Hans said. “That’s what the CFI is. It’s a catalyst, a way for someone like me to get in there and meet the people I need to meet, to suck out the issues and make things happen more quickly.”

Orlady said CFI latched onto Hans’ innovation because they felt it has the potential to be developed into a business that could have a high impact on the regional economy in terms of economics, branding and reputation. High impact businesses create high value jobs and compete in the national and international markets. They generally experience revenue growth of several hundred percent in the first three to five years, Orlady said.

These types of businesses are generally technology driven or enabled. Think Silicon Valley or North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. These are just the sort of companies northeast Wisconsin needs to develop in order thrive in a global economy, said CFI advisory board president Paul Jones, who is himself an entrepreneur, investor and manager with a track record of creating and acquiring technology-driven businesses.

“If we want to have an economic future here, we need to begin doing things differently. We need to encourage the next generation of risk takers,” said Jones, a Neenah native who has lived and worked in both the Silicon Valley and Triangle Park. “The last big burst of entrepreneurial energy came 100 years ago with the paper industry, but that’s pretty much running its course now.”

CFI has also helped its clients by funneling them toward other innovation resources in the region such as Cheryl Perkins, founder and president of Neenah-based Innovationedge. Perkins, former senior vice president and chief innovation officer at Kimberly-Clark Corp., has ten patents under her belt and several others pending.

Her company is currently coaching some of the entrepreneurs who have come to it through CFI to develop a strategy for taking their innovation to market.

“These are people with a lot of great ideas. They know what they want to do, but they don’t know how to do it,” she said. “Networks like the CFI can provide them with the capabilities and the knowledge to help them do it effectively and faster.”

Predecessors
Jones brought the concept of CFI to the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh College of Business Administration with the intention of fashioning it after the Council for Entrepreneurial Development in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Triangle Park is well known for its diverse business climate, clusters of innovation, world-renowned research universities and skilled workforce. It is home to IBM, Cisco and Red Hat, as well as several life sciences-based companies.

As recently as the late 1980s, Research Triangle Park was much like northeast Wisconsin, Jones said. The business culture was conservative, and it was dominated by industries in decline.

“People started to recognize that those older industries were not going to provide growth in the future, so there had to be a change in culture and perception,” said Jones, who became involved with the Council for Entrepreneurial Development during its early years.

By bringing together entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, service providers and policy making, CED was instrumental in facilitating the creation and growth of high impact businesses, Jones said. Between 1990 and 2002, Triangle Park went from having just one venture capital fund with two spin-off companies to having over $1 billion in venture capital and dozens of start-up companies, he said.

CED now provides information, networking, mentoring and capital formation resources to more than 5,000 members representing more than 1,100 companies. Members range from entrepreneurs and investors to academicians and researchers. Services are provided through more than 150 annual conferences, forums, workshops, programs and publications and Internet-based resources.

“If in ten to fifteen years we have a high impact business community that’s one half the size of Research Triangle Park, we can have a significant impact on the regional economy,” Jones said. “But it does require changing the culture.”

Services available
With Jones at the helm, the Council for Innovation formed in late 2006 with seed money from a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration awarded to the UW-Oshkosh College of Business Administration. The network has begun gathering steam within the past nine months, Orlady said.

CFI Executive Director Meridith Jaeger said approximately 100 individuals have participated in activities that include its highest profile event, The Order of the Rose dinners. The by-invitation-only dinners bring together 15 to 30 investors, entrepreneurs and innovators who can discuss their various activities.

Other CFI sponsored programs include a monthly Software Firms Round Table for individuals operating or developing software companies, and the Brainstorming Innovation Group, a small group of independent scientists, engineers and business people interested in identifying and developing ideas that could result in new northeast Wisconsin companies. 

CFI’s newest endeavor is The Crucible – a “venture luncheon” – during which an early-stage, high-impact entrepreneurial team will have an opportunity to pitch their business plan to a panel of seasoned investors. The panel will analyze the plan and ask the same types of questions that would be asked as if it were a private meeting.

“It’s valuable practice because people don’t get a lot of experience presenting their plan and asking for money,” Orlady said. “We hear all kinds of horror stories about entrepreneurs going out unprepared for the types of questions investors are going to ask.”

Jaeger said it is the CFI’s intention to hold a Crucible luncheon every two months. The program is open to anyone who would like to view the exchange, she said.

“It’s not only valuable to the presenters, it also gives investors an idea of what types of plans are being developed and it gives the audience a chance to see what these presentations are like,” she said.

The first presentation, held April 29, was given by Green Bay-based Pep Mall LLC, an early stage company developing an e-commerce Web site to provide shoppers of participating stores with a community of product experts.

Closer to goal
Entrepreneurs such as Brian Hans are just the sort of innovators CFI is hoping to engage: those attempting to develop businesses with the potential for significant impact, Orlady said.

“A field biologist in shorts, that’s what I am,” Hans said. “I’m a botanist in shorts meeting with an intellectual property rights attorney in a three-piece suit. Of course I need help dealing and working through that sort of thing.”

Hans said he expects his team will complete the business plan and begin seeking out investors in less than a month. He’s holding on to the dream, the idea that no good idea goes unfunded as long as there’s a good business plan, a solid team, a bright idea, bright people and a way to articulate it all.

“What Brian is trying to do would still be on drawing board if he hadn’t found the right people, because it is so complicated. And we still have a long way to go,” Orlady said. “But he’s a true high impact guy.”

Gina Mangan is a freelance writer based in Oshkosh and is raising three children. Readers can email her at gmangan@tds.net.