The Business of Commercialization

Editor's Note

April / May 2008 By: Bob Cochnar Volume 6 Number 2

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This issue of Innovation is largely devoted to a subject that's near and dear to our hearts—technology commercialization, which is often called tech transfer. The big guys have weighed in: Senator Jeff Bingaman (just to the right of this space), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Ray Orbach, head of the Department of Energy's Office of Science and newly appointed DOE tech transfer coordinator.

Both are in favor of the commercialization of technology developed in the national laboratories, although Bingaman would urge DOE to move a bit faster and to expend more effort.

The laboratories themselves are indeed paying renewed attention to the process. They do, however, go about it in different ways as you'll read in the articles about Sandia, Lawrence Livermore, Idaho, Los Alamos and the National Renewable Energy laboratories. And each has had its successes.

The new entrepreneur in residence program at Oak Ridge and Sandia labs, as noted in our last issue and in Bingaman's piece in this issue, should accelerate the process.

Many of the people who actually take technology to the marketplace are, of course, the entrepreneur, 18 of whom are making their pitches at the 15th annual New Mexico Equity Capital Symposium. If you're interested in what they're offering, take a look at the insert in this magazine that describes their products. They range from a system that extracts pure water from wastewater and brackish groundwater to what is described as "the first commercial compact nuclear power module," which is being co-developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory.

As many of our readers know from experience, the path of the entrepreneur is not strewn with pebbles; they're more like boulders and only the fittest survive.

Rusty Schmit, who actually presented at one of of the symposia and secured a major investment for his company, offers some practical advice in "Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur," which begins on Page 8. Says he:
"The one piece of guidance that I can offer is to follow your passion. That passion is the foundation you can fall back on when rejected by a venture capital firm, or by a customer, or by a key employee leaving, or one of the gazillion events that can befall the leaders of a startup company. With that passion, you can push through obstacles and create a contagious enthusiasm that leads to momentum within the organization; that momentum then helps get past further obstacles, and thus the cycle of success begins!"

Or maybe not. The other mark of an entrepreneur is a streak of stubbornness found only in Missouri mules. Another bit of advice, to borrow from Winston Churchill, is "Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense."

That especially true these days when Wall Street difficulties extend even to venture capital (See Page 15) and angels (see page 29). There's money out there, but those pitches had better be dead-on.