ANN ARBOR ? The Annual Collaboration for Entrepreneurship, a joint effort of eight state organizations, may have reached critical mass Jan. 27 when some 250 entrepreneurs, investors and other attendees packed the Morris Lawrence Building auditorium at Washtenaw Community College.
The fifth annual event featured a keynote by Dwight Carlson, CEO of Coherix Corp. as well as eight pitches from entrepreneurs who were critiqued and ranked by a panel of Michigan venture capitalists and investors.
?We?ve reached a critical mass of people from the entrepreneurial community,? said Barbara Shoffner, president of the New Enterprise Forum (NEF), one of the two founding host organizations of the event. ?We?ve grown every year in attendance, in enthusiasm, in interest and in the organizations and people we?ve brought together here with a common thread.?
Shoffner said that the goal for NEF now is to continue the spirit of collaboration exemplified in the ACE event throughout the year, both in one-on-one interactions as well as at events such as NEF?s upcoming annual meeting on February 17th in Ann Arbor.
The evening?s master of ceremonies was Joel Welsh, chief community officer for Startup Nation. Welsh was a last-minute fill-in for Startup Nation co-founder Jeff Sloan, whose daughter was born the morning of the event. Coherix?s Carlson led off the event with a humor-laced speech backed by cartoons likening Michigan?s traditional economy to the ill-fated Titanic ocean liner, and characterizing the state?s entrepreneurial small businesses as ??the lifeboats for the Titanic that is the Michigan old economy.? Carlson also detailed some innovative funding tools that he has been developing with the Bank of Ann Arbor, designed, he said, to get around the lack of venture capital in Michigan and drag the state out of its tradition of ?bootstrap? business development.
?Everybody knows that speech, that entrepreneurs are the engine of the economy, but very few do anything about it,? said Rob Fowler, president of the Small Business Association of Michigan and a co-host of the event. While he was pleased about proposed state tax changes that had been announced earlier in the day by Gov. Jennifer Granholm that were a popular topic of discussion at the event, Fowler said that Michigan needs more public and private policy changes to promote entrepreneurial activity and success.
?Banks and venture capitalists aren?t doing too many venturesome deals,?? Fowler said. ?Capital needs to be more organized and accessible, and I?m encouraged by the growth of angel [investor] organizations and venture capital groups.?
One suggestion proposed by Fowler is for Michigan to phase in taxes and regulations as companies grow, reducing the cost of compliance for the state?s smallest businesses.
One of those small businesses was Innovational Therapeutics, which won the elevator pitch competition. Innovational Therapeutics is a startup medical device company that develops technology to treat disease processes in the brain through an endovascular appliance. The second-place contestant was Kyle Schwulst of Electrojet, a company developing affordable small-engine fuel injection systems for lawnmowers and snowblowers.
?I was impressed with at least three of the presentations,? said Dallas Dort, an individual investor who sat on the panel judging the elevator pitches and a first-time ACE attendee. ?I?ve started a few companies of my own, and these guys certainly seem to have what it takes.?
Panelist Chris Rizik, senior vice president-operations for Ardesta, agreed.
?The presentations were quite good, and they were clearly very well coached. Overall, it was among the better-quality nights of presentations I?ve attended in town. I met a lot of good, smart people.?
Dennis Nash, vice chairman of event co-host MIT Enterprise Forum of the Great Lakes, said that events such as ACE are as important for what happens the next day, the next week or the next year as they are for what happens during the event.
?It?s what relationships and connections are generated by this connecting of dots, with entrepreneurs, investors and resources in one place,? he said.
John Mozena is a special writer for Mitechnews.Com.
