ANN ARBOR ? Mitechnews.Com is kicking off a new question-and-answer format with major technology, entrepreneurial and small business decision makers we?re calling The Interview. The first is with Art DeMonte, the new executive director of the Great Lakes Entrepreneur?s Quest business plan writing contest.
Question: Who is Art DeMonte and why did you want to run GLEQ?
Answer: My background has always been in new business development. Whether I?ve worked for large corporation or three starts ups, I?ve been involved in development. The GLEQ has two attractions for me. I get to work with creative, high-energy people. And we?re a start up operation. We?re in our fifth year, in an organization that has been exclusively volunteer.
Question: How does your background at Dow help you run a volunteer lead, non profit organization?
Answer: A not for profit is not much different than a for profit company. Customers, management, and leadership are the fundamentals. You need a clear value proposition for customers, for delivering a product and to attract investors. The parallels are very similar. My background in corporate world, where I worked for Allied Signal and Union Carbide, helps. I?ve learned a structured way to do business. And when you work for a large corporation, you?re always looking to raise money.
Question: You’ve been on the job for two months now, how do you access the strengths and weaknesses of GLEQ’s operations?
Answer: Strength wise, GLEQ has high brand recognition in Michigan. It?s surprising how many people have been involved in it or heard someone who has been involved in it. Its success is the number of companies GLEQ has helped that have gone on to do well. There have been companies coming into GLEQ as an idea, that go through coaching, that succeed in developing a new business idea and win a regional prize. The next year they come into the contest in the emerging company category. It?s surprising how many of those companies than go on to win money from the Technology TriCorridor fund. We?ve got a good track record of companies coming through our pipeline and going on to have success.
Question: What changes would you like to make in GLEQ?
Answer: From an operational point of view, we?d like to match the talent that wants to be part of an entrepreneurial company with the companies that need the talent. You don?t have to have your own entrepreneurial idea to be part of GLEQ. We need to get better at cross fertilization. We?ve got some ideas on technology match making that will be released in the first quarter.
We also need greater distribution of education and training initiatives. We need to broadcast our practice sessions to universities across the state. The Kauffman Foundation may step in to help us build that capability into Benton Harbor and the Upper Peninsula.
We also need to do far more at building relationships throughout Michigan. Most of our relationships are with universities, like the University of Michigan, Michigan State University. Except for Stryker, we don?t have any auto OEMS or Tier Ones participating. We need to get them involved.
Question: What vision do you have for GLEQ next year and in the years beyond?
Answer: To make it bigger and better. We need a higher volume of companies participating. We need to get more regions of the state involved. I?d like to have more significant prizes to hand out to companies. We?re limited as to what we can do now. Because of budgetary constraints, we?ve had to skinny down the awards. I think we?re in a prime position to help entrepreneurs network resources. We want to refer the entrepreneurs to where ever they can be helped. Those include the MISBTDC, Smart Zones, and universities with entrepreneurial activities. We?re looking to get more entrepreneurs into GLEQ.
Question: How difficult is it raising sponsorship money in these difficult financial times?
Answer: It?s difficult, but not impossible. When you have a strong value proposition, the opportunity to raise funding is clearly there. We need to get that message out in front of the right decision makers or whatever sponsor prospects we have. We?ve had a great reception of new companies introduced to GLEQ. We?re optimistic funding will continue to grow even in those tough fanatical times.
Question: How many teams signed up for the fall GLEQ campaign?
Answer: Eighty companies registered to participate in GLEQ. Fifty submitted something for the final deadline. The numbers are typical of the past. Some companies are unprepared and don?t want to push forward. GLEQ forces them to access where they are and what are the missing pieces. So we have 50 that have submitted 5-page business plans. It?s a nice distribution of companies around the state. North and West categories are combined. Emerging company category have more developed concepts, have sales, and staffs. We?ve got entries from Mount Pleasant, Kalamazoo, and Lansing. We?re getting a good geographical spread, what we were hoping for. Judging has already started. Should have our first scoring of business plans by end of year. First week of Janaury, any final details will be added. Jan. 11 is the awards ceremony at MSU at 6:30 p.m.
Question: How do you think you can get more entrepreneurs involved in the contest?
Answer: What we?re going to do is establish better outreach to business schools; activity centers get them to be advocates for GLEQ. We?re here and successes because of volunteers who helped us along the way. We?ve got to impress those people that their involvement is important. They will expose their entrepreneurs to the region in which they exist. We need to deliver that message and bring those people into the GLEQ fold. We?ve got to reach out to those companies on a direct basis. We need them for coaching, training and direct involvement.
