Michael's notes from the UP conference call: 02.20.14 My email: m@ec.co

1. BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS
ENGAGING BUSINESS & THE STARTUP
COMMUNITY
Michael Burcham
President & CEO
The Nashville Entrepreneur Center
615.400.7662
m@ec.co

2. THE INNOVATION ECONOMY
IS CHANGING THE RULES & THE GAME
The innovation economy is literally sweeping away all
the old rules of building communities. Entire industries
are already being transformed (publishing, music, news) and
others are in a significant state of change
(retail, healthcare, manufacturing).

3. CULTIVATING AN
ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET
Whether you work for a 10-person company, a giant multinational
corporation, a not-for-profit, government agency or any type of
organization in between
to seize the new opportunities and
meet the challenges of today’s market
we need to think and act like we’re running a startup.

4. DEVELOPING AN
ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET
Your
Aspirations
Your
Assets
Define your organization’s
competitive advantage by
combining 3 puzzle pieces:
The
Market
Realities

5. KEY PARTNERSHIP
INITIATIVES AT THE EC
Partners | Businesses Who Support the Idea
We have worked to create a public &
private partnership with businesses
who impact our community, our
students and our alumni.
-
We have over 100 business
partners engaged in startup
activity
What worked?
-
Providing business partners with
the opportunity to help design
programming and establish areas
for new business development

6. HIGHLIGHTS OF
BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Mentoring Program
Skunkwerx Accelerator
Catalyst | Small Biz Reboot
Mayor & Chamber | Corporate Relocations & Engagement
Foundations | Social Enterprise Accelerator
Schools | Online Curriculum for Entrepreneurial Mindset
Community | Screening of New Concepts & Ideas
Legal Firms | Fixed Fee Legal Structures for Startups
Accounting | Fixed Fee GAAP Accounting
Workshops | Creativity & Innovation, Thinking Like a CEO, Presentation Skills
Corporate Memberships to EC for Events, Programming
Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame & NEXT Awards

7. 5 KEY STEPS IN BUILDING
BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS
1. Align Your Shared Vision for Success
You must engage in Intentional
Conversation about what you wish to
accomplish.
What worked for Us?
-
Businesses become the 1st
Customers of our startups.
Partners see new businesses as a
form of new product
development
-
We agreed on key metrics for
success for our initiative.

8. 5 KEY STEPS IN BUILDING
BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS
2. Do Something for the Business Community
Every business is trying to infuse
Entrepreneurial Thinking into the
workplace.
What worked for Us?
-
Build your Mentoring Program in
partnership with businesses.
-
Create an outsourced
Skunkworks service for the
business community.

9. 5 KEY STEPS IN BUILDING
BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS
3. Connect Startups to Large Businesses
Large businesses offer problem list or
opportunities for new concepts.
What worked for Us?
-
Build seed funds: Opportunities
for large business to invest in ideas
that solve their problems.
-
Take the startups to the businesses
to share what’s possible.

10. 5 KEY STEPS IN BUILDING
BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS
4. Leverage Community Resources to Secure Your Opportunities
In Nashville, we have focused our startup | entrepreneurial efforts around the
categories that represent both our large businesses and our investment
community

11. 5 KEY STEPS IN BUILDING
BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS
5. Organize | Create your “Front Door”
We established the Nashville
Entrepreneur Center as the city’s
“Front Door” for entrepreneurship
What worked?
-
We host (in conjunction with the
Mayor’s office and the Chamber)
visiting corporations looking to
relocate to Nashville.
-
We have engaged Civic Groups
and Civic Leaders in all our
community and programming
endeavors.

12. SAMPLE | SPRINT PROCESS OVERVIEW
Project Foundation
Mon
Objective:
–
Define and validate
customer and
business model and
hypotheses
Deliverables:
–
–
Execution
Blueprint
Process Design
Tue
Wed
Thu
Objective:
–
Build and refine future state
customer journey map and
requirements
Fri
Objective:
–
Deliverables:
–
Refined customer and business
model assumptions
Customer and
business model
assumptions
(IdeaFrameTM)
–
Customer profiles
and needs analysis
Future state customer journey
map and prototypes
–
Future state operations
requirements and process flows
Final Deliverables:
–
Future state
customer journey
map
–
Project execution
blueprint
Operational constraint analysis
–
Develop and
articulate highlevel execution
blueprint

13. Most Business Strategies and their Business Models are “off”
by 10 Degrees … so we teach small businesses how to
improve their business models.

14. THE OPERATIONS
OUR CORE PROGRAMMING
Resources
-
Concept
screening
Mentoring
-
Business model training
Entrepreneur
Tool Kits
Training
-
Expertise in
Verticals
Community
-
Connect
startups to
high impact
entrepreneurs
Advisory
Group
Development -
Advocacy
Capital
Partners
“office hours”
-
Measurement -
-
Education
Gathering
Place
-
Pitch
Competition
Celebrate
deals community
building)
-
Co-working
space
Partner with
capital firms
-
Earned access
-
Investor
database
-
Demo Day –
Showcases
Virtual Boards

15. The Entrepreneur Center opened in June, 2010 as a
Private | Public Partnership to Create Economic Growth

16. Over the past 44 months we have screened over 2,000 startup
ideas from entrepreneurs all over the United States.

17. Each year, we launch 50 New Companies in our community

18. Focus Areas are Healthcare, Digital Media,
Social Enterprise and Technology

19. Every Day, Over 150 Individuals are working in our space
to start new businesses

20. Nashville Celebrates our Entrepreneurs
Hall of Fame and Award Show with Big Business