McCombs Spark

Finally, some good news on health care. Patrick Balthrop, President and CEO of Luminex Corporation spoke at Rob Adam’s entrepreneur class on November 16 about the convergence of health care and technology. Luminex’s strategy for product development and differentiation is that a new product must improve health care outcome AND reduce costs.

Balthrop said that while we have a long way to go to improve health care delivery, we’ve made considerable progress over the years – mostly driven by investments in R&D. We’re now at a pivotal moment where we can make significant changes to society and also solve some problem issues with public health care policies by investing in the right health care technology.

A major problem with our current health care system, said Balthrop, is that it is procedure based. A health care professional gets paid for procedures done. They have financial incentives to provide a service or procedure. These incentives sometimes conflict with doing what’s right for the patient, which may be doing nothing. If a physician advises the patient to wait on surgery, many will go to another doctor who will operate.

Balthrop gave a brief review of health care innovation, starting with Charles Darwin through the modern era’s human genome and proteome DNA mapping projects. Our system is currently prescribes the same prescription for the same diagnosis. But proteome mapping research shows that humans metabolize medicine differently, making medicine that is effective for one patient perhaps toxic or ineffective for another.

Balthrop believes the concept of personalized medicine, based on DNA mapping, is the future. There are over 15,000 proteins that metabolize medicine and we only understand about 4000 of them now. As we learn more, the efficacy of medicine based on targeted DNA profiles will increase.

Consumers will become familiar and comfortable with DNA mapping, given passage of GINA legislation 18 months ago that prohibits insurance companies and employers from discriminating based on genetic information.

Luminex Corporation is an Austin-based company that manufactures and markets innovative biological testing technologies with applications throughout the life science and diagnostic industries. In January 2009, Luminex was named as one of Forbes’ top 25 fastest growing technology companies.

Watch the Slide Presentation

At a November 5 conference at McCombs, Dr. Bob Johansen from the Institute for the Future (IFTF), said it used to be the military was a big driver of new technologies. But today, the best technology is coming from gaming and the millitary is picking it up. 

IFTF is a Silicon Valley based, nonprofit think tank producing an evolving 10-year forecast using socio-economic, technology and demographic trends. Read more…

Most of us here in Austin have heard of the Austin Technology Incubator (ATI). However, not nearly as many of us know where it’s actually located, what it does and how it functions.

This not-for-profit organization is actually part of UT, and its mission is to create jobs and wealth in central Texas. They do this by working with technology companies that are in the early stages of development, trying to help them hone their business plans, access capital and get their products or services to market in as rapid, but well-thought-out, manner as possible. The companies who get this great opportunity are selected through a rigorous application process. The ATI is actually made up up four team-based incubators that each focus on a different area: bioscience, clean energy, IT or wireless, all located in the MCC building on W. Braker Lane and Mopac.

Chris Treadaway, MBA ‘04 and Contributing Editor at TechDrawl.com did a great “Demystifying the Austin Technology Incubator” video, complete with cameos by Stephanie Artman, MBA ‘09, who interned at the ATI, as well as alum and operations manager, Aruni Gunasegaran, BBA ‘92, MBA ‘98.

It’s not just the companies themselves who benefit from this resource. Successful companies mean jobs, tax revenue and a variety of other benefits for the Austin region. Students of any major who are considering a startup might be interested to know that the ATI also has internships available. Faculty can also work with the ATI to find unique classroom projects for their students, or even to commercialize the intellectual property resulting from their own academic work.

• @BazaarBrett

  Founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice, Brett Hurt, BBA ‘94, tweets about his travels, doings, favorite books and start-up advice.

• @drrobadams

  Rob Adams is an active investor, author, consultant and Department of Management Lecturer at McCombs, where he teaches in the MBA program and is the Director of the Moot Corp Program.

• @sarahqb

  Sarah Browning is a Texas MBA student who is organizing a TEDxUT event in April of 2010. If you are unfamiliar with TED talks, check out these short, thought-provoking videos.

• @tomserres

  With a marketing background from UT, Tom Serres formed technology startup Piryx, a social commerce platform, with three friends. He’s also the founder of Texas Ventures, a non-profit designed to develop and train young budding entrepreneurs.

• @aruni

  Serial entrepreneur Aruni Gunasegaram, BBA ‘92, MBA ‘98, is, as she puts it, “responsible for 3 ventures: 2 kids and 1 company, www.babblesoft.com.” She also runs operations at the Austin Tech Incubator.

• @mickmillsap

  Mick Millsap, MBA ‘04, is co-founder of the successful online shipping marketplace uShip.com, @uship.

• @ontheroadwithiv

  Seasoned entrepreneur and host of CNBC’s “American Made,” Ingrid Vanderveldt, MBA ‘96, is cofounder and CEO of Club E Network, has raised millions in venture funding and created “The Entrepreneurial Blueprint,” a show that reached over 1M viewers on CNBC primetime; she currently hosts “On The Road With iV”.

• @equalman

  Erik Qualman, MBA ‘99, is the Global Vice President of Online Marketing for EF Education, working out of the 850-person Cambridge office. He recently authored the book Socialnomics.

• @HeatherJStrout

  Austin-based Heather Strout, MBA ‘06, offers advice to those focused on starting their on community and social media strategy for their business.

• @maestroviswa

  Viswa Subbaraman, MBA ‘09, is the artistic director and co-founder of Opera Vista, Houston’s contemporary opera company.

Especially during tougher economic times, ventures looking for funding are more than curious about angel investors (an individual or group of investors who invest their own money in early-stage or startups, often in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity) as well as the more traditional venture capitalists (who manage the pooled money of others in a professionally-managed fund).

But how do you find the right angels or VCs for your business? After all, individual investors and groups can be quite diverse as to their goals, interests and preferences (though you can be certain that either group investing in your business is going to require a high rate of return to compensate for the risk).

Luckily, there are several free resources available to help you start your search.

Angelsoft’s online search function allows you to search for both angel and venture fund leads through criteria you select, such as investment size, industry, type of funding group, and even the group location’s mileage from Austin.

Inc. magazine’s guide to angel investing also contains links for their Angel Investor Directory, organized by national and regional groups, as well as articles that range from do-it-yourself investing to knowing what an angel will expect.

Also, you may want to explore other funding sources, such as tech incubators, business plan competitions, banks or even friends and family. Used in concert and with the right plans in place, you might find that your need for capital is modest and more easily acquired through less elaborate means.

UK citizens or companies with strong UK-ties will want to also check with the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (otherwise known as NESTA), which is an endowment in the United Kingdom that invests in early stage companies.

Any other suggestions? Share your advice in the comments.

Poll:

He has been rightfully called the ‘Quintessential Texas Entrepreneur,’ having become a self-made billionaire involved in well over 300 ventures during his career. “But it is interesting that money has never been a goal of mine,” says Red McCombs, who attended the business school in the 1940s. “My goal was to be one of the guys that made the decisions. I wanted to be the best at whatever it was I was doing, and the money has just been a by-product of that.”

Through his diverse business interests–automobiles, real estate, energy trading, radio, sports team franchises, just to name a few–he has come to personify the resourcefulness, drive and success that business students aspire to emulate. “He has an insatiable appetite for achieving success in whatever the endeavor,” his wife Charline attests. “With the possible exception of fly fishing, he has never accepted mediocrity in anything he attempts.”

Philantrophy and mentorship has also been a big part of his career; listen in as he shares some of his philosophies on business and life with students.

See more videos from this conversation between Red McCombs and Dean Gilligan.

What’s in store for this businessman as he goes forward? More of the same blend of business and personal success seems likely, based on recent ventures, which include his backing of recent high-tech piggy bank SmartyPig.

Read more about Red McCombs, including his gift to the school and why he made it.

Top 10 Reasons Why Your Proposals Fail
Otherwise entitled, “What Could Have Possibly Gone Wrong?” Though ignorance can be bliss, it’s certainly no way to run a business. If your company lives and breathes on making deals, this is a can’t miss rundown of common mistakes and pitfalls from Ben Yoskovitz’s Instigator blog.

An avid fan of Lifehacker.com, I have been tipped off by their site on several other articles around the blogosphere that might be of interest to budding innovators and entrepreneurs. Here are a few:

A Four-Question Business Plan to Jump-Start Your Inner Entrepreneur Before you plunge headfirst into a business plan, this easy mental exercise helps you put your entrepreneurial thoughts together in short order.

Choose a Legal, Pronounceable, Catchy Business Name As entrepreneurs Sergey Brin and Larry Page could surely tell you (having previously named their innovative Internet search Backrub before sensibly switching to Google), while a good name won’t ensure success, a bad one (or one that is already being used) certainly won’t help.

Essential Tools for Starting Up Your Side Business As the title implies, sometimes you may just want to dip your toes in the entrepreneurial waters before quitting your day job. Gina Trapani outlines some basic steps to moving forward that you’d probably have eventually thought of, if you had free time enough to. (”If” being the key word.)

In 2007

Jiten Dalvi teamed up with Barry Kahn to develop software that prices tickets for sporting events based on fluctuating market factors. A year later, their company, Qcue, swept both the UT and Rice University Moot Corp business plan competitions, winning $327,000 in cash and services plus a year at the Austin Technology Incubator.

The Moot Corp competition is the oldest and most prestigious business-plan competition in the country. A few months ago, a panel of former Moot Corp participants, including Dalvi, gathered to share insights on topics such as raising venture capital, hiring the right team and how to learn from mistakes along the way.

Read The Statesman’s write up of the company’s success.

Find out where the company’s $1 million investment this week came from.