Innovators aren’t always entrepreneurs
by Miki SaxonIn an article about Yahoo’s new, internal, innovation incubator Brickhouse, Todd Dagres, general partner at Boston venture firm Spark Capital, says, “People who take jobs at a big company don’t often have the big ideas—or risk-taking mentality—of an entrepreneur.”
Pardon my language, but the first part of that sentence is a crock.
Ever heard of Botts’ dots (California Department of Transportation), nylon (DuPont), the HDMAX camera (Florida Atlantic University), and this doesn’t even scratch the surface, and, last I heard, there was a lot of innovation coming out of companies such as HP, GE, IBM and Google.
Academia and government researchers find breakthrough products constantly that aren’t brought to market, but not for lack of trying.
In 1995, I read an item in Business Week’s Developments to Watch about an Agriculture Department researcher who had found a fat replacement made from oat hulls, no chemicals, no fancy process, completely natural, and nobody could tell the difference between ice cream made with cream and that made using oat hulls.
Gee, that sure sounds like a really big idea to me. Wouldn’t you think someone would want to commercialize it? I kept waiting, and waiting, and waiting…
It’s now February, 2007, 12 years later, and I see that a company called UTEK found a partner to commercialize the product (although not in the way I had hoped).
People work in various size companies for various reasons with benefits, especially health insurance, often being at the top of the list.
A risk-taking mentality doesn’t guarantee a creative mind or big ideas. Further, VCs don’t fund ideas, even brilliant, breakthrough ideas, unless they come with business plans, strong management teams, and either a connection, or are introduced by a connection, that they already know.
Even location matters.
So, the next time you hear someone voicing the myth that anyone with a great idea will become an entrepreneur and, conversely, only people with no creativity work for others, please set them straight. Or send them to me and I will!
