“You can accomplish anything in life, provided you do not mind who gets the credit.”
- Harry S. Truman

Apologies for the quiescent-state at LSDF this past week. While taking in some R&R in blissful Aspen, CO I found myself at one of my favorite bookstores, Explore Booksellers, on Main St. where an idea for a substantial work was catalyzed. Ideas, even great ideas are a dime-a-dozen – particularly in this entrepreneurially rich eco-system. It is impossible to walk into a café in Boulder, look around, and not see business models being passionately and feverishly scribbled out on latte stained napkins or hear terms like “fundraise”, “CEO”, “IP” and “Venture Capital” rise above the clanking of spoons on espresso saucers, the clicking away on laptops and the Pixies or Bach, Brahms or Rachmaninoff being played by baristas who are completing their graduate work in transcendental meditation or prose and poetry at Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, ahhh…I love this town!

Perhaps even more important than the spark and the idea is the ability to execute. Though I am intimately aware of this requirement I am frequently, subtly or not so subtly, reminded by a great friend and confidant, who is a successful entrepreneur in his own right, of the importance of execution. The bottom file cabinet at my desk is a constant reminder of the importance of execution…as it is now the final resting place for business plans, some rather excellent ones too, that for one reason or another have failed to launch, and I gotta say the drawer is near full.

It is easy to sit behind the big mahogany desk and rich leather chair (or in my case the aging Target computer desk and Herman Miller Aeron knock-off), shake your finger, and say young lass or lad, you must execute, execute, execute! What the heck does that really mean?

One interpretation of the meaning of execution is simply an extension of the people who become involved in the nascent endeavor. So now the conversation must inevitably choose to focus, and that spotlight will now shine on the first-time entrepreneur. The first-steps along the pathway to positioning an entity for success is sector agnostic, no matter if you are developing a superior photovoltaic cell, the ultimate in social media or a broad spectrum antibody fragment with limitless anti-infective uses – step number one is…surround yourself with a person or persons who have successfully traveled the path you are about to embark upon. In so doing, that is…asking for help, you are concurrently setting out upon a path of leadership. Boulder’s very own Jim Collins famously refers to Level 5 leaders, in part, as those who are focused upon channeling ambition into the company not into the self and one who looks out of the window and not into the mirror to apportion credit for success of the company. What are your honest ambitions?

What makes centers of innovation just that, among additional elements, is the presence of a pool of visible and active seasoned serial entrepreneurs. These folks are a critical component to the required nurturing of early-stage intellectual property and these stewards of development more often than not (from what I have observed) are available and eager to identify and connect with inventors anf first-time entrepreneurs. Such aid can take the form of simply shinning a light upon the path to illuminate impending and inevitable obstacles to fully taking the reigns in the form of Chief Executive Officer duties. So where can these resources be identified and connected with? Well it is easy to do if you find yourself in Silicon Valley or Boston or San Diego but elsewhere there is nothing quite like the resources and people who aggregate at and around University Technology Transfer Offices. No matter if your IP is born inside or beyond the walls of academia, do yourself the favor of connecting with your local TTO office.

Net – You have an idea, a passion, a blueprint, a prototype, be certain to ask for help. It could be the best business decision you will ever make.

My intentions were to begin writing about Trius Therapeutics, the latest company to file for a public offering (more on that to follow) and instead I became distracted with the idea of execution in and around my idea for a substantial work. I think I’ll take my own advice and see if I can muster some help, thanx Jeff.