Starting a business: It takes more than just an idea

07/30/2010
Humans can see that which does not exist. Asleep, we dream. Awake, we envision. Visioning is a powerful way to prepare for action. The better your vision, the more likely you are to achieve your desired results.

Visioning matches creativity with vision; it enables ideas to evolve to full potential and reduces risks by reasoned choice. The most startling innovations come from imagining the impossible. Together we can conceive novelty and birth innovation.

You’ve heard it said, ”Ideas are a dime a dozen,” and, “It’s not how many ideas you have, it’s what you do with the ideas you have.” Every good business begins with a great idea, but every great idea does not make a good business.

Entrepreneurship is first and foremost a mindset. It is the art of finding creative and profitable solutions to everyday problems. Every successful entrepreneur has been someone who’s been able to identify a problem, an unmet need or unfulfilled want and come up with a solution to it before somebody else did.

The success of your startup is about 1 percent innovation and 99 percent your business skills — or your ability to access the complement of business skills necessary to succeed. A startup’s move into a competitive business world requires specific knowledge, expertise, resources and personal business skills.

The Northeast Indiana Innovation Center (NIIC) is a 501(c)3 founded in December 1999 as a public-private partnership by Allen County, the city of Fort Wayne, the Greater Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne and Dr. Mike Mirro, a nationally renowned cardiologist. In 2000, Karl LaPan, president and CEO, was hired and in August 2001, NIIC opened a temporary facility on Production Road in Fort Wayne.

The Innovation Center is a nonprofit, community-based resource center that catalyzes the growth and development of technology-based companies in northeast Indiana, thereby diversifying, improving and growing the region’s economy and enhancing our community’s vitality.

The mission of the NIIC is to create higher wage professional jobs and grow companies throughout northeast Indiana by accelerating innovation and energizing entrepreneurship. If you are an innovator, inventor, entrepreneur or a high school or college student with an idea and the passion to make a difference, NIIC can help.

NIIC provide business development support services, business and personal coaching and leadership development as well as access to capital, office space, wet and dry lab space other professional amenities to grow your idea or business venture. These services help new business owners reduce the cost of startup and develop strategies and plans that address the risks waiting to cause their ventures to fail.

NIIC operates a 40,403-square-foot business incubation and acceleration facility and a 30,000-square-foot Emerging Growth Center on a 55-acre Innovation Park campus adjacent to the IPFW campus and the Ivy Tech north campus in Fort Wayne. NIIC is composed of a biomedical/life science and advanced security wing and a diversified technology wing. NIIC is one of only three incubation facilities in Indiana equipped to incubate biomedical ventures.

The Emerging Growth Center is home to the Cole Conference and Training Center, several technology businesses that have outgrown the incubator and NIIC’s Student Venture Lab, an incubator for high school and college student ventures that is funded by the Lincoln Financial Foundation, Grabill Bank and the Wilson Foundation.

“NIIC is a special place, it’s like Disney World for entrepreneurs,” said Lee Kelso, co-founder of BBK Group. BBK Group specializes in helping corporations manage telecom services for maximum effectiveness at the lowest cost. BBK Group is one of 41 current client companies residing on the Northeast Indiana Innovation Park campus along with seven virtual clients (affiliates), all of which receive business development support and coaching through the Center for Entrepreneurial Excellence. Some of the benefits of working with a business coach are that entrepreneurs:

1.Take more, better and smarter actions based on better decisions for yourself and your business.

2.Have a balanced life that works well.

3.Make and keep more money.

4.Have a lot more sustainable energy — no more chugging along.

NIIC is focused on delivering positively outrageous customer service and becoming the Ritz Carlton of the business incubation industry through its “pinnacle” service values and building a stronger community of entrepreneurs.

To that end, NIIC has two new initiatives; the first is the Launch Pad program that provides initial funding for the rapid creation and commercialization of new intellectual property in the life sciences, health care, clean energy, military, material science and mobile applications areas.

Secondly, there is Build Your Own Future, an entrepreneurial leadership training program that is a partnership with WorkOne Northeast. Participants are creative and motivated workers who are currently in career transition due to layoff or job elimination. They explore their own capabilities and opportunities to develop a business and create something for themselves without regard to current resources available.

If you have an interest in knowing more about the NIIC you may attend a free NIIC orientation meeting and tour, which take place every Thursday morning at 9-11 a.m. The tour begins at 10 a.m. The meeting and tour are free and open to the public. Reservations are not required, but appreciated. You can reserve your seat by calling Anita Homco at (260) 399-6442 or e-mailahomco@niic.net This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

REMOUND WRIGHT is the director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Excellence at the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center. He can be reached at rwright@niic.net This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or (260) 399-6462.

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