BIC launches, grows high-tech, natural products companies

BOULDER – On its first anniversary, the Boulder Innovation Center is celebrating having launched three companies, created 13 jobs and brought in $400,000 of investment capital.

“We’re not a traditional business incubator,” explained Executive Director Doug Collier. “We are an entrepreneurial community at work.”

Unlike the traditional incubator, the BIC isn’t about inexpensive office space and pro bono legal help. The organization’s nine-member board charged Collier with launching and growing viable companies, and he developed two programs – Technology Transfer and Stage 2 – to do just that.

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The BIC’s Technology Transfer program works closely with the Technology Transfer Office at the University of Colorado at Boulder to launch new companies based on technology developed on campus.

Locomotion Inc. and Mentor Machines Inc. were born out of that program. The third can’t be discussed yet, Collier said.

The program acts as a “pipeline,” Collier said.

At the beginning of every summer CU’s tech transfer office gives the BIC a list of candidates developed by professors that might have the potential for commercialization. A student intern from CU’s Leeds School of Business then does market feasibility studies of those technologies.

“We put it through this big funnel and find out how many really have potential to come out the other end with a commercially viable company,” Collier said. “Last year we had eight and got down to three.”

In the fall the CU intern takes the Leeds’ business plan course to flesh out the business side of the technology.

“We surround them with business advisers while they are doing their plan,” Collier said. “For Locomotion we created a team of doctors, physical therapists, CEOs, marketing executives that put them through the ringer during the whole semester.”

Locomotion went on to win first prize and $10,000 in the Leeds business plan competition. The student team members Jeanine Lee and Geoff Snyder along with inventor, professor Rodger Kram, then launched the company with the help of the BIC.

Locomotion is developing a rehabilitation device for people with gait disorders resulting from a stroke or brain injury.

“For us (the BIC) is a critical component of putting the company together,´ said Snyder, Locomotion’s president. “The BIC has helped us develop strategy and a business plan. During the past six months they have been a real big help with contacts, logistics, advice on how to incorporate.”

This summer a student intern is examining 10 technologies, Collier said.

The BIC Stage 2 program is designed to help existing companies with $100,000 to $1 million in annual revenues grow and expand.

It’s not for fresh startups, Collier said. “It’s not going to be people you never heard of, it’s going to people you have heard of.”

Business software provider Six88 Solutions was the first Stage 2 client. “Six88 came to us when they were introducing a new product and needed to get prepared for growth. We helped with a business plan, defined the initial product and priced it, prepared it for an initial trade show and recruited a new CTO,” Collier said.
Justin’s Nut Butter and University Parent recently signed on for the Stage 2 program.

Justin Gold, founder of organic peanut butter manufacturer Justin’s Nut Butter, turned to the BIC “to take it to the next level out of our area of expertise and knowledge,” he said. “What the BIC will allow us to do is surround us with experts in the fields we’re trying to penetrate. We have a lot of friends in the industry, but we want to do this right the first time. The BIC offers a lot of guidance and handholding which, is something we’re hoping to find helpful.”

The program costs $750 per month and gives clients access to business advisers, including the BIC’s natural products or software “blue ribbon” panels, depending on their type of business.

Collier is putting together a scholarship program for Stage 2 companies that would kick in $5,000 toward an eight-month stint in the program; the scholarship would pay $625 per month, the client $125.

“We don’t want there to be barriers,” he explained. “We want to help companies we believe have a chance of success.”

Companies don’t apply for the scholarship. Collier looks at small local companies and gives a list of contenders to the appropriate blue ribbon panel, which then chooses candidates. “We want to pick the companies that our blue ribbon panel wants to get behind.”

The BIC pays $3,000 toward each scholarship, the rest is recruited from other businesses, Collier said.

Collier will launch the Believer Capital program this fall to train entrepreneurs about raising money.

Believer capital is the $250,000 to $500,000 new companies may need to raise between the $100,000 or so from friends and family and the $1 million they will go to venture capitalists for.

The three-part program will involve an introductory seminar to the concept, a second seminar discussing what Collier calls “the eight basic principals of believer capital” and how to raise it, and, for those who decide to go this route, help from BIC sponsor Faegre & Benson to write a private placement memo.

Contact Caron Schwartz Ellis at 303-440-4950 or csellis@bcbr.com.