New North Professional Development

Technology Transfer

Innovating ideas to add value to everyday products and processes for greater market appeal

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of New North Professional Development Series panel overviews that B2B plans to share with readers in the edition following each panel discussion.

What follows are responses from a couple of the four panelists who spoke about technology transfer during the New North Summit held Dec. 14 in Sheboygan. For more information on the New North Professional Development Series, go online to www.thenewnorth.com.

Mike Krysiak
President of ENCAP in Green Bay
www.encapseed.com

ENCAP, an advanced soil technology company, has won numerous awards for innovation, technology, and environmental awareness. This past year, ENCAP was named to Inc. magazine’s 500 fastest growing privately held companies. ENCAP has been featured on television by both CNBC and the Discovery Channel.

Has the competitive advantage spun out of your idea further segmented your industry?
This is a little difficult to answer given the breadth of our technologies and products at ENCAP.  Everything we bring to market in our products and technologies has a competitive advantage, by design and intent.  Ideally, our competitive advantages create products that bring new customers into the industry.  We have seen this in our New Lawn Kits™ where a retail-shopping homeowner can now install an entire lawn themselves by having everything they need in our all-in-one Lawn Kits™.  The same holds true with our Waste Transformation Technology where we, along with FEECO, are creating an entire marketing/sales opportunity from scratch for ourselves and others by applying our technologies to transform wastes into valuable end-products with real market appeal.  In a sense, we are turning costs centers into profit centers for Customers with this approach.  On the flip side, we have segmented some markets with products like our Grass Repair Kit™ where we are giving homeowners a better performing, easier to use product to patch bare spots on their lawn.

Does your company consistently innovate its product and/or processes?
Absolutely!  It is the core of who we are as ENCAP…  Our entire business is built on a complex system we refer to as our “Real Innovation™ Business Model”.  In short, we view innovation as the full commercialization of products and/or technologies that are viewed by Customers to be meaningful, valuable and effective (through to profitability).  It is about being able to understand market needs, finding and defining that solution, and having the know-how to bring it to market in a way that maximizes its potential.  This requires the development of a dynamic business process capable of supporting change, along with the alignment and empowerment of capable resources to make it happen.  We like to describe it as the formula to “uncork your potential!”. 


What are the barriers that impede the growth of your business today?
We are blessed with having countless new opportunities at ENCAP that would springboard our company.  Our biggest risks related to this from my perspective are; dilution of resources, and loss of focus as a company.  Like all other companies, we obviously have limited resources (i.e. personnel, finances, etc.).  When it comes to advancing new opportunities we need to be fiscally smart and stay focused.  We are continually striving to advance our current business ventures, while still spending the right amount of time tessellating/defining other new opportunities, out of the spotlight.  As these opportunities become further defined and related risks/rewards better understood, we can then determine when/how we allocate additional resources.  Another challenge we face in growing ENCAP are the political barriers we encounter through our government and international initiatives.  Some things just take time, but are well worth the effort, perseverance and wait.
 

Kurt Waldhuetter
Northeast Regional
Director for Wisconsin Entrepreneurs’ Network
www.wenportal.org

Wisconsin Entrepreneurs’ Network helps high-impact entrepreneurs by providing consulting through the use of statewide resources available through WEN partners and private service providers.

Outside of Silicon Valley - and beyond Madison-centric bio-based industries - what does technology transfer mean in the New North?
Look, aside from being smart, friendly people that are dependable workers, we know how to design and make the stuff (machines, equipment, tooling) that allow other companies to make products.  This is our current and continuing role in technology transfer NEW North style and it is represented in our area’s small-to medium sized manufacturers that help anchor us. One of the challenges for these companies is to take some of this ingenuity and apply it in their own proprietary applications as products or services for growth.  What a giant task this is if they try to go it alone.  Companies in the New North need to look at tech transfer as a means to compete in the future through leveraging outside expertise, resources and intellectual property to help move them forward competitively.  Our companies need to think 3-5 years out and ask themselves what it is they wish they could do in their industry that would change it for the better, but think it impossible to do.  Then they need to think and collaborate outside their business to be able to compete nationally and globally.

Also, I work with a lot of start-ups in the seed stage on technology-based opportunities.  My hope is that these start-ups will be creating jobs we do not yet have descriptions for, and that more of them will have an interest in using outside resources, for example licensing intellectual property from a university and use of specialized grants as the basis to a business.

What is the difference between an idea and an opportunity? What is the process for bridging the two together?
An idea is a formulated thought, opinion or concept.  Everyone has them, and they usually don’t have value.  Thomas Edison (1847-1931) said it this way: “The value of an idea lies in the using of it”.  Using your idea, that is, embodying your idea in a product or service that solves a problem is the key to creating value…Opportunity.  Edison went on to say:  "Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work".  I have to admit, this speaks loudly and it hurts as a self-proclaimed ideas guy!

Opportunity then, is the ability to serve people with something of value and this beast is tamed by someone called an entrepreneur.  The entrepreneur is driven by a superhuman desire to turn ideas into opportunity.  Having good Midwestern upbringings, the key factor limiting entrepreneurs may be willingness to take risk, make mistakes, suffer hardship, learn and do it again until success.  Bohr (1885 - 1962) summed it up this way: "An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes, which can be made, in a very narrow field".  A successful entrepreneur needs to be an expert in championing, organizing and managing a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.

The successful entrepreneur recognizes when an idea provides the basis to a solution that has recognizable benefits for its intended customers, AND does something about it.  Tolstoy (1828-1910) says it this way:  "It is easier to write ten volumes on theoretical principles than to put one into practice".  Entrepreneurs are people of action that never stop practicing.  Their passion is a magnet for others which builds the team, they communicate about the idea in terms of benefits to the customer not features.  For the entrepreneur full of gusto, I’d also recommend they assess the feasibility of the idea, and get help in doing so, from both a technical and market perspective before they fall in love with it, or risk insanity.  They must maintain their senses enough to look for the things that can “knock-out” the idea like a right hook from an extreme fighter.  If that right-hook looks unavoidable, then kill the idea and find a better one…there are so many to choose from!

It is my role at WEN and the role of dozens of WEN partners and private service providers to work with high impact businesses: those creating world class products or services, creating new wealth, and serving as a guide to others, to get them in a position to launch and grow.  For more information visit www.wenportal.org or contact me at waldhuek@uwgb.edu.
 

B2B did not receive responses from Still and Gilbertson in time for publication.

Tom Still
President of Wisconsin Technology Council
www.wisconsintechnologycouncil.com

Wisconsin Technology Council is the non-profit, independent science and technology advisor to the governor and state legislature. Its programs include the Wisconsin Innovation Network, the Wisconsin Angel Network, the Governor’s Business Plan Contest, the Wisconsin Entrepreneurs’ Conference and the Wisconsin Early Stage Symposium.

Tim Gilbertson
President of Seura, Inc. in Green Bay
www.seura.com

Seura develops and manufactures LCD television mirrors and illuminated mirrors for residential and commercial use. Seura’s award winning products are distributed through over 500 retailers across the country and direct to select luxury hotel and commercial accounts.