As an entrepreneur, your “pitch” is one of your most important assets, and one that you should be constantly refining and practicing.  Yet many of the entrepreneurs we at NEOinc work with, either haven’t even developed a pitch, or never practice it.

A pitch, or elevator speech, is a unique, compelling profile of the business opportunity your start-up represents.  It needs to be short, typically around 60 seconds or less.  It’s only goal is to intrigue a potential investor that you deserve a follow-up meeting.

Good pitches are short on details and long on the big picture, especially the financial opportunity represented.  Your presentation style, comfort and passion are important intangibles that can help prop a so-so pitch up or kill a great pitch.

So how do you develop a great pitch?  There are no shortcuts here, just good old-fashioned, roll-up-the-sleeves, hard work and practice.  You develop your pitch.  You practice it; over and over.  You pitch your family, your friends, even complete strangers.  You ask for feedback, particularly criticism.  You video yourself and watch to see how good you actually come across. 

A good pitch is a lot like true love; hard to find, but you know it when you see it.

Now there’s a tool to see bad and good pitches alike, and get some independent (read: brutally honest) feedback on your pitch.

TechCrunch, a weblog dedicated to profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies, has rolled out Elevator Pitches, a community video project that allows entrepreneurs to pitch their start-ups to the general public.  Visitors then have a chance to comment and vote on the pitches they like the most or least.

This About page gives a few more details, including how to submit videos for review.  It’s pretty simple; even an engineer can do it.  (We’re kidding).

Your pitch is absolutely vital to your start-up.  Investors typically have around a 15 second attention span when you get in front of them.  Developing a solid pitch, that speaks to why they should be interested, delivered with passion and in simple terms is ironically one of the hardest things you will do as an entrepeneur.  Here’s one more resource for you to use as you develop yours.

With Entrepreneurship programs flourishing in Universities, we are seeing more and more young entrepreneurs walk through our doors.  All entrepreneurs face similar challenges, but young entrepreneurs may face an additional one: a credibility gap.

A recent Kiplinger article points out that wth limited work experience, minimal or no credit history, and a skimpy resume, young entrepreneurs may find it more difficult to be taken seriously. 

The article offers six steps young entreprenuers can take to reduce your “credibility gap”.   Some of the advice is similar to that we give to virtually every entrepreneur that walks through our doors, some is very helpful to younger entrepreneurs. 

The six steps are listed below.  If you are a young entrepreneur, or are thinking of becoming one, the full article offers some very solid advice.

Young Entrepreneurs Six Steps to Starting Your Own Business

1. Get some experience
2. Build a winning team
3. Fight inexperience with advice (from NEOinc, perhaps?)
4. Write a bulletproof business plan
5. Raise money
6. Follow the money

Best of luck to you in your new venture.

A Memo of Understanding was signed at the recent National Business Incubation Associaton, creating a link between Northeast Ohio and Puerto Rican technology entrepreneurs and businesses.

Bob Cohen, Executive Director of BrainTree Partners in Mansfield, and Hector Carlo of VITEC2 in La Quinta Industrial Park in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, signed the mutually beneficial agreement in order to open markets for technology entrepreneurs in both countries.  The agreement helps BrainTree and NEOinc portfolio companies gain access to the Puerto Rican market and gives Puerto Rican entrepreneurs an entry point for distribution into the Northeast Ohio region.

For more details, read this article from the Mansfield News Journal.

We’ve mentioned Anita Campbell before.  A resident of the Akron area, Anita writes an extremely popular blog entitled Small Business Trends.  While not focused exclusively on entrepreneurs or technology, Anita regularly has information than any start-up or entrepreneur would find useful.

Anita recently posted on the topic of online communities and provided some brief insight as to why these terms have become so popular, and why they are becoming more important to small business (actually businesses of any size).

If you have an online component to your marketing plan and would like a starting point for understanding why online communities are becoming an increasingly important facet of that plan, read Anita’s article.  With over 160,000 subscribers to her blog, comments to her articles tend to be just as insightful as her articles.  Don’t hesitate to comment or ask a question yourself - Anita does read comments left and will respond to questions.

If you are a technology entrepreneur that could benefit from learning more about the supercomputing resources available through The Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC),  NEOinc suggests you strongly consider attending this event.  Not only is OSC making it’s supercomputing facilities available to a widening audience, the presenter, whose bio is below, has an entrepreneurial background and could be a valuable contact for your startup. 

CIO Luncheon

The Mansfield Richland Chamber of Commerce and the Northern Ohio IT Alliance invite you to join other Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, and Information Technology Managers as we bring together IT leaders from throughout the area.  Our guest speaker will be Ashok K. Krishnamurthy, Ph.D., Senior Director of Outreach at The Ohio Supercomputer Center.  Mr. Krishnamurthy will be discussing the Blue Collar Computing Initiative and the Ralph Regula School of Computational Science programs.

 MONDAY, May 19, 2008
11:30am to 1:00pm
Downtown Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites
116 Park Avenue West
Mansfield, OH 44902 

This luncheon is being offered free-of-charge to CIO and CTOs to make it easy to interact with other IT professionals to promote our area’s technology resources and infrastructure.  Please RSVP to the Northern Ohio IT Alliance by May 13, 2008 at 419-525-1614 or by email at bleach@braintreepartners.org.

How is NEOinc Involved?

The Northern Ohio IT Alliance (NOITA) was formed out of desire to provide an IT organization to represent the areas of northern Ohio not represented by NEOSA and not actively engaged by OhioITA.  NOITA is sponsored by NEOinc incubator Braintree and Bob Leach, Braintree’s Director of Operations, serves as its Director. 

The Northern Ohio IT Alliance sponsors several types of events each year to promote networking and interaction between IT companies and individuals in IT departments.  NOITA has been the organization facilitating Richland County’s interaction with the Ohio Broadband Council for expanding broadband services within the area.  NOITA also works with several technology entities as board members and on steering committees.  

About the Presenter 

Ashok K. Krishnamurthy, Ph.D. is the Ohio Supercomputer Center’s Senior Director of Research and is an associate professor in The Ohio State University (OSU) electrical and computer engineering department.  Krishnamurthy conducts research in signal/image processing, high performance computing and computational models of hearing.  He serves as the academic lead for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) High Performance Computing Modernization Program in the area of integrated modeling and test.  Ashok has designed and provided numerous training courses for the DoD User Groups on all aspects of the MatLab programming language.  

On an entrepreneurial leave of absence from OSU, Krishnamurthy started a design center in Dublin, Ohio for Ecrio Inc., a Silicon Valley startup.  He led a team of engineers at the design center developing wireless and handheld communication applications.  As a consultant, he has worked on the development of micro-controller and microprocessor based products, and has assisted in the development of strategic plans to introduce Application-Specific Standard products for multimedia and telephony applications such as speech coders, caller-ID receivers etc.  He earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, India in 1979.  He received his master’s and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering at the University of Florida in 1981 and 1983, respectively.

Centennial Research Park at Kent State University is open for business.

With 44,000 current square feet in the business incubator and the surrounding 10 acres available for development, Kent State has created a valuable resource for the region, particularly for high-tech companies.

The first phase of the incubator houses the FLEXMatters Accelerator, a collaboration that works with local companies to develop and produce devices that are typically rigid on flexible polymer substrates.  Additional building space can be customized to accommodate early-stage technology companies. Continued

People find our website and blog in a variety of ways: our business cards, referrals, E-Mails, etc.  Often, entrepreneurs find us through a basic Internet search.

Quite often we notice that folks find our site after searching for an entrepreneurial checklist.  Given that level of interest, we’ve taken the time to update our checklist with even more information, including several online assessment tools to help you better understand your fit to the entrepreneurial lifestyle.

You can find our Entrepreneur’s Checklist is listed under our “Real World Guides”, or simply follow this link.

Do you have a friend or business associate that is considering starting their own business?  Send them a quick E-Mail with the address of our checklist.  Even better, tell them to subscribe to our blog to stay in touch with entrepreneurial activity throughout Northeast Ohio.

A partnership between MAGNET and NorTech  is launching the Innovation Accelerator for Manufacturers, February 7, 2008.  The program is geared towards small and midsized manufacturers, and the content is relevant for entrepreneurs and start-ups in the manufacturing space.

The program will offer workshops, peer group working sessions, and innovation guides delivered over five months.  Program content is intended to help you:

• Grow your business
• Add new products and services to your offerings
• Leverage ideas from your employees, vendors, customers and competitors
• Explore new technologies to make your products stronger and more effective

Check out the Innovation Accelerator home page for more information and registration details.

It’s that time when many of us are making resolutions for the coming year.  Whether it’s a resolution to change, start, or stop, usually the goal is to become a better person.  New Year’s symbolism of a fresh start is perfect for this type of personal reflection.

As an entrepreneur, you may have made some business resolutions also.  While you are working hard every day to grow your endeavor, the new year is a time when many of you take the time to step back, take stock of the year that just ended, celebrate your successes and put your setbacks in perspective, and make some bold business resolutions for the coming year. 

One of the resolutions many are making is to network more.  Wikipedia defines Business Networking as:

“…a marketing method by which business opportunities are created through social networks of like-minded business people. There are several prominent business networking organizations that create models of networking activity that, when followed, allow the business person to build new business relationship and generate business opportunities at the same time.

Many business people contend business networking is a more cost-effective method of generating new business than advertising or public relations efforts. This is because business networking is a low-cost activity that involves more personal commitment than company money.”

There are certainly many options for business networking, and I’m sure you are taking advantage of some of them already.  With the time demands of being an entrepreneur or successful business executive, many people are turning to the social and business networking tools available on the web.   These tools make it much easier to connect with people you know and trust in a variety of ways, on your own time.   With a bit more effort they can also be used to reach out and connect with people you don’t know yet. 

The following is a list of some of the most popular online social networking sites and what they are mainly used for.  

• LindedIn - Business networking
• StumbleUpon - Web site sharing
• Flikr - Photo sharing
• Slideshare - Slide presentation sharing
• delicious - Bookmark sharing
• Facebook - Social networking
• Twitter- Micro blogging
• YouTube, Brightcove - Video sharing
• Digg - News sharing

If appropriate for your business, you may also consider starting a blog.   With free blogging tools available on the web, all that is required to start a blog is your time and commitment.  Blogging isn’t a fit for everybody nor every business, but when used effectively, it can be a very effective means to shine a spotlight on you or your business.  For an introduction to blogging, read this Business Week article.  It’s a big dated, but still a great introduction to what blogging is all about and the business case for using it to your advantage.

Want a couple examples of how to use blogging effectively?  Check out Anita Campbell’s blog Small Business Trends.  Anita writes regularly on topics and resources that are of value to small business owners and entrepreneurs.  She also has several well-known guest columnists that post frequently.  If you’re wondering how effective blogs can be, consider that Anita’s blog has over 100,000 subscribers and is the #1 search result on Google for “small business trends”. 

Another example is the blog Business Networking Advice.  This blog is a combination of interviews with successful business owners, and value-added commentary, all on the topic of business networking.  For an example of how to use a blog to establish yourself as an expert, this is a good example (and you might just learn something too).

So here’s wishing you a prosperous and successful 2008.  If you made a resolution to network better, we hope this article was of value to you.  If you haven’t subscribed to our blog yet, our “Connect With Us” page tells you everything you need to know to subscribe to our RSS feed or get an E-Mail whenever we post new information. 

We’d love to hear back from you too.  If you’ve made some business resolutions for 2008, click the comment link at the end of the post and share your resolutions with us and the other NEOinc readers. 

Tired of working out of a coffee shop?

That’s the tag-line Brad Kleinman and his team over at the Corporate College’s Key Entrepreneur Development Center use as a lead-in to discussions with small business start-ups and entrepreneurs, at a pre-seed / pre-incubator stage. 

They have a point. 

I recently visited the center at Corporate College East on Richmond Rd. off 271.  The center offers 8 kiosks, 4 offices, a training room and conference room along with additional flexible space and Internet connectivity.  Corporate College West has similar facilities.  The facilities are clean and modern, and very conducive to business.  The kiosks are “first come, first served”, while office space is generally reserved.  (Members can reserve a room via the Corporate College website).  Brad tells me that around 25 - 30 entrepreneurs a week use each of the facilities.  (And if you really need your Starbucks, you can get it in the lobby).

The best part?  The center is free of charge to COSE members and only $100/year for non-COSE members.  The only additional charge is for the use conference room ($75 for two hours).  COSE members also have access to COSE Business Spaces around town.

The Key Entrepreneur Development Center isn’t just about offices and meeting space however.  Brad offers a full range of conferences and workshops targeted at people interested in learning what it takes to be an entrepreneur or open a small business.  This page has a short video introduction of many of the courses offered so you can see if they would be of value to you.  The center’s two main yearly conferences are Sales for Entrepreneurs and eMarketing for Entrepreneurs. 

Brad has graciously extended the following offer to NEOinc blog readers: a $50 discount on the program of your choice.  Brad recommends the eMarketing Techniques Series that starts on January 28th or the eMarketing Techniques Conference on May 2nd. 

There is also a half day seminar coming up January 18th that should be of interest to every entrepreneur: Show Me the Money!  This workshop is all about financing and capital acquisition, and registration is just $99.

The development center and COSE business spaces are well done and a great value.  If you are tired of “working out of a coffee shop” and are looking for a professional, affordable working space option - check out Corporate College’s Key Entrepreneur Development Center.