We attended the BiCE summit this week at ESADE and overall we would say the event was a successful one, some interesting talks, some interesting companies, one that we’ll be covering sooner than later in our Startup Saturday series even.

However what we believe was the most interesting part of the whole thing was the panel of Angel, VC (venture capital), and PE (private equity) investors into the clean tech space, as well as a discussion on the development of clean tech in the CEE region. The low point – a long winded forum of government officials talking about sustainability and efficiency and elaborating on the need to create overly complex programmes to work together with the private sector and banks. So let’s start there -

Government and Clean Tech

Clearly one of the more important roles if any of government is to set policy, and provide incentives for enterprise in it’s own market. This is all good and well, and in our most humble of opinions this is simply something that needs to be done via tax abatement. After all, the stakeholder mentality is undoubtedly focused on the bottom line.

So what’s the problem? There should be none, government should have instituted tax abatement programmes for clean-tech initiatives a long time ago, the same for energy efficiency etc… etc… not only to offset the cost of installation, but also to create incentives for non eco-knowledgeable business to implement eco-friendly methodologies and practices into its day-to-day operations.

But @ BiCE, these governmental entities failed at promoting just that, instead they discusses large bogged down in bureaucracy initiatives, that lacked any sort of clear vision. Notwithstanding what really stood out – in terms of the negative – were comments made by various government individuals that “each case is different” and that a “different programme needs to be established for different companies”. Socialist, sure, but worse that that it screams of 1. Inefficiency, and 2. Higher Taxes. After all someone’s got to pay for all these new programmes.

What’s the solution, simple, Ockham’s Razor – entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily. Create an initiative that fosters the implementation of Clean Tech and Enviro-Friendly practices, give tax breaks to those who participate in the programme, and that’s pretty much all you need.

Clean Tech & Energy in the CEE

Elena Yordanova an investor in the clean tech area with Astra Capital spoke on this topic and although it was brief, it was also very informative. The region as a whole has huge potential for clean tech implementation, specifically in the area of en energy generation.

The SEE is rich in sunshine, there are various opportunities for hydroelectric as well as the north, i.e. Poland, and the Baltics can capitalize on coastal wind farms. Barriers to entry are still fairly low, and the region has massive growth potential across the board, however certain markets such as Romania already have met 2020 targets and over 30% of their energy production coming from renewable sources.

Investment Outlook for Clean Tech

This is a tricky one, as we all well know – investors want a high margin quick return. Clean tech companies however are not suited for this model, time to market may often be ten years or more, and investments are typically very capital intensive.

At the same time, the industry or sector is as a whole very new, and there is very little if any PE activity within the clean-tech space.The good news however is that you’re starting to see VC’s grouping their funds together for truly large scale capital investments into new technologies that otherwise without this money could not be realized. This is a good thing, the bad thing is the lack to BA’s in the field and their reluctance to throw money at clean tech startups – after all, there needs to be a call to a social cause when investing 500k-2m and expecting generally lower returns over a longer period of time.

Business Ethics Matter

There is a reason that social responsibility has bee getting more and more attention in the corporate world and across some of the top business schools globally. Many will simply say that the whole thing is a trend, that it’s nothing more than the next wave of the “in” and that as a whole CSR is just a form of greenwashing one’s corporate activities.

These people are for the most part wrong. Given that greenwashing does occur, take BP for example, they retained the “BP” but re-branded themselves beyond petroleum – a name that inspires and gives hope, however, those close to the company, or for that matter anyone who wants to download and read their annual statement will see that only a small percentage of their revenues gets invested in new and clean energies.

The bright side is that CSR and business ethics as a whole are on the rise, ethical behaviour and operational transparency are only the first steps, and for the most part have been growing. A baseline study conducted by the UNDP on the Study of CSR Practices in New EU Member States and Candidate Countries shows a healty understanding and movement towards better overall CSR. But is it enough?

We say no, but it’s progress, and progress is a good thing. But the truth is that any established company will take time to re-align itself with any new(er) type practices, and at heart this may mean a change to the company culture which by no means is an easy thing to achieve for anyone.

The Question of CSR Implementation

With startups though this is a different story, since startups take on the cutlure of their founders, it then depends on those founders to create companies which are socially responsible. But what is CSR? By definition it is known as corporate responsibility, corporate citizenship, responsible business, sustainable responsible business (SRB), or corporate social performance, is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model. Ideally, CSR policy would function as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby business would monitor and ensure its adherence to law, ethical standards, and international norms.

But it’s more than that, a few weeks back we showed a video on how Entrepreneurs shape and change the world, this is it, by taking a new idea, whatever it is, we can simply and easily add an aspect of CSR into the business model. Why, it directly affects your bottom line, consumers will be more inclined to purchase products from companies that they believe are socially responsible, i.e. Starbucks + Shade Grown + Fair Trade Coffee.

The question of ethical integrity should never be a question, but should be incorporated into your business from the onset. Why? It’s quite simple, people trust honest businesses, and honest businesses tend to do better in the long run, but don’t take out word for it, here’s a video – in a Did you know? – format that quickly sums up where we’re headed with CSR, and why your stakeholders will want you as an enterprise to actively employ socially responsible practices in your day to day business.

Thoughts?

The word “entrepreneur” originates from early 19th century French, meaning one who undertakes an endeavour. However aside from the words origins Europe for a long time saw what in comparison to other global markets has been little activity in creating new Enterprise. Long established firms on the continent have for the most part ruled the enterprise scene, and entrepreneurship activity has been for the most part stagnant until recently.

In the past few years things however have been on the move, the UK, typically the centre of European Entrepreneurship has the scene has taken a second seat to the area around the Baltic sea, typically, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Poland. New enterprise is popping up nearly everywhere you look funneled by media reports of new tech startups such as Spotify, clean tech, sustainable energy and life sciences.

So why the change? It can be attributed to a number of factors, these being greater European Integration, open labour markets, or even initiatives such as the Baltic Entrepreneurship Partners whose aim is creating co-operative research and study in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education field, members are;

- Århus Business School
- University of Tartu, The Faculty of Economics and Business Administration
- Kaunas University of Technology Regional Business Incubator
- Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship
- Institute of Business Administration at Tallinn Technical University
- Tampere University, Research Centre for Vocational Education
- Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management, Warsaw

And while there has been a shift is this to say the least enough. The short answer is no. The longer answer is that while there are initiatives on the continent, and they are making an impact the fundemental truth is that the state entrepreneurship lies in societal perception or risk, and the sad truth is that most european societies are risk averse.

The Danish, have a word for being too ambitious, the Spanish say that the best local entrepreneurs take an idea that worked in America and copy it for the local market, the Business Angel activity in many networks sees sometimes at most one deal year. Are these things normal in an society that is pro-entrepreneurial, no, they are counterproductive and act against those of us who are trying to innovate and create enterprise. At the same time, you have a portion of the continent with high national debt, where taxpayer euro’s are going towards intiatives such as government sponsored – socialist designed programmes to create work and lower unemployment, and if we must utilize taxpayer euro’s to create jobs would it not be better if we did it though the creation of new companies?

Then it comes to initiatives, assistance, help, etc… the taxpayer at the end it often paying for European Innovation, which in a way is fine, however, governments at the core of their nature are inefficient due to the lack of a distinctive profit motive, notwithstanding, those individuals in charge of distributing those funds, are they specialists, are they venture cap? No, they are not. And what about EU money dedicated to new enterprise, it’s there but how do you get to it? Information is not only lacking, but the little that does exist requires a PhD in bureaucracy to understand.

Where does this all lead to? Simple, we need to work on changing mindsets while fighting against the grain of society, there is no Silicon Valley (SV) in Europe, there are pockets such as Sophia Antipolis, but as much as the French would like, it’s no SV, but it’s getting there, and this continent if anything needs more initiatives such as Sophia, it needs to embrace new ideas, and put aside its misconceptions of pro-risk behaviour. Only if we do that and work together to foster entrepreneurship on the continent will we truly become a more successful and more efficient society.

Innovation is an ongoing process that your company should be taking a strong stake in, and as an entrepreneur it should always be on your mind. Why? Because as long as you’re working towards goals so are others, process improvements happen all the time, and new ways of doing things will always keep on evolving. If you’re not evolving, you’re in a way killing your business.

Look at it this way, you may have a technology that at the moment can clean water in a manner that is thus far cheaper and more energy efficient than your competitors, you have a decisive competitive advantage because of this technology, however, you know that there are also engineers out there working on similar products, ones that may be cheaper and more energy efficient than yours? So what do you do, you innovate. You look for different processes, different materials, ways to improve the process that will help you keep that advantage.

Today, we look at that relationship, the one between innovation and strategy. In all there are really three ways in which you can approach innovation within your company, and each is designed to work a bit differently. Read the methods, and think about which one of these works best for your enterprise and how you can most effectively apply in.

1. Strategy Defines Innovation – The company collects CI, looks at the market and then defines a strategy, i.e. in 5 years time we want to be at point X, we want to have Y% of the market and be in Z countries. How do we get there. In this scenario innovation effects are pursued to deliver and ensure value to the strategy, and the goal.

2. Innovation Defines Strategy – The company through the most excellent ideas of its board, entreprenerus and others has developed a number of concepts. These concepts are mapped, and a strategic evaluation is conducted based on CI, market factors, etc.. the selected innovation then fuels the strategy of the enterprise.

3. Innovation and Strategy Inform One Another – This is an ongoing dialogue between the two, Innovation and Strategy both affect each other equally, and the C levels manage the process throughout.

In terms of startups and smaller companies, you will find that option two tends to work the best. Why? Because chances are that you’ve embarked on a business venture due to the fact that you had a few good ideas, and chose to pursue one of them. This is the innovation process for those that are starting, or launching something totally new.

With that, your product, service, what have you can be easily augmented and adjusted to suit market needs, additional products, support products can also be added to your product, this is where No.1 comes in. How do you get from A->B how do you grow, and what and where can you innovate to help your business grow.

The last is the hardest to manage, specifically as it needs constant and ongoing attention which most startups lack do to limited resources. In practice it’s strongly supported by larger companies in high-innovation industries, bio, clean tech, hardware & chip design, etc… However that does not mean you should forget about it, Innovation and strategy should always be informing one another, always.

BY JACEK GREBSKI

This may be largely dependent on industry but, if you have the possibility to actually test out a concept before going into full scale business plan writing, development, quitting your job, do so.

Clearly if you hold in your possession intellectual property (IP) that will cost a few hundred grand to develop, then by all means start writing that business plan, get that executive summary ready, and go put a team together, but in the event your idea is something niche, has a specific market segment, is a B2C business then start testing the waters.

The best way to go about doing this, is to simply involve yourself in the community for your business subject online, whatever it is. We, for example at f3fundit.com, started looking around the startup scene here in Europe, and we noticed that there was nothing that really brought it together, there was an old expired EU initiative that was now defunct, there were tons of resources, but they were hard to find. Simply put we thought there may be a market for a site that brings all this info together, so we thought about putting up a database of all relevant information, a Wiki of sorts, but that’s just boring. At this time, I was working on another project, and started collecting information and writing basic articles for my own – now defunct – blog, that for lack of time, just never saw the light of day.

Put one and two together, and the next thing that we know we’ve got a blog, with some info on it in the resource area. Now time to see if this thing is going to even make an internet blip – seems it did, this site’s been growing, and best of all organically, no marketing, no adwords, so now we’re actually working on a few things behind the scenes that should bring added value to our visitors and likewise the European Entrepreneurship scene.

What I’m getting here at is, it costs us a total of what, a domain name, and hosting that we already had to see if there was any viability behind f3fundit.com. And there evidently seems there is – then I recall another project I was a part of back in 2002, no market research, no feelers sent out, the idea was launch now because someone’s going to do what we’re doing. The thing was rushed out the door, we ordered volumes of the stuff that just sat in inventory for god knows how long, and could have saved a lot of money and made a lot more money later by not learning form our mistakes and instead preparing ourselves adequately.

Remember, entrepreneurship is not just about the idea, it’s also about “smart” execution, an intelligent strategy where you, your team, and your product are ready to launch, and I mean truly ready to launch.

Remember the saying 1st impressions last a lifetime, the same more or less holds true for products. If you launch something which will be received as crap,your company will be seen as just that. Image may not be everything, but it’s a lot. Test the waters before you hop in, make sure that there exists a need before you start planning for the whole thing.

Thoughts?

How do you start a Biotech Company? Good question, for the most part it’s like anything else, you have a good idea, you write a business plan using a well defined guide, and then proceed to get things off the ground.

But we’ll let someone explain it better than we could, this podcast comes from Absolute Science and Welltopia.com where Mignon Fogarty interviews her husband Patrick Fogarty a post-doc at Stanford who in the 90’s started his own Biotech Firm with next to no knowledge of business. However you’ll notice a lot of the same trends we’ve been discussing here, engaging executive summary, a hook for the VC, scalability, market size and identification, thus further pinning the belief that a majority of entrepreneurial concepts are transferable between industries.

->> Listen to the podcast <<-

BY F3FUNDIT

Entrepreneurs are definitely a special breed, this is motivation, personality as well as a number of additional factors. So before you or someone you know wants to jump in and tackle the world, we recommend gauging your personality to see if you possess any of the critical success factors that make up an entrepreneur.

ENTREPRENEURIAL CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS

1. Belief in success – if you doubt yourself, if you don’t think you can do it, climb up a mountain and conquer the world, or if you don’t have somewhat megalomaniacal expectations of yourself and understand that accomplishing event half of those expectations will mean success to others, read no further and go get a 9-5 day job.

2. Possess valuable practical world experience – you may have a great idea, but having real world experience is vital, schools can only teach you so much, and this experience will often mean sink or swim for your enterprise. Furthermore, you should always be getting this experience, before your venture, during it, and after.

3. Be unusual and unconventional - Let’s face it, normal never got anywhere. Are you unusual, quirky, do you visualize the world in a unique and peculiar way? Great. This factor is key to you identifying opportunity.

4. Embrace risk and failure – The majority of the population is risk averse, they don’t like it because it means, possible failure and people are afraid of failure because of the way it will be perceived by others. But what is failure other than a great learning experience?

5. Want to leave the large Co. behind – If you like the large company, the security of belonging to someone on a fortune something hundred list, then Entrepreneurship is not for you. Entrepreneurs are independent thinkers, they are leaders, not followers.

6. Think like or belong to a society where above normal expectations are welcome – If the expectations in your society are to get a comfy job, because that comfy job provides security, and better yet it’s a government job. You’ll have a a harder climb than someone who belongs to a society that encourages risk taking. See how your societal culture holds up, if need be, leave.

7. Be ambitious – If someone tells you you’re thinking too big, maybe you’re not thinking big enough. As innovation is the mother of invention, ambition is the mother of innovation, and even though the developers of some new iPhone app will tell you it’s the next most innovative thing since sliced bread. It probably isn’t. Real innovation sprs positive change, be ambitious, think you can change the world. Do you?

And we’ll close this with words from one successful entrepreneur, Sidney Pulitzer, who started an undergraduate entrepreneurship course at Tulane University with the following opener.

“95% of the people on this planet have no clue what the hell is going on, out of the other 5%, 3% do know what’s going on, but they’re too God damn afraid to do anything about it. Those last 2% boys and girls, they’re the movers and shakers, so take a moment and ask yourselves. Where do you belong?”

So… where Do you belong?

BY JACEK GREBSKI

“Entrepreneurship is like porn, it’s hard to describe but you know it when you see it.” is what came out of the mouth of Kenneth Morse – co-founder of 3Com and former Managing Director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center at the ESADE Forum in Barcelona yesterday, where he is currently teaching and I must say it was a welcome and fresh experience.

The sad truth is that Entrepreneurship in Europe as well as the methodology behind investing and the general mindset lags behind the US not just by a few years, but at what seems at time by decades which is one of the reasons that the team behind this site, 1/2 American, and 1/2 British decided to put it together.

But instead of blabbering on about the European scene, let’s have fun this Friday and convery some of the more exciting, and even funny things that Ken mentioned during his

1. First is first. A line of bull and a power point presentation is no longer enough

DAD > MBBB (Down And Dirty > McK, BCG, Bain & Booz)

2. What are the characteristics of an Entrepreneur?

Integrity, leadership, impatience, quick clock speed, modest ego, willingness to be different, pragmatism, no petty jealousies, drive to solve problems.

3. Five Additional Quotes from Ken Morse

“Don’t Let a good recession go to waste.”
“Sales is the difference between an average company and a great one”
“It’s character building to have one foot in bankruptcy and the other on a banana peel.”
“The ph of an entrepreneur is 1-2 standard deviations from the norm.”
“Engineers need to understand that sales people are not a lower life forms.”

And that’s that for today.

BY F3FUNDIT

If you haven’t taken a MBA class on Entrepreneurship, chances are you won’t know where to start, and with the hundreds of pages out there telling you that you can get a sample business plan for your business for only 39.95 that may or may not be good we figured we’d save you the time and money and check this, give it away for free, and something that’ 1/2 way decent on top of that, this outline has time and time again won and been featured in bplan competition finals.

With that, your guide to writing a business plan. Step by step, links to Wikipedia for terms that may be foreign to non business types. Enjoy!

BUSINESS PLAN

Legal Company Name, Names of Partners

Contents

1. Executive Summary.

• 1.1. Introduction.
• 1.2. The Idea.
• 1.3. Sales and Marketing.
• 1.4. Opportunity Assessment.
• 1.5. The Team that will exploit the identified opportunity.
• 1.6. Strategic Investor.
• 1.7. Summary of Financials.

2. The Opportunity.

• 2.1. Introduction.
• 2.2. Summary of Sales and Marketing.
• 2.3. Opportunity Assessment – Market Overview & Trends.
• 2.3.1 Opportunity Assessment & Trends.
• 2.3.2. Market Overview of _whatever industry you’re getting into_.
• 2.4. Segmentation.
• 2.5. Positioning.
• 2.6. Product Strategy.
• 2.7. Pricing Strategy.
• 2.8. Distribution Channel Strategy.
• 2.9. Communication Strategy.

3. Operations.

• 3.1. Identification and Map of Processes.
• 3.2. Analysis of most relevant Processes.
• 3.3. Location.
• 3.4. Technology Development (if any).
• 3.4.1. Technology Implementation (if any).
• 3.4.2. Development Framework of Product (if any).
• 3.5. Hardware Infrastructure (if any).
• 3.6. Subcontracting.
• 3.7. Inventory Management.
• 3.8. Investments + main Cost Drivers.
• 3.9. Launch Plan.

4. Organizations and Human Resources (HR)

• 4.1. Organizational Structure.
• 4.2. Personnel needed.
• 4.3. Job Descriptions.
• 4.4. HR Policies: Selection, Management, Compensation.

5. Financial Plan.

• 5.1. Financial Hypotheses/Assumptions.
• 5.2. Pro Forma Income Statement.
• 5.3. Pro Forma Cashflow Statement.
• 5.4. Pro Forma Balance Sheet.
• 5.5. Financing Need.
• 5.6. Sources of Financing.
• 5.7. Financial Feasibility: BEP Ratios.
• 5.8. Sensitivity Analysis.
• 5.9. Key Financial Charts.
• 5.10. Valuation.

6. Legal Aspects.

• 6.1. Protection and Issues of Intellectual Property Rights.
• 6.2. Standards and Regulations (market specific).
• 6.3. Insurances & Responsibilities.
• 6.4. Social Security.
• 6.5. Fiscal Obligations: Taxes.
• 6.6. Official Documentation.
• 6.7. Legal Structure.

7. Company Growth and Development Strategy.

• 7.1. Company Growth Strategy.
• 7.2. Risks, Problems and Assumptions.
• 7.3. Exit / Payback Strategy.

Appendices: Illustrations, Process Design, Website Design, Functionality anything else you believe is relevant.

—-

If you have any questions, let us know. And we’ll do our best to answer them.

BY F3FUNDIT

“As entrepreneurs we strive to make the world a better place, we drive innovation, and we lead, though sometimes we haven’t a clue as to where we’re going” so said the entrepreneur.

Today’s video series is about leadership, and how it affects the world, it’s more a think piece than anything else, and we hope you’ll very much like it. We did, and it’s one of our favorite video series so far.

However, as much as we would like to take credit for such an absolutely amazing video we cannot, it comes from the good people at XPLANE a company that specializes in visual communication, and with clients such as the Economist, BASF, UNICEF, Vodafone, etc…, you know there’s something to them.

This video however, comes from a more academic background and was put together in collaboration with Nitin Nohria and Amanda Pepper of Harvard Business School’s Leadership Initiative in order to get people talking about leadership, and what is specifically interesting to us, and the wider entrepreneurship community out there is that the majority of leaders presented in the video were / are entreprenerus.

We as entrepreneurs work every day, to change and make the world a better place, we do this because we see possibilities, and because we love it and have an undying passion for it, and if you do it just for the money, I’ll tell you now, save your breath, you’ll fail. You have to enjoy it.

And with that ladies and gentlemen of the wider internets entrepreneurial and otherwise community, we at f3fundit.com present you with Imagine Leadership

BEFORE YOU SKIP AWAY – THINK ABOUT THE FOLLOWING.

• Am I a leader? And was I born this way or made? What are my strengths, weaknesses?
• Does an entrepreneur have to be a leader, or a leader an entrepreneur?
• What is the defining difference between a leader and a manager? After all managers can start companies can’t they?

We’d love to hear your thoughts?