Entrepreneurs or Entitlements: Part 1

The only thing that irritates me more than reading a bunch of liberals opining about an event that they did not even attend is…wait…nothing.

So, I thought I would take a little time to post about what really happened at the Vermont Tiger Symposium.

The day was basically split into to halves.

The first half started, after Geoff Norman and Jack Harding spoke briefly about Vermont Tiger, with an address from David Audretsch, author of The Entrepreneurial Society. (You can read his bio here.)

He talked about the history of the American economy.

In the post-war era, it was manufacturing that drove our economy and we had no competition because the capital (ie. the factories and infrastructure) of the other countries was destroyed in the war.

Over time, though, countries like Germany and Japan were able to beat us at our own game and emerge as manufacturing leaders.

We have tried to re-capture our past success, but that is not where our future lies. It lies in technology and knowledge-based entrepreneurship.

Following Mr. Audretsch’s speech and a brief Q&A, there was a 90-minute panel discussion moderated by Emerson Lynn, featuring David Audretsch, Cairn Cross, Jack Harding, Allan Rodgers, and Ben Weiss. (You can find a brief description of everyone on the panel here.)

The focus of this first panel was mainly how to encourage, and lower the barriers to, entrepreneurship in Vermont.

Jack Harding emphasized the point that was made by David Audretsch in his speech that that successful areas are ones in which there is a common vision between government, academia, and the business community.

The interesting thing about that was, as Mr. Audretsch pointed out, the areas that have successful knowledge-based entrepreneurship are of varied political systems and ideologies. The thing they all have in common is that all of the players – government, academia, and business – all have the same goal, which is to create a successful economy for the area.

Ben Weiss, founder and past president of Ai Squared in Manchester, made the suggestion that Vermont needs to market itself as business friendly and drive home the message that maintaining a quality of life does not have to be antithetical to business.

Mr. Weiss was concerned that it is difficult to entice people to So. Vermont because they do not think there will be any alternatives, if the job they are coming for does not pan out. He believes that Vermont can change that image with marketing.

One sentiment that permeated the room, especially during the audience Q&A portion of the panel, was that there is a certain faction of people in Vermont that equate business with all things bad, namely environmental destruction. What these people fail to realize is that we are not talking about the manufacturing industry here. That old caricature of the big factory that dumps waste into the rivers and pollutes the air with its towering smoke stacks is not the future of the American, nor the Vermont, economy.

Venture capitalist Cairn Cross of FreshTracks Capital was the much needed ray of sunshine in the room. Mr. Cross is in the unique position to have a first hand look at the entrepreneurial talent in the state. He described the state as a “wellspring of economic activity.”

As an example, he mentioned one of the firm’s portfolio companies is Brighter Planet, a company that provides carbon off-sets. They recently teamed up with Bank of America to offer a Visa card that offers points that are used to fund clean energy projects and off-set your carbon footprint, instead of the traditional credit card bonuses.

It was mentioned not only as an example of a success, but also as an example of the lack of media coverage of Vermont’s business success stories. Despite the press releases to local media outlets, there was no Vermont press coverage of this Vermont company’s deal with one of the largest banks in the nation.

Getting back to the theme of government-academic-business partnerships, Mr. Cross cited as an example of academia’s contribution to the future of entrepreneurship in Vermont a program at Champlain College called Bring Your Own Business. The BYOBiz program allows students to start and grow their proposed business while completing a degree program at Champlain. The program offers support and even puts the student entrepreneurs in touch with investors.

While Cairn Cross offered the brighter look at the potential here in the Green Mountain State, still others offered insight to some of the remaining problems.

Allan Rogers, Director of the Workforce & Business Development for the Vermont State Colleges, cited problems in the state with regulation and policies related to development. He also noted that Vermont needs a workforce with a higher set of technical skills, even for jobs that are considered “low tech.”

Mr. Rogers brought up the need for the state to have a strategic economic plan, and that in order for that to happen, we need to abandon our 2-year terms for a more productive 4-year term.

This theme appeared in the second panel as well, but I’ll get to that later.

When asked to elaborate on that point, Mr. Rogers explained that here in Vermont there is a very small window to get work done that is not politically motivated. There is only a six month to a year period of time before one must start thinking about the next election, yet that is not enough time to get anything done.

(Isn’t that why we like the 2-year term?)

The general consensus from the first panel was that in order to change Vermont’s business image and encourage entrepreneurship, there needs to be a government – academic – business community partnership.

There are some examples of this happening already, as were cited by Cairn Cross, but there was no disagreement that more needs to be done.

According to Mr. Cross, that starts with all of us, and he encourages everyone in the room to get involved.

I will post about the second half of the event tomorrow.