Boise, Second Tier in Entrenpreneurship and Innovation?
At 1pm today, Dr. Heike Mayer presented findings and ‘kicked off’ her week long research visit on ‘Bootstrapping High-Tech: Entrepreneurship & Innovation in Second Tier Regions’. Hailing from Virginia Tech, Dr. Mayer is building on work begun at Portland State University.
The fundamental question - How have areas (like Boise and Portland) emerged as viable high-tech locations in the absence of
a high-tech reputation
a world-class university
venture capital
an innovation milieu
While Boise is now on track in many of these areas and gaining national notoriety, how did we get there? Several years ago, while employed at the Idaho Department of Commerce, I was tasked with discovering what ingredients were needed so that Idaho could become a ’silicon________(insert phrase here). We looked at the usual suspects of Silicon Valley, Silicon Forest (Portland), Austin, Route 128 (Boston), Research Triangle, etc. In each case, there was some serendipitous event that acted as the catalyst. Boiling it down, it was luck - place, time, leadership, vision of potential/opportunity.
Someone asked what lessons learned Boise could take from those that didn’t make the ‘cut’. The answers are not surprising - be wary of the ‘ivory tower’ mentality and be prepared to take risks.
I’m excited to see how we’ll look from an outside perspective.
“Carpe opportunitatem”?
Are opportunities found or created?
Isn’t it the latter? We construct “opportunity” in our heads - and that’s important to what you and Tac both have just said!
Stitching together your words & Tac’s - it’s not much of an opportunity if you don’t go after it.
We need to grow a climate where more and more people see more and better opportunities… for them.
This site is going to celebrate the great opportunities that Idahoans HAVE seized.
We need to keep nurturing a climate where people think the REAL risk is “missing the boat” on a kewl opportunity.
Potential becomes opportunity through going for it. Let’s keep finding ways to help people to see credible opportunities and to help them go for it.
Norris is so right: the risk is in sitting in your cube at BigTECH all day and not thinking about how you could be the next Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, or Sergei Brin. The Treasure Valley doesn’t need Micron to hire another 40 engineers - the Valley needs 40 engineers to leave Micron and start their own firms.
Those 40 BigTECH engineers will won’t leave BigTECH because they don’t need to, nor do they probably want to. Until a cataclysmic event happens that forces the issue to pure necessity of self preservation it’s a long shot the BigTECH engineer up and leaves.
Luck is the result of hard work colliding with opportunity.
If the vision, resolve and effort is not in place, well before the “serendipitous” event, it’s all for not.
I would agree. I think that attitude (vision, resolve, effort) is just as needed inside large corporations and government agencies as it is for the entrepreneur setting out on their own.
An ingredient that Boise lacks (but that is very evident in major tech centers), is a good crop of second and third generation success stories that generate wealth and security for more that just a few people. These companies are breeding grounds for serial entrepreneurs, and act to “re-seed” an area with a whole new generation of startups. Eventually, some of these mid sized companies reach critical mass and are legitimate employment alternatives to the large tech companies in town. When that happens there is a better chance that “40 engineers…(will) leave Micron” because there is evidence of an infrastructure that will give them alternatives, even if their venture fails.
Jon identifies a key issue: too few tech companies in the Treasure Valley. The reason that Silicon Valley, Seattle, and Boston are booming is because talented engineers left the uber firms like Microsoft, and HP, and started their own ventures. THAT is precisely how the mid-size companies come into existence.
Jef also is correct: not likely that HP and Micron engineers are going to leave any time soon. I have always maintained that there are cultural reasons for that. For some reason, those two locations just don’t spawn entrepreneurs in the numbers you see in other places. Why? (Norris, it’s time for a study)
I think at least one probable reason is the age factor. I bet that the average age at HP and Micron (in Boise) is much higher than at say Microsoft. I can remember going to Windows build parties on the MS campus and the place was just PACKED with 20-something year old engineers. It’s easy for a 25 year old with no house, no wife, and no kids to be an entrepreneur, and lots of them packed their iPaqs and did just that.
But still, if I were sitting around over there at Micron, I’d be looking at the landscape and saying to myself, “Hmmmm. All the investment in fabs is going to Taiwan and China. AND the trend in the market is to go FABLESS, contracting out the fab work, thereby saving enormous amounts of capital expenditures. What does that mean to me?” It means you are about to become a statistic.
Why would Micron upgrade this facility here when that time comes? Answer: they probably won’t. Have we learned nothing from Simplot? Anyone recall that Simplot actually gave away its Heyburn plant rather than modernize, and in the process moved the entire operation to Canada? We’ll see it again too.
There will be a lot of gnashing of teeth in the Valley when Micron says “peace out.” Get out now and start something you people.
I’m in the process of reading Open Business Models. One of the points that is talked about is the use of IP. The author states that companies should be more actively engaged in using their IP. IP is typically held tight to the vest and used to fend off infringement suits. The author builds the case for greater use of IP - be it a joint venture or some other form ?ɬ¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?¢‚Ǩ?ì something that gets the idea/product/etc to market. The conversation becomes one of patent utilization, not number of patents or patents per capita.
Do would-be-entrepreneurs need to leave the company for Boise to have a greater tech environment or could we (in the sense of the greater society) make use of the patents and create companies, wealth and revenue?
I’m on my way to see what Dr. Heike Mayer found out about us during her week’s visit. Stay tuned….
Another important thing to remember is that outside talent is going to be integral in transforming Boise into a true ?ɬ¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?Ö‚Äútech city.?ɬ¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?Ǭù Current talent (from HP, Micron, etc) may or may not leave their jobs to start their own companies (for the reasons listed in other comments above), but there are tons of talented people moving to Boise, looking to get involved in entrepreneurial ventures too.
Case in point, I know a guy (for simplicity?ɬ¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?¢‚Äû¬¢s sake, we?ɬ¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?¢‚Äû¬¢ll call him ?ɬ¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?Ö‚Äúthe Californian?ɬ¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?Ǭù - I am not using this name in the pejorative like it is so often used around town ?ɬØ?ǬÅ?Ö¬†) who lived in California all of his life, started his own successful technology company down there, sold it to a Fortune 500 company (that rhymes with ?ɬ¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?Ö‚ÄúFun Bicrosystems?ɬ¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?Ǭù), worked there for several years, and then decided to move his family to Boise. When he got here he was filled with optimism and was ready, willing and able to jump in and get involved with a new start up venture.
He found a Boise entrepreneur whose business fit his work experience, passion and skill set ideally. As an outsider looking in, I was very confident that the Californian had the ability to help the Boise entrepreneur take his business to the next level. What ultimately got in the way was the Boise entrepreneur?ɬ¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?¢‚Äû¬¢s fear that this Californian was somehow planning to steal his company, that this Californian didn?ɬ¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?¢‚Äû¬¢t really know anything about his business, and that this Californian wanted too much ownership in exchange for getting involved. And, the Californian was forcing the Boise entrepreneur to really test his idea, prove that his product was superior, and question the likelihood of success of his business model. Ultimately, the Californian got disenchanted with the sophistication level of the Boise entrepreneur (and the sophistication and closed-mindedness of the Boise entrepreneurial ecosystem in general) and the relationship soured. The Californian ended up taking a VP level job with one of the Big 3 local tech companies. Another cog in the machine?ɬ¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?Ǭ¶ Sigh?ɬ¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?Ǭ¶
The Boise entrepreneur is still living the E Myth and is no further ahead than when he first met the Californian.
This is a crime, in my opinion. I can only hope that such a qualified, experienced and excited person seeks my business out and wants to get involved with it someday. The lesson here, I think, is that Boise isn?ɬ¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?¢‚Äû¬¢t going to miraculously self-cultivate itself into some tech ecosystem on its own. It is going to be crafted by a mixture of homegrown talent, passion and hard work combined with heaping servings of talent from people who come from the places we aspire to be like. At this point, we know we want to be like the Silicon Valley, Seattle, etc, but we really don?ɬ¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?¢‚Äû¬¢t have a great idea of what it takes to make it in those places. That is where this outside talent comes in, and when they volunteer to help it is integral that they be welcomed as part of the team.
I completely agree! We (Boise) can be parochial in our thinking and actions and this carries over to the turf issue (be it a company, service provider, etc).
So how do we change that? Having worked on both the public and private sector sides in this, I am finding that the wall I bang my head on is hard
I’ve heard this discussion a few times and have to say that really, in my opinion, it’s laughable. People think that because H/P and Micron, and a load of call centers, are here that somehow Boise is “ripe” for becoming a technology corridor. If it was going to happen, it would have happened ALREADY. H/P and Micron are NOT expanding (H/P is far smaller than it was a decade ago) which is your indicator. Micron just opened their new plant in China, which is going to employ upwards of 2000 workers. Also, the technology curve is on a downward trend, not upward. This is evidenced by the poor performance overall in the technology sector worldwide. Boise is also is a landlocked, poorly infrastructured environment for manufacturing. When was the last big tech company started here? Scary when you stop and think about it.
Sure, engineers should leave the big companies and start their own. However, at this point in the big tech game, the question becomes, DOING WHAT? Technology has been done to death and new ideas aren’t easy to come by these days.
I’m all for it happening, but logically and logistically just don’t see it.
Ithink it was John Doerr the VC maven who said that one key to Silicon Valley’s success was that if he said “burn rate” to the newspaper editor, he’d understand - the SPORTS editor, LOL. Everyone knew how the ecosystem works. WE may know, but John G’s example is testimony that not everyone does.
A prominent local VC once lamented to me that there are lots of people in the TV who SHOULD understand the realities of growing entrepreneurial business, but don’t. If the business community don’t “get it”… why should the average Joe/Jill?
Perhaps this site will help with that process? (If I hear Bob correctly, it may also be that folks may not WANT to hear it. Idaho is special, ya know…)
So… how DO we edumacate the business community?
“Jef also is correct: not likely that HP and Micron engineers are going to leave any time soon. I have always maintained that there are cultural reasons for that. For some reason, those two locations just don?ɬ¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?¢‚Äû¬¢t spawn entrepreneurs in the numbers you see in other places. Why? (Norris, it?ɬ¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?¢‚Äû¬¢s time for a study)”
Find the funding, Chris! Seriously, though, this HAS been studied. One good way is for the big firms to encourage it - by keeping their spin outs close at hand (e.g., keep them as suppliers/customers/consultants) Intel is the example everyone used to use.
There is the cultural/social norm that Chris mentions - what’s considered cool? What’s considered… normal? (for the employees/entrepreneurs *and* for the parent firms)
Maybe whenever we get that co-working space, we could offer to incubate potential spinouts from HP & Micron??? Provide a low-risk setting for all concerned…
And, Chris - there IS a local/Idaho study to be done. I look forward to seeing if you remember all that econ methodology!