Technology Innovators’ Forum, Course # X 458.20: How to Still Start the Next Microsoft® When Investors Say No:  12 Founders Interviewed Who Defied the Odds

A new wave of US high tech job creation will soon sweep the country when this new business model gets out. It’s already spreading. What’s it about? Not needing venture capital to start - or risking your own money - or obsessing and speculating about customers. It short circuits the current process in a way that vc’s and banks will eventually want to loan you money because you won’t need it.

12-time tech entrepreneur/rainmaker Daniel Curran led this fast-paced one-stop forum for working engineers and scientists who intended to launch a high-technology startup by course-end! Every week features a different guest tech founder who started from scratch. Focus is on starting companies that already have customer demand with little-to-no funds while fully employed elsewhere. 

PR: Guest Founder Dan Connors received nice photo and story coverage with us in the May ‘06 Business 2.0 print magazine, page 43-45. 

Six out of the 9 students started companies by the course-end. One student started 3 software/internet businesses (one of which received a $1mm order!), while another has 3 customers totaling $1mm.

The forum students also gave one of the highest rankings ever at UCLA: 8.8/9.0!

Guests’ are asked about how they went from customer demand to company stage, technology uniqueness and customer value proposition (pain points relieved, right timing). Competitive market sizing, business profit model, product roadmap, experienced management team, advisors, strategic alliances, go-to-market channels, strategic planning, engineering, IT, finance, shareholder relations, patents, legal format, and funding options (cash flow, private equity) are discussed.

Guests speak the first hour about their business, the next ½ hour answering instructor questions, and the final ½ hour with student questions using Harvard Business School’s case-study method. Students’ extraction of how-to knowledge from guests and instructor culminate by course-end in PowerPoint presentations to the class on how they will launch their own startup, followed by instructor and class feedback and encouragement.

Confirmed Guest Tech Founder Speakers - Spring 2006*            

Daniel Curran, 11-time tech entrepreneur/founder, S&P 500 (Western Digital) turnaround executive, tech startup management & hedge fund consultant, UCLA Extension Tech Innovators' Forum Founder, Instructor, & Moderator, provided $180mm in exits to investors over 23 year career

Ibrahim Surani, Founder & CTO, Astera, Mortgage Software, $5mm/yr. in sales

Lauren Lackey, Founder & Former CEO, Aii, Hard Disk Drive Mfg. Equipment, $40mm

Kimberly King-Burns, Senior and Founding Partner, Convergenz/solutions, Online Public Relations

Bill Reichert, Managing Director, Garage Technology Ventures (vc)

Fred Held, Founder & CEO, STI, Holding Company for several startups

Dan Conners, Founder & CEO, Telltale Games, Online Games, $1mm

Romeo Elias, Founder & CTO, Interneer, Web Application Saas, $1mm

Monty Ferdowsi, CEO, Nextcom, $5m, PBX Telephone Systems Integrator, and Founder & CEO, Broadcore, $1m, VOIP Systems Integrator

Fred Nikgohar, Founder & CEO, RoboDynamics, Robotics Software, $.25m

Bill Collins, President, Los Angeles Tech Coast Angels Network

Jon Kraft, Founder & former CEO, Stanford Technology Group, Database Software, $2M, & Pandora, Online Radio Stations, & President, Auryn, Animation Technology, and Chairman, Software Council of Southern California

Afshin Behnia, CEO, Mitratech, Workflow Software, $15mm

John Morris, Chairman, Los Angeles Tech Coast Angels Network

Richard Koffler, former President and COO, Radiology Management Systems Inc., and President, Los Angeles Venture Association, and Founder & CEO, Koffler Ventures

Potential Guest Tech Founder Speakers*

Larry Boucher, Founder & former CEO, Adaptec, Auspex, and Founder & CEO, Alacritech, and Author, SCSI Computer Standard, $Billions 

Sir Richard Branson, Founder & Chairman, Virgin Worldwide, $Billions 

S. Ramesh, Founder & CEO, Ripple Impact,  India Systems Integrator, $10mm

Lee Shaeffer, Founder & MD, PLM Associates, s/w Life Cycle Management Consulting

*While speakers are listed as confirmed or potential, there is no guarantee that any particular one will speak due to unforseen time constraints and schedule changes.

Timing: What significant trends, events, or current news prompted us to offer this forum now? 

Our primary reason for founding the UCLA Extension Forum, to be followed by a book, is primarily to spur hidden, working engineer & scientist entrepreneurs without capital nationwide to start tech companies and create jobs to fill in the gap left by tech behemoth layoffs, while also addressing outsourcing misconceptions in the press and the US technology education crisis.

Other reasons are:

-          To introduce a new “CURRANTS”tm pull business model that solves the big problem with the current US small business startup system, which requires founders to take on the risk of loans or hard-to-get venture capital, where only 0.10% of business plans are funded and wasteful speculation is encouraged. We also show how best to efficiently structure a startup that will scale profitably using global resources efficiently. Having stumbled upon a few of these successful startups that have built up businesses up to $40mm on this proven model whom we now advise, we thought it needs to be rapidly publicized and promoted.

 -          To show working engineers & scientists in "corporate prisons" who know about a hidden product demand and market how to act on it so they can eventually leave and thrive on their own.

-          To help our kids determine what career to pursue. With a child twice having recently attended UCLA’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering & Applied Science SMARTS Engineering Summer College Prep and Internship Program, where we also speak about careers in high tech to high school students, it forced us to figure out the globalization and outsourcing issues related to tech startups and how to get on the beneficial side of the flattener trends described in New York Times Pulitzer Journalist Tom Friedman’s “The World is Flat,” so that we don’t lose the tech innovation race with China & India.

-          To fill the void left in present business and engineering schools. Having surveyed the programs at the top schools across the US, we have not found one that does what this forum will do, including Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Wharton, or UC-Berkeley. They may entertain with big-name non-founders, but we empower with practical specifics from founders who have built businesses up to $40mm/year in sales from scratch.

Who should attend this course / forum?

Since this forum was offered one-time in the Spring 2006 term with the intent of interviewing founders for the book, it is not planned to be offered again. We recommend buying the book when is comes out. Working engineers & scientists who know about a hidden product demand or market but are unsure how to act on it. Business people who want a practical blueprint of how to build a tech startup with the innovation headquartered in the US and all other operations worldwide where they are most efficiently done. Those who want to know how to make globalization a friend, rather than foe.

What are the benefits of this course?
 
-          It shows working engineers & scientists who know about a hidden product or market demand how to act on it by launching their own startup.

-          The business model requires no startup capital and does not permit product or market speculation! 

-          Hear real tech founder speakers who have built businesses up to $40mm on this proven model reveal their secrets.

-          It provides an alternative to the current US small business startup system which requires founders to take on the risk of loans or hard-to-get venture capital, which only fund 0.10% of business plans and encourage wasteful speculation.

-          Unlike most other courses or books done for entertainment or ego value with no specific end goal, we provide a case-study questions from students into the secrets successful tech entrepreneurs know so that working engineers & scientists can begin their startups on the side while working at their "corporate prison" jobs.

 
How does this course compare with similar courses or books in the marketplace?

Honestly, no other courses or books even come close to encapsulating, in one easy format, the experiences of the 11-time entrepreneur/author and 12 other guests, while introducing a new proven “pull” business model that doesn’t hold up progress of the business because of no funding. This course and book will truly be a revolution for starting new companies from scratch with products that are truly desired by customers. Millions of high paying, intellectually satisfying jobs created will result in the USA retaining its innovation and economic leadership position in the world.

If you want to be notified when our book based on the Innovators' Forum, “STARTUP CURRANTS: How to Still Start the Next Microsoft® When Investors Say No – 12 Founders Interviewed Who Defied the Odds," comes out, click here to subscribe by sending a blank email. Thank you for your interest.

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