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ICYMI: Coverage of Maine Startup & Create Week
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For small businesses, Maine Startup & Create Week a time to think big
Portland's second celebration of entrepreneurship promises 'content that is worth skipping work for.'Building on momentum started last year with the first Maine Startup & Create Week, organizers of this year’s event have created more opportunities for “colliding ideas” – the random spark that leads to big ideas and brand-new businesses.
This year’s celebration of entrepreneurship intends to be more inclusive, by providing variable ticket pricing, offering scholarships and breaking the weeklong event into different tracks. The second annual Maine Startup & Create Week, which starts Monday, includes more than 75 events between June 22 and 28 that range from panels on how small businesses can leverage the state’s new crowdfunding rules to how entrepreneurs could benefit from starting their business in Maine rather than a place like Silicon Valley. There are also five keynote addresses throughout the week.
The event has become an anchor for other organizations that work in the startup and entrepreneurship space. Several organizations are holding their own events to capitalize on the momentum, such as the Maine Technology Institute, the Maine College of Art, the Maine Center for Entrepreneurial Development, the Portland Museum of Art and Creative Portland. The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, which is a media sponsor of the event, is hosting its own partnership events Friday on innovation in the media industry and Maine’s emerging food sector.
Several things have been added or changed since the inaugural year. Like with any good startup, the organizers learned things from the first go-around and adapted accordingly, said Jess Knox, lead organizer of the event and statewide hub coordinator for Blackstone Accelerates Growth, a three-year effort to boost entrepreneurship in Maine.
“We wanted to experiment with other things that would bring more folks into the conversation about thinking big and doing world-class things,” Knox said. Last year’s event drew about 3,000 attendees.
Some of the new additions include daily keynotes and splitting the event into three tracks: innovation in the food industry, small businesses, and scale and growth. Kerem Durdag, CEO of Biovation in Boothbay, called himself a “massive supporter” of the initiative and what the organizers are trying to do, although he’ll be unable to make the event this year.
“It is invaluable to build and foster an ecosystem,” he said. “It creates validation, fosters a multiplicity of idea pollination, results in a lot of shoulders to commiserate upon, celebrates all we do and (reinforces) that what entrepreneurs do has meaning.”
It’s also an important marketing tool to raise Maine’s profile in the national conversation around startups and entrepreneurship.
“We need to externalize,” Durdag said. “Maine Startup & Create Week may be in Maine, but there are folks from outside of Maine who are participating, which is what we exactly need … to externalize our products, our lives, our ambitions so that the world can receive, evaluate, respect and respond.”
David Joseph, co-founder of Davo Technologies, a Portland-based software company, is looking forward to the spontaneous conversations and unintended consequences of attending some of the events. Although there are no panels that directly speak to his business of building software to help merchants collect and remit sales tax, he’ll find value. He uses what he calls the “golden nugget” rule.
“If you walk away with one nugget that means something, it was successful,” said Joseph, who is participating on a panel Tuesday morning on how startup founders should approach hiring and relationship-building.
For example, last year Joseph attended the Maine Startup & Create Week and went to a panel on the Internet of Things, which focused on how more everyday products, from smoke alarms to refrigerators, will be connected to the Internet. A woman from Central Maine Power Co. spoke about how smart meters will allow the company’s customers to track their daily electricity usage. That led to a conversation that revealed to Joseph that his company’s underlying technology could also be adapted by utilities like CMP to help collect fees from their customers on a more timely basis. That random collision opened up opportunities for his business.
“I walked out with a nugget that could potentially turn into a whole other product for us,” Joseph said. “And so that’s how I approach these things. You go and listen and look for the nugget. How do you make that work for me? Is there an application in my business? Go in with an open mind and you look for that.”
Those random conversations and unexpected collisions of ideas is exactly what the week is all about, said Knox.
“The whole idea of the event is to build structure around events where unintentional relationships can get built,” he said. “The opportunity for cross-pollination between areas is exactly what we want to do, and that’s why there are some sessions that are track-focused and some that aren’t. We want to make sure there’s organic mixing throughout the week.”
Whereas last year there was only one track and several panels one after another, giving attendees less time for hall talk, this year features more time between panels and “collision lunches” to help bring more people from disparate backgrounds together to share their stories and ideas.
That’s likely where the value is for attendees, according to Johann Sabbath, chair of Maine Startup & Create Week’s program committee.
“I think there’s a lot of intangible learning that comes out of it if people actually take the time to leave their jobs and attend a session,” said Sabbath, a corporate development consultant at WEX Inc. and co-founder of Startup Portland, a website that serves as a clearinghouse of information about startups in Portland. “Sure, you could watch a YouTube video (of a panel), but the outcome is so much better if you sit in a room and can be part of a conversation rather than sitting at your desk and watching a video on your screen.”
The event’s program committee has been meeting weekly since March to organize each of the panels. Sabbath said the 27-member committee had two goals: “create content that is worth skipping work for,” and have more than 50 percent of the speakers be from outside of Maine.
The committee’s 27 volunteer members represent many more than the “handful” of volunteers that were involved in last year’s event planning, he said.
Knox said the daily keynotes will provide valuable insight and context for the world in which Maine’s entrepreneurs and innovators are operating.
The keynotes are:
- Donato Tramuto, founder of the Massachusetts-based Physicians Interactive and the nonprofit Healthy eVillages;
- Jules Pieri, co-founder and CEO of The Grommet, a Boston-based company that works with inventors and “makers” and provides them with a product development platform;
- Cheryl Heller, founding chair of the Design for Social Innovation Department at the School of Visual Arts in New York City;
- Jon Gosier, an inventor, data scientist, investor and serial entrepreneur working in the areas of big data and user experience;
- Steven Kotler, an award-winning journalist and co-author of “Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World.”
“They’re presenting about the future – whether the future of innovation, the future of design, the future of health care,” Knox said. “It’s really the big thinking that’s at the core of what Maine Startup & Create Week is, which is to give a place for Mainers from all backgrounds, from all industries – not just people that are entrepreneurs, but community leaders, nonprofit leaders, teachers, students, everyone – to view the future and think big about what that means for us and how we build incredible, world-class organizations and communities in Maine.”
Tickets for full access to the entire week of events cost $499, while single-day tickets cost $150. This year for the first time, there will also be tickets available per panel: $35 for a single session and $40 for each keynote address.
To include as many people as possible, there will be free daily round-trip transportation from Bangor to Portland. And this year, there are also scholarships available if the cost of tickets is out of reach for some people, Knox said. To apply, write a short paragraph about why you should get a scholarship and send it to scholarshipsforMSCW@gmail.com.
“We don’t want the cost to be a barrier to participate,” Knox said.
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The Startup Line: Know your ‘why,’ and other lessons of social entrepreneurship
Donato Tramuto never considered the term “social entrepreneurship” when he entered the healthcare industry approximately 30 years ago. But he didn’t need labels to do what he did.
Tramuto, an Ogunquit resident, is founder and CEO of Massachusetts-based Physicians Interactive, a seven-year-old company that is nearing $100 million in sales, and founder of Health eVillages, a global nonprofit that brings state-of-the-art mobile technology with embedded medical content to the most remote areas of the world.
He was also the inaugural keynote speaker at Maine Startup and Create Week on Monday evening.
While he’s well known in the healthcare industry and has a global platform, he’s not as well known in his home state. It’s quite possible that many MSCW attendees scanning the week’s schedule of events passed over Tramuto’s name without a hint of recognition. I admit having never heard of him myself. As a result, the room wasn’t as full as it could have been, which is too bad because Tramuto heaped valuable advice onto the audience.
Tramuto attributes his success in large part to his “internal compass,” which has guided his decisions and helped keep his goals firmly in sight. And that internal compass, he told the audience Monday evening, is a result of his often traumatic experiences. He suffered the loss of his hearing as a boy, lost an older brother in a car crash and lost close friends on 9/11. In 1972, his sister-in-law died in childbirth because a physician didn’t have access to her medical records.
“I knew then the direction of my life and my career and what I needed to do to make a difference,” he said.
“You see, challenges in one’s life — some more dire than others — often help to develop a deeper sense of character and direction in our own lives. In my case, those challenges — my hearing loss and the rejection and isolation I endured as a young man, and the loss of those close to me, combined to create an internal compass that continues to direct my life’s work even today — and that is to ensure that the most essential and innovative medical solutions are available to all, not just the rich and powerful, but those most in need wherever they may live.”
He was speaking to entrepreneurs Monday evening, but his advice is relevant to anyone. Below are some of the gems from the evening.
Be decisive. “Do not let the fear of the unknown or the looming possibility of failure paralyze you from making a difficult decision. Let that emotion move you forward. Whatever the outcome, you will not regret that you took control of that situation. You will continue to move forward despite or because of the decision you just made.”
Don’t listen to the naysayers. “Whenever anyone has told me not to do it, I’ve done the opposite. My message is this: Don’t give up, especially when people — even the most well-intentioned — advise you to toss your dreams aside.”
Be doggedly goal oriented. “Be prepared to confront in your business those challenges with a convergence of resilience and a clear understanding of your goal. And lastly you must be willing to never, never stop.”
Be ready to learn. “Success in leadership is a journey; no one enters this world as a natural born leader.”
Surround yourself with people who will challenge you. “A successful leader surrounds himself or herself with problem seekers: those who view the world through a prism of potential pitfalls and are unafraid to voice those reservations. How valuable it is to have advisers who possesses the ability to envision possible setbacks that you might not otherwise have imagined.”
Know your “Why;” a “What” is not sufficient. “Nobody cares what you do until they know why you do it.”
Accept the fact you’re weird. “It took me many years to recognize that being called weird — ‘Donato, you work too many hours.’ ‘Donato, you just don’t fit in.’ ‘You’re strange.’ … It took me many years to realize that I was going to be a success every time I heard that statement. If you’re going to move the world forward and make a real difference then be ready to accept the fact you’re going to be different than everyone else.”
Start with the problem, not the solution. “A successful entrepreneur is the person who is able to see the difference between having a problem in search of a solution versus a solution in search of a problem.”
Get your priorities straight. “When all is said and done, will your legacy be about the fleet of fancy cars in your garage or those impressive vacation homes around the world? Don’t get me wrong, those things are great and I have enjoyed them. But in the end they are just things. Wouldn’t you rather use your financial success and ambitious goals to improve the life of someone in your community?”
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For more about what went on during Day 1 of the conference, check out Knack Factory’s video wrapping up the day:
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The Startup Line: The entrepreneur’s guide to flow and peak performance
It turns out entrepreneurship is a lot like adventure sports — at least when it comes to neurobiology.
When looking at what’s happening in the brains of serial entrepreneurs, it turns out they’re chasing the same thing as big-wave surfers and free solo rock climbers — peak performance, or what’s called “flow,” according to Steven Kotler, co-founder of the Flow Genome Project. He gave the Maine Startup and Create Week keynote address on Thursday afternoon at the Maine College of Art.
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term “flow,” which attempts to describe the state where time seems to slow down, self criticism and awareness recede and action and awareness merge. Other recognizable lingo for the experience is “being in the zone” or having a “runner’s high.”
Why is peak performance relevant to entrepreneurs and business people? Because of the astounding lack of it in workplaces, said Kotler, who’s also co-author of Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World. It turns out that 68.5 percent of U.S. workers are either “not engaged” or “actively disengaged” at their jobs, according to a recent Gallup poll. Imagine what that means for productivity?
Kotler said employees who are actively engaged in their jobs — or, in other words, have jobs that generate “flow” — are five times more productive than everyone else. That means an employee could go to work on Monday, spend Monday in flow, then take the rest of the week off and still be as productive as their peers, Kotler said.
“That’s astounding,” he said. “It’s also why in a recent issue of Forbes, James Slavet, who is a VC with Greylock Partners, called ‘flow state percentage,’ which is defined as the amount of time employees spent in flow, the number one management metric for building great innovation teams. It’s also why major companies — Toyota, Patagonia, Microsoft — have put flow at the very center of their corporate culture.”
So what is “flow” and how do you reach that state? While it sounds like esoteric, metaphysical hocus pocus, it has a solid grounding in science, according to Kotler.
“We’re not talking about magic fairy dust,” he said.
I won’t get into the neurobiology in this post, but suffice it to say that research has shown that the so-called flow state is the only time our bodies create all five performance enhancing drugs: norepinephrine, dopamine, endorphins, anandamide, and serotonin.
“It’s something of a technical term,” he said, “but when you look under that technical term, flow, what you’re really looking at is high-speed, near-perfect decision making. For every action, every decision to follow seamlessly, fluidly from the next — that’s what’s got to be at the heart of it.”
Kotler in his talk laid out the various triggers needed to reach that flow state, including passion, rich environment, deep embodiment and high consequences (something shared by entrepreneurs and adventure sports enthusiasts).
“The people with the most passion, purpose and meaning in their lives are the people who have the most flow in their lives, and there’s tremendous amount of data behind this,” he said.
One of the psychological triggers is what’s called the “challenge-skills balance,” Kotler said.
“We pay the most attention to the task at hand, what we’re doing, when the challenge of what we’re doing slightly — slightly is the key word — exceeds our skill set. So you want to stretch but not snap,” he said. “Emotionally this means that flow exists near the mid line in what’s known as the flow channel between anxiety and boredom.”
People working at startups are often able to hit the flow state because of the passion they bring to their jobs, the challenges, being surrounded by passionate colleagues and the high stakes of what they’re doing, Kotler said.
But entrepreneurs are also over achievers, which could cause a problem because they blow by the sweet spot by taking on too many challenges without even noticing, he said.
“You have to go slow to go fast,” he said. “The point is you want a little bit of challenge every day.”
Kotler also laid out the four-stage flow cycle:
- Struggle, the rapid input of knowledge and learning stage (“when in struggle, the more frustrated you get, the better”);
- Release, which is triggered by low-grade exercise that gets you physically moving, like taking a walk or even taking a shower;
- Flow;
- Recovery, which is essentially a deep low following the high.
The takeaway for Jess Knox, lead organizer of Maine Startup and Create Week, is that reaching peak performance is accessible to anyone. It doesn’t take going to MIT or Harvard to be successful, he said.
“When talking about aspiration of high achievement, trying to understand the mechanics of how to get there is part of that equation,” Knox said. “So whether you grow up in Fort Kent or Caribou or whatever, you can not only get in flow but that can lead to high achievement.”
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Portfolio: More startup buzz in Maine, and new product catches on
As 'Create Week' expands and another startup event nears, an emerging video analytics company looks beyond sports.True to the spirit of an event dedicated to innovation, the second iteration of Maine Startup and Create Week shook things up a little from last year’s event.
There were more sessions, more volunteers, more partner organizations, and more chances for accidental meetings in the halls or during the so-called “collision lunches.” And the event’s organizers planned a keynote address for each day this year.
Monday evening featured Donato Tramuto, CEO of Physicians Interactive and founder of the nonprofit Healthy eVillages, who offered the audience his story of perseverance and discussed the importance of social entrepreneurship. He told the crowd that, as an entrepreneur, having a “what” is not enough; you need a “why.”
“Nobody cares what you do until they know why you do it,” he said.
Tuesday afternoon’s keynote speaker was Jules Pieri, founder and CEO of The Grommet, a product development and launch platform for inventors and entrepreneurs. She spoke of the challenges she faced in starting her business, and the endurance, both mental and physical, it takes to be an entrepreneur.
“(Pieri’s) realness and willingness to talk about the struggles to get to success was incredibly inspiring,” said Sarah Hines, one of the organizers of the weeklong conference and a co-founder of Shines & Jecker Laboratories, a digital strategy and design shop in Portland.
Given Pieri’s role in helping entrepreneurs bring their products to the marketplace, she also offered insight on the “entrepreneurial pipeline” and where it needs to be strengthened, whether it be in market research or supply chain management, Hines said.
“It’s wicked cool that she, and her team, are now assisting so many new, innovative products to success, which gives her this extremely well-rounded, 30,000-foot viewpoint on what qualities and systems make entrepreneurs successful,” Hines said.
NEW PRODUCT FOR DOUBLE BLUE
Double Blue Sports Analytics, the company founded by a former University of Maine hockey coach to develop a video analytics application for tracking goalie performance, is about to launch a new product.
Dan Kerluke, Double Blue’s founder, was at the Maine Technology Institute’s TechWalk event Monday afternoon showing off his company’s offerings. While the company’s video analytics software is going strong – the NHL Network used it in its coverage of the Stanley Cup finals for the second year in a row – the new product began as a way to record, collect and share video of an entire hockey team. The target audience was originally hockey coaches and instructors at hockey training camps, who could collect player-specific video via Double Blue’s iPad application and then share it with the players and their parents.
Kerluke told me this new product, called CampCast, has taken on a life of its own – partly because its utility, it turns out, goes far beyond hockey. During beta testing, Double Blue had interest in CampCast from all kinds of other sports teams, as well as dance studios, karate dojos, even day care centers.
Kerluke joked that the company could probably experience explosive growth if it shifted its focus to the day cares, where the owners could collect video of individual children and share it with parents.
“But we’re only attacking sports right now because we only have so much energy,” he said.
The interest in the product has been eye-opening.
“Our projection is that this will be our biggest product,” Kerluke said.
MORE ON STARTUPS NEXT WEEK
The startup action doesn’t end this weekend. Next week, roughly 30 startup community organizers from 27 states are coming to Portland to network and learn about Maine’s innovation ecosystem, said Jess Knox, a founder of Maine Startup and Create Week.
The organizers, some of whom are flying in to participate in the final days of Maine Startup and Create Week, will meet at the Press Hotel for two days. On Monday, they’ll update each other on progress in each of their communities and have a larger organizational discussion about the potential relaunch of Startup America, an initiative that would act as a loose network for startup communities around the country. On Tuesday, it’s all about the Maine ecosystem, Knox said. The group will visit some local companies and meet with members of Maine’s startup and innovation community.
“I think it’s another great example of our ecosystem getting noticed by people across the country,” Knox said. “The fact that people are coming here to be a part of both Maine Startup and Create Week and to really learn about what’s happening here is a testament to all the work we’ve been doing and the all the great companies we have.”
In case you missed them, there have been several recent examples of Maine companies and entrepreneurs getting recognition on a national stage. In late May, a Google executive mentioned Chimani, a Portland-based mobile app developer, during the tech giant’s annual developers conference in San Francisco. A week later, Apple cited research from Portland’s own Stephen O’Grady, founder of the developer-focused analyst firm RedMonk, at its own vaunted Worldwide Developers Conference.
Also, startups based in New York City and San Francisco – Livable Local and Figly, respectively – recently opened development offices in Portland to take advantage of the burgeoning tech and innovation community.
The community that has formed in Maine around startups and entrepreneurship is getting noticed, and events like Maine Startup and Create Week and the energy they generate are evidence that there’s plenty more to come.
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