Alex Frommeyer and his two partners in Beam Technologies have developed several dental-health products, including a toothbrush paired with a smartphone app that monitors daily brushing and, if you want, sends reports to your dentist.
But besides bright ideas, young high-tech entrepreneurs like Frommeyer, 24, need business training to get their inventions to market quickly.
Frommeyer got a crash course in entrepreneurship through the Kauffman FastTrac TechVenture program, offered by two Louisville business-development organizations ? Nucleus, an initiative of the University of Louisville Foundation, and InnovateLTC, a Louisville center for long-term-care innovation.
Over a 10-week period last spring, he and about 15 other entrepreneurs with startup companies met downtown one night a week to learn from experienced business operators, venture capitalists, business lawyers and others.
They received individual coaching and mentoring, refined their companies? business plans, made valuable contacts, compared notes with their peers, and honed their ?elevator speech? ? a two-minute pitch aimed at possible investors.
Besides education, they met professionals whom in some cases they later hired to provide valuable patenting help or accounting services, or even found angel investors to put money into their companies.
?The connections that you have an opportunity to make are incredible,? said Frommeyer, CEO of Beam.
So was the advice, he said. For example, his FastTrac coach suggested that instead of contracting with a manufacturer to produce one of Beam?s products ? then trying to sell it themselves ? Frommeyer and his partners should consider a licensing deal in which the manufacturer would pay for rights to make and sell the product. Beam would avoid risk and wouldn?t need a sales force.
That ?really redirected the entire business plan, because we decided we should commercialize the product in a completely different way,? Frommeyer said.
Nucleus and InnovateLTC are about to hold their third session of Kauffman FastTrac classes, a program of the entrepreneurship-focused Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City.
Entrepreneurs from 25 startups have graduated from the program, said Vickie Yates Brown, CEO of Nucleus. She said the next two series of classes will include 10 military veterans whose tuition will be paid by a grant from the Obama administration to help veterans start businesses.
Alicia Heazlitt, market research manager for InnovateLTC, said her organization and Nucleus began talking about establishing a new local program for entrepreneurs not long after InnovateLTC was created in 2010. She said they set out to find an offering that would ?really help them go to market quicker, and really arm them with the right information.?
They settled on the Kauffman program, and Nucleus and Innovate LTC employees underwent training to become FastTrac facilitators.
In return for tuition ? $895 per person, or $400 for the second and third person from the same startup ? FastTrac attendees meet and learn from a roster of volunteer speakers and business coaches from fields such as finance, law and marketing.
They include well-known Louisville business names such as venture capitalist Bob Saunders; serial entrepreneur Kent Oyler, who has co-founded 18 business ventures; and Mayor Greg Fischer, a former businessman who co-invented the SerVend ice and beverage dispenser.
?Every week, it?s just sort of a Who?s Who of our community that comes in to say, ?I?m willing to work with you, help you, and try to mentor you,?? Brown said.
She said graduates have later said they couldn?t have become involved with such people on their own, and that such introductions ?made a real difference in helping them to become more successful.?
?It connects you to the people who are really plugged in to the business scene in Louisville. You?re really connected with the movers and shakers,? said Todd Deetsch, who attended the course last fall. ?It?s a great resource.?
Deetsch, president of Psyche Comfort Products, has developed a memory-foam pillow shaped to let mask-wearing sleep apnea patients sleep on their side.
He was trying to build his company based on what he had learned through trial and error in other ventures until he heard of the FastTrac program and enrolled to get more systematic training.
The course took him through the process of launching a business, from developing a concept to satisfying investors? expectations, he said.
He also developed relationships with professionals who have continued to work with his company after the fall sessions ended.
?I think the Kauffman (program) is good because we each speak our own language. There?s the scientists speaking the language of science, and then there?s the businessmen speaking the language of business,? Deetsch said.
?I think Kauffman is kind of a bridge to connect us, so that we can understand each other. That?s what I thought was useful about the program.?
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