Every year, around the world:

• Scarf is Googled 73M times
• Scarves is Googled 33M times
• Shawl is Googled 15M times
• Pashmina is Googled 8M times

That’s 129 M searches just for a few top level search terms. If you include longer-tail search phrases this number will be even larger.

Why am I telling you this?

Online retailing of women’s luxury scarves & pashminas is a massive market!  It’s a market consumers are passionate about!  But it’s also a market that most of the big internet retailers neglect.

If you purchase clothing online, chances are your favorite brand name store will sell scarves, but:

• They’ll be buried deep in the “accessories” section
• The selection will be limited
• And these companies typically do not rank organically in search engines

There are a couple of exceptions to this, but that’s the general rule.

Are there specialists already serving this niche?

Yes, there are! One of the main competitors has been around for 9 years online. It will definitely take time to outrank them in the search engines, but:

• They tend to have major flaws in site usability
• Their search engine optimization is not great
• And their post sale follow up is also poor

Very Pashmina’s Mission

Very Pashmina’s mission is to become the leading online retailer of women’s luxury scarves & pashminas.  Here’s how we’re going to achieve this vision:

• Sell a high quality product at a reasonable price.
• Manage an engaging intuitive site with interesting content
• Hire quality fashion writers to explain trends and provide style advice
• Produce “How To” video content

Combining simple intuitive navigation, good site design and great content will create credibility in the eyes of the consumer, as well as attracting inbound links that will help increase the sites position in the Google rankings.

To succeed in this market also requires great customer service. For example,  the internet retailer Zappos has set the standard for online customer service, offering 24/7 call centers, a 365 day return policy and free shipping both ways.

When a product is delivered, we’ll use attractive branded packaging that you’ll want to keep, and include swatches of different popular colors to encourage the next sale.

Technology has also made it cheap to hold an ongoing conversation with the customer and spread recommendations virally.  Email auto-responders give fashion advice and recommendations to purchasers tailored to the product they just bought.

The messages ask customers to provide reviews of the product that will not only influence future purchasers but also provide more content for Google’s search engines.

What is Very Pashmina looking for from KVC?

I’d love to get mentorship from the Kellogg Venture Community, in particular:

• Someone involved in textiles / fashion
• Someone with experience in fulfillment
• Someone with experience in e-commerce

Please contact me on 847-668-1403 or at matthewoldham2010@yahoo.com

To get a better idea of the business listen to my video presentation

Please join us for dinner on August 21, 2010, in the Phil Kotler dining room from 6PM – 9PM (James Allen Center, Northwestern University). 

For those of you who are supporters of KVC or would just like to learn more about it, this will be a fun networking event filled with inspiration and discussion regarding how we can support entrepreneurs in the Northwestern community.  After dinner, there will be a private performance by Shahryar Rizvi ( http://shahryar.net ), a well-known stand-up comedian.   Registration is $85 and includes dinner, drinks, and entertainment.

Sign up now by clicking here!

Update: Registration for this event will close 5PM on Monday, August 16th, 2010.  Please be sure to sign up for the strategic meeting and the networking event after the meeting.

Please join us for the KVC Annual Meeting on August 21, 2010.  For those of you who attended the KVC Strategic Planning Meeting last year, you know this event will be a full day of creative thinking, inspiration, and tactical planning that enables entrepreneurs in our community to achieve their business goals.  This year, the meeting will include:

• Action: short presentations of the work that has been done since 2009
• Impact: quick overviews from some of our entrepreneurs of how they were positively affected by our efforts
• Strategy: breakout sessions that plan our activities for 2010 and beyond (this year’s theme is how to provide the tools entrepreneurs need to succeed)

Registration for the annual meeting is free and, after the meeting, there will be a special dinner ($85 registration, 6PM-9PM) featuring a private performance by Shahryar Rizvi ( http://shahryar.net ), a well-known stand-up comedian, in the Phil Kotler Dining Room.  

Click here to register for the 2010 Annual Meeting!

Thanks for your continued support and we look forward to seeing you all at the meeting.

-The KVC Team

Dr. Honigberg was recently the Chief Medical Officer, Global Medical Affairs and Clinical Strategy, for GE Healthcare’s $ 17 billion portfolio, which is a unit of the General Electric Company that provides a broad range of products and services to better diagnose and treat cancer, heart disease, neurological disease and other medical conditions earlier. Dr. Honigberg was responsible for strategies and operations related to clinical research and trials, the protection of patient safety, and medical policy and communication to providers and governments.

Before joining GE Healthcare, he was the Vice President, Worldwide Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer, at Ethicon Endo-Surgery, a Johnson & Johnson Operating Company, for 7 years. He has also had the opportunity to help lead pharmaceutical research and clinical trials with biologics in the fields of oncology, hepatology, HIV, surgery, and critical care medicine at Ortho Biotech (Johnson & Johnson) and at Schering-Plough’s Oncology/Biotech Unit.

Bob undertook his internship and residency in surgery at Montefiore Hospital and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. His educational background includes a B.A. in Economics from Duke University, an MD from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Projects that Robert Honigberg, MD, MBA is interested in:
Medical device and diagnostic, business models and innovation in healthcare delivery, and biopharmaceuticals.

Dr. Kadhiresan has more than 15 years of operational experience in various functional roles including research, product development, and business development. Most recently as Director of Business Development at Guidant, Inc., now Boston Scientific, Inc., Dr. Kadhiresan led transactions in several novel medical device technologies for joint development, including mergers and acquisitions, and licensing and monetizing of nonstrategic assets. Prior to entering business development, he led the research and development of several early-stage technologies and managed more than 60 people. Dr. Kadhiresan was instrumental in the development of the cardiac resynchronization therapy for heart failure, a now $2+ billion worldwide market. At Heart Rhythm Technologies, a subsidiary of Guidant, he led the development of an ablation technology for treatment of atrial fibrillation and raised venture financing for the project. In addition, Dr. Kadhiresan is an inventor on more than 25 patents and has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Dr. Kadhiresan received a PhD and Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, a Master of Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from REC, Trichy, India.

During the program Jim shares with us:

• Practical advise on how to prepare your patent filing, including calling the examiner at the patent office who will review your submission, for guidance on the filing.
• Use of ™ as a means to secure common law rights on your trademarks even prior to registration, and
• An inexpensive do-it-yourself approach to registering and securing copyrights in order to protect your creative work.

If you are a current EMBA student, a full time student, or a KVC member, please feel free to attend and bring your VC hat.  They are looking for all the constructive feedback they can get. For more information on the Snapper Hill Clinic business, please see this link.

Prior to this, he was the Vice President of Business Development & Sales at BridgePort Networks (acquired by Counterpath) where he successfully won the first commercial deal for the company with a reseller and mobile operator in Europe. Earlier to that he was the Services Principal of the Global Services Division at Openwave selling mobile internet solutions to wireless operators. He helped successfully build a systems integration business unit by negotiating reseller contracts, developing channel partner relationships and delivering managed services. He also incubated an idea of mobile internet business intelligence platform that resulted in a new business and a dedicated solutions practice within the organization. Prior to that, he held key technology roles at Oracle and Unisys.

Krishna earned his MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, M.S in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University and an Undergraduate degree in Electronics Engineering from India.

Projects that Krishna Guda is interested in:
I am interested in mobile applications, social media, mobile internet and disruptive technologies.

During the program Rita shares with us:

• The unusual path that led her to an academic career, including her early entrepreneurial ventures.
• Her work with Global 1000 icons helping them create an entrepreneurial mindset, drive growth and recognize when and how to disengage.
• Areas she is currently working on and will be featured in her next book including strategies for global companies to capture international opportunities and the idea of “transient advantage” or how can organizations thrive strategically even though competitive advantages are temporary.

For more information on KVCCast™ or to get involved with our weekly series, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

Projects that Drew Turitz is interested in:

Healthcare, innovation, disruption, disruptive innovation.

• MD (board-certified allergist with 6 years of clinical experience)
• MBA (Kellogg 1996)
• Summer intern at Baxter (strategy, Renal division)
• Executive advisor to the Minister of Health, Spain (leading a major NHS reform initiative)
• Director general of Farmaindustria (Spanish association of the pharmaceutical industry)
• Country manager, Spain, of Salutia.com
• General manager of Kristina internet business solutions (an ebusiness consultancy)
• Founder and GM of Miniclinic (the first retail clinics chain outside the US)

Projects that Jose is interested in:

• eHealth, mHealth. New eHealth business models aiming at providing medical services (medical consultations, disease management, preventive services, etc)
• New delivery models (retail clinics, specialty hospitals, specialty ambulatory services, focused diagnostic models, point of care testing technologies)
• Healthcare 2.0 (communities of physicians, patients… or platforms for the interaction of both physicians and patients)

Projects that Karl C. Saunders is interested in:

Healthcare Products and Services
Healthcare Technology
Healthcare Process Development and Efficiency
Mixed Martial Arts including Corporate and Executive Security
Military Intelligence, Language, Mission Critical Personnel

Projects that Tim White is interested in:

Keenly interested in projects that have a social bent but are grounded in sustainability. Healthcare and disruptive technologies that fit this requirement are of particular interest.

• What makes a great innovator?
• Where is innovation and entrepreneurialism going?
• What opportunities do we see to leverage innovation to make a positive impact on our world while simultaneously managing and growing our businesses?

On this week’s show, David and Ken discuss the Kellogg Venture Community, common traits of a great innovator, the nature vs. nurture argument, and the vision for KVC’s innovation “grid”.  For more information on KVCCast™ or to get involved with our weekly series, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

Touch Greetings is developing a concept that will help greeting card customers find better cards, more quickly in convenient retail locations.

What is this business looking for from KVC?

I would love to find a mentor/advisor with success selling into the retail grocery channel. This will likely be the primary focus of the business and any combination of war stories + deep rolodex would be great.  Retail sales/marketing experience in the mass merchandiser and retail drug store channel would also be a good fit, as well as experience in the greeting card market.  I’m eager for help and any level of engagement is welcome – be a daily sounding board or quarterly strategy sensei.

I have recorded a presentation for the concept and can provide access after chatting.  Please send me a comment or email to obtain the password to the presentation which is posted here.

A brief biography of Jason Stulberg:

I’m a recent Kellogg grad from the full-time class of 2010 and 100% dedicated to making this business a success. I have been working on the concept for 18 months, devoting most of "b-school free time" to the project. I’m a first-time entrepreneur and have worked with startups for the past 10 years in advisory roles. I’m passionate, energized and hungry to make this work.  Previously, I spent two years at a management consulting firm and three years at a private equity firm. I have an undergrad engineering degree from U-M and grew up in Michigan.

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Prior to founding Amalgamerger, Patrick had a 16-year career at Motorola as an Associate Director, Researcher, and Product Development Engineer. His experiences included high tech manufacturing operations, software and hardware product development, corporate research, intellectual property creation, strategy, and licensing, business development, marketing, and emerging technology consultation and platform strategy for the corporate architecture and business strategy departments. At Motorola, Patrick worked in large corporate and independent startup efforts. Patrick is a founding member of the team that designed and took to market the world’s first cable modems; this industry leading effort became a multi-billion dollar industry and a continued Motorola success. He holds 10 USPTO patents in the areas of software middleware, TCP/IP networks, wireless, wired, and fiber optic systems, signal processing algorithms, and radio hardware.

Patrick holds an Executive MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, Evanston, IL, an MS in Electrical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, and a BS from Bradley University, Peoria, IL. He is a co-founder of the Kellogg Venture Community (KVC) and an active participant in the KVC Mentor program.

Projects that Patrick Smith is interested in:

Interested in engaging with the leaders of innovative technologies and business models that possess the potential for broad adoption and scalability; especially interested in disruptive technologies and business models possessing the potential for profound social change. Interested in enabling the cross-pollination of opportunities across industries and geographies.

Tim Dang is a seasoned product manager in the health care and wellness space with 10 years of product management experience.

Prior to Kellogg, he worked on both the supplier and provider sides of health care in a consulting capacity. This exposed him to strategy and operations within pharma, biotech, medical devices, PBMs, hospitals and other health care organizations.  His post-Kellogg experience has involved building online products in the small business, digital media and health and wellness spaces, including his current position with Keas Inc – a service that offers personalized care plans around patients’ personal health records (PHRs). Keas is available through partners in the pharmaceutical, employer, provider and payer markets.

Projects that Tim Dang is interested in:

His interest is strongest in health care projects, specifically those that empower individuals to take a more active role in their health.

Some specific examples include:

• Eighteen months before healthcare technology became a law, he was constructing a vision for data stewardship in a physician practice which became a chapter for the textbook Adaptive Healthcare Management Information Systems with Dr. Joseph Tan and Dr. Fay Payton. He presented the concepts from this vision called the “3600 View” at the Synnex Corporation national resellers’ conference.

• Co-authoring the customer relationship management (CRM) change model that was selected by the Gartner Group as one of the 3 most complete CRM visions in the industry at that time. This vision has become the foundation for most successful CRM implementations today.

• When Microsoft created their first in-house global customer analytics department, they called on Mr. Bennett’s experience managing analytical groups to develop the department’s infrastructure, which included department organization, position titles, job descriptions and career paths. This work has now become a permanent structure in Microsoft’s human resources organization.

• In a presentation given to the American Press Institute in 1999, he advised the newspapers on measures they should take to withstand the impact of the new internet channel. If not, they would allow other players to supply the information needs in their marketplace and garner the associated advertising revenues. This eventually put many publications in disadvantageous financial positions in their marketplace.

• He developed a demographic-based segmentation for a Pharmacia that led to the introduction of the female version of their popular hair growth product now known as Rogaine for Women.

Bryan is also a proven thought leader and has been published in several national and international journals and magazines and is the primary contributor to IDG’s Making EMR Easy and Biz Insights newsletters. He authored the whitepaper "A Customer-Centric Approach to Community Bank Growth" for the London-based Capco Institute’s Journal of Financial Transformation. This was one of 18 papers selected from the almost 200 submissions from scholarly and business leaders from around the world. He has also been invited to speak at several conferences and has developed and delivered training sessions for several organizations.

As Professor Bennett wrote and teaches the Audience Insight course for West Virginia University’s online Integrated Marketing Communications Masters Program. He teaches Managerial Marketing for the University of South Dakota’s Master of Business Administration online program and is also an adjunct professor for Judson University’s Management and Leadership Masters program where he teaches Effective Leadership and Systems Design & Implementation. He is a member of the Chief Marketing Officer Council, Reuters Insight Community of Experts, Gerson Lehrman Group Consulting Council and the IT Senior Management Forum.

Projects that Bryan is interested in:

Healthcare I.T. Projects

Rob was previously Chief Financial Officer of Indie Energy, a design-build contractor of geothermal HVAC systems for commercial and industrial buildings. Prior to joining Indie Energy, Rob was Director of Finance and Operations at Discovery Group, a merchant bank managing several private investment partnerships. Rob was instrumental in the spin-off of Discovery Group from Piper Jaffray & Co., and subsequently handled all aspects of the firm’s operations, including accounting, finance, human resources and legal. Prior to 2006, Rob managed accounting, finance and operations for several of his own businesses, including a retail franchise, a live music club and a film and video production company. He previously worked as a corporate finance analyst at William Blair & Co., where he assisted with a variety of IPOs, secondary offerings and M&A transactions.

Rob graduated magna cum laude from Dartmouth College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Engineering Sciences, and received a Master of Business Administration degree with distinction from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Rob serves as Chairman of the Board of BioVantage Fuels, a regional biodiesel producer, and is a member of the E-council of the Chicago chapter of the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship. Rob is a certified sea kayaking guide and backcountry first aid provider.

Projects that Rob McLennan is interested in:
My goal is to help grow businesses that profitably improve the environment; examples are clean technology, energy efficiency, and biofuels. I am also interested in health & fitness, as well as projects with a social mission.

Family Federal, founded in 1910, has locations in Cicero and Lockport, Ill. GreenChoice, a certified B Corporation, will continue to serve Family Federal’s communities through its existing branch network. GreenChoice Bank also plans to open its LEED Platinum flagship location later at Green Exchange, the country’s largest self-contained, green business community that is planned to open at Diversey and the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago.

GreenChoice Bank’s leadership team, consisting of Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design Accredited Professionals (LEED AP), will infuse green technologies and sustainable best-practices into Family Federal’s existing structure. They plan to rebrand as GreenChoice Bank later in 2010. Until that time, the bank will continue to operate as Family Federal. The acquisition will provide GreenChoice Bank with its first physical presence since receiving OTS approval of its application for a de novo federal savings bank charter from the OTS in June 2009.

“Our acquisition and recapitalization of Family Federal will allow us to serve the Chicago area in new ways as a bank that is conscious about more than your money,” said Harold L. Sherman, president and chief executive officer. “We are proud to have acquired Family Federal and to continue its 100-year-old tradition of serving Chicagoland, America’s greenest city.”

The transaction was completed through a rarely used method of recapitalizing a mutual savings bank called a voluntary supervisory conversion. The last time such transaction was completed in Illinois in the early 1990’s. Michael Iannaccone of MDI Investments, Inc. assisted in bringing this transaction to fruition. GreenChoice’s private placement stock offering was oversubscribed. “This capital infusion gives our bank excess capital and the ability to lend when most banks are shrinking their balance sheets and not actively providing small business credit,” said Jon A. Levey, LEED AP and chief lending officer.

The Bank’s management team has more than 75 years of Chicago area banking experience and also includes Steve Sherman, LEED AP and chief operating officer, and Kenneth Kline, chief financial officer.

For more information regarding GreenChoice Bank or Family Federal Savings of Illinois, including its business philosophy, services and green approach to banking, please visit www.greenchoicebank.com.

What is this business looking for from KVC?
At this point in the process I am looking for a sanity check from KVC members to give honest, straightforward feedback on the proposed venture. I have spoken with a wide array of industry insiders and gained a great deal of information, but I still would like to speak to more people active in the aviation/airline/transportation industry to make sure that my assumptions are in line with realistic figures.

A brief biography of Greg Stallkamp:
I am an entrepreneur who has been active in founding and advising several start-ups. Currently I am the CEO of Holos LLC, a software and internet company headquartered in Chicago. Our company runs the world’s most popular online fitness tool, www.holosfitness.com.

Partners already involved in the effort:
pilots, aviation consultants, business development managers, PE executives, Kellogg alumni (Kellogg Entrepreneurship Organization)

Click the airplane graphic to view the Lakeshore Express business plan overview presentation.

Website: http://www.vfinance.com/home.asp?ToolPage=venca.asp

If you have a special interest in this business or would like additional information, please drop us a comment.  You can also click the image below to watch their business plan presentation.

With a 25-year history of success across diverse sectors and market conditions, DFJ has led the way investing in emerging technologies, from the Internet and life sciences to clean energy and nanotechnology.

DFJ seeks out entrepreneurs globally who have the intelligence, vision, and drive to create products and services that change the world.

Click here to see DFJ’s business plan submission page.  To bypass the “through the transom approach” and prepare a business plan for DFJ’s review, please click here to submit your business concept.

Most nonprofits, by necessity, rely on the patronage of foundations, government, and selected wealthy individuals in pursuing projects. In contrast, the small individual donors who contribute the bulk of the nation’s philanthropic gifts have little say in the development of an organization’s projects and initiatives. Donorvest doesn’t believe in giving to these agents of change; rather, we believe in providing interested parties the opportunity to invest in the future that these organizations strive for.

As all sophisticated investors seek to know everything they can about their potential investment, Donorvest’s primary focus is providing the ability for nonprofits to publicize specific projects, each with a limited but well defined plan and a set fundraising goal. As a market for actionable proposals develops and organizations strive to attract contributions to their projects, they will be forced to improve both their services and effectiveness in order to successfully compete for their share of these investment funds.

In 2008, philanthropic giving in the United States reached $307.65 billion, or 2.2% of GDP. Excluding donations to religious organizations (due to the fact that they already have a highly motivated funding base and a well-developed fundraising apparatus, thus limiting the utility they would find in our company’s services), philanthropic giving stood at roughly $200.76 billion, or 1.4% of GDP. Although a number of existing organizations touch upon aspects of Donorvest’s model, there are, at present, no players actively involved in facilitating a link between donors and domestic nonprofits on a project level. However, while our proposed niche is unique, we will replicate the revenue model of these near-peer organizations, the most successful of which has revenue of over $15MM over the last eleven months. Donorvest will receive 2.5% of each donation; a level chosen because it is below that of any of our major potential for-profit competitors, whose fees range from 3-5%, and so should help in deterring their entry into this niche. Bank fees associated with the processing of credit card and check payments (merchant processing fees) will also take roughly 2.5% of each transaction. This unavoidable fee, which is shared by all of our potential competitors, means that nonprofit organizations will receive 95% of each donation.

After reviewing the b-plan, JPMorgan Chase has agreed to provide 80% of the necessary startup capital ($240K out of a total of $300K) under the aegis of the federal SBA7(A) program. At this stage, the business leader would very much appreciate the ability to draw upon the collective experience and expertise of the KVC community, and in so doing, learn whether they feel the business plan fully addresses all relevant points and questions, or, alternatively, whether an idea needs to be further researched or developed. If that review proves successful, and if the community feels that the business concept merits moving forward on, they would be indebted to the entire community if they could offer advice or assistance in securing the final 20% of necessary startup capital which will enable the business to launch.

For more information about this business opportunity, please contact info@kelloggventurecommunity.com .

You can click here to view the business plan presentation.

Projects that Ned Rockwell is interested in:

• Healthcare products and services
• Novel health related products, including food and nutrition, home health devices, and specialty services

Lygase differentiates itself from its competition by not only capturing meaningful data, but also by providing customized dashboards and tools necessary to derive actionable value from this information. Lygase offers solutions for a number of industries, including government, telecommunications, automotive, retail and trade shows. Lygase’s first focus is the trade show vertical.

Trade shows have previously relied heavily on a mix of bar code scanning, registration data and personal observation to study key metrics. Typically, exhibitors at trade shows have measured success in terms of the number of qualified leads obtained during the show. Exhibitors may challenge event organizers when the perceived quality of attendees does not meet expectations. Trade show organizers rely on overall attendance data collected at registration during such conversations, but with current technology cannot prove, for example, that an exhibitor’s staff was insufficient to engage attendees in their booth during peak show times, or that a larger or more strategically placed booth location would generate more qualified leads.

Smart Events offers quantifiable data and delivers value across all four trade show stakeholders: venues, event organizers, exhibitors and attendees. Stakeholder value propositions include:

• Increased security and tracking of employees, contractors, goods and attendees.
• Lead generation for exhibitors, even for attendees who were not engaged by exhibitor’s staff.
• Optimization of booth layout and staffing as well as conference attendance
• Personal dashboards for attendees to define how they wish to receive information and promotions from exhibitors.

Recently, Lygase obtained a letter of intent to install Smart Events in the prestigious RFID Journal LIVE trade show to be held in April 2010. The ability to prove out Lygase’s solution among their peers is a remarkable opportunity for the company.  Lygase is also in late stage discussions with the New Orleans Morial Convention Center and Chicago’s McCormick Place to install infrastructure technology which can be offered to all 2010 trade shows contracted at these venues.

Lygase’s second vertical focus is retail. Lygase Smart Retail provides a road map for monitoring customer behavior patterns, buying patterns, and in-store traffic. The ability to digitize floor plans and observe traffic in real time helps retailers maximize valuable floor space and product organization, improves profitability and enhances the customer experience.

Lygase is seeking $400,000 in bridge capital and introductions to any and all convention center and retail executives. For more information regarding this business, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

Projects that Chuck Prescott is interested in:

Chuck is interested in helping new companies develop their sales and go to market strategies.

However, moms are already time-starved trying to manage their schedules and households, and simply don’t have the time to fully research these things. As moms of young children ourselves, and frustrated by the lack of this resource, we decided to create kidwinks.com to address this need. One important feature that we incorporated into kidwinks was user reviews. Moms rely on and trust each other for advice, so ratings and reviews were important to include. Kidwinks.com was launched in March 2008, and has grown quickly and enjoyed good local media coverage.

Our very popular Kids Eat Free Calendar (where moms can click on any day of the calendar to find where kids eat free or at a discount) was featured on WGN’s Morning News, and other media outlets followed suit, expanding to cover other functions of kidwinks as well: ABC Channel 7, NBC Channel 5, Fox, the Pioneer Press, and the Chicago Tribune (article not yet published).

Kidwinks has two sets of customers:

1. The end users (moms); and
2. The listing/advertising businesses.

End users benefit by having all of this information available to them in an easily navigable and searchable site. Many of the events listed on our site are free of charge and the free admisison days at area museums, zoos and other cultural institutions are included too. Membership in kidwinks, which is free, allows additional benefits such as sorting search results in order of geographical distance from their homes, email reminders of user-specificied upcoming events, and the ability to participate in our frequent prize giveaways/contests and write reviews. Listing businesses benefit by having a free, basic listing which includes a link to their website, and by having the opportunity to cost-effectively further promote their business to a very targeted audience of moms with young children who are actively looking for things to do with them. We knew that this site would not be valuable to moms if we limited listings to only those businesses who paid for the privilege, so that is why we made the basic listings free. Businesses can pay for an upgraded, Enhanced Listing Account, which includes photos on their listings, coupon, and a package of newsletter ads. Kidwinks is an advertising based revenue model, so it was important to build traffic to attract advertisers’ attention. Traffic is now at a point that local advertisers are taking note and signing up. Many area businesses are now contacting us to find out how to get listed, so we are definitely on their radar. We receive regular thanks yous and blessings from moms, dads and grandparents who rely on kidwinks to entertain their children. We can see from the reviews written that our members are reading each other’s reviews and trying new places based on what they’ve read. The model is definitely working.

Kidwinks has been self-funded to this point, and now we need financial help and expertise to grow our business nationally. We would appreciate any advice KVC can give us on how to grow nationally, how best to fund this growth, and how we might possibly grow (including introductions) with a corporate partner looking for a family-friendly resource to offer their customers. We appreciate this opportunity to learn from your experience.

For more information about this business, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

Mary Paskell has spent the last 11 years of her career in health care services with a focus in the wellness arena. She has worked in entrepreneurial firms launching new products and services including the wellness product for a behavioral health company, which during her tenure grew to be the leading privately held company in its space. Mary has an expertise in developing and launching new brands, with both client and health care marketing agency experience. Prior to her career in health care, she spent 16 years in the telecom space working with AT&T in positions including corporate strategy, advertising, business development, new business unit starts and launching the cable company subsidiary. Mary is both a Northwestern Kellogg EMP 25 and Medill M.S. grad, with an undergraduate degree from Miami University. She is currently a co-president for the Kellogg Chicgo Alumni Club.

Projects that Mary Paskell is interested in:

Mary has a particular interest in challenges and opportunities that develop and sustain wellness as well as disruptive technologies (e.g.) wireless and m-health that improve clinical care delivery, patient provider communications, enterprise-wide mobility and decision support. She also has an interest in products and services that bring better management and analysis of chronic care issues, advances in detecting Alzheimer’s, and patient-centric, health advocacy services that improve the overall quality of care.

Through working in a wide variety of provider settings and with most of the leading vendors in the industry, he has developed great insight into what is practical and pragmatic for healthcare organizations to achieve. This experience is used to help clients view the market more clearly and avoid costly traps and pitfalls. Clients have included integrated delivery networks, hospitals of all sizes, physician practices ranging from solo practitioner to 600+ physicians, managed care providers, technology vendors, pharmaceutical firms, investment bankers, and health ministry’s on three continents.

Prior to founding his own firm in 1998, he was Vice President at Sheldon I. Dorenfest & Associates, a Senior Manager at Arthur Young & Company (now Capgemini), a marketing support specialist at McDonnell Douglas Automation Company (now McKesson HBOC), a manager at Arthur Andersen and Company (now Accenture), and an administrator at Cook County Hospital.

Mr. Cohen received his Masters in Management degree with concentrations in Health Care Administration and Finance from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management in Evanston IL. He is a HIMSS Fellow, a Certified Professional in Health Information Technology (CPHIT) and a Certified Professional in Electronic Health Records (CPEHR). He is a well recognized author and educator, with over 100 published articles, scores of public speaking engagements, co-author and contributor to five books on Electronic Health Records, Personal Health Records and HIPAA.

More details about personal background and experience, and about MRC Consulting Group is available at www.mrccg.com

Currently Gil is a member of PepsiCo’s Innovations Team, responsible for developing and commercializing breakthrough innovation into new categories, distribution channels and consumer segments. This provided him the know-how to lead innovation projects from the identification of unmet needs, through ideation, concept and product development to successful in-market launch. Prior to that he managed the Quaker Chewy Granola Bars business, a $500 million annual sales product portfolio

Gil is experienced in mentoring aspiring entrepreneurs in the consumer goods and marketing industry, and in working together with angel investors that operate in this space.

Gil earned his MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and his BA from Tel-Aviv University. He serves on the Board of Directors of Changing Worlds, a Chicago based educational non-profit. Additionally, he is an avid traveler, visiting all 5 continents and 40+ countries.

Projects that Gil Horsky is interested in: consumer goods and durables, marketing driven businesses, retail and lifestyle

Before presenting the checklist, it is important to understand KVC’s expectations for each of our mentors.  There are tremendous opportunities that come about from being a KVC mentor but KVC’s facilitated network only works if mentors start by supporting businesses on a volunteer basis followed by committed relationships between the KVC business and the mentor.

• Under no circumstances should a KVC Mentor solicit payment, equity sharing relationships, or creation of leadership team positions with the company for at least 3 months after their business has been posted on the KVC website – this helps ensure businesses leverage all that KVC has to offer before forming committed relationships.
• Commit appropriate time to any applicant you agree to KVC leadership to support – approximately 5-10 hrs/week for up to 6 months.
• Inform KVC program management of any issues or changes in the relationship with the “client” (KVC Business)
• If you are solicited by the business to join the leadership team and choose to pursue this route, email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com to discuss the process of resigning your mentor position with that business.
• Maintain the highest standards of integrity with regard to confidential client information

You can read the check list but we have also included a video presentation of the checklist items here:

Mentor Checklist:

Have you submitted your profile to become a KVC mentor?  This is the first step in the process and to be an official KVC mentor you must submit your application before you begin supporting a business.  For more information, see this link.

Have you reviewed the KVC process?  Although KVC believes in providing custom tailored services to our businesses, we follow a standard process for business acceleration and launch.  We have developed a workflow you can walk through to fully understand what we do.  For more information, see this link.

Have you posted your offer to help KVC businesses on the website?  Posting your profile on our site is a great way to have KVC businesses that want your support to get in touch with you and we already have examples of KVC businesses requesting specific mentors.  You can do this yourself or a KVC representative would be happy to do it with you.  For more information, see this link to do it yourself or email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com for more information.

Have you attended the KVC mentor teleconference?  This weekly teleconference is a great way to obtain additional information about KVC businesses so that you can offer to help a KVC business.  It is at this meeting that we formally declare a match between a KVC business and a KVC mentor.  Unless you are formally matched to a business, you are considered a KVC Community Member and are not yet a KVC Mentor.  For more information or to be added to the invite list, please email us at info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

Have you tried out use of the KVC Mentors list serve?  This list serve immediately gets a message out to the rest of the mentor community.  With this list serve, you can get more information about a business, find out who is already working with a business, and request help to support a business.  To use the list serve, simply send an email to mentors@kelloggventurecommunity.com. 

Now that you have been formally matched to a business, have you helped the business present their business concept at a KVC in-take meeting?  This should be the first official activity KVC helps a business with.  The online presentation is recorded and posted to the website to raise awareness of their business model.  For more information, email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

Have you helped the business submit their wish list to KVC?  KVC operates on the principle that businesses raise initial funding in order to procure resources which will help them launch and accelerate.  Rather than providing this funding directly, we strive to procure these resources for them by leveraging the KVC network.  Ask the business, “if you had $50K, what would you spend it on in support of your business goals?”  Whatever the answer is represents the wish list and once completed, help them email it to info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

Have you helped the KVC business post their business abstract and/or business concept on the KVC website?  Posting the business on our site is a great way to garner support from the community and we already have examples of KVC Members from across the country volunteering to support a business the same day it was released on the web site.  KVC Businesses can do this themselves.  For more information, see this link to do it yourself or email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com for more information.

Have you attended a KVC event with the business?  KVC routinely has luncheons and business presentations during lunch time hours and we also have open community business concept review meetings once per quarter.  For more information regarding upcoming events, see this link.

Have you reviewed the KVC online educational resources?  KVC has compiled audio lectures and video seminars on important entrepreneurial topics such as the disruptive innovation theory, the value chain evolution theory, and selling innovation based ideas. All of this education material is designed to provide entrepreneurs with the insights they need in a format that is convenient for them to easily digest.  For more information, our link to video or our link to audio and podcasts.

Have you helped the KVC business present their business plan at a KVC Business Concept Review Meeting?  KVC routinely has open community business concept review meetings once per quarter.  These meetings provide them with an opportunity to present their business and receive instant feedback from an audience of KVC members with a wealth of knowledge to share (average years of experience = 18).  The meetings are designed to help them obtain the resources you need to launch or accelerate your business.  For more information regarding upcoming events, see this link.

Have you been successful at entrepreneurship and would like to give back to the KVC?  KVC produces and publishes iTunes podcasts which are educational resources for new entrepreneurs.  If you have already been a successful entrepreneur, give back to the community be participating in an iTunes Podcast interview or contribute financially to the KVC mission.

Dr. Kelly received his medical degree from Northwestern University, Doctor of Medicine, MD, in 1973. He has served in an Associate Professor role at Tulane University from 1982 to 1986.

Dan Bushell, a veteran of four start-ups, is currently Director of Sales at MMEG, a clinical communications company that leverages technology to deliver physician peer-to-peer programming. Previously, he was Principal and Co-founder of Portico MMC, one of the first companies to provide Hispanic patient marketing services for the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. Prior to that Dan spent several years in marketing positions at Genentech, where among other accomplishments; he developed its first online patient relationship-marketing program.

At E*TRADE (a long-in-the-tooth start-up), Dan championed its industry-leading privacy initiatives while creating a corporate culture of protecting employee and customer privacy. At Healthscape, (a Draper Fisher Jurveston portfolio company), he redefined the marketing strategy and developed its online health behavior change products, successfully securing a $5M second round of VC funding. While at HealthCentral.com (which successfully completed its IPO), he was responsible for business development, lead generation, and marketing communications for the healthcare organization ASP division.

Dan also spent several years in marketing and sales positions at Merck & Co., where he led the development of the Internet Marketing Department (one of the first in the pharmaceutical industry), Disease Management Division (another first in the industry), as well as providing support for several pre-launch products across different therapeutic areas.

In addition, he was a senior consultant at Navigant Consulting and Quintiles Consulting, leading various management consulting projects for pharmaceutical and biotech clients.

Dan earned his MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and his B.S. in Chemical and Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University.

Dan is an avid reader, wine and food enthusiast, and college sports fan.

Projects that Dan Bushell is interested in:
Life sciences, medical device, and healthcare technology/service startups.

Stewart was the co-founder and CEO of Aspen Consulting, a Chicago-based I.T. professional services firm which placed 24th on the Inc. 500 list in 1998 and 227th in 1999. Aspen reached $20M a year in revenue and was sold to a $150M IBM Solution Provider in 2003. Stewart was most recently Vice President of North America for Pointsec, a data encryption company, and Vice President at VisaNow, an HR outsourcing specialist. His other experience includes sales and engineering leadership roles at IBM and Reuters where he worked in Europe installing and managing implementations of trading systems at UBS, Credit Suisse, ABN-AMRO, and HandelsBank NatWest. Stewart received his Executive MBA from Kellogg (2009) and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from Iowa State University (1986).

Projects that Stewart is interested in:

Hardware and Software-based technology startups.  Facilitation Planning for both Strategic/Growth Plans and Marketing Plans.

DFJ and Cisco Announce 16 Finalists in Global Business Plan Competition

Jun. 23, 2010

Finalists Hail From 18 Universities in Seven Countries; Cisco TelePresence Suites Will Enable Competition

SAN JOSE, Calif., June 23, 2010 – Leading early-stage global venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) and Cisco today announced the 16 finalists in their second co-sponsored Global Business Plan Competition for university and business school students. The teams’ business plans address a diverse group of issues from sleep optimization and visual search to disk drive efficiency, energy-efficient microcontrollers and aquaculture. The finalists will be competing from their respective geographic areas via Cisco TelePresence(TM) suites on June 29, 2010, and the winning team will receive a minimum seed investment of $250,000.

"For the past 25 years we have invested in passionate entrepreneurs who want to change the world, and it is wonderful to see theSilicon Valley entrepreneurial spirit spreading to universities around the globe, said Tim Draper, founder and managing director, DFJ. "We are thrilled by the quality of our finalists, and we are excited to meet these extraordinary individuals from all over the world through Cisco TelePresence conferences. We were also very pleased to discover that four of our finalist teams have female CEOs. DFJ has had a strong track record in investing in women CEOs, and the trend we’re seeing here may just be the start of a whole new era."

The plans of the 16 finalists, nearly all of which won local university competitions, were selected from thousands of eligible business plans in 17 countries across the globe ( Brazil , China , Finland , France , Japan , India , Ireland , Israel , Korea , Luxembourg , Mexico , Russia , Singapore , Spain , Uruguay , the United Kingdom , and the U.S. ). Selection criteria included the quality of the management team, technical innovation, the addressable market size, competitive positioning, barriers, capital efficiency, and financial projections. Most of the finalists are still in the seed or early stages of business or technical development. In addition to the financial investment awarded to the winner, both DFJ and Cisco will assist the winner and finalists in leading the next wave of disruptive technologies by providing mentorship and professional assessments regarding their submissions.

"These 16 dynamic teams from around the world embody the entrepreneurial spirit of our global business plan competition," said Hilton Romanski, vice president of corporate development at Cisco. "They are taking on interesting challenges and tackling tough issues with thoughtful and creative solutions, and we look forward to meeting them via Cisco TelePresence suites and learning more about their business plans next week."

The competition will use Cisco TelePresence suites to allow the finalists to present their business plans to a San Jose-based panel of seasoned investors from DFJ, the DFJ Global Network of Partner Funds and Cisco. Cisco TelePresence technology enables collaboration through a live, face-to-face network communications experience where participants feel as though they are sitting in the same room even though they may be located thousands of miles apart.

Competitors and the media will be invited to view the competition via simulcast beginning at 8 a.m. PDT on June 29, and the winner will be announced at 5 a.m. PDT on July 1, 2010.

Please contact Kristin Carvell at Cisco if you are a member of the media interested in attending the competition or viewing it via a live webcast.

Finalists hail from 18 schools in seven countries. The complete list is as follows:

Name of Company	University	Business Plan Summary
Ambiq Micro	University of Michigan	Leads the way to ubiquitous computing with the world’s most energy-efficient microcontroller (MCU).
Cambridge Nanotubes	University of Cambridge	Provides unique high-energy materials capable of increasing battery life for laptops and cell phones by up to 100%.
CellTV	Ariel University Center	Enables multiple HD channel broadcasts to an unlimited number of clients without decreasing the throughput of Wi-Fi networks.
Commuter Advertising	DePaul University and University of Dayton	Creates and sells relevant and entertaining 10-second audio sponsorships inside trains and buses that are geo-coded and played at specific times; shares revenue with public transit agencies.
Deli Worm	Sun Yat-sen University	Uses automation systems to mass produce live organic worms to substitute current fish meals and mitigate the depletion of fish stock.
Digital Proctor	University of Texas-Austin	Creates enterprise online security company with first market vertical in distance education.
Epythia	Higher School of Economics	Enables context-aware planning service with alerting and rescheduling based on a user’s current and planned location.
F.A.N. MEDIA	Peking University	Provides free printing service to consumers that places targeted advertisements on one side of the free F.A.N. MEDIA printing paper and allows consumers to use the blank side for printing documents or photographs.
FayShine	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	Provides next-gen image-recognition technology for comprehensive shopping guidance.
GlucaGo	Purdue University and Indiana University	Provides revolutionary drug injector that is easy to use and low cost, and has been designed to fit in existing filling lines for freeze-dried products, allowing unstable drugs or vaccines to maintain their stability at room temperature
ios Financial	Northwestern University	Enables online marketplace that, in a targeted and value-added way, matches banks seeking to grow with small businesses seeking commercial loans.
Lark Technologies	MIT	Provides compelling nonmedical solutions around optimizing sleep via smart phones.
MicroMed	IIT Kharagpur	Provides microfluidics technology for use in pathological detection that requires minimal human intervention, reduces costs, and improves efficiency in India health care markets.
Nanodyne	UC Davis	Increases hard disk drive capacity by 800% through a process that utilizes metal-organic-silicon thin film, or MOSTF (code-named HyperDrive).
OsComp Systems	Harvard and MIT	Commercializes a breakthrough patent-pending compression technology that will revolutionize the natural gas industry.
Silicon Reef	Federal University of Pernambuco	Designs high-efficiency power converters and power management circuits for handling the energy-harvesting process.

]]> http://www.kelloggventurecommunity.com/?feed=rss2&p=1669 0 http://www.kelloggventurecommunity.com/?p=1667 http://www.kelloggventurecommunity.com/?p=1667#comments Wed, 23 Jun 2010 01:29:57 +0000 ccox http://www.kelloggventurecommunity.com/?p=1667

What is this business looking for from KVC?

We are an established business with 30% of the capital we need committed to our fund. We already have our first "fund" deal in a due diligence process, and a General Partner team with solid credibility. Our primary problem is that we have no way of reaching investors that we know would be interested in what we are doing in more of a targeted approach. This generally means that we spend a lot of time and resources talking to firms that don’t have the ability to invest in our fund- because they need to place a minimum of $100MM in any alternative deal, and we are a $15MM fund with a 30MM cap. We need guidance in several areas: 1. reaching more boutique investment shops ($100MM) that have an interest in a $2-5MM investment in a niche operator. 2. establishing connections with larger alternative asset funds- who they are and how to attract them 3. developing a more efficient capital raising model- a more targeted approach with more front end due diligence. 4. mapping the operating team: I have significant experience in managing our deals and my operating team- but the # of investors we are going to be managing will be taxing on our small shop at the current pace. I need help laying out my company from an organizational development standpoint- now that we have added another layer to our set of tasks.

A brief biography of Colby Cox:

Cox has extensive experience in the investment, development, and construction of real estate projects. He has developed and invested in over $500 Million worth of real estate assets since the formation of his first company in 2002. Additionally he has provided consulting services for numerous clients in the area of master planned community development, and project feasibility. Since Cox’s entrance into the real estate industry he has served as an owner and principal in a construction company, a resort community development firm, an asset management and consulting company, and a commercial property management company. Cox also serves on the board of several nationally affiliated non-profits, and has represented Kaizen Strategies on professional advisory panels for the US Green Building Council, and several municipalities. He is currently on the Advisory Board for the Grand Teton National Park Foundation, and an Advisory Member of the Kellogg Venture Community- a non profit entity which seeks to bridge the gap between innovation and capital. As a business owner, Cox is committed to the promotion of entrepreneurial leadership, and remains actively involved in several entrepreneurial learning and leadership organizations. Cox received an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, and a B.S. in Real Estate Finance and Construction Management from the University of Denver.

Partners already involved in the effort:

The Hampshire Companies and more than a dozen limited partners already committed to the offering

Prior to Fusion, David served as Director of Strategy and Venture Development for Tavistock Life Sciences, part of the Tavistock Group – a private equity firm with broad holdings in 15 countries. In his role at Tavistock, David was responsible for evaluating, developing and transacting businesses in several sectors, including: biotechnology, consumer packaged goods, health care diagnostics, technology, food and beverage, medical devices, services and retail.

Before joining Tavistock David served as Chief Operating Officer for Iapyx Medical, a San Diego based medical device company specializing in infection control technologies. While at Iapyx, David constructed and implemented the company’s commercial strategy, oversaw its M&A and marketing activities, and managed the organization’s global business operations.

Prior to Iapyx, David was a Manager in the PricewaterhouseCoopers Mobility Technology Consulting practice in London, England. While with PwC, David and his team worked with Global 500 companies throughout Europe to optimally manage their international workforces. They constructed and implemented technology solutions and business processes resulting in measurable performance improvements and significant cost reductions for their clients. David also served as a Senior Consultant in the Tax and Business Advisory practices of Deloitte and Arthur Andersen in Chicago, IL. He managed the development and commercialization of web-based knowledge and compliance software targeted to a variety of global corporations. David’s work in this area included running two of Arthur Andersen’s e-commerce joint ventures with industry – leading partners including The Economist Group and Monster.com.

David earned his MBA from The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and his B.A. in International Relations, magna cum laude, from Boston University. In addition to being Co-Founder and Director of the Kellogg Venture Community David is a member of the San Diego Zoo’s Innovation Council and serves as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence for CONNECT, a proof-of-concept and venture mentoring organization based in Southern California.

Projects that David Schonthal is interested in:

I am passionate about any projects that have strong social missions. In this respect I am industry agnostic. My background is in healthcare, CPG and technology.

I am pleased to offer myself as a mentor.  I think I am the only Northwestern University JD/MBA Registered Patent Attorney.  My dad, Martin Faier NU College of Speech ’51 and NU Law ’53, have a patent and trademark practice here in Chicago.   We believe in entrepreneurism and have helped many entrepreneurs think about IP and business.   I want to see Kellogg-ers move ahead as business owners.  It is a great step for a person to take command of an enterprise and steer it through the many issues of business (and family life) and I want to help in any way I can.  We have been pleased to provide services to such well known companies as Airbus, EDS, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Renaissance Hotels, Richco (plastics), Duratherm (injector torpedo heaters), Voith Turbo (railroad coupling heaters), Bettinardi (golf products), Quartet (bulletin boards), and many others.  We’ve searched inventions, written patents, prosecuted patents (in over 50-jurisdictions)  litigated patents, searched trademarks, registered trademarks (in over 100 jurisdictions), prosecuted copyrights and litigated copyrights, and litigated unfair trade causes.  You can see our website at www.faier.com.

For reasons of liability, anyone who contacts Jim is required to send a message stating the following:

I, ____________________, understand that any conversation I have with an attorney through KVC does not constitute the commencement of a client – attorney relationship until and unless I sign an engagement agreement with this attorney stating that such a relationship exists or I am invoiced for attorney services by that attorney.  I understand that until such a relationship exists, I will not rely on any statement from that KVC attorney, and that I have the duty of researching the issue further before taking any decision.

Not only does PepsiCo believe in advancing innovation, we also support the entrepreneurial endeavors of technology companies around the world and partner with them to bring interesting digital solutions to life.

We’re looking for up to 10 emerging technologies and innovations focused on:

• Social Media and Marketing Communications
• Mobile Marketing: On the Phone and Beyond
• Place-Based and Retail Experiential Marketing: Be Where Your Customers Are
• Digital Video and Gaming

Selected entrepreneurs, as determined by PepsiCo brand marketing teams along with venture capitalist and agency partners, will be invited to join us and present at a two-day event at PepsiCo headquarters in Purchase, NY to pitch for your opportunity to be a PepsiCo10 finalist. PepsiCo10 finalists will have the unique opportunity to be mentored by a team of venture capitalists, media experts and PepsiCo brand marketers during pilot programs of their submitted innovations.

Submission deadline: The final deadline is June 24, 2010, but as an extra benefit start-ups entered early, by June 17, will be invited to a briefing with PepsiCo and partners on success criteria for PepsiCo10 and a critical overview of key brands and issues. Act Now!

To find out more and submit your application, go to http://www.PepsiCo10.com.

We look forward to your submission!

LEND has partnered with local small business associations and area organizations to select small business owners who fit our target demographic. Once accepted into LEND, these members undergo an intensive three?month training program taught by Kellogg MBA candidates.  After graduating from the program, qualified entrepreneurs have the option to apply for a loan.  Loan applications must be approved by the LEND president and the executive board. After a loan has been granted, each borrower is paired with a Northwestern undergraduate who provides ongoing training resources and monitors the borrower’s status.  All the profit from the loans and classes is reinvested into LEND to facilitate a greater impact on the community.

By tapping the raw talents of Northwestern students, faculty and staff, LEND can channel the University’s considerable resources toward improving the surrounding community in a sustainable way. We help business owners finance investments they would otherwise be unable to make and allow their enterprises to develop into fixtures in the community.  By helping our clients achieve their entrepreneurial dreams, we help them create valuable jobs and services for the Evanston community.

We are especially grateful to the KVC for any help individual members can provide and specifically, we are seeking:

1. Office space.  We would like to have an environment for our group to meet once per week (all ten of us) and also to break out into small group work session throughout the week.
2. We would like to find a well qualified chairman of our board who can offer strong guidance to the president(s) of LEND while they develop it into a sustainable venture.  This would require meeting once per week to ensure oversight and working closely through many decisions with the president(s).  We are also looking for other well-qualified directors who would take a less intensive responsibility – particularly those with a background in banking, law and venture capital.
3. We would like legal advice for two things.  First, we need a business attorney to help us decide what legal structure to adopt (Also the support to organize in the recommended manner should it demand outside resources).  Second, we would like an attorney to help us evaluate the legal risk of making loans and providing training to entrepreneurs.
4. We would like to secure at least 20k of financing within the next year.

Please feel free to add a comment regarding potential support.  Your comment will be directed to us and we will respond promptly.  You can also click the image below to watch their business plan presentation.

We’re not looking for money right now, but we’d love retail contacts, particularly ones in the sporting goods, drug, and/or personal care categories.  And, of course, we’re always looking for good, tough-love feedback.

If you are a current EMBA student, a full time student, or a KVC member, please feel free to attend and bring your VC hat.  They are looking for all the constructive feedback they can get. For more information on the Dry Goods business, please see this link.

Mr. Stanley is also a co-founder of Horizon Investment Partners, an investment partnership which seeks opportunities in start-up companies and small businesses that lack succession planning.  Mr. Stanley has made investments in U.S. and International firms within digital advertising, software, and commodity based industries.   Their team looks to infuse new marketing, sales and operations strategies to unlock incremental value and deliver a greater value proposition to its stakeholders.

Mr. Stanley graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a Bachelors of Science and holds a MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.  Additionally, Mr. Stanley serves on The Catholic Charities Board of Directors and The Executives’ Club New Leaders Circle Board of Directors.  He sits on the Board of Advisors of Simage and Go Auto Recycling.  He is an active member of the Irish Angels Network for entrepreneurship deal flow and the Kellogg Venture Community.  He has recently completed the Ironman Triathlon and climbed to the summit of Mt. Rainier.

Although not his first job, but early enough, he held his first company while attending university. Then he returned to the corporate world to take on a turnaround project in Geneva for a Swiss provider of logistic services. He soon got promoted to AVP and sent as Expat to the US. As President of the US Corporation he transformed within short time the existing one man representative office into a vertically integrated freight forwarding and transportation company with offices and operations in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami.

After 10 years in logistics he spent the last few years next to a successful entrepreneur in the Jewelry Manufacturing and Diamond Industry. As Vice President of Operations he was in charge of the daily activities of any of the 4 Divisions ($30 M) servicing accounts like Macy’s, Finlay’s, Zale’s, or Sears and as the right hand of the Founder he would be handle any special project.

Raymond’s strengths lay in bringing structure and strategy to the chaos of an early stage company without interrupting the dynamics and creative powers at work. He is an excellent sparring partner or devil’s advocate with an international point of view. Furthermore his language skills (English, French, German, and Spanish) cross cultural experience and sensitivity allow him to form high performing teams across cultural and hierarchical levels.

David is happy to help non-profits launch and develop sustainable business models.  His mentoring interests also include both pre-seed and early-stage companies with specific focus on industry/sector consolidation and/or socially oriented products or services.

Aniket is currently involved in providing medical, scientific and regulatory advisory services to biomedical and life science companies. He has provided technical assessment of devices applicable in neurology, ophthalmology and metabolic diseases. He has been involved in helping early stage healthcare technology initiatives in IP strategy, fund-raising, medical/scientific aspects. He has served as an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at the Innovation and New Ventures Office (INVO) at Northwestern. In this role, he is involved in commercializing biomedical/life science technologies developed at Northwestern, helping seed-stage technologies with marketing strategy, recruiting top scientific management talent and facilitating collaborations with Chicago-area organizations, like the Illinois Technology Association (ITA). He organized the Northwestern University Venture Challenge 2010, a university-wide business concept competition that attracts top talent from across Northwestern.

His mentoring interests include early stage companies in healthcare technologies, medical informatics, medical devices, bioinformatics, contract research organizations, pharmaceutical, diagnostics, emerging medical high-tech and medical media companies. Cutting-edge technology bearing on important medical problems is highly appreciated. 

He can be reached at a-kaloti@northwestern.edu

Membership to the Mailing List mentors@kelloggventurecommunity.com

On this web page you can subscribe to, or unsubscribe from, the mailing list mentors@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

ios Financial has been invited to compete in the Annual DFJ-Cisco Global Business Plan Competition where the winner will receive $250,000, and ios Financial needs KVC’s help to prepare.  If you are a current EMBA student, a full time student, or a KVC member, please feel free to attend and bring your VC hat.  They are looking for all the constructive feedback they can get. Brutal, and I mean BRUTAL criticism is welcomed and encouraged!

For more information on the ios Financial business, please see this link.

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These were some really amazing people, eager to learn more about our business, that we never would have met without the KVC support and involvement!  We hope to be in position to give the same kind of help to startups someday (soon)!

-ios (http://www.kelloggventurecommunity.com/?p=1263)

The Kellogg Innovation Network (KIN) is a platform for on-going collaboration between Kellogg faculty, corporate innovation leaders and government. Founded in 2003, the KIN facilitates strategy and management dialogue to promote innovation led growth and build long-term value.

On May 17-19, 2010, a diverse group of world leaders convened to continue the path toward global prosperity. KIN Global is not simply a conference, but part of a larger vision, of a responsibility of great institutions to provide an independent platform for people to collaborate and address humanity’s most meaningful challenges.

We are pleased to present the “2009 KVC Results” video originally presented to KIN Global on May 18th, 2010.

For more information, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

Have you submitted your business abstract to KVC to obtain support?  This is the first step in the process and many of our services require this to be done before we begin supporting a business.  For more information, see this link.

Have you presented your business concept at a KVC in-take meeting?  This should be the first official activity KVC helps you with.  The online presentation is recorded and posted to the website to raise awareness of your business model.  For more information, email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

Have you submitted your wish list to KVC?  KVC operates on the principle that businesses raise initial funding in order to procure resources which will help them launch and accelerate.  Rather than providing this funding directly, we strive to procure these resources for you by leveraging the KVC network.  Ask yourself, “if I had $50K, what would I spend it on in support of my business goals?”  Whatever the answer is, put it in a wish list format and email it to info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

Have you found a KVC mentor?  KVC has dozens of mentors who have committed to working with KVC businesses as they utilize KVC services to develop their business model and business plan.  Even if you do not need a mentor to help with the details of the business, a mentor can be very valuable in ensuring that you get the most from the KVC community. For more information, email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

Have you posted your business abstract and/or business concept on the KVC website?  Posting your business on our site is a great way to garner support from the community and we already have examples of KVC Members from across the country volunteering to support a business the same day it was released on the web site.  You can do this yourself or a KVC representative would be happy to do it with you.  For more information, see this link to do it yourself or email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com for more information.

Have you attended a KVC event?  KVC routinely has luncheons and business presentations during lunch time hours and we also have open community business concept review meetings once per quarter.  For more information regarding upcoming events, see this link.

Have you reviewed the KVC process?  Although KVC believes in providing custom tailored services to our businesses, we follow a standard process for business acceleration and launch.  We have developed a workflow you can walk through to fully understand what we do.  For more information, see this link.

Have you reviewed the KVC online educational resources?  KVC has compiled audio lectures and video seminars on important entrepreneurial topics such as the disruptive innovation theory, the value chain evolution theory, and selling innovation based ideas. All of this education material is designed to provide entrepreneurs with the insights they need in a format that is convenient for them to easily digest.  For more information, our link to video or our link to audio and podcasts.

Have you presented your business plan at a KVC Business Concept Review Meeting?  KVC routinely has open community business concept review meetings once per quarter.  These meetings provide you with an opportunity to present your business and receive instant feedback from an audience of KVC members with a wealth of knowledge to share (average years of experience = 18).  The meetings are designed to help you obtain the resources you need to launch or accelerate your business.  For more information regarding upcoming events, see this link.

Have you been successful at entrepreneurship and would like to give back to the KVC?  KVC produces and publishes iTunes podcasts which are educational resources for new entrepreneurs.  If you have already been a successful entrepreneur, give back to the community be participating in an iTunes Podcast interview, sign up to be a mentor, or contribute financially to the KVC mission.

For more information about this business, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.  You can also watch HomeShop’s business plan online with a valid KVC website login.

1. You must download a program called “Windows Live Writer”; this is the interface that the KVC uses to author new posts. You’re effectively creating your own discussion forum that will be auto-posted to the KVC website.  I personally used this link to download the application, but there may be one better out there.
2. Once there, click the “Download” button.
3. Reset your computer after it downloads (when it prompts you to do so) to fully install the program.
4. When installed, a few boxes will pop up basically asking how you want to access the application. Make sure to uncheck the appropriate boxes to prevent Windows Live from popping up every time you turn on your computer (unless, of course, you’re into that sort of thing).
5. Go into the Windows Live Writer program.
6. Once you’re in Live Writer, go to the Blogs drop down menu and select “Add Blog Account”. 
7. You’ll see a screen that gives you a few options for which blog you want to use: select “other” at the bottom of the list.
8. If you reach a screen that says “Select blog type” and you don’t see “other” as one of the options, then you erroneously did not select “other” on the previous screen (I made this mistake initially). You just have to click the “back” button to change the blog selection to “other”.
9. After you select “other” for the blog, the next screen will ask you to key in a URL. You should enter in the KVC URL here. (www.kelloggventurecommunity.com). You’ll also need to enter in your KVC login and password here so that the new post you just created will automatically sync up with the KVC site. Keep this in mind if you ever change the KVC password.
10. If you’ve done this properly, you should be advanced to a blank blog page, and at this point you can get started.
11. After you’ve typed everything up and are ready to post, click the “Save Draft” button on the top. This will send your posting to the KVC administrator for review/posting. To clarify, do not try to hit “Publish”…only the KVC administrator can “publish” your postings. Just click Save Draft to send your post to the administrator’s queue.
12. If you’ve done this correctly, you should see confirmation in the box to the far right of the blog screen that your post has been “Recently Posted”.
13. Congratulations, you’re done.

This process worked for me but if anyone has an easier more efficient way, please post your thoughts to this posting.

Hope this helps!

-Brandon

In 2008, nearly 7,500 domestic lenders held 2.2 million small business loans (those between $100,000 and $1 million each), totaling a $540.8 billion market. The SBA estimates that over 600,000 new businesses incorporate each year and, as of December 31, 2008, 29.6 million small businesses existed in the United States. With  low fixed costs and favorable operating leverage, ios is well positioned to quickly generate strong operating cash flow in this huge, inefficient market.

Hi everyone, my name is Brandon Hinkle and I’m one of the co-founders of ios Financial (“ios”), an online marketplace that connects small businesses seeking capital with banks seeking to make small business loans.  In other words, we’re on online Business-to-Bank matchmaker.  Two of the founders are Kellogg grads, and the ios management team is excited to be a part of the KVC so that we may (i) get folks more familiar with our business, and (ii) help our fellow KVC businesses obtain debt financing.  The purpose of this posting is to introduce ios to the KVC.  For detail about our business, I’ve included the below excerpt from the executive summary portion of the ios business plan.  If there’s anything we want you to take away from all of the information below, it’s that small business lending is a huge, highly inefficient industry, and our mission is to educate & help small businesses achieve optimal financing terms at a time when they need it the most.  Likewise, we also want to help community & regional banks expand their geographic footprint and diversify their risk by receiving focused, targeted leads from ios.  Above all, our goal is to improve the efficiency of the small business lending.

The Problem: Several flaws characterize the industry of small business lending, making the process inefficient and expensive for both the business and the lender. On the lending side, local and regional banks in many cases have the ability and desire to continue to make loans to small businesses, even in the current economic climate. However, lenders have found it difficult to (i) make themselves known, and (ii) profitably and efficiently make small business loans due to the relatively small fees and significant diligence required. The limited marketing resources for smaller banks preclude them from competing effectively with the larger institutions for favorable loans. LendingTree.com helped bridge this gap in the residential mortgage industry, but no equivalent solution has been developed for commercial lenders due to the more complex nature of this industry.

According to the SBA, only 65% of existing small businesses receive financing through traditional commercial loans, while the remaining 35% rely on credit cards and other expensive, alternative means of financing.  Many small businesses underestimate the capital requirement for both start-up and ongoing operations, and the business owners frequently lack the relevant expertise to arrange the appropriate financing. The increase in bank consolidation and lack of available capital from large lending institutions in the recent credit crisis have exacerbated these problems, with many small businesses finding the ability to obtain adequate financing increasingly difficult.

The Solution: ios addresses these problems by creating an online marketplace that connects local/regional banks (“Lenders”) with small businesses (“Borrowers”) seeking commercial loans, akin to how LendingTree.com connects home owners with mortgage lenders, how Match.com connects singles with each other, and how Orbitz.com connects travelers with airlines. It is a proven model of applying modern technology solutions to address inherent inefficiencies in traditional business processes. ios employs proprietary software to create an efficient online service that decreases the cost and increases the efficiency of corporate loans to small businesses.

The ios value-add to the Lenders includes:

1. Automating the application process
   A highly-automated application process, reducing loan origination costs by up to 50% and increasing the speed with which Borrowers and Lenders can make financing decisions.
2. Reduced marketing expenses
   ios provides its Lenders with a ubiquitous presence at a minimal cost.
3. Focused leads
   ios filters applications so that lenders receive only the requests with the highest probability of a successful match.
4. More variable cost structure
   ios reduces the need for loan originators, adding value to Lenders in a potentially declining revenue environment; ios acts as a virtual loan originator, but without a high fixed salary.
5. Higher-quality loan applications
   ios provides a comprehensive loan application and converts inconsistent financials into a consistent, well-organized financial model that Lenders can use as a feasibility review to make quicker approval decisions.

The ios value-add to small businesses includes:

1. Auction-style marketplace
   Competitive marketplace where a focused group of Lenders compete for bids, thereby achieving optimal loan terms for Borrowers.
2. Proposal evaluation process
   The ios Lender network will provide non-binding proposals for the desired financing.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

If you’re interested in learning more about ios, click here to watch their KVC Business Concept Intake Presentation video.

In addition, the entire Business Plan is available upon request by contacting Brandon Hinkle at brandon.hinkle@iosfinancial.com. 

Health food stores are filled with a myriad of apparently magical supplement bars, guaranteeing everything from a stronger immune system to enhanced eyesight. But for all their variety, most of them taste horrible.  Jonathan Miller, CEO of an Illinois-based startup, is handing the reins over to the public, giving users the chance to build their own (hopefully better tasting) supplement bars.

To build a bar, users are first asked to pick a base texture, with options including “Oaty”, “Crispy”, and “Datey”. From there, they gradually add fruits, nuts, sweets, and finally a choice of “Boosts” – the powdered supplements that contain large portions of protein, fiber, or antioxidants. While users are free to create whatever combinations they’d like, the site will warn them if one of their choices will probably turn their bar into a chalky mess (for example, it recommends against adding excessive protein to an Oaty bar).

In this podcast, KVC entrepreneur Jonathan Miller explains that as a result a well-designed bar will generally taste much better than those purchased in a store.  He also shares some of his trials and tribulations of starting the Elements Bars venture.

At age 35, John Wood did just that – quitting his position as Microsoft’s Director of Business Development for the Greater China Region in order to found Room to Read. He has never looked back.

John’s career at Microsoft spanned 1991 to 1999, where he ran significant parts of Microsoft’s international business, as the Director of Marketing for the Asia-Pacific Division, Director of the Internet Customer Unit for Microsoft Australia, and Director of Marketing for Microsoft Australia.

In 1998, John took a vacation that changed his life. Trekking through a remote Himalayan village, he struck up conversation with a schoolteacher, who invited John to visit his school. There, John discovered that the few books available were so precious that they were kept under lock and key – to protect them from the children! Fewer than 20 books, all backpacker cast-aways, were available for more than 450 students.

What started with a simple email requesting friends donate used books has grown into Room to Read, an award winning non-profit that over the past nine years has established over 7,500 libraries, donated and published 6 million books, built over 830 schools, and funded over 8,800 long-term scholarships for girls – impacting the lives of over 3.1 million students worldwide.

John strives to bring the lessons of the corporate world to the non-profit sector. Room to Read combines his passion with the discipline of a well-run global company. He has been described by Fast Company Magazine as "all heart, all business."

John has received countless honors for his work, including recognition as a "Young Global Leader" by the World Economic Forum and as one of Time Magazine’s "Asian Heroes." Room to Read is a five-time winner of Fast Company Magazine’s Social Capitalist Award, a recipient of the Skoll Foundation Award for Social Innovation, and a recipient of Draper Richards Fellowship for social entrepreneurs.

John holds a Bachelors of Science, magna cum laude, from the University of Colorado, and a Masters of Business Administration from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. He lives and works in San Francisco, CA.

With every donation over $100, you will receive a one year membership to the KVC.  All members, founding or annual, receive value from their participation in the KVC:

• Gain access to equity investment opportunities in exchange for your support: Founding and annual members are invited to all business concept review meetings and special events.  Through their participation, members have access to potential investment opportunities and employment opportunities.
• Gain access to a community that can help you with your business ventures: Members have access to the community via networking events, business concept review meetings, and our online tool suite. When an innovation opportunity presents itself, members have access to the resources they need to turn from innovator to entrepreneur.
• Stay ahead of changing industry trends through exclusive access to information:  Members receive access to the KVC website, including business concept summaries, online educational tools, web-based podcasts with industry leaders, special publications, and webcasts with product/service providers with innovative offerings.  KVC provides access to information that helps executives and their companies, stay abreast of industry trends and potential game-changing innovations that could lead to changes in industry wide value networks.

In addition to our flexible donation mechanism, the KVC also has a special "Founding Member" category for those dedicated community members who have made a substantial financial contribution to the KVC.  Founding Members become eligible for board leadership positions and receive additional benefits beyond an annual KVC membership.  For more information about becoming a Founding Member, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

If you don’t want to miss an opportunity to mingle with innovative entrepreneurs and leading private equity/venture capital investors from a variety of sectors, then you especially do not want to miss the inaugural Northwestern Entrepreneurship Week (NEW)!  NEW is a collection of events hosted by various entrepreneurial organizations across Northwestern university during the week of May 17 – 26, 2010.  For the calendar of events, please visit www.northwesterneweek.com.  They have something for everyone!

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Over the course of 2009, we produced podcasts designed to provide KVC entrepreneurs with academic and industry expertise, and covered topics such as social entrepreneurism, lessons learned from NBC’s Apprentice participants, and lectures on disruptive innovation theories. Our educational videos, drawn from universities from across the country, cover topics ranging from using an innovation radar to focus entrepreneurial energy, to improving competitiveness, to lessons in “selling” innovation in established corporate environments. We also held the first session in our new entrepreneurial lecture series. The session was a course in writing effective business plans taught by Kellogg Professor Barry Merkin.

Click here to see the KVC iTunes Podcast site or click here to watch our videos.

Dry Goods, is a moisture-absorbing, anti-chaffing powder in an aerosol spray.  The spray delivery means there is no mess left behind and excellent adherence to the skin.  For athletes who experience discomfort or chafing in their cleats, armpits, groin or under pads, Dry Goods is a great way to remain comfortable in practice or in competition.  Dry Goods will be available in July 2010.

Click image to watch the presentation of the Dry Goods business plan.  You can also find out more about them on their website.

For more information about this business, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

RxMedia Network, LLC is currently deploying the leading place-based digital media network focused on the independent and specialty pharmacy market.  Click here to log in and watch their presentation.

Blooboom Technologies, Inc. – IDnet Mesh is a patent pending platform that provides a unified solution to the internet based single sign on issues by effectively tying and disseminating user identity on the Internet in a secure way. Click here to log in and watch their presentation.

Donorvest is a web-based venture that will bring nonprofit organizations together with the millions of individual donors who provide their lifeblood of funding. Click here to log in and watch their presentation.

For more information about these businesses, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

Jennifer Beall, 27, entered Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management determined to be an entrepreneur.  That goal had stuck with her for years. Growing up in Austin, Texas, she was initially inspired by Dell Inc. founder Michael Dell. "But I ditched the high-tech part," she says (although she did earn an undergraduate degree in math from Duke University). When Ms. Beall graduates from Kellogg in June, she’ll pursue her dream. For her, choosing to be an entrepreneur was easy. The hard part was finding a business idea.

"I was hoping – and I realize a lot of people who come to business school are the same way – that I would find somebody else with that golden-ticket idea, and they would just need somebody else to make it happen," she says.

Photo: Erik Unger

She did come up with her own idea, but it took some digging. While enrolled in a Kellogg class that compared baby boomers and "millennials," Ms. Beall began contemplating one of the hot buttons of her generation: work-life balance.

She spent her first year of business school seeking ideas designed to achieve that, particularly for working moms. By the end of the year, Ms. Beall had compiled a spreadsheet with about 50 ideas. As it turned out, the best one came from a conversation she had while she was an intern at Chicago-based Perchance Boutique. Ms. Beall told a customer – a working mom – that she wanted to start a business to improve work-life balance. The customer’s response: "I would pay any amount of money for someone to clean my baby’s car seat. It is disgusting. And there’s no service out there that exists."

Ms. Beall did some research and found only two possible competitors in that market: a New York dry cleaner and a home-based San Francisco business. This summer, she plans to fill the void by launching an eco-friendly cleaning service for car seats and strollers ($20 for strollers, $25 for car seats).

She plans to test her concept in Chicago. That entails a three-month trial to work out the kinks. If all goes well, she hopes to expand to California, where the weather is more suitable to outdoor business.

Ms. Beall isn’t starting the business because she lacks job options. Before she enrolled at Kellogg, she worked in strategy consulting at Los Angeles-based Fiji Water Co. LLC. That job is still waiting for her if she wants it. But she negotiated a six-month delay for her return so she can give entrepreneurship a shot. Currently, Fiji is paying her Kellogg tuition. If she feels her business is going well at the end of six months, she’ll stick with it and pay Fiji back.

"One of my main motivations in working for myself is having control over my own schedule," she says. "I want to have a family, and I want to have that flexibility. I see entrepreneurship as a road to that work-life balance that I want."

When Ms. Beall pitches her business idea, a distinct gender split emerges among potential investors. "It’s actually funny because whenever I talk to men about this business idea, they just don’t get it," she says. "They kind of smile and nod, and they’re like, ‘Oh, the weird girl with the cleaning business,’ " she says, laughing.

Women investors smile and nod at her too, but for different reasons. "The women VCs and angel investors totally get it," she says. "They say, ‘You know what, babies are going to keep being born, and car seats and strollers are never going to go away. This is a lasting business.’ "

Full article: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/mag/article.pl?articleId=33267

At the Bank of Montreal, he led multiple private equity investments and represented the fund at portfolio companies as a Board Member and Chairman of an Audit Committee. John ultimately managed the Chicago office of the fund, which made mostly control interest investments in more than 10 companies. John was integrally involved with multiple out-of-court restructurings, raising hundreds of millions of dollars of debt financing and leading two successful senior management successions.

John began his career as a financial analyst in New York with Goldman Sachs & Co.’s Economics Research Group. Afterward, John joined Meadowcroft Associates, a boutique investment bank specializing in workouts and restructurings, where he advised unsecured creditor committees in Chapter 11 reorganizations, such as those of Eagle-Picher and National Gypsum. After earning his MBA at the Kellogg School of Management, John worked as a consultant to M&T Bank before joining the Bank of Montreal’s private equity fund. John has a B.A. cum laude from Middlebury College, where he wrote a thesis which was published in the journal “Economics Letters.”

To download this file for playback in iTunes or on your iPod/iPhone, click here.

John Honney, President JKH Enterprises

Contact Information:
E-mail: j-honney@kellogg.northwestern.edu

The Kellogg Innovation Network (KIN) is a platform for on-going collaboration between Kellogg faculty, corporate innovation leaders and government. Founded in 2003, the KIN facilitates strategy and management dialogue to promote innovation led growth and build long-term value.

On May 17-19, 2010, a diverse group of world leaders will convene to continue the path toward global prosperity. KIN Global is not simply a conference, but part of a larger vision, of a responsibility of great institutions to provide an independent platform for people to collaborate and address humanity’s most meaningful challenges.

See www.kinglobal.org for more information. 

For more information about this business, email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

All of this sits as a liability on loyalty program operator books and frustrates their customers due to inability to put loyalty currency to good use.    The root cause for this can be attributed to three things:

1. 1.  Poor profit management of loyalty programs.
1. 2.  Low conversion ratios of loyalty management campaigns.

1. 3.  Unclear ROI on in-house loyalty management systems 

Click the image to watch the business plan presentation.

The first problem is caused by the information asymmetry WITHIN the organization due to proliferation of various software products that don’t necessarily talk to each other.  The second problem is caused due to information asymmetry BETWEEN market participants (e.g. brands, distributors, retailers & consumers).  The third problem is caused by the inability of loyalty programs to INTERACT with each other due to legacy technology and functionality.   

The costs for creating and managing these programs have been steadily increasing over the years to a point where in-house loyalty management programs can easily be over 20% of the overall marketing budget without demonstrating measurable returns!    To truly deliver higher tangible returns to the clients, we plan on building an integrated analytical “platform” comprising of a combination of process innovations, next-generation technology and cost arbitrage needed to be created.  

We will make money in three ways:

1. Running a loyalty currency and rewards management self-service portal, 
2. Lead generation by monetizing insights gathered mining the online portal.
3. Providing an array of hosted customer relationship management(CRM) and e-commerce capabilities to small and mid-sized businesses.

All these will be powered through DSI.com which would have capabilities for Earning, Buying, Gifting, Exchanging and Redeemingof loyalty currency along with self service modules to procure and manage white labeled services.  

We will initially plan to target the US financial services space with a specific CRM functionality that we call guided selling and later expand into other functions like fraud detection, lead generation within financial services.  Eventually we will expand into new verticals like retail and telecom before expanding into new geographies like US and India.

Principal revenue would be realized through advertising and membership dues for access to the DSI.com website, loyalty program signup fees, technology design, creation and maintenance revenue, hosting and management fees, reseller revenues where DSI.com assumes inventory risk for loyalty currency purchased from either customers, loyalty points operators or merchants.   

In addition to these, commission revenue would be realized as a percentage of transaction or fixed dollar value of transaction where DSI assumes no credit or inventory risk.  It will also be realized through lead generation and conversion payments from merchants sponsoring products or deals on DSI.com.  We believe each of these streams has a multi-million dollar recurring revenue potential with significant long term competitive staying power.

For more information on this business, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

You can click here to view the business plan presentation.

Business need: 

• 8-12% of Out of Home (OOH) advertising spend is wasted. 
• No reliable evaluative service exists for OOH advertising. 
• Analyzing the results of OOH campaigns is an expensive, labor-intensive process. 
• A new audience metric source, “Eyes On” launched Jan 2010 and users need analytic tools to fully utilize it.   

Solution: Intelligent Proof enables agencies and advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their OOH campaigns by: 

• Gathering objective data and graphics on each ad placement 
• Integrating placement data with geographic, audience metrics, and campaign spending to create an analytic database
• Providing a proprietary business intelligence platform that enables agencies and advertises to assess the effectiveness of their advertising   

Success:  No comprehensive tracking, evaluative, and analytic system for Out of Home media exists.  Such reporting systems have long existed for other media:  Television has Nielsen, Radio has Arbitron, and now Out of Home has Intelligent Proof.  Changes in industry climate and growth provides right time and need for this service.   

For more information about this business, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

Click the image to watch the business plan presentation or click read more to read the full description.

The idea of a neo-natal care facility has been in Asia for about the last 10-20 years in Japan and South Korea.  Various services are provided through specialized facilities that accommodate the mother and the new born baby in comfortable environment. To start, new born babies are taken care by the health professionals, such as RN, in neo-natal center monitored 24 hours. New mothers receive personalized services such as dining, yoga, massage, and education delivered by respected professionals.  A mother can find time to focus and bond with her new born baby while receiving the proper care and time to rest and recover from giving a birth.  Such a business model has been widely accepted and adopted in South Korea.  In 2008, similar model has been launched in Australia, where the combination of a Hospital and luxury hotel, provide comprehensive post care service.  It has become very popular.

Currently, such business concept is not widely known in the US market, and there’s a potential niche market that could be explored.  Given the strong adoption of such business model, risen from the need of the new mothers, it could become a very successful business in the US.  We hope to start a resort/hotel that focuses on the new mothers and new born babies, targeting the high income families, providing comprehensive service mentioned above.  Our goal is to first establish a strong local brand early on then scale nationally quickly to benefit from first mover advantage.

For more information about this business, please contact info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

You can click here to view the business plan presentation.

6:00PM – 7:00PM – Social Hour
6:30PM – 7:30PM – Dinner with KVC (business concept presentations)

Please click here to RSVP for this event. This form is to be used for all KVC members who wish to attend in person or for those who wish to view the proceedings online after the event has been recorded. Registration for this event will close at midnight on April 10, 2009.

We will hear from 2-3 business concept leaders and have the opportunity to discuss the concepts as well as form mutually beneficial relationships.

If you have any questions, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com or check out the website at www.kelloggventurecommunity.com for more information.

To download this file for playback in iTunes or on your iPod/iPhone, click here.

Click read more to listen to the abstract and read bios on Chip and Dan Heath.Â

Chip Heath is the Thrive Foundation of Youth Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Chip is also a columnist for Fast Company magazine, and he has spoken and consulted on the topic of “making ideas stick” with organizations such as Nike, the Nature Conservancy, Microsoft, Ideo, and the American Heart Association.

Chip’s research examines why certain ideas—ranging from urban legends to folk medical cures, from Chicken Soup for the Soul stories to business strategy myths—survive and prosper in the social marketplace of ideas. These “naturally sticky” ideas spread without external help in the form of marketing dollars, PR assistance, or the attention of leaders. A few years back Chip designed a course, now a popular elective at Stanford, that asked whether it would be possible to use the principles of naturally sticky ideas to design messages that would be more effective. That course, How to Make Ideas Stick, has now been taught to hundreds of students including managers, teachers, doctors, journalists, venture capitalists, product designers, and film producers.

Chip’s research has appeared in the Journal of Organizational Behavior, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Cognitive Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Consumer Behavior, Strategic Management Journal, Psychological Science, and the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty. Popular accounts of his research have appeared in Scientific American, the Financial Times, The Washington Post, Business Week, Psychology Today, and Vanity Fair. He has appeared on NPR and National Geographic specials.

Chip has taught courses on Organizational Behavior, Negotiation, Strategy, and International Strategy. Prior to joining Stanford, Professor Heath taught at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. He received his B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Texas A&M University and his Ph.D. in Psychology from Stanford.

Dan Heath is a Senior Fellow at Duke University’s CASE center, which supports social entrepreneurs. He is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Made to Stick has been translated into 29 languages, the last of which was Slovakian, and it was retired from the BusinessWeek bestseller list after a 24-month run. Dan is also a columnist for Fast Company magazine, and he has taught and consulted on the topic of “making ideas stick” with organizations such as Microsoft, Nestle, USAID, the American Heart Association, and Macy’s.

Most recently, Dan was a Consultant to the Policy Programs of the Aspen Institute. Prior to that, he conducted research for Harvard Business School, where he co-authored 10 case studies on entrepreneurial ventures, and subsequently, he worked for the executive education division of Duke University, where he designed and taught in training programs for Fortune 500 executives.

In 1997, Dan co-founded and served as Editor in Chief of a startup publishing company called Thinkwell, which created from scratch an innovative new line of college textbooks. Thinkwell is based in Austin, Texas.

Dan has an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a BA from the Plan II Honors Program from the University of Texas at Austin. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Rare, a conservation organization. Two proud (sort of) moments for Dan are his stint driving a promotional car called the “Brainmobile” across the country and his victory in the 2005 New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest, beating out 13,000 other entrants.

Barry Merkin will conduct a lunchtime seminar on the important role business plans play in entrepreneurship, and the components involved in writing a good one. The session will touch on how proper business planning can benefit entrepreneurs strategically and in helping to secure financing for their venture. This Lunch and Learn will begin promptly at Noon and will be valuable for any students considering starting, expanding or acquiring a business.

This event will be held at the Allen Center on Saturday, February 20th from Noon until 1 PM. The seminar will begin promptly at noon so please be sure to arrive on time if you wish to participate.

For those community members who participated:

Thanks to everyone for great progress last week regarding an Entrepreneurship Leaders Forum (tentatively nicknamed ELF) and the first ever Northwestern Entrepreneurship Week (NEW).

It was exciting to get the leaders of Northwestern’s entrepreneurship organizations together for the first time. Many new connections were made between groups, schools, students, alumni and entrepreneurs. Many new ideas for events and ways to work together were discussed and planned.

NEW is currently scheduled for Monday, 5/17/10 through Wednesday, 5/26/10. A fantastic week that already features:

• Kellogg Innovation Network Global Summit,
• NUVC business plan competition from InNUvation and
• Levy Institute Alumni Entrepreneurship Conference.

Based on last week’s feedback other groups are already planning additional social, networking, elevator pitch, cocktail hour and other events for that time period. Additionally, the foundation was discussed for information sharing among the different groups via a website/portal to help us communicate more efficiently.

To continue making these connections and facilitate additional ideas, events and most importantly, as we stated the goal: to Increase the Quality and Quantity of Northwestern Entrepreneurs. everyone agreed to re-convene for a shorter planning/execution meeting on 2/20/10. It will most likely be at the Allen Center again.

With his 14 years of experience in building companies from the ground up, he continues to look for more. His experience with Donald Trump and “The Apprentice” opened up a world of experiences that has continued to lead to opportunities. Whether it is working with Warren Buffet and Bill Gates or being the executive producer of the Special Olympics World Winter Games, Troy has the lightning. With The McClain Companies, Troy has assembled a team of experts that have capabilities to handle any caliber of business today and in the future. In addition to his business catalyst abilities, Troy has extensive experience on the brokering side of business. He has personally raised and facilitated over $130 million from mortgages to startups and land developments.

To download this file for playback in iTunes or on your iPod/iPhone, click here.

Troy McClain – Chief Executive Officer, The McClain Companies

Contact Information:
E-mail: troy@troymcclain.com
Desk: (208) 246-8601

To: The KIN Global and KVC Communities
Re: Haitian Earthquake Relief Effort
Date: January 17, 2010

Dear Members of the KIN and KVC communities,

Like all of you we are deeply touched by the images we have seen of Haiti in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake. We also appreciate that as socially-minded leaders of business many of us are looking for ways to help in the recovery beyond simply donating money.

KIN and KVC have identified a small but highly effective aid agency in Haiti to support, Partners in Health. Lead by Dr. Paul Farmer, Partners in Health has been running a remarkable healthcare facility in Haiti for over twenty years. They are on the ground experts who are not only well suited to help save lives during the emergency, but will be important strategic partners to help Haiti recover and rebuild once the crisis is over. We are proud to know the entrepreneurs behind Partners In Health and can vouch for the quality of their mission and results.

Partners in Health is specifically looking for:

1. Medical professionals, both doctors and nurses to volunteer.
2. Large quantities of medical supplies: sutures, bandages, non-powdered sterile gloves, syringes, etc.
3. Large quantities of new blankets and tents.
4. Assistance with the transport (preferably via plane) of medical professionals and supplies.

If you or your organization can assist in the provision of these items or their transport to Haiti KVC and KIN will be glad to coordinate with Partners in Health to insure that the proper introductions are made. If more convenient, you may also visit their site and fill out the form: http://tinyurl.com/y9ys5km.

Of course, PIH would also appreciate monetary donations. To make a monetary donation to Partners in Health, please visit: http://tinyurl.com/yb889sl .

As always, we welcome any other innovative ideas that the community may have on how this support and rebuilding effort can be accelerated. Please feel free to contact any one of us with your questions or ideas.

Sincerely,

The KIN Global and KVC Leadership Teams

KVC and KIN Contacts:

David Schonthal dschonthal2009@kellogg.northwestern.edu

Ken Jones kjones2009@kellogg.northwestern.edu

Robert Wolcott r-wolcott@kellogg.northwestern.edu

Stephanie Wolcott sawolcott@mac.com

If you are interested in presenting at the next KVC Business Concept Review meeting, this luncheon is a great way to build support (although not a requirement).

For more information about attending this event, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

OPEN Forum gives businesses the tools to connect and collaborate. Tools like the Connectodex, which can help generate new leads by intelligently matching businesses with similar needs and interests. And the Idea Hub, a digital trading post of ideas and insights from industry experts and owners. Exclusive articles, videos, discussion boards and events listings can help businesses get informed and inspired.

It’s all part of American Express OPEN’s continuing promise to provide businesses with the tools that can help them grow. The new content and insights are available to all business owners. Additional special features are available just for OPEN Cardmembers.

NU Venture Challenge (NUVC) – Organized by Aniket Kaloti this year. NUVC is the largest business competition held at Northwestern and is open to any Northwestern student teams. This year, upward of $25,000 in prizes are awarded to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prize, as well as to winners in social entrepreneurship and energy/sustainability categories.

Early April 2010 – Round 1: 1pg Business Idea Abstract Submission.

4/21/2010 – Semi-Finals: 3min Elevator speech to investors and VCs

5/20/2010 – Finals: 15min presentation + 5min Q&A

Speaker Series - InNUvation will hold a few speaker events throughout the next two quarters to provide entrepreneurial perspective to the Northwestern community with some emphasis on teaching students how to perform well at our competitions and related business situations. Pat Smith will give the first talk January 14th, with emphasis on "Know Thyself" (knowing why you want to be an entrepreneur) and the difference between sustainable and disruptive technologies.

Collaboration with KVC – Further, this year InNUvation will give the top performers at ARD and NUVC an opportunity to meet with those that could facilitate actual commercialization. KVC could play a strong role by attending the events and mingling with the participants. In addition, the very top performers could present at a later KVC event. InNUvation also plans on having an InNUvation related company present at an upcoming KVC event.

If you have further questions, or would like more clarification about the events, you can email Kvar Black at KVARBLACK2010@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU.

University Club of Chicago, 76 East Monroe Street, Chicago, IL 60603
Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Featuring some of the brightest minds in the industry as keynote speakers and panelists, the conference will provide an open forum for general partners, limited partners, and industry-focused professionals to discuss these trends and challenges, exchange ideas and views, and debate current hot topics in the industry.

Keynote speakers:

Chuck Esserman, TSG Consumer Partners, Co-Founder, Managing Director, and CEO

Dick Kramlich (NU ’57), New Enterprise Associates, Co-Founder and General Partner

What’s On the Agenda?

Registration opens: January 14, 2010 at 8 AM.

Please register early as previous conferences have sold out

Register on website: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/privateequityconference/registration.html

In the past, more than 120 entrepreneurs have successfully acquired Kellogg Full-Time MBA students for summer internships, utilizing their passion and business skills toward completing critical projects. You get matched with an exceptionally talented business student between February and May, and a full-time working experience for 8 weeks June through early August. 99.99% of host firms have been extremely satisfied with their hosting experience. For smaller start-ups, several admitted that the Kellogg student intern helped shape the future of the company.

Kellogg’s Larry and Carol Levy Institute for Entrepreneurial Practice is hosting an information session and networking reception for prospective students and host companies interested in participating in the 15th year of the Kellogg Entrepreneurial Internship Program (KEIP) in Summer 2010. Past participating students and host companies will also be on hand to talk about their experience with the program.

Event Details:

Thursday, January 21^st

5:15 – 6:15 pm: Information Session

6:30 – 7:30 pm: Networking Reception

Kellogg School of Management, Jacobs Center, Room TBD

2001 Sheridan Road, Evanston IL 60201 (no parking passes required)

RSVP by Wed 1/20 to levyinstitute@kellogg.northwestern.edu Â

Additional Details and Testimonials about the KEIP can be found below and at:

http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/academic/entrepreneurship/resources/keip.htm

The KEIP offers first-year students the opportunity to experience entrepreneurship first-hand through an eight-week internship at a small business located in the Chicagoland region. Host companies, many of which are run by Kellogg alumni, provide projects and environments that offer students experiential learning.

The profile of host companies varies greatly by industry, revenues, culture, and number of employees. There is no one criterion that qualifies a firm to be in the program. What is important to the program is that the host company offers students an experiential learning opportunity- one that informs them in such a way that it influences their future career decisions.

Kellogg students have incredible personal resources, energy, aptitude and desire to make the most of every moment. Often cited as being "over achievers," Kellogg students have in the past proved to be valuable resources for host companies. Companies that fail to recognize these resources find that the projects they prepared will be completed in half the time and twice the quality, leaving the student-intern asking for more. This program is ideal for start-up companies that can’t afford MBA talent year round but have a need in marketing, finance, strategy, or operations that could be met through an 8 week project involving the Kellogg intern.

Students are matched with host companies based on the skills that they bring to the table and the specific needs of the host company at that particular time. This ensures that the experience is mutually beneficial. In addition, students complete an extensive evaluation of the company and develop their own entrepreneurial career plans as part of the program.

Companies support the student’s stipend with a $500/week commitment. The total for an 8-week internship is $4,000. This is payable at one time June 14, 2010.

May your holiday season and the new year be filled with much joy, happiness and success. We look forward to working with you in the coming year and hope the mutually beneficial relationships continue for many years to come.

Happy holidays!

-The KVC Team

Jason is the Founder and CEO of Mission Measurement, LLC, a strategy consulting firm focused on the social sector. The firm has advised leading corporations and nonprofits, including: McDonald’s, Kraft Foods, Levi Strauss & Co., Easter Seals, American Red Cross, the Humane Society of the U.S. and the Smithsonian. Prior to founding Mission Measurement, Jason co-founded the Center for What Works, a national nonprofit organization. He began his career as an attorney, most recently at Mayer Brown LLP in Chicago where he represented government and nonprofit clients in public finance transactions.

Jason holds a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, an M.P.P. from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a B.A. in Government and French Literature from Cornell University. He was awarded the Harry S. Truman Scholarship for leadership and public service and was selected as a Leadership Greater Chicago fellow. In 2008, Jason was recognized as one of Crain’s Chicago Business “40 under 40” business leaders.

To download this file for playback in iTunes or on your iPod/iPhone, click here.

Jason Saul – Chief Executive Officer, Mission Measurement, LLC

Contact Information:
E-mail: JSaul@missionmeasurement.com
Desk: 312-899-1801

RxMedia generates revenues by selling advertising space and offering content sponsorship opportunities to pharmaceutical and consumer health companies. Advertising Market Trends Advertising spending on Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) networks has almost tripled in the last five years, reaching $2.2bn in 2007 in the US, and is forecasted to grow at double digit rates until 2012.

Pharmaceutical companies, the second largest direct-to-consumer advertisers in the US, are finally becoming familiar with DOOH advertising. Nevertheless, no sizeable digital media network exists in a key location for a healthcare advertiser: the retail pharmacy. The Independent Pharmacy Market The independent pharmacy market currently comprises over 23,000 stores, representing 40% of the US retail pharmacy market. In addition to this sizable footprint, the independent pharmacy is an appealing venue given the high frequency of pharmacist/patient consultations and the presence of a captive in-store audience. Given the fragmented nature of the sector, pharmacy owners rely on drug wholesalers, cooperatives or buying groups not only for product fulfillment but also for several other value-added services, notably including third-party reimbursement, merchandising, and marketing services.

We are developing relationships with drug wholesalers and pharmacy networks with a strong focus on the Northeastern US in order to leverage their footprint and expand our media network quickly and efficiently. To provide our partners with the appropriate incentives, we offer benefits ranging from revenue sharing agreements to discounted advertising space. Our Value Proposition To advertisers, RxMedia provides an innovative channel to promote and advertise products or deliver informational messages to captive and engaged customers at the point of purchase and care, in a venue characterized by significant traffic and long average dwell times (15-20 min), with the ultimate result of generating high ROI on advertising spend.

To wholesalers and pharmacy networks, RxMedia is a means to enhance revenue by improving the performance of partner pharmacies, to deliver targeted messaging to pharmacy customers with the same benefits available to advertisers, and to generate additional income through revenue sharing agreements. For the independent pharmacy, RxMedia improves its viability by increasing in-store sales, by providing a means to convey targeted messaging regarding value-added and high-margin services, and by enhancing the customer experience through the use of captivating content that reduces patients’ perceived wait time. Our Product RxMedia broadcasts digital content to participating pharmacies over the internet using a robust and highly scalable technology infrastructure. RxMedia installs LCD televisions, media players and directional speakers at no cost to the pharmacy owner and manages the digital content to be played on each screen remotely, without causing interference with the pharmacy’s activities. Legal agreements with wholesaler, network and pharmacy partners are being implemented to establish exclusivity and leverage existing resources to effectively deploy RxMedia’s solutions in pharmacies.

The zero-cost lease contracts with pharmacy owners have a length ranging between 3 and 5 years from signing with provisions for auto-renewal. The television screen is partitioned into three parts. The main video section displays video loops comprising of educational, informational and advertising content. A side panel includes static banner advertisements and additional informational content. A scrolling bar at the bottom of the screen plays promotional and informational content supplied by the pharmacist and trusted information providers. Our Execution Strategy We are deploying a pilot program to obtain further proof-of-concept. We plan to install 25 to 30 screens in retail pharmacies in the New York Tri-State region.

We are collaborating with selected pharmacy groups and advertisers including Schering Plough. Data and feedback collected will provide valuable marketing material and additional know-how for a larger scale deployment of our media network. Our core advertiser segments include pharmaceutical manufacturers, OTC drug and consumer health companies, and medical device manufacturers. Our medium is also valuable to local advertisers interested in reaching our targeted audience, including hospitals, clinics and doctors’ offices. Local advertisers represent an additional revenue stream, particularly valuable while we’re building the scale to attract our core advertisers, that can be realized through contracted third-party sales forces with requisite creative and production capabilities. Our priority is to grow our presence in the New York Tri-State area, a strategic location representing nearly 30% of the independent pharmacies nationwide, before pursuing a national roll-out.

For more information on this and other KVC businesses, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

You can click here to view the business plan presentation.

This exclusive gathering of active investors promises to provide a highly effective and prestigious setting for KVC companies to deliver their vision to a captive audience of well-qualified capital sources. For KVC businesses who want to accelerate the process, this could be an ideal opportunity.

Principals from more than one-hundred active private equity and venture capital firms are expected to attend from throughout the country, representing more than $25 billion in capital for early and later-stage companies. In addition, many high net worth investors and a number of leading angel groups will be joining.

The upcoming venue promises to solve the three biggest problems in raising capital 1) identifying qualified investors, 2) gaining credible entrée to them and 3) meeting them under favorable circumstances. Moreover, the event drives the single most important factor in getting funded quickly, and that is ability to create contemporaneous interest among investors, which also can serve to significantly improve deal terms.

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Do you have a new product that’s partially or fully developed and could be ready to launch quickly? A business collaboration to propose? A patented food, packaging or processing technology or other intellectual property that may have application for Kellogg? If so, tell us about your Great Innovation here.

What do they do with your innovation submission? Once Kellogg receives the Great Innovation submission form, your idea will be reviewed by the appropriate Kellogg person(s) to assess our level of interest. Their goal is to get back to you with results of this evaluation within 6 to 8 weeks, though this may vary depending on the complexity of your proposal.

What categories does Kellogg currently compete in?

• Ready-to-eat cereal
• Crackers
• Cookies
• Frozen breakfast
• Wholesome snacks (fruit-flavored snacks and bars)
• Toaster pastries
• Vegetarian offerings
• Frozen entrees
• Health and wellness products (beverages, bars, etc.)

Are there particular areas of interest for Kellogg Company? Yes. While they are always looking for innovative ways to build their existing businesses, they are particularly interested in opportunities that address the following strategic areas:

• Weight/Shape management
• Digestive health
• Natural health
• Convenience/Portability

For more information, go to http://www2.kelloggs.com/GreatIdeas/.

Please ensure you are logged in to the KVC Website.

Click here to download the WebEx Recording of the event.

Click here to download the WebEx player.Â

About Us. Smoking can cause lung cancer, lung disease, heart disease, stroke and cataracts, according to the National Institutes of Health. About one in five U.S. adults, or 45.3 million, smoked in 2006, according to the Atlanta-based CDC.

BetOnMe.com offers smokers the ability to “bet” their support network that they can quit smoking for 1 year. Their friends and family have an opportunity to donate money to the smoker’s mission. If, after 12 months, the people in the support network verify they did not see the quitter smoke, the quitter keeps the cash. If not, however, the money is routed to the supporter’s favorite charity.

The Science. Betonme.com’s hypothesis is that people respond positively to financial incentives when quitting and this claim is supported by independent medical studies. A recent study funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and sponsored by General Electric revealed that people who are paid to stop smoking are about three times more likely to quit and not have another cigarette than those given no cash, a study found. GE spends about $50 million each year on health care for smokers, a figure that does not include the cost of lost productivity. GE, the biggest maker of jet engines and the owner of the NBC-Universal media unit, employs about 152,000 people in the U.S.

Almost 15 percent of study participants who were given money as a reward were still not smoking six months after quitting compared with 5 percent in the group that didn’t get the cash incentive, research in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine found. Some people in both groups eventually started smoking again after the financial offers ended.

Those in the financial incentives group received $100 for completing the smoking-cessation program, $250 for not smoking within six months after enrolling in the study and $400 for abstinence after six months more, confirmed by saliva or urine tests. After an additional six months, 9.4 percent of the paid group still wasn’t smoking though they were no longer receiving cash rewards, compared with 3.6 percent of the other group.

Market Potential. With 45 Million smokers in the US and 70% Internet connectivity, there are 31 million internet connected smokers. 10% of that group can afford a $250 bet that they can quit. Double that figure to account for the support network’s contribution and that is a $1.5 B market. Bet on me keeps 5% of the transaction representing a $77M market potential.

Social Mission. Smoking is the top cause of preventable death in the U.S., responsible for killing about 438,000 people each year, according to the study. Getting one person to stop smoking can save businesses about $3,400 a year by boosting productivity, decreasing absenteeism and reducing illnesses, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Future Potential. A study by Volpp in December in the Journal of the American Medical Association also found that people who were paid to lose weight dropped 13 to 14 pounds on average after 16 weeks, compared with a loss of 3.9 pounds by those who didn’t get the cash incentive. Bet On Me will launch into these and additional healthy lifestyle initiatives in later stages of development.

For more information about this business, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

IDnet Mesh is a patent pending technology platform that provides a unified solution to a host of web-based business needs by effectively tying and disseminating user identity on the Internet in a secure way. Moreover, it enables the powerful “one account per user” policy which can greatly benefit numerous Web sites. The initial deployment of an IDnet Mesh can be achieved by inspiring such sites to join for their mutual benefits. Sites like:

• Threadless.com who use voting to get the consensus of users can make their voting results much more trustworthy by joining the IDnet Mesh, since no single user is able to subvert a result by registering a large number of accounts for the voting due to the one account per user policy.
• Amazon and eBay who rank products by averaging the scores provided by reviewers can exploit the IDnet Mesh to ensure that their results are not biased.
• Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace can use the IDnet Mesh to effectively deter cyber bullies, spammers, and vandals, thereby significantly improving the quality of their services.

Interoperability among sites is key to the future growth of social networking, as pointed out by a recent World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) report. IDnet Mesh fosters such interoperability, making smaller sites become much stronger as a result of their common effort.

IDnet Mesh Features:

• Provides forensic evidence of its users.
• Provides secure Internet single sign-on tools. A user no longer needs to create and remember different passwords for different sites. Instead, he or she can easily log in to many different sites using a cheap, secure, and easy to use smart card based Internet passport.
• Provides efficient tools for each site to dynamically manage the list of trusted sites that have joined the IDnet Mesh.
• Highly scalable – it can scale to serve billions of Internet users.
• Highly reliable – it is a reliable distributed system that offers high system fault tolerance.
• Highly secure – its service is resilient to eavesdropping, man-in-the-middle attacks, replays attacks, and IP spoofing attacks, etc.

There are many business opportunities that IDnet Mesh can address:

• An application that enables trust between online employees and employers so work can be found and performed online without having to expose identity information to either party.
• An application that enables entrepreneurs to find and contract with trusted subject matter experts in other countries without ever meeting them face-to-face.
• An application that enables peace of mind when an online relationship becomes a real life date.
• An advanced social networking service “so-called virtual real society”, where the trust and true collaboration among people who never met before become possible.
• An application that enables the protection of teenagers from online predators.
• An application that enables the suppression of online job scams.
• An application that preserves Internet user anonymity AND enforces Internet user liability.
• A common service that enables Web sites to be resilient to distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

The researchers who developed IDnet Mesh are seeking support from the KVC community to commercialize this technology.  For more information, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

You can click here to view the business plan presentation.

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The KVC holds regular Business Concept Review Meetings and other special events providing a forum for ideas to be developed, constructively challenged, enhanced, and ultimately launched as business ventures. Community members value learning from their KVC interactions and experiences and believe that through the community’s “active networking” platform, prosperous relationships, essential innovations, and landscape-altering businesses can be built.

Participants began the night with a Questions and Answers session designed to raise awareness of KVC’s mission and objectives for newcomers.  KVC Co-chair, Kenneth Jones, presented a history of the Community and outlined a framework for the event that was designed to present business plans to a group of executives capable of “fostering mutually beneficial relationships between community members”. The meeting goal was to “gather around the strategic planning table,” identify solutions to real challenges facing KVC business presenters, and identify teams of KVC community members willing to help.

The night continued with a networking dinner at the James Allen Center providing attendees the opportunity to learn about each other’s business and start the process of partnering together to achieve business goals. After dinner, two hours of business plan presentations and breakout sessions successfully raised awareness of the specific KVC ventures:

• Element Bars presented by Jonathan Miller
• FireBlocks presented by Christian Baxter
• GreenChoice Bank presented by Jon Levey
• Ferveo Technology presented by Farrukh Kahn
• Bay Mantra presented by Naren Patil and Sathya Krishnamurth
• Lygase Solutions presented by Ketrus Collins

Before adjourning the meeting, the KVC leadership team reiterated its commitment to mobilize the KVC community by leading debrief sessions with each presenter and facilitating meetings between presenters and community members. The results from these team-based relationships will culminate over the coming months and be communicated through the KVC website and press releases.Â

In attendance was Mitchell Petersen, Director of the Heizer Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the Kellogg School of Management, who outlined the important role the KVC plays both in the Kellogg academic community, as well as in solving larger economic problems. Professor Petersen, the Glen Vasel Professor of Finance, focuses on empirical corporate finance and the issues surrounding how firms evaluate potential investment projects and how they fund such projects. At the event, he provided critical input that ensured KVC prepares its businesses for the trials and tribulations all entrepreneurs face in sustaining their venture.

Also in attendance was Barry Merkin, who teaches entrepreneurship courses in both the MBA and Executive Management Programs. He has been faculty advisor to four Kellogg teams in the MOOT CORP Business Plan Competitions; all teams were finalists and one was the World Champion. Professor Merkin contributed to the session by providing leadership and guidance to KVC event organizers and helped ensure KVC created both an entertaining and informative discussion.

The next KVC Business Concept Review Meeting is planned for the January/February timeframe and announcements will be forthcoming. These meetings are just some of the many events planned for this year, all designed to support the specific objectives of the KVC organization:

• Ensure that Kellogg innovators have access to the constructive feedback, input and support they need to develop their ideas into successful ventures
• Facilitate the matching of community members who have specific entrepreneurial needs with those experts and resources capable of fulfilling them
• Develop and maintain an active network of Kellogg students and alumni who are committed to helping each other create game-changing, disruptive and successful business ventures
• Proactively educate our community members in order to stay ahead of changing economic and market trends, utilize progressive tools and methodologies, and engage in new ways of thinking to help make their ventures successful and sustainable
• Foster opportunities and connections that benefit KVC members and the Community as a whole.

The Kellogg Venture Community: Turning innovators into entrepreneurs.

For more information about how the KVC can help you achieve your entrepreneurial goals, visit us at: www.kelloggventurecommunity.com or join the Kellogg Venture Community Group on LinkedIn.

You may also contact the KVC directly by emailing: info@kelloggventurecommunity.com

As Christiansen writes in his bestselling books, The Innovator’s Dilemma, The Innovator’s Solution, and Seeing What’s Next, long-term success requires developing strategies around disruptive innovations which either create new markets or reshape existing markets by delivering relatively simple, convenient, low-cost innovations to a set of customers who are ignored by industry leaders.

Historically, companies that dominate an industry have had little interest in pursuing these types of innovations because profit margins are often lower and the innovations don’t address the needs of those companies’ best customers. To learn how entrepreneurs can use the Disruptive Innovation Theory to gain an edge over powerful incumbents, listen to KVC’s audio programming which includes 5-minute abstracts from Seeing What’s Next.

An excerpt from Seeing What’s Next: Using the Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change by By Clayton M. Christensen, Scott D. Anthony and Erik A. Roth.Â

This promotional audio abstract has been provided by Audible.com. Audible: audio that speaks to you wherever you are.

This promotional audio abstract has been provided by Audible.com. Audible: audio that speaks to you wherever you are.

This promotional audio abstract has been provided by Audible.com. Audible: audio that speaks to you wherever you are.

Click here to complete the online KVC business presentation feedback form!

There is an RSVP form to be used for all KVC Community members who wish to attend in person, via Internet (Webex), or for those who wish to view the proceedings online after the event has been recorded. Registration for this event will close at midnight on October 2nd, 2009.

Click here to RSVP for this event!

We will hear from 3-5 business concept leaders and have the opportunity to discuss the concepts as well as form mutually beneficial relationships. If you are interested in presenting a business concept to the audience, you will need to submit a business concept presentation by September 20th, 2009.Â

Present your business concept at the October 17th meeting!

If you have any questions, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com or check out the website at www.kelloggventurecommunity.com for more information.

-The KVC Team

Our CEO is Harold L. Sherman, who has decades of experience in community banking in Chicago, particularly in turnaround situations. Jon A. Levey (Chief Lending Officer) brings experience on both sides of the table as a lender at LaSalle Bank and as a borrower in his own real estate development and private entrepreneurial endeavors. Ken Kline (CFO) has been in financial, operational, and compliance roles at community banks for the last 30 years and Steve Sherman (COO) has been a lender as well as occupying various strategy/operations roles at LaSalle, most recently working as the strategic advisor to Larry Richman, the CEO of LaSalle prior to the Bank of America acquisition. See our website (www.greenchoicebank.com) for more detailed bios of the management team and Board.

Parents have started seeking quality supplemental education. These supplemental programs add to the already stressful lifestyle since these programs demand considerable time and effort from the parents as well as the children. In return, the children get virtually no attention, very dry course content and additional work load for an activity that is not engaging and fun. These programs maintain a separate curriculum unrelated to their school curriculum. They are expensive and are out of reach for a large portion of the parents. All of these issues have resulted in parents scrambling to care for their children, resource constraints on schools and degrading child performance due to lack of engagement and discipline!

Our solution brings the concept of community to a child’s education. It brings together several interest groups like children, parents, teachers and schools together and to generate innovative user-generated course content to augment the built-in core content. The solution integrates education, lifestyle and social networking aspects of the students and parents lives to create an ‘EduNetwork’. The solution would offer students lessons, tests and quizzes based on their curriculum, with the flexibility of repetition and self-paced learning.

Learning content would be delivered as rich multimedia, integrating learning with fun. Incentives, in the form of free online games, would be provided to students who excel in their tests, thus motivating the students to improve their educational performance or stay ahead of their supplemental curriculum. Parents can manage their children’s profile, access to lessons as well as monitor their children’s absolute or relative performance through a variety of tools (e-mails, alerts or dashboards). Interactive analytics would be provided as a premium service to parents to identify the areas of improvement for their children. Parents would receive real-time support and guidance from qualified teachers and educational professionals. The system would also integrate the offline and online educational systems by bringing in active participation from teachers and schools, featuring pod casts of local school events, etc. Teachers would be able to collaborate and contribute content (audio, video, lessons, and pod casts) and would get a share of the revenue as well as recognition when the user buys their content based on the user ratings. This creates a strong incentive for teachers to collaborate and form the community that leads to an explosive viral growth. Feedback on content would be provided through ratings and user feedback systems. A community environment would be created through message boards, kids clubs or study groups.

For more information about this business concept, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

The average large super market generates $25MM per store in annual revenue and only $500K per store in net profit. According to several industry studies, an additional $1MM of profit is lost due to the following in-store inefficiencies: excessive inventory investments, excessive labor costs, excessive losses due to out-of-stocks, excessive losses due to theft (shrink), consumers facing out of date products and facing inadequate assortment of products.

Using our patent-pending ShelfMeter(tm) technology, a retail store would recover at least an additional $250K in net profit, increasing the per store profitability by at least 50%, yet costing the store only $40K per year, an ROI of over 600%. Ferveo Technology’s patent-pending ShelfMeter(tm) system is the first comprehensive approach to dealing with these issues effectively. The system literally lives on the shelf reporting continuously and accurately shelf inventory levels, stocking and depletion pattern changes and out-of-stocks within the last two feet of the supply chain.

The system uses a patent-pending electromagnetic sensing approach that accurately counts the number of items on the shelf, using the electromagnetic properties (“electromagnetic signature”) of an item. The same technique allows the system to sense when a different type of item, is placed on the particular slot (facing). The system offers a much more affordable solution when compared to solutions such as weight sensing, RFID and light sensing. The ShelfMeter(tm) system therefore creates a practical and real opportunity for the grocery store environment to truly evolve into a much more efficient system than what exists today.

Though we have had an operating prototype of the complete solution in our office in Evanston, we have recently developed a 3rd generation solution which is seamless to install in any environment. The latest version of the ShelfMetertm includes sensors that are as thin as table mats and that can be placed on any shelf, and take less than 5 seconds to install with no training. The ShelfMeter(tm), using standard RF technology (FCC certified ZigBee technology) communicates shelf-level data to a PC in a store which has a data base utilizing an OLAP analytical schema, that is compliant with SAAS, MicroStrategy, Business Objects and Cognos business intelligence tools. Additionally, our back-end database is compliant with space management systems and provides seamless integration between planograms and ShelfMeter sensors, allowing automated resetting, monitoring and adjustments of shelf inventory. The data warehouse technology stores data and generates web-based and mobile device based alerts delivered to store clerks, supply chain systems such as SAP or store delivery systems.

We have recently completed a successful pilot at one of the largest grocery retailers in the US and are working with them and other leading retailers on next steps. We are building business cases with retail partners will demonstrate the value of our solution, provide evidence of its significant ROI, and convince other retailers and manufacturers to join the program. Independent of that effort we are also targeting Direct Store Delivery (DSD) suppliers such as Coke and Pepsico. These suppliers generally support very high volume products, plagued by stock outs, and requiring heavy labor support daily in each store.

For more information about this business, please email Farrukh Khan at farrukh@ferveotech.com.

For examples of these resources, click here.

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KVC Businesses Update:  We are currently accepting and reviewing business concepts for presentation and discussion at the October 17^th KVC Business Concept Review meeting. This forum gives entrepreneurs the opportunity to reach a broad audience of potential executive advisors and supporters. One example is Jonathan Miller, founder of Element Bars, who was recently seen on ABC’s SharkTank reality show. Jonathan’s abstract and SharkTank episode, as well as the business abstracts of other submitted business concepts, can be found on our website. KVC leadership will be reviewing these abstracts in the coming weeks to select the best mix of business presentations for our October 17^th meeting.

For a complete list of the businesses we are working on, click here.

KVC Goes Global: We would like to welcome our global partners to the KVC. The KVC business concept proceedings will be broadcast via webcast as well as recorded for future playback by KVC members. At last count, we had 9 different countries represented in the RSVP list for the next meeting, including:

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Canada

Germany

Hong Kong

India

Netherlands

Singapore

Switzerland

United States

United Kingdom

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Thanks all. We really appreciate all the support and especially the support of the KVC Committee Chairs who have donated so much of their time to make KVC successful.

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Thanks.

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Ken and David

FireBlocks is currently fundraising to develop a facility to manufacture FireBlocks in the Northeast. At present, they plan to raise up to $750K (in $150K installments) in exchange for ~25% of the Company over the next twelve months. They would like to discuss possible financing alternatives, as well as seek out mentor / advisor relationships from the community.

For more information about this business concept, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

ElementBars.com entrepreneur, Jonathan Miller, is currently working full-time on ElementBars.com and was most recently featured on the ABC primetime show Shark Tank (shown above).

ElementBars.com lets users design their own custom energy bars by selecting organic and conventional ingredients and then naming their bar. Users who want proven taste and nutrition can customize a “popular bar” that has received the most positive reviews by other users of ElementBars.com.

Each energy bar is hand made, packaged, and then labeled with its custom bar name and nutritional information. Element Bars is committed to using unprocessed or minimally processed elements in each bar to retain the most nutritional value.

As an undergraduate at Northwestern, Jonathan Miller started his first company, GetCheapBooks.com, after becoming fed up paying outrageous prices for his textbooks. After undergrad, Jonathan honed his analytical skills at ZS Associates, a global sales and marketing consulting firm, while continuing to grow GetCheapBooks.com on the side. In 2005, Jonathan left consulting to run the rapidly growing GetCheapBooks.com full time. In 2006, Jonathan entered business school at Kellogg School of Management to continue his entrepreneurial education and refine several new business ideas. In 2007, Jonathan was a finalist in the NU Venture Challenge (a cross-Northwestern business plan competition) with AtHomeQ, a business that would “home-source” doctor’s calls. In 2008, Jonathan was again a finalist in the NU Venture Challenge with ElementBars.com, a custom energy bar company. In that same year, Jonathan also won the Kellogg business plan competition (the Kellogg Cup) with True Yardage, a company that provides an advanced golf GPS solution for GPS enables cells phones (such as Blackberries).

For more information on ElementBars or any of Jonathan’s businesses, email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

·        During start up – how do they provide specialty expertise to the government when they don’t have a GSA schedule or other contract vehicle to work through?Â

·        If they are slightly more established – how do they partner with the right larger firms that provide additional vehicles and expertise and help them broaden their service offerings?Â

·        As they conquer these obstacles – how do they establish their business operation, present the image of an established firm, self fund their growth through acquisition of new contracts, and avoid taking additional loans and equity investors? Â

·        Once they get too big – how do they maintain their government designated small business or HubZone status?

All small businesses in this arena deal with these challenges and each one spends valuable start-up capital solving the exact same problems. Our vision is create a facility in the Washington DC metro are called the Center for Small Business Innovation. The purpose of this facility would be to supply resources to small businesses in our region that enables them to reduce operating costs, develop more innovative proposals and service offerings, and allow them to realize their true growth potential. The center will provide them access to leased office space, state of the art information technology resources, business services (such as accounting, payroll, contract law, training, etc), right-sized conference center facilities, small business loans, and access to government contract vehicles (GSA schedule, MOBIS, and other state and local vehicles). By co-locating and collaborating with other consulting service businesses, our tenants realize improved brand awareness and increased brand strength by being part of an interconnected network focused on innovation and collaboration. The center will have the brand awareness of a top 5 consulting firm with the agility of a startup.

The Center for Small Business Innovation will strive to create the “Silicon Valley” of healthcare consulting services – a place where innovation happens and start-ups prosper.   President Obama’s small business revitalization efforts make this an ideal time to peruse this initiative. The management team that institutionalizes this initiative stands to generate significant income as this business model is easily replicated after the successful management processes are established and documented. Additionally, this opportunity serves as a platform to launch countless business ventures that serve the small businesses in the area as well as the federal government as a whole.

For more information about this business concept, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

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For the busy professional, Party-to-Go provides the simplicity, speed, and convenience which allows less time to be wasted on setup and more time to be spent enjoying our family and friends. Party-to-Go is great for all types of outdoor social events – kids sporting events, tailgating with friends, picnicking, and family vacations.

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Here are just some of the many features:

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·        Easy transportation with its specially designed hitch mount

·        Convenient wheels for moving it to and from your vehicle

·        Efficiently designed cooler keeps food cold in the summer and warm in the winter

·        Cleverly concealed compartments for plates, utensils, and accessories combines high functionality with great aesthetics

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For more information about this business concept or to volunteer to become a business concept mentor, please email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

To help people better understand the KVC process, we have developed the following process flow which tells the story of a woman named Christine who is a second year Kellogg EMBA student.Â

Christine works in the health care industry and recognizes the need for health care reform; both from a policy perspective as well as a commercial perspective. She is also an avid KVC community member.

Click here to see how the KVC process helps Christine in her entrepreneurial endeavors.

Christine attends an educational event sponsored by the KVC. At the event she is inspired by a presentation given by Robert Wolcott, an innovation and corporate entrepreneurialism lecturer at the Kellogg School of Management.Â

Inspired by this event, she realizes that by leveraging nurse practitioners and physician assistants, she could establish a lower cost option for general and family medicine that diagnoses and treats 90% of the common reasons why people make appointments with their general physician. But will insurance companies pay for this service? Are there government regulations that prohibit this service and force health related entrepreneurs to abide by the current value network? Clearly this requires more research.

Click here to move to the next step in the KVC process.

Click here to see a list of upcoming KVC events.

Christine leverages the power of the KVC network. She starts by submitting a business concept abstract to the KVC system. In her submission, she describes a high level vision and requests resources to help her analyze this opportunity from a feasibility standpoint.

She is contacted by a KVC director who provides an overview of the KVC process and what her options are. Her next step is to develop a business concept presentation for the next business concept review meeting which is held on a quarterly basis.

Click here to move to the next step in the KVC Process.

Submit your business concept for resource matching!

Christine receives and email from a KVC Director that has the business concept presentation template that she will use to present at the business concept review meeting. CCed on the email is a list of six KVC members who have previously volunteered to be KVC business concept mentors.

Immediately after she receives the email, she also receives and email from one of the KVC mentors, Chuck, who offers his support. He has a health care background and can help her sort through partnering with health care insurance providers. Chuck feels that he can find several insurance companies that are willing to talk about this concept as long as there are no regulations that prohibit this type of service. He is also willing to review the business concept presentation and serve as a sounding board for Christine.

Click here to move on to the next step of the KVC process.

Click here to sign up to be a KVC business concept mentor.

Christine, Chuck and the KVC Directors have developed, reviewed, and revised Christine’s business concept presentation. She is scheduled for and presents at the Business Concept Review Meeting in front of 60 of her Kellogg peers. In her presentation, she asks the KVC community for resources:  1) She still needs someone to help her sort through the insurance regulations. 2) She needs a resource that is proficient in business to business marketing, particularly in the health care area. 3) With the help of he KVC mentors, she also has developed financial projections that indicate that she needs $300K in cash to get started and needs advice on how to make that happen.

The presentation is well received but the audience identifies a list of 5 or 6 important questions that need to be answered in her implementation plan. Mary and Pat, both attendees at the meeting, know people that are experts in those areas and offer to stay in close contact with Christine to help her answer the outstanding questions. Christine, Pat, Mary, and Chuck all agree that they have the expetise needed to put together a business plan.

Additionally, Dave, who works for a health care focused Private Equity firm wants to stay in close contact with the team. He feels that if they can put together a strong business plan, that he can facilitate an introduction to his managing director. The team is energized and agrees to move forward with developing a plan.

Click here to move on to the next step in the KVC process.

Click here to attend the next business concept meeting.

Christine has successfully led the team including Mike, Dave, Chuck, Mary, and Pat to develop a comprehensive business plan that shows that this vision provides a great solution to the market’s health care cost issues and will be profitable. During the business plan development, they met with several health care policy people who were intrigued by the size and breadth of the team pulled together to address this business need. According to these experts, the regulations concerning this service offering will be changing on January 1st and this is a great time to be launching this business.Â

During the plan development, the team also reaches an equity agreement. For their continued involvement, the team members will each receive 3% equity in the newly formed company.Â

Christine collaborates with the KVC Directors who offer to get Christine’s business concept presented at the next National Angel Investors Forum to be held at the Yale Club (in 6 weeks) – a group of 150+ angel investors, venture capitalists, and private equity firms searching for viable business ideas to fund. In order to ensure that the business plan is accepted and ready for presentation on a national stage, KVC will facilitate the review of the business plan by a team of KVC community members.

KVC directors reach out again to the community and facilitate the formation of a business plan review team. This team is a multi-disciplinary team of accomplished executives who have volunteered to do a detailed review of the plan. They uncover 6 questions that were not fully answered in the plan and Christine’s team addresses these issues iin their final draft.

Click here to move to the next step in the process.

Click here to see a complete list of funding and expert resources in the KVC network.

Christine and and her team present at the National Investors Forum in New York City. In response to their presentation, they receive  invitations to work with 3 venture capital firms to refine their funding estimates.  After several weeks, Christine and the team receive the first round of funding to launch the business.

Christine is currently launching her first nurse practitioner family medical practice and holds routine meetings with he executive advisors – Mike, Chuck, Mary, and Pat – in order to continue to leverage their expertise in the ongoing management of her practice.

Click here to see the final step in the KVC process.

Click here to email KVC Directors to find out how KVC can help you achieve your entrepreneurial goals.

Christine shares her story at a KVC event where she presents to 2nd year EMP students and Community members about the benefits of the KVC collaborative model. In addition, Christine serves as a KVC mentor and actively participates in one other KVC originated start-up. She serves as a health care related subject matter expert on KVC business plan review teams.

Click here to view the business concepts we are working on!Â

babbleshop.com’s platform also enables “we-commerce” by enabling any online or local retailer to have access to an online marketplace. Our solution brings together the trifecta of buying, selling and advertising into one unique platform. We offer retailers/distributors/manufacturers (sellers) to list their product on a tiered pricing basis which means the more the product sells, the cheaper it gets. This tiered structure and the desire to obtain the lowest possible pricing will entice buyers to circulate the offer throughout their social graph. Our technology will track the movement of each deal and offer this data to the sellers in order to help them identify key buyers who help move most of the product. These individuals can further be approached with specific promotional offers.

Since we have no listing fees, we are going after the traditional eBay seller who has to pay to list a product and then wait for a buyer to show up and has to deal with each transaction individually. The same seller can list their product on our platform, pay only when a transaction occurs and can also get insights into how their listing traverses the Internet. We also intend to allow buyers to congregate and form buying groups where they can show interest in a product, make a group around it and attract potential sellers.

Our projected revenue streams are from:

·        Transaction fees charged to sellers

·        Pro accounts that feature advanced analytics (both for buyers and sellers)

·        Subscription to data feeds of buyer’s buying patterns (for manufacturer’s, retailers and distributors)

The company is looking to raise $800k to fund development efforts in order to reach the first milestone of revenue generation. For more information, email info@kelloggventurecommunity.com.

Opportunity to Reach Angel Investors and More than One-Hundred of the Nation’s Leading Private Equity & Venture Capital Firms

Message to Select Early and Later-Stage Companies Seeking Capital:

As an Executive Sponsor of New York Private Equity Forums, the Tri-State Private Investors Network is pleased to extend an invitation for you to apply to present at their upcoming event, Private Equity XXV: 2009 National Venture Summit & Growth Capital Forum being held on Thursday, September 24th in the Grand Ballroom of the Yale Club New York. Started in 2001, more capital sources attend these “deal-oriented” / “investor-only” venues each year than any other conferences of their kind in the U.S. This exclusive gathering of active investors can provide a highly effective and prestigious setting for your company to deliver its vision to a captive audience of well-qualified capital sources. If you are not funded yet and want to accelerate the process, this could be an ideal opportunity. As only a limited number of Presenter slots are available, I recommend that you apply as soon as possible.

Principals from more than one-hundred active private equity and venture capital firms are expected to attend from throughout the country, representing more than $25 billion in capital for early and later-stage companies. In addition, many high net worth investors and a number of leading angel groups will be joining us. As these events are not supported by paid sponsors, they are not heavily populated by service providers or vendors who would have no interest in investing in your company. The investor venue created this forum can significantly reduce the cost of finding capital as well as the time necessary to raise it, particularly in this current market with fewer active players and tougher investment criteria.

The upcoming venue can help you solve the three biggest problems is raising capital 1) identifying qualified investors, 2) gaining credible entrée to them and 3) meeting them under favorable circumstances. Moreover, the event drives the single most important factor in getting funded quickly, and that is ability to create contemporaneous interest among investors, which also can serve to significantly improve deal terms.

To assist in evaluating the venue, a list of several hundred current and prior attendees can be found under at www.privateequityforums.net with web links where available. If your company is selected to present, Founding Sponsor, M. J. Segal Associates, can provide you with introductions to any of the firms listed on the conference website, irrespective of their attendance at the upcoming event. As you know, in many cases, companies can pay investment bankers up to several hundred thousand dollars in front-end fees and monthly retainers to gain access to these types of investment groups. Companies presenting at this forum gain the same entrée at only a small fraction of that cost, notwithstanding the inherent efficiency of the symposium. Because this event draws from all over the country, it’s a most cost-effective way for Presenters to meet investors from outside of their particular regions. You should also be aware that the majority of guests are partners, founders and managing directors of their respective firms; affording the featured companies a chance to reach senior people from the outset.

With respect to the Presenter qualifications, the event sponsors favor companies with some revenues, but will also consider pre-revenue development-stage companies with new platform technology or some proof of concept. Revenues forecast by the third year following funding should approach $15 to $20 million. Preferred industry sectors are Information Management Systems, Enterprise Software, Business Process Management, Computer Technology, Wireless Technology, Telecommunications, Energy Technology, Network Hardware and Software, Healthcare Services, Education & Training, Medical Devices, Manufacturing Technology, New Media and Publishing, Internet-Based Business Solutions, Life Sciences, Distance Learning, Financial Services, Consumer Marketing, Specialty Retail, Outsourced Business Services and Supply Chain Management. Other sectors may also be considered with sufficient growth potential.

Please keep in mind that this event distinguishes itself from many other venues in several key respects. Here are a few of them.

1. Nearly 100% of the guests (not connected with the presenting companies) are active investors who have PAID to attend.
2. Presenting companies reach a national audience of qualified funding sources focusing on early-stage opportunities.
3. Only 12 to 15 companies are featured on the program which provides for high visibility to investors.
4. The events are not sponsor supported and accordingly not heavily populated with service providers.
5. There are no concurrent activities or competing presentations. All companies present to the entire audience.
6. Companies are never more than 10 to 20 minutes from their breakout sessions after they present.Â
7. These are “deal-oriented” events. There are no panels or other distractions from putting the spotlight on the presenters.
8. The majority of the attendees are principals of the private equity or venture capital firms whom they represent.
9. Presenters can plan for the forums in advance as we provide confirmed guest information prior to the conference dates.

I sincerely believe that if a company’s potential is truly compelling, and that management’s vision can be effectively communicated, it will not find a more cost-effective way to reach potential funding sources directly, than by presenting at the upcoming event. Again, this is a unique opportunity to get your message across in “one place and in one day” to active serious investors who want to see fundable deals.

Website: http://www.vcaonline.com/ http://www.vcaonline.com/database/index.htm