Meeting Overview:
Building superior teams is the key element to growth and to funding of a startup company, and never more so than in the current difficult economic environment.
When investors consider your business, it is often said the three things they focus on are “management, management and management.” Investors invest in people, and it is the people; the management team that must have the skills and dexterity to succeed where others have failed. Seldom is a business plan carried out precisely on plan – there are pitfalls, changes, choices to be made.
Entrepreneurs are adventurers and explorers – advancing innovation, creating compelling jobs, surmounting unexpected obstacles. Leading edge technology is just a part of the success formula. It takes a team to grow a business. What is a superior team? Who should you be looking for and when? How do you select the right candidates, without settling, without over-relying on a limited network, or the dreaded resume?
How do you attract the mix of talent and experience you need - Talent and experience to fill in the knowledge gaps - to bring maximum value to the investor’s dollar to carry your enterprise to success.
Then, once you have a team in place, how do you keep them engaged. They are looking for challenging yet achievable goals, a working environment that is productive, and focused, a group that challenges themselves and other to be even better. How do you benefit from different perspectives, foster dissent, work collaboratively and keep the team engaged?
Join us March 3, 2009 for a panel presentation by experienced leaders who have led numerous startup companies and investors who have invested in startups based on management. The panel will offer war stories and lessons learned from those who have been there and have the scars to prove it. They will offer different approaches and strategies to selecting and building the management team for your startup company, reducing attrition and retaining your team through to a successful exit.
PANEL
Beth Marcus, CTO, SVP & Founder of Zeemote, Inc. (www.zeemote.com)
Beth has been Founder and CEO of several successful startups, most notably EXOS, Inc., which was venture capital backed and sold to Microsoft in 1996. Since then she has been involved in twelve (12) start-ups in a variety of fields as a founder, investor, or advisor. She has raised equity numerous times and has also done angel investments herself. Several of these ventures have been acquired by public companies. Part-time between then and now, Beth has worked as a consultant providing patent strategy, litigation support and other strategic technology related consulting services. Beth is an acknowledged expert in the hand-device interface space and has been an expert for several of the major players in the industry in support of prior patents litigations. That knowledge and the clear problems in using a cell phone keypad for anything but number entry led her to invention, filing of a patent application, and the founding of Zeemote. Beth has SB and SM in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and a PhD in Biomechanics from the Imperial College, London, where she was a Marshall Scholar. She has more than a dozen patents to her name and numerous publications and public speaking engagements. She has served on the faculty of MIT in the department of Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Marcus has been member of the Board of the MIT Enterprise Forum and the MIT Corporation Visiting Committee in Mechanical Engineering. She is also a current member of the Council for the Arts at MIT.
George Simmons, Investor, Cherrystone Angels and LaunchPad, Head Coach, Derby Management (www.derbymanagement.com).
George has over 20 years of executive operations experience at both public and private companies who have demonstrated profitability growth ranging from 30% to 70% per year. George was the CFO at Digital Products and at Zoom Telephonics. He specializes in early stage to middle market companies with specific experience in manufacturing, distribution, and service companies. Through his hands-on experience as CFO, COO and President, he has demonstrated expertise in a variety of assignments that have led to both stabilizing companies in difficulty and executing successful acquisitions by larger firms. George is also instrumental in leading many of the early stage fundraising campaigns. He is an active member of Cherrystone Angels and of LaunchPad, two of the regions more experienced and heavily respected angel groups. Additionally, George lectures frequently on turnaround strategies and is a guest lecturer in finance at Tufts University Entrepreneurship Leadership Program. In view of this background and expertise, George provides his customers with specific assessment services and hands on execution skills as a part time or interim CFO or COO in addition to directly advising CEO's and Directors in turnaround projects to enable these companies to return to their planned growth.
R. Gregg Stone, Manager, Kestrel Venture Partners (www.kestrelvm.com)
Gregg serves as the sole manager of the general partner of two venture funds, Kestrel Venture Partners and Mass Ventures Equity Partners. He is also an active angel investor. Investments have included companies in the healthcare, software, retail and manufacturing industries. He currently serves as a director of four private companies and as a chairman of another. Past directorships have included IntraServer, merged into LSI Logic, Progressive Technologies, merged into Brooks Automation, and NovaCare, from inception through NYSE listing. Before founding Kestrel in 1996, Gregg worked at Pell, Rudman & Co. Inc. (now Atlantic Trust Company), a Boston-based investment adviser, and served as the general partner of its two venture funds. Gregg joined Pell, Rudman after practicing law at the firm of Hemenway & Barnes in Boston. He holds J.D. and A.B. degrees from Harvard. Gregg serves as a director of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, Summer Search Boston and Camp Pasquaney and as a member of the Board of Managers, which manages three major Boston endowments. He is a trustee emeritus of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
MODERATOR:
Robert A. Adelson, Esq., Partner at Boston law firm Engel & Schultz, LLP (www.engelschultz.com)
Rob has been a corporate and tax attorney since 1977. He began as an associate at major New York law firms Dewey Ballantine and Weil Gotshal & Manges, before returning home to Boston in 1985 where he has since been a partner in small and medium sized firms before joining his present firm in 2004. Rob’s clients are (1) early stage companies, (2) independent consultants, (3) senior executives and key employees, and (4) family businesses. His main practice areas are: Business formation and finance; Commercial contracts, licensing, alliances; Executive employment, stock, options and severance; Trademarks, copyrights; M&A. Rob has worked with companies trying to build management teams and also executives negotiating their terms in joining companies. He is a frequent speaker and author of articles published by Boston Business Journal, Mass High Tech, Family Business Magazine, Genetic Engineering News, Culpepper Letter and others. A member of the MA and NY bars, Rob is also Vice-Chairman of Boston Entrepreneurs’ Network and Board member of 128 Innovation Capital Group board member. He holds degrees from Boston University, B.A., summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Northwestern University (Chicago), J.D., Law Review, New York University, LL.M. in Taxation.
Site and Cost:
5:15 PM Pre-meeting Dinner
Bertucci's Restaurant
475 Winter St., (exit 27B off Route 128), Waltham, MA ("pay-as-you-go")
7:00 - 10:00PM Meeting Presentation
Note: Bay Colony Office Park, Foley Hoag Emerging Enterprise Center, 1000 Winter Street, Suite 4000, Waltham, MA
The meetings are free for ENET members and $20.00 for nonmembers.
No reservations are necessary for either the meeting or dinner.