The current financial crisis has shut off venture capitalists’ opportunities to cash in their investments by bringing their portfolio firms to public stock markets. As a consequence, they are currently hesitant to invest in young firms in the first place. However, taken together, the evidence supporting the positive impact of VC on innovation is weak at best. Some innovations, especially less profitable ones, may take more time to be commercialised, but innovation is likely to persist even during this downtime, thanks to scientific curiosity and enthusiasm.

I'm not sure I buy the methodology here. For example, I think the patent system is a sham, so I don't think it has any relationship with innovation.

Companies looking to get VC have a tendency to patent, because VC's think patents signify the realness of an entity they are buying into when the cashflow isn't there, but once the money is in, there is no longer a need for patents. Patents don't come up again until the startup gets sucked into a large entity that uses them as a way of extorting money from competitors.

These facts explain the results found by this study, but the study reaches the bizarre conclusion that the VC funds actually discouraged patent application and that the patents were a product of spontaneous creativity or something. The fact is that patents are filed because the VC wants to see them before they will invest. If you take VC away you'll get less total patents, because there will be no need to patent things. If patents are what you want, VC is a way to get them (although large commercial R&D is probably better). However, patents are not actually what you want. Patents are not innovation.

Real innovation involves bringing a product to market, not coming up with an idea on paper, failing to execute on it, and then suing the guy who did it right. Furthermore, patents do not protect real innovators from established interests while they are trying to bring their product to market. Its just the opposite. Patents are used by the big guys to stop innovation that threatens them. They come up with a bunch of potentially dangerous ideas, lock up patents up them, and then sue anyone who gets near them. Real innovators mostly can't afford patents -- not without capital investments that is. IE not without angels and VC.

Venture capital isn’t crucial to innovation | vox - Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists

Google.com has an algorithm. Regator.com has Kimberly Turner.

She’s 33, an Atlanta magazine writer, and curator of blogs on the young, Decatur-born aggregating Web site. On an Internet increasingly filled with noise and fluff, she sifts through hardly updated, long-forgotten, navel-gazing diatribes to find good writing and interesting discussions. She shuffles the best into categories on Regator, making it easier for users to find quality posts sorted by topic.

Excellent coverage of Regator from @jamieg at the AJC!

Decatur start up aims to find the best blogs | ajc.com

SOB Co-Working
Monday February 2, 2009 at 9:00am
Entrepreneur's Resource Center
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Ste 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 Get Directions
Semi-Open Breakfast Co-working for technology entrepreneurs at Georgia Tech's ATDC's Entrepreneur's Resource Center - a free and open office for entrepreneurs. Begins at 9AM, after the Semi-open breakfast.

Our mission: to benefit from one another while co-working in the fast-paced environment of the ATDC, and demonstrate the need for an open and formal co-working space for Atlanta startups inside ATDC.

We had 8 entrepreneur's show up at the first event last week, and the event is going to be on www.techdrawl.com in their coverage of co-working.

Next week we want to pack it out even more. We had a very productive day - lots of nice chat and work getting done.

SOB Co-Working at Entrepreneur's Resource Center (Monday February 2, 2009) - Upcoming

SOB Co-Working
Monday January 26, 2009 at 9:00am
Entrepreneur's Resource Center
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Ste 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 Get Directions
Co-working for technology entrepreneurs at Georgia Tech's ATDC's Entrepreneur's Resource Center - a free and open office for entrepreneurs.

There is a meeting called "Semi-Open-Breakfast" that some of the tech commercialization people have most mondays, and all tech entrepreneurs are welcome.

So we're going to start co-working at the free offices at the ERC, afterwards.

SOB Co-Working at Entrepreneur's Resource Center (Monday January 26, 2009) - Upcoming

Shotput Ventures - Atlanta's version of Y Combinator. It's less about the money than it is about an opportunity to launch an early, pre-seed stage company. Shotput has between $150,000 to $250,000 to invest in eight to 10 companies, parceling it out $5,000 per company and $5,000 per founder. Each company must have at least two founders, but not more than four. The idea is to give enough money to survive for the summer - the length of the program - and get the company from a mere idea (yes, even on a napkin) to a real product or service.

Catalyst: Atlanta’s Next-Generation Of Capital by Collette McKenna Parker

A hazard of social networking is people will read what you write. Not knowing exactly what prompted your comments, I will admit the area around our airport is a bit of an eyesore, not without crime, prostitution, commercial decay, and a few potholes.

How Not to be a Key Online Influencer | David Henderson - author, journalist

Bjork has partnered with a Reykjavik-based venture capital firm to establish a fund that will invest in socially and environmentally responsible companies that will help restore Iceland's battered economy.

The Icelandic singer launched the venture fund with Audur Capital and given her name to it.

BJORK is intended for investors seeking opportunities in new venture creation and the development of small companies with the objective of helping the recovery of the Icelandic economy.

Bjork turns venture capitalist | Entertainment | Reuters

From this information, you see your end point. Your goal should be to make your company look like the one (or ones) you think would be attractive to potential acquirers. How can you find that out? By examining the acquisitions already made! By looking at past acquisitions, you can learn

* The technology areas that interest acquirers
* The level of development required to attract acquirers’ interest
* Other factors that acquirers consider when examining a purchase

Once you know these things, figuring out your business plan is simple.

Wow... and I thought Michael Blake was just comic relief on startup lounge! :D Oustanding post about creating your business plan by working backwards from Form 8-K filings of your potential acquirers.

"Dood, google will acquire us within 5 years." Oh yeah? What would you have to do and what would you have to achieve for them to consider that, based on their history of acquisitions? Working backwards from the 8-Ks, you can figure that out.

A Roadmap Doesn’t Help You if You Don’t Know Your Destination | Mike Blake is Unblakeable

Today, 1,500 people at Yahoo are losing their jobs, as layoffs across the tech landscape approaches 100,000. But for startups lucky enough to have cash to hire, 1,500 soon-to-be-unemployed Yahoos is a recruiting opportunity.

Video chat startup TokBox (which raised $10 million in August) will be parking a taco truck outside of Yahoo headquarters today, handing out free tacos and job applications. TokBox only has five jobs to fill, so maybe they can make room in the truck for other hiring startups.

Just Got Fired From Yahoo? Have A Taco.

Vegas Launch of MechanixLoop

On November 5th I flew out of Atlanta on my way to Vegas to attend CARS ( Congress of Automotive, Repair, and Service ) which is an ASA sponsored convention that is held along with NACE and SEMA. My mission was to assist Mathew Sweezey in the official US launch of MechanixLoop.com.

The event held much promise for us since we were not only going to have thousands of people walk by our booth but we would get to meet numerous industry experts, companies, and press. This three day adventure into the automotive industry would force us to rapidly adapt pitches, approaches, and goals.

First lets paint a picture of the convention and our location. Imagine a massive convention center holding hundreds of booths similar to any large trade show that you have ever been to. But, instead of being one big square it was more like an L shape with two rows straggling off to the side. At the very end of one of these two rows was our booth on an island. No booths directly on either side and only one behind. This was not the original plan but a few other exhibitors backed out which left us in this predicament.

For MechanixLoop, the plan had not changed. We would still draw people in to tell them our pitch. The only difference now was that we would have to work twice as hard since people would walk near the end or the row but not always down as far as our booth.

Atlanta startup Mechanixloop launches in Vegas.

Vegas Launch of MechanixLoop | JoshSweeney