It’s hard to believe that 2010 marks the 10th anniversary of moving to Idaho for my wife Pam and I, as well as the 10th anniversary of starting Highway 12 Ventures. Looking at our children though, it’s clear that time has indeed marched on. Our ten year-old son was only a couple of months old [...]
Archive for the ‘Innovation’ Category
Mar
10
Mar
02
Disruptive Technology is $#!%
One of the most exciting things in business is to create or ride the wave of a disruptive technology or business. It is exhilarating, incredibly fast paced and has a growth rate that can create stretch marks bigger than delivering octuplets (I think, I don’t actually have direct experience with carrying/delivering, or even doing [...]
Jan
21
Big Company Blues? It’s A Great Time To Make The Jump to A Start-Up
Imagine you’re a successful 10+ year veteran at HP, Micron, Oracle or some other behemoth technology company and one day John, a co-worker approaches you and says “ Hey Dave, Mary and I are meeting for a couple of beers tonight, we’ve got a great idea for a start-up, care to join us?” Would you [...]
Jan
13
The Future Of Innovation In Idaho
(The following is an open letter to members of the Idaho Legislature)
Dear Idaho Legislator,
As the father of a 9 and 11 year old, “why?” “how come?” and “can you explain?” are very, very common questions in my house these days. Inquisitiveness… Where does this come from? I need look no further than my son and [...]
Sep
29
5 Minutes With John O’Donnell
John O’Donnell is the founder and Executive Director of TechRanch, an absolutely terrific incubator in Bozeman, Montana whose purpose is to help tech entrepreneurs grow their businesses faster, more efficiently and with less investment capital than they could otherwise. TechRanch has developed expertise in bootstrapping, recruiting talent in rural markets, raising capital outside of the [...]
Jun
18
Simplicity - A Powerful Value Proposition
Every day I see, or read about, some new productivity tool that promises to make it easier to manage all of the information and/or complexity that seems to be growing exponentially in my life. I don’t have a lot of extra time, so it is such a pleasant surprise when I find a new product [...]
Jun
01
TechLaunch and IdaVation Wrapup
In Boise last week, we had two wonderful events: TechLaunch business plan competition and Idavation.
Phil Reed and I had the pleasure of participating as judges for TechLaunch and it is certainly refreshing to see the ideas and teams coming out of the universities and start-up community. Congratulations to all on getting to this point.
Idavation was [...]
Apr
05
Idaho: Plant Innovation Seeds Now For Tomorrow’s Growth
As I was reading one of the Idaho Statesman’s recent articles about Micron’s latest round of layoffs, I was struck by the reaction of one of our legislators. This particular gentleman was quoted as saying “It’s a shock. I’ve been through three or four of these. You think you see things that show we’re hitting [...]