The Right Time

Finding the perfect time to do anything is frequently a challenge.  I’m never quite sure when to buy a new cell phone.  I always want the latest and the greatest, but the early adopters always pay a premium.  Should you forgo the technological improvements in order to wait until your contract is due, or bite the bullet and pay full price for improved functionality?  It’s hard to undervalue improved productivity, but are these really features that make a difference?

The stock market is even more challenging.  The volatility in the recent months has made securities investing riskier and harder to swallow.  Countless people have watched portfolio values cut in half, when long proven technical wisdom suggests that securities values always increase in the long term.  It’s hard to self-justify that our economic downturn is just another bump in the road.  But obviously, there are some undervalued equities out there, and clear thinking opportunists will profit.

It’s the same with entrepreneurship.  There are always good reasons why this is not the right time to pursue a new opportunity or start your own venture.  At the same time, change always opens the door to new possibilities.  The wrong time for one person represents the sweet spot of golden opportunity for the next.

At OCTANe we try not to encourage people to take new risks, but rather, try to help those that are committed to finding new opportunities.  Unemployment rates and “under-employment” rates (referring to those that are working in situations that fail to utilize an employee’s full potential) are estimated at 15-20%.  At the same time, the pool of available technical talent is arguably at an all time high.  Investors are wary of unproven technologies and reluctant to fund companies that don’t have a clear pathway to exit or commercial success.  At the same time, there is a pool of un-invested capital sitting on the sidelines looking for the right opportunity.  Simultaneously, companies looking to maintain focus in their strategic directions are divesting valuable technologies at discount prices.  Universities, in the face of reduced public and private support, are still the epicenters of innovation, and are highly motivated to license new, inventive technologies.

So, while I am not sure if I should purchase the new iPhone 3GS, and while it’s hard to stomach the volatility of the S&P 500, I am convinced that innovation will be the catalyst of our nation’s economic recovery.  And while there are many good reasons not to start a new business in 2009, in many regards, the variables associated with success are highly supportive of entrepreneurship.

At OCTANe, we act as a networking hub to combine talented individuals, innovative technologies, and educated investors.  Our goal is to help new companies get started, assist young companies in achieving their desired success and profitability, encourage the creation of new jobs in Orange County, and ultimately aid in our economy’s return to stability, growth, and prosperity.  This is the right time for OCTANe.

If you understand, you’re falling behind the curve

Last week I attended the OCTANe program on digital advertising, and aside from the frightening Orwellian aspects of the evolving internet, I was absolutely fascinated and overwhelmed by the information revolution and the new business models that it conceives.

OCTANe's Digital Advertising Program

One of the companies presenting was Brand Affinity Technologies (BAT) and their CEO, Ryan Steelberg was not only charismatic, but also thinking 3-5 years ahead of most of my contemporaries.  The second presenter was Mike Hodges from Freedom Communications, the parent company of the Orange County Register and 20-30 other newspapers.  By the end of his talk I felt like such a prisoner of antiquated technologies, I canceled my print subscription to the New York Times the next morning.

Charlie Black from Specific Media presented on how advertisements on the internet were becoming user specific.  I always thought that it was uncanny how the internet pop-ups seemed eerily targeted.  Now I understood my own stupidity and that this was on purpose.  I was so looking forward to Scott Christensen’s presentation from CBS Outdoor Advertising anticipating that I had to have a good general understanding of the business model for billboard advertising.  I was crushed when the conversation turned to using cameras to monitor the eyes of the people looking at the billboards, and changing the content based on viewing audience.  I started to think that if you understand everything that these guys are doing and selling, they’re slowing things down too much for you, and in the process you’re falling behind.

Living and working in a high technology sector requires the self confidence to surround yourself with people that know more than you do.  If you need to be the smartest guy in the room all the time, chances are the room’s intellectual evolution will be replaced with stagnation.  But rather, if you resign yourself to be one of the less gifted ones on a particular topic, to fill the room with bleeding edge technology experts, and have the comfort to ask when you don’t understand something, chances are that everyone will ultimately be a little smarter, and the room will emerge ahead of any single individual’s expertise.

Technologies are evolving exponentially.  The capabilities we have today were unfathomable 10 years ago.  It’s hard to say exactly what the future holds, but it is safe to assume the technological advancement in the coming ten years will eclipse that of the last fifty.  Many companies will be unable to keep pace with the meteoric changes in how things get done.  The most successful will be the ones with the self confidence to surround themselves with people that are more advanced than themselves and the courage to admit to their own ignorance thereby curing it.

A human-being? Or a human-doing?

Clearly we have seen better economic times.  Unemployment is at an all time high with the national average at roughly 10% – higher in California.   In May 300,000 jobs were lost – and this was an improvement over previous months where the norm was closer to 600,000.  Projected GNP changes for 2009 are, as Elvis Costello says, “less than zero!”

The federal government is spending at an unprecedented rate in an attempt to stimulate an economic recovery.  There is considerable debate about President Obama’s economic reform activities, and it is probably too early to tell if we are turning the tide or haphazardly spending, but few would argue that the government is sitting idly.  Presidential tenures are often characterized by their first hundred days, and President Obama’s first seven fortnights have been a flurry of activity.  So while it’s hard to say if he’s doing the right things, it would be difficult to criticize him for lack of effort – at least he’s “do-ing.”

This begs the question, are you a human “be-ing” or a human “do-ing?”  All too often we sit not so quietly on the sidelines lamenting about the decline of the economy, the fall of the S&P and our personal portfolios, the state deficit and our increasing taxes, and the loss of jobs.  At the same time, people are lining up to collect the increased benefits associated with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as if this were some sort of baptismal entitlement.  My question is, “If there is a problem in our economy, what are you doing about it?”

Over the past few weeks I have frequently been asked, why did you want to come and work as a part of the OCTANe team?  My response – I want to be a human “do-ing.”  OCTANe’s mission is fueling “innovation development” in Orange County.  We marry entrepreneurs, capital, and technology thereby accelerating entrepreneurship and company development for the technology and biomedical industries.  We work together to get more companies started, funded, and accelerated in OC and surrounding regions.  We teach entrepreneurs what to do and then how to do it.  In so doing, we create jobs, revenues, an increased tax base, and societal value.  These are the activities that will stimulate the economy and will support our nation’s financial recovery.

I can’t say for sure that what I contribute to OCTANe will have an appreciable impact to our nation’s recovery, although I am sure that the OCTANe community will keep these goals and activities at the forefront of their ambitions in supporting and driving innovation.  This is why I want to work at OCTANe.  It’s difficult to predict the timing or the ultimate end points of our acitivities, but there is no doubt that the OCTANe team is a group of “humans do-ing”, not merely “humans be-ing.”