Starting up | ביבוקס

Introduction
Unlike nature, which evolves according to objective laws of physics, chemistry, and biology, western society has undergone many changes throughout its history, both good and bad, as a result of the personal activity of some of its outstanding leaders. These people have been real social entrepreneurs, who have sought innovative solutions to current problems from ancient to modern times throughout the world. When we examine such leaders, we wonder how they might have changed the existing situation if they had not relied solely on their own personal dreams and visions.

The inherent creativity of entrepreneurs is a great but often little utilized power that advances humanity and civilization. All the main technological achievements of modern society as we know it are based on the work of only several thousand brilliant minds. These pioneers created a universe of order from seemingly nothing. Nevertheless, in thoroughly examining the lives of such great people – political leaders, scientists, artists and others – we very often note that their achievements could have been much more effective or with much less destruction and disruption of normal lives, if they had done things differently, thus avoiding misunderstanding, confusion, and mistakes.

Humanity has gained huge experience in all aspects of its activity and our increasingly sophisticated population is continually trying to learn new technologies in order to ensure a brighter future. This can be best achieved by properly educating new generations, and by providing our future leaders with the most up-to-date and relevant knowledge. In this way, we will achieve the best results with the minimum number of mistakes and unexpected problems and with the maximum utilization of resources and monetary outlay. However in a very new field such as the high-tech industry, which is currently the main driving force of our civilization, such specialized education has not yet been firmly established.

Unfortunately, numerous high-tech entrepreneurs still follow the old and ineffective method of trial and error, which results in an astonishing statistic: only about one tenth of all new high-tech companies survive and only about one tenth of all R&D projects eventually become sellable products. There is undoubtedly a great waste of human energy and material resources, which should be avoided if possible.

The main challenge of entrepreneurs in any high-tech field is to introduce more new ideas to the market. In addition to overcoming scientific and technological risks, entrepreneurs must make many difficult managerial decisions, to resolve many complex interdisciplinary problems in a very short time, often under constraints of limited resources and budgets, and with ever-changing market conditions. Most new entrepreneurs have neither the knowledge nor the personal experience to create a successful high-tech business; thus, they rely on intuitive thinking in multiple, complex, and often uncertain situations. They wish for the best but you know the rest….

Having spent my entire life as an entrepreneur and having undergone my own trials and tribulations, I have always tried to learn from my own experience as well as from that of my partner – the high-tech veteran, Dr. Giora Dishon, and from my friends and colleagues as well as many other knowledgeable people. Moreover, I have tried to establish some clear, practical rules that can be used to avoid mistakes in the future and to ensure that creating and implementing technological innovations is achieved productively and economically.

Many years ago I began solving this puzzle, starting with methods of systematic creative thinking, and by further learning additional different business and managerial aspects of high-tech entrepreneurship, including studying recently different schemes of startup funding. Finally, I have summarized all this experience in the form of a new methodology of creating and transforming a new technical idea into a healthy business, which is the essence of successfully establishing a startup hi-tech company.

Several years ago I began teaching this methodology to M.S. students (in electro-optical engineering) at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and have seen in real time how much their state of mind has changed from naive intuitive ideas (though most of the students study at the university as well as work in high-tech companies) to well-conceived business, marketing, and managerial strategies. Today, after completing this work and applying the developed approach in my own on-going entrepreneurship practice, I confidently can claim that the symbolic number of “one tenth” results from improper management of the entrepreneurship process. I sincerely believe that by adopting the presented techniques, all entrepreneurs can achieve a much higher rate of success.

The presented methodology, however, does not automatically ensure success. It only provides guidance regarding what is the most cost effective and expedient way of advancing and what is the best method of searching for a solution. Thus, it assists in analyzing problems, but it does not itself solve any of them—only the entrepreneur himself can achieve this. It is a helpful tool for entrepreneurs and R&D personnel to make their organized thinking and work actions much more effective; in this way it can significantly increase the probability of forthcoming commercial success. Still, the personality, creativity, and professionalism of entrepreneurs and R&D leaders remain the main success factors governing any commercial venture.

This book consists of seven chapters, which are the main building blocks of the entrepreneurship framework:

›Business opportunity (market analysis and estimation of projected revenues)

›New product (justification and specification of a new product)

›Business model (finding a way of profitable operation)

›Innovative solution (methods of inventing novel technical concepts)

›IP protection (basic knowledge regarding protecting inventions by patents)

›Developing products (R&D project planning and management)

›Startup funding (business plans, the funding process, and funding options)

I strongly believe that the main secret of success in establishing a startup is in right managing all the above issues professionally, without exception, and with the same degree of importance. Mistakes in fulfilling even one step in establishing and maintaining the startup will result in a failure either immediately, owing to a lack of proper funding, or because of poor execution of the business plan. I hope that this book will provide to high-tech entrepreneurs sufficient awareness as well as a foundation of useful knowledge. Hence, it will help them to avoid serious mistakes in their practice, and consequently will significantly increase their chances of success.

Since about 90% of this book is devoted to the methodology of transforming a new technical or marketing idea into a successful commercial product, I am sure that it will also be useful to R&D personnel - scientists, engineers, and managers who deal with product development in established high-tech companies, but who do not see themselves as entrepreneurs and want to enhance their professional and managerial skills.

I wish the readers of this book a fascinating journey to the magical land of high-tech creativity and would like to write on your ship’s flag only one slogan: “Put most of your efforts not just on reaching your goal but on finding the right way of reaching it”. By doing so and relying on established knowledge in all the necessary fields, you will usually succeed in bringing your innovations to the market quickly and efficiently and will make many people throughout the world happier.

Sincerely,

Moshe Finarov