Course Combines Business And Technology Education To Produce More Successful High-Tech Start-ups

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Failure rates for startup businesses exceed 50 percent, but for high-technology businesses, that rate may be as high as 90 percent. Two University of Arkansas faculty members hope to change that. Ken Vickers, professor of physics, and John Todd, professor of management, have teamed up to teach students how to succeed in technology startup companies.

"This is a unique opportunity for our students," said Vickers. "There are very few places where students can study entrepreneurship of technology. And I think this is one of a very few universities where they can actually work directly with researchers to go from raw research to a marketable product."

The Entrepreneurship of Technology course brings together graduate students from technical and business disciplines to work on multidisciplinary teams. In the first phase of the course, students learn about entrepreneurs and startup business issues. They then work with the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs to identify links to researchers in the University community and other parts of Arkansas.

Currently the class comprises 25 students from a variety of disciplines, including microelectronics-photonics, electrical engineering, physics, mechanical engineering, management information systems, and business administration. They are divided into six teams to evaluate and present case studies on high-tech entrepreneurs and startup companies. After each presentation, the class looks at what went wrong and what went right for each company.

"We make a real effort to ensure as broad a mix as possible on each team," explained Vickers. "Most high-tech companies place a strong emphasis on team work. This course provides invaluable experience in what they will face when they go out to work."

Once the teams have a strong foundation in entrepreneurship, they evaluate and offer initial assistance to potential high-technology research projects that may be ready to enter the market. Should a team actually identify a viable project, they can elect to extend the course for two more semesters to work with the researcher on commercialization of the technology.

"This is a very exciting course for me," said Todd, who has taught many courses on entrepreneurship. "Having the technical people in the course working together with the business students really brings another dimension to the course. The students really start to understand what each one can bring to a project - how their educational backgrounds differ and what they can learn from each other."

While this type of course is very important to students who want to become entrepreneurs or work for startup technology companies, it has tremendous value for students at many levels, Vickers explained. Students also learn the criteria and characteristics they need to decide whether or not they are suited to be entrepreneurs or "intra"preneurs. Intrapreneurs are individuals or teams within high-tech companies that work with the company research and development group to bring products to market.

"For example, I am not an entrepreneur," said Vickers, who was a manager at Texas Instruments for 20 years and holds 24 patents. "I don’t have that type of personality. However, I was very successful as an intrapreneur at Texas Instruments. But as director of the new Microelectronics-Photonics Graduate Program here(www.uark.edu/depts/microep) I am operating in a more entrepreneurial mode than any period of my employment at Texas Instruments. "

Vickers and Todd received a $25,000 three-year grant from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) to support this highly innovative course. The grant will provide financial support for fast track patent searches, market research and travel to present products to venture capitalists.

"What we are really trying to do here is bring more inventiveness to business education and more business into technology education," explained Vickers. "In this way, we will provide the better-educated total workforce needed to create high-tech businesses here in Arkansas."