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2010 Wrap Up

December 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

We’re fortunate–very fortunate–because we can claim 2010 as the best year ever for Creo Quality. About a year ago, we established 2 goals for our business:

  1. Help three entrepreneurs initiate product development activities during 2010.
  2. Increase Creo Quality’s top-line revenue by 25% in 2010 (against 2009).

How have we done?

During 2010, we have worked with over a dozen early-stage entrepreneurs. I wish I could report that most have entered into product development. But in these economic times, most inventors and entrepreneurs have had a difficult time raising funds. We have helped a few of these companies get to the next step. Another outcome of our work was creating a tool we call “Building The Business Case“. It’s a high-level snapshot / checklist / workbook to provide a little guidance and direction for entrepreneurs. Feel free to download and use it for your ideas (and send it our way for review).

At last check a few weeks ago, revenue for the year is up over 30% from 2009 (and we still have a couple more weeks to go). Again, in these times, we are truly blessed to be in this position. This has allowed us to explore and invest in some pet projects, such as Big Ideas. This has also allowed us to provide more “free” assistance to inventors and entrepreneurs.

Creo Quality is looking forward to 2011 and will be setting some lofty goals. We plan to continue helping entrepreneurs, to expand Big Ideas program, and to begin working more closely with communities and economic development organizations.

Thanks for being part of our journey.

Filed Under: All, Catalyst, Community, Connect, Create

Does Indiana Have A Passion Problem?

October 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

A couple weeks ago I read a blog about Indiana and whether we have a lack of passion in the life sciences arena. After reading what life sciences industry greats like Pete Kissinger had to say, I completely agree!

Here are a few key points that I think are important:

  1. If Indiana had more people like Bill Cook and Scott Jones, we’d have more of the better entrepreneurial businesses needed in the life sciences industry.
  2. The state’s greatest businesses are the way they are because of their owners’ passion.
  3. Indiana’s modest levels of entrepreneurships is due to a lack of passion.
  4. Serial entrepreneurs and private enterprises are the ones reinvesting in Indiana and creating new businesses.

If the lack of passion in Indiana is NOT the problem behind our prosperity struggle, then what is it?

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Filed Under: Community, Indiana Life Sciences Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Does Your (Potential) Customer REALLY Know What They Want?

September 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

A couple months ago, Creo Quality met with a community in Central Indiana to discuss their interests in pursuing life sciences opportunities. The people we met with quickly acknowledged “life sciences” sounds good but they had little to knowledge of this industry or the opportunities available. This community wanted to explore life sciences because of recent economic pain and stagnation of their economy.

We talked about what Creo Quality could do to help them. Heads nodded and the people sitting across from us said “Yes, this is EXACTLY what we need to do.” We also told them how long this would take and exactly how much this would cost. Again, positive affirmations: “Your fee sounds very reasonable. This shouldn’t be an issue.”

Creo Quality provided a proposal, detailing exactly what our approach would be, along with specific deliverables. Follow-up after delivering the proposal was positive still. A couple weeks later, crickets. After playing phone and email tag, I finally talked to a live person. “Yes, we’re still interested. It’s been a busy few weeks, but we should be ready to move forward very soon.”

A few more weeks pass. More phone and email tag. And then, finally, a response:

“Jon – After careful consideration and review of your proposal, we would like to move forward with part of this now. The outcome of this will allow us to carefully consider the next steps we should take. We are willing to pay you less than 1/3 of the original proposal.”

What this potential customer fails to understand (or maybe understands very clearly), the work effort required to give them what they want is way more than 1/3 of the total effort. So we told them no.

Just when I think I’m beginning to understand the Creo Quality sales process, we get this curve ball. From the first conversations with this potential customer, we had every indication to believe the only thing holding this project up was signing on the bottom line. Maybe that should have been a real clue. The other real clue is very obvious now: this community has no idea what “life sciences” really means nor what their place should be in this industry.

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Filed Under: All, Community Tagged With: ,

Biomet Expands and Creates nearly 280 jobs

August 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

According to last week’s IBJ, Warsaw’s orthopedics giant Biomet Inc. plans to invest $26 million to grow operations, adding 278 jobs by the end of 2012. Biomet’s Warsaw Center of Excellence initiative calls for facility improvements and new equipment that will allow the company to consolidate manufacturing activities from New Jersey and expand Research-and-development and administrative services.

The Indiana Economic Development Corp. offered $2.75 million in performance-based tax credits and up to $200,000 in training grants to help the company expand. Biomet also will get a 10-year tax abatement approved by the Kosciusko County Council.

This is big news for Kosciusko County as Biomet is a tremendous asset for them and provides both community and economic support to the county.

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Filed Under: Community, Indiana Life Sciences Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Harman Becker a New Community Center?

August 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

2nd Place Winner ($600):

Jennifer Blankenship received this year’s second place prize for the Morgan County Big Ideas Competition to turn the old Harman Becker building into a Community Center. Watch her interview below.

Filed Under: Community, Create, Product Development - General, start-up Tagged With: , , , ,

TrustContact – 1st Place Winner

August 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment

1st Place ($800 & 1 year Membership to Rainmakers):

Betty Trusty received this year’s first place prize for the Morgan County Big Ideas Competition to create a calling system to check on the elderly and homebound individuals in the county. The calling system is called TrustContact.

Filed Under: Community, Create, Product Development - General, start-up Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

StartUp Weekend Produces Zankit

August 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Zankit, is a new company developed in less than 54 hours at the June Start Up Weekend in Indianapolis. This online classified ad firm believes that they have a better solution than Craigslist and plans a late-July launch.

Among the Zankit Team members was Jon Coulter, database administrator at ExactTarget and Zankit Founder, and our own Amanda Schoolcraft, our summer intern and biomedical engineering student at Purdue University — Congrats to Amanda for being a part of a winning team at StartUp Weekend!

Also, Jon Speer was quoted in the article saying, “within a couple days, they had business cards printed and were attending trade shows.” Pretty impressive!

To read more about Zankit and it’s members, click here.

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Filed Under: Community, Create, start-up Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Communities Applying Sound Strategic Principles

July 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

During the past two years, Creo Quality has been approached by a number of struggling communities who are interested in improving their economic situations. While in the past, communities who have approached CQ were interested in diving in to something without a strategic action plan, recent endeavors seem different. In particular, we have been approached by a community who wants CQ to help them identify their strengths and opportunities to target opportunities to leverage their competitive advantages and core competencies. While the project is still pending, it has been extremely encouraging to work with a community and economic development officials who have an interest in applying sound strategic principles to their growth plans.

We recently read a story in the IBJ about the city of Kokomo and its Mayor. At one point, Kokomo was ranked as having the highest average wages and is now at the bottom of the list. Now, it’s a battle of the budgets… moving trash cans to one side of the street, closing the city’s day care, etc. The biggest pitfall is that Howard County is not retaining the earnings of its best-paid workers! 20% of Howard County’s workforce lives outside Howard county and this 20% earns 30% of the income generated in the county. Kokomo and Howard County must attract more well-paid workers to live there and attract bigger companies to employ them and their Mayor is working on just that.

This, too, is encouraging to see where a little bit of strategy is being applied to help revitalize Kokomo’s downtown.

Filed Under: Community, Indiana Life Sciences Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

2010 Big Ideas Awards Recap

July 22, 2010 By 3 Comments

On Saturday, July 10, the Big Ideas contestants, judges, and donors gathered together along with interested community members to hear the judges’ final results.  Only three of the twenty ideas submitted were not represented by their contestant at the event.

Each “Big Idea” score was the sum of two scores:

  1. the straight total of points awarded by all the judges
  2. the number of times a judge placed the idea in the top four

So, who were the winners?

4th Place ($200):

Bob Johnson to build a campground in Morgan County

3rd Place ($400):

Raquel Zike to build a Skateboard Park in Morgan County

2nd Place ($600):

Jennifer Blankenship to turn the old Harman Becker building into a Community Center

1st Place ($800 & 1 year Membership to Rainmakers):

Betty Trusty to create a calling system to check on the elderly and homebound individuals in the county, which she calls TrustContact.

The evening ended with networking time and we are pleased to report that several connections were made among attendees that will potentially help even those ideas that did not win to move forward.

See you at next year’s Big Ideas event!

Filed Under: Catalyst, Community, Connect, Create, start-up

Leg Up Progress

July 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Leg Up spent time this week working out an agreement with the Community Foundation of Morgan County.  Through the Foundation, a fund will be opened on behalf of the Leg Up team.  Once it has been created, individuals and businesses will be able to donate money and skills to allow for the continued production of the specialized prosthetic legs designed by the group.

Look for it in the near future – the ‘Leg Up Fund!’

Filed Under: Community, Indiana Life Sciences

Creo Quality is a Catalyst for Leg Up Team

July 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment

With Jon Speer and CQ’s help and guidance, we have managed to get a rough executive summary and business plan put together for the Leg Up team.  This will help them to receive funding and support for the continuation of this project. We spent time this week discussing ways to improve the cost-effectiveness and ease of manufacturing of the product, making it possible for Leg Up to manage the production independently, if they so choose. Also, we found out this week that all of our IP issues are under control, which is excellent news as we move forward!

The Leg Up team members with whom I am working are Brian Schoolcraft and Christie DeWert.  We are looking into the possibility of making Leg Up into a not-for-profit company that makes these prostheses for children and adults everywhere, though this is not necessarily our only option.  The main goal is that the recipients of the prostheses receive this specialized product at an affordable cost.

Do you have a product you’re trying to get to market?  Send CQ an email and don’t forget to leave comments on this post.

Filed Under: Community, Indiana Life Sciences

CQ Steps In

June 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Previously, we wrote a blog about a group of students who designed a truly innovative prosthetic solution to a congenital condition, PFFD, affecting as many as 1 in 50,000 people.  With over 309,000,000 people living in the United States alone, the number of people affected by this birth defect is far from trivial.  Currently, the solution designed by the Leg Up team is available to only one boy in Martinsville, and there are no guarantees that he will be able to replace it when he outgrows it.

Using CQ’s expertise and connections, we hope to change that.  Our interest in this project stems from the fact that Amanda Schoolcraft’s, our summer intern, older brother was the team leader of Leg Up, and that the boy his team helped is her youngest brother’s best friend.  Amanda has seen first-hand the impressive change having this new leg has made in the Martinsville boy’s day-to-day life. Collectively, we want to make sure that this option is available to other people with his condition.  Creo Quality is making it a focus to work with Amanda to make this product marketable at no cost to the Leg Up team.

Stay tuned for progress on this project in future blogs.

Filed Under: Community, Create, Indiana Life Sciences, Medical Device - General, Product Development - General Tagged With: , , , ,

InsideINdianaBusiness: Indiana Scores Another Life Sciences Win

June 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment

AIT Laboratories President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Evans says the company has needed more space for the past year-and-a-half.

Indianapolis-based AIT Laboratories says it will invest $74 million to open a new corporate headquarters in Indianapolis, creating up to 160 jobs by 2014. The specialized testing provider will move into an existing building on the city’s northwest side that will house its expanded corporate offices. The company says it will also build a toxicology laboratory adjacent to its new headquarters. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels says the AIT announcement adds to what could be a record-breaking year for investment by life sciences and bio-technology companies in the state. Dow AgroSciences LLC, Arcadia HealthCare (NYSE: KAD) and Evonik Industries AG are among companies that have announced major deals in 2010.

“With major announcements from Evonik, Dow AgroSciences, Arcadia and now AIT Laboratories, Indiana’s biotech and life sciences sector is off to a very strong start of what could be a record-breaking year,” said Mitch Daniels.

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Filed Under: Community, Indiana Life Sciences Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

The i6 Challenge

June 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The IURTC is taking the lead in preparing a grant application for a new program from several federal agencies led by the Economic Development Administration, called the i6 Challenge. This grant is a new $12 million innovation competition administered by the Economic Development Administration (EDA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce, in partnership with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF).  EDA will award up to $1 million to each of six winning teams with the most innovative ideas to drive technology commercialization and entrepreneurship in their regions.  NIH and NSF will award a total of up to $6M in additional funding to their Small Business Innovation Research grantees associated with winning teams.

i6 Challenge Goals: to accelerate technology commercialization and new venture formation as a driver for economic growth and new job creation.

One of the grant requirements is to leverage regional strengths. We feel one of Indiana’s strengths is in the willingness of community individuals and businesses to get involved in innovative solutions to statewide challenges. We would like for the companies that are members of INpact and the medical device community to play a role in bringing this program to fruition.

Application Deadline: Mid-July

If you do decide to get involved, we will only need a one page letter of participation to submit with the grant. We encourage entrepreneurs, investors, universities, foundations, and non-profits to participate in the i6 Challenge.

For more information, please go to www.eda.gov/i6

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Filed Under: Community, Funding Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Life Sciences Seed Fund

June 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I just read an article in the Indianapolis Business Journal about the Indiana Seed Fund I.  The Indiana Seed Fund I is a seed-stage private investment fund started in 2005 and overseen by the Indiana life sciences group BioCrossroads.  The article highlighted the successes of the fund – that none of the 10 firms in which it has invested have failed, despite tough economic times, and that its first investment, SonarMed, just won FDA approval.    It also presented the idea of creating a follow-on fund, since the original $6 million has nearly been depleted.

“It’s named the Indiana Seed Fund I, so there certainly are aspirations for us to continue,” said fund managing director Nora Doherty.

According to the BioCrossroads web site, “The Indiana Seed Fund was formed to help narrow the gap between discovery and third-party funding in Indiana and to prepare companies for venture investments, through vehicles like the Indiana Future Fund I.”

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Filed Under: Community, Indiana Life Sciences, Medical Device - General Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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