After four years in the R&D phase, SOLEGEAR Bioplastics is ready to market its clean tech plastic.

The product, named POLYSOLE®, is a 100% natural bioplastic made for use in the automotive, electronics, pharmaceutical and consumer goods industries. The clean twist: this corn-based, plastic innovation is non-toxic and is biodegradable once disposed.

The company, located in the Gerald McGavin Building, owned and operated by Discovery Parks at UBC, plans to raise $3 million to fund its sales and marketing efforts.

Find out more about SOLEGEAR Bioplastics at http://www.solegear.ca/.

Pros:

• Graduated rent payments
• Fully-equipped workstations (telephones, internet and furniture)
• Wet labs
• Dry labs
• Shared meeting rooms
• Cold rooms
• Darkrooms
• Autoclaves
• No equity surrendering
• No strings attached

Cons:

• No accounting services
• No access to legal counselling
• No special access to industry mentors
• No access to a line-of-credit

Again the itemized drawbacks pale in comparison to the benefits – or do they? If your organization is housed in a research park, how have you gained access to services provided by the accelerators?

The answer is complex and very personal. However, both options offer welcoming environments that want to see technology innovators succeed in the knowledge-based economy.

What solutions has your start-up found to this housing question? Where did you decide to grow your business: an accelerator, a traditional research park or neither?

Within research parks, there exists a breed of investors who focus on science and technology start-up companies. Akin to angel investors, these are small-scale venture capitalists whose short-term programs have pros and cons.

Pros:

• Free rent
• Free accounting
• Free access to legal counselling
• Free access to industry mentors
• Access to a line-of-credit

Cons:

• Up to a 50% equity stake in the start-up company

The itemized pros outnumber the cons – or do they? Is your start-up housed in one of these accelerators? Why were you and your partners willing to trade an interest in your company? Was it rent, mentoring services or something else?

I’m interested in how you made that decision and what your experience has been. Leave a comment or send me an email at info@discoveryparks.com

But research parks can’t do it all. In many instances, there is still the need to teach innovators how to move their ideas from conception to commercialization.

To help close the gap between educational institutions and BC’s technology sector, Discovery Foundation’s recently launched Technology Education Program helps educators prepare students and entrepreneurs for the new marketplace reality.

Discovery Foundation has engaged industry and commercialization leaders BCTIA, Wavefront, ACETECH, SFU Time Centre, and BCIT for the Discovery Foundation Technology Education Program. Programs such as ACETECH’s Discovery Foundation Market Entry Program for technology entrepreneurs and the Vancouver Greentech Exchange’s The French GreenTech Connexion help connect students and entrepreneurs with the skills needed for commercialization.

Programs like these help innovators move their inventions from the bench to the marketplace with input from research experts and major players in the technology industry. It’s a dynamic partnership that will help diversify BC’s economy to include knowledge capital.

Traditional thinking would dictate that this type of proximity would lead to competition—which is healthy—but in reality, it fosters innovation.

Why? Simply put: collaboration.

Small start-ups looking to commercialize are better off being surrounded by organizations in a similar position. Learning from each other’s successes and failures, tweaking strategies and sharing great ideas, these companies help push each other to marketplace success. But finding the money to move from a garage to an established science and tech hub can be quite the hurdle.

Discovery Parks knows smaller start-ups need a home—somewhere they can afford, somewhere they can grow, somewhere they can collaborate.

That’s why we opened the Commercialization Centre.

Smaller, early-stage companies shouldn’t have to break the bank to afford office and lab space. In fact, in the Commercialization Centre, they can develop their ideas in an environment surrounded by organizations that understand how difficult those early years can be.

They will bet the farm on a good technology, a clear marketing focus and great people so that if they win, they win big.  And they lose big too.  They accept ‘creative destruction’ and move on.

We tend to settle for lower goals, lower risks, lower returns and faster exits.  With some glorious exceptions, we don’t have big  technology firms because we are punished for failing rather than supported for trying.

Who has not learned enormous lessons from big failures?  Perhaps we need a very public forum for those who rolled the dice and lost to tell us how they blew it and what they are doing next?  I am sure our culture might even find government grants to support this in the name of free speech? Facebook for Failures?  Twitter for Turkeys?

Government is supposedly run by the elected politicians (with all due deference to the professional civil service).  So, why is that so many tech companies just ignore the political process or hope that they can leave it all to their lobby groups such as BCTIA, LSBC, WINBC etc.  I know that there are a handful of hardworking, smart and generous tech executives who do most of the work trying to convince government to see that this industry offers us our best future.

Why do so many tech companies opt out of the political process?  Look at it as part of your marketing budget with a very specific target market!