3. Release Notes
• Entrepreneur v1.0:
“Build the Corporation”
• Legal entity, limited liability
• Issue Shares to Stakeholders
• Sustainable Value Proposition
• Entrepreneur v2.0:
“Network the Corporation”
• Value Chains / Value Webs
• JV’s, Licensing, Outsourcing
• Entrepreneur v3.0:
“Remove the Corporation”
• Talent trumps Capital
• Singles, not Dingers
• Cluster Economics
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4. Test your Entrepreneurialshipitudenessity
• Name three hot new
businesses in your community.
• Tell your friends, “Hey, I’m
starting my own business.”
• Tell your parents.
• Your company closes.
Now what?
• You have to sit through some
boring economic development
presentation with words like
Entrepreneurialshipitudenessity.
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5. Reality
• Employees are Contractors
• Products are Services
• Vendors are Partners
• (This is the only slide that really matters.
If you have to go out in the hall to make
an important call, you can leave now.)
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8. Technology
• 1998: B
• 2008: A
• Progress with U-M
Technology Transfer
• Named one of the 10 Best
Communities for Innovation
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9. Talent
• 1998: D
• 2008: C
• Management Talent lags
Scientific Talent
• Innovation is a Team Sport,
not a game for Individual
Contributers
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10. Capital
• 1998: D
• 2008: C
• Ranking improved!
Was #37/50 states
Now #20/50 states
• Pre-Seed, A-Round ok
B/C round is still a problem
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11. Infrastructure
• 1998: D
• 2008: B
• Then: hard to find an
attorney who could even
draw up a term sheet
• Now: Michigan Business Tax is
a big improvement over the
former Single Business Tax
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12. Culture
• 1998: E
• 2008: C
• Then: toxic cocktail of risk-
aversion, judgmental attitude
and sense of entitlement
• Now: Economic Reality is a
Mutha of Invention, still too
much discuss, not enough do
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13. Friedman’s Flatteners
• #6: Outsourcing -so companies can focus
service functions
splits manufacturing and
• #7: Open Sourcing - “the most disruptive
force of all”
• #8 Workflowcollaboration
platform for
Software - creates a global
• #9: The Web - lowers barriers, intimately
culture - broadly, instantly and
disseminates
• #10:the economicWar - Former Soviet states
join
End of Cold
mainstream
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14. Friedman’s Flatteners
• #1 quot;The Steroidsquot; - mobilefor the message
PDAs, IM,VoIP - the media
phones, iPods,
• #2: “In-forming”make “research” mainstream
search engines
- (another Friedmanism)
• #3: Insourcing - shifting workloads between
trading partners
• #4: Supply Chaining streamlines sales,
distribution, and shipping
• #5: Offshoring - creates the impetus for
global economic integration
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24. About Ann Arbor SPARK
• Merger of Washtenaw
Development Council,
IT Zone and SPARK
• Public-Private partnership
among academia, business,
government, and not-for-
profit organizations
• Governed by a dynamic
board of directors
• Powered by 15.4 FTE
economic developers and
support staff (I’m the “.4”)
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25. Guiding Principles
• High-value, knowledge-
intensive workforce
• Innovation in products,
services and delivery
• Proactive, not reactive
• “Ann Arbor USA” brands
the entire region
• Statewide programs in
Open Source Economic
Development
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26. Targeted Industry Sectors
• Automotive Manufacturing
and Materials
• Aerospace Engineering
and Manufacturing
• Cleantech
• Homeland Security
and Defense
• IT / Software
• Life Sciences
• Optics / Measurement
• Printing and Publishing
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27. Thank You!
David C. Bloom
david@annarborusa.org
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