News

By Scott Meacham It’s official. The country is in a recession. Of course, we didn’t need the recent announcement by the National Bureau of Economic Research to tell us that. Given its unusualness, our hope is that we have nearly bottomed out from the pandemic free-fall and that economic recovery will come quickly. However, weRead more

By Scott Meacham “Necessity is the mother of invention.” This saying is commonly attributed to the Greek philosopher Plato. After multiple translations from ancient Greek over more than 2000 years, it is no surprise that scholars debate the exact wording that Plato used in The Republic, but regardless his observation is spot on: When theRead more

By PAULA BURKES Copyright 2020, The Oklahoman Stacey Brandhorst directs business development for i2E, a nonprofit that helps entrepreneurs commercialize technologies, launch and grow new businesses and access capital. Question: You recently launched the 30th cohort of i2E’s e3 program (formerly Venture Assessment Program) with five new Oklahoma ventures as an online virtual class, usingRead more

By Scott Meacham We are in unprecedented times. Seemingly overnight, the world has changed, possibly forever. We are dealing with a pandemic disease that has no vaccine or cure. The stock market has lost a third of its value. People are being furloughed and laid off. Many hourly workers can’t pay for their groceries, rentRead more

By Scott Meacham Mentoring is one of the most valuable venture services i2E provides to Oklahoma’s innovators and entrepreneurs. Our mentoring covers a wide range of topics and situations based on the leadership team’s experience, the stage of the startup, and the market the company is working to serve. We are focused when we mentor.Read more

August 28, 2019 i2E, Inc. and the Choctaw Nation provide intensive, one-day business assessment class to help small businesses validate concepts, expand market, capture new revenues Contact: Darcy Wilborn, (405) 813-2424 contact@growok.org GrowOK, a free one-day venture assessment workshop designed to help rural and tribal entrepreneurs understand the markets they serve is returning to DurantRead more

By Scott Meacham Copyright © 2019, The Oklahoman For high-growth startups and their early stage investors, there are two primary paths to longevity and returns—an initial public offering (IPO) or a merger/acquisition by another (typically larger) company. MoneyTree reports that in 2018, 86 venture-backed firms held IPOs and 689 venture-backed firms achieved exits via mergerRead more

By Scott Meacham Copyright © 2019, The Oklahoman When I served as state treasurer, I learned first-hand that the more individuals and institutions feel ownership in growing Oklahoma’s economy, the better our state’s economic results will be. Now that I’ve been working in the innovation economy for several years, I’ve relearned that same lesson. ForRead more

By Scott Meacham Copyright © 2019, The Oklahoman After six years of working directly with Oklahoma’s entrepreneurs and startups, I fully understand just how much of a race starting up a company really is — a race against time, against competitors and, most of all, a race against the status quo. The need for speedRead more

By Scott Meacham Copyright © 2019, The Oklahoman I set a goal for this summer’s series of columns to reflect on and write about my lessons-learned during my past six years of immersion in entrepreneurship. Our focus at i2E is on high-growth technology or life sciences businesses, but startups of every stripe are vital toRead more

By Scott Meacham Copyright © 2018, The Oklahoman Startup companies are like snowflakes — no two are exactly alike. Uniqueness, after all, is a vital part of every new company’s secret sauce. The most successful startups always break new ground. They do original things in original ways. They invent new materials (nanoparticles anyone?), new systemsRead more

By Scott Meacham Copyright © 2018, The Oklahoma Publishing Co. Oklahoma’s innovation economy is a complex system with many moving parts. Our state’s innovation engine is driven by motivated and coachable entrepreneurs with ideas and technologies that disrupt. To be successful, Oklahoma’s entrepreneurs need investment capital from angels, venture capitalists and banks. They need world-classRead more

By Scott Meacham Copyright © (2018), The Oklahoma Publishing Co. This week, we are at the midpoint of the year — and, at least here in Oklahoma, smack in the middle of the dog days of summer. It’s easy in July in the Midwest to succumb to the summer doldrums — that is unless youRead more

By Scott Meacham Copyright © 2017, The Oklahoma Publishing Co. CB Insights, the research company that zeros in on private company data and analysis, has an interesting stream of reports about why startup companies fail. They began gathering postmortem information back in 2014 with information from about 100 failed firms; most of the stories wereRead more

By Scott Meacham Copyright © 2017, The Oklahoma Publishing Co. The high point in the relationship between entrepreneur and investor is when the investor is about to invest for the first time. Investors never like the entrepreneur more than at that stage. It’s the honeymoon, the brightest moment. It’s when all the promise and possibilitiesRead more

Entrepreneurs are the drivers of this phenomenon we have branded Innovation to Enterprise. They prove concepts. They convince investors to invest. They convert the doubtful. They persuade first customers to take a risk on their new ideas. They encourage founding teams to stay the course on the darkest days. And entrepreneurs inspire. They show the rest of us what is possible and what is NOT impossible. Their inspiration is what the 2016 Oklahoma Entrepreneurial Summit and Who Wants to Be is all about.

The i2E Angel Fund I provides seed-stage capital with professional management and diversification, plus offering the satisfaction of investing in job and wealth creation in Oklahoma. The fund benefits from i2E’s deal flow of quality, well-vetted startups. (The fund’s primary focus is on Oklahoma companies, but to ensure adequate deal flow, the fund may invest outside the state.)

Ten years ago, Oklahoma’s landscape for seed capital was like Black Mesa. We were high and dry. There was no venture capital money here. SeedStep Angels hadn’t been organized yet. Entrepreneurs simply didn’t have access to the investment capital to fund the milestones that move young companies from concept to startup to potential successes in the marketplace.

In the vocabulary of startups, the word “pivot” holds a special significance. When something isn’t working well, isn’t working as expected, or just plain isn’t working at all, the startup pivots from plan A to plan B or C or D.

Since we introduced the Donald W. Reynold’s Governor’s Cup collegiate business plan competition 12 years ago, more than 1,700 college students have taken the Gov Cup challenge. This year, 55 teams entered business plans. This competition involves college students across the state, with divisions for two-year and regional colleges, for research universities, and for graduate students.