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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.

Angel investors are called angels for a reason. These accredited investors are the primary source of early stage capital for startup firms. The metric for angel investing is return on investment; however, angels, who are often former entrepreneurs or retired business persons, also show a strong desire to help entrepreneurs.

There’s the economic impact from our portfolio, $228 million at last count, driven by 2,400 jobs created, salaries that are more than 90 percent higher than the Oklahoma average, and revenue drawn into Oklahoma from other states and nations.

Oklahoma City has been named one of the nation’s four “Best Cities to become an Entrepreneur by the Investopedia website.

Savvy entrepreneurs know that there are many startups that do succeed; that success is not random, and that it doesn’t just happen. It takes a plan.