By Scott Meacham A new organization in Tulsa is working to knock down the hurdles that are holding people back. There is something happening in Tulsa that everyone in this state who cares about job creation and innovation in Oklahoma needs to know about. It is called ACT Tulsa. It is a six-month accelerator programRead more
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By Scott Meacham Oklahoma’s own Paycom’s culture of innovation sets it apart as an industry pacesetter. How many times in the last month have you or someone in your family clicked the shopping cart icon in the upper corner of an Amazon or some other ecommerce screen? For many of us, online shopping is noRead more
By Scott Meacham Let’s raise our eyes and raise our goals Oklahoma. Christian Kanady is a fourth-generation Oklahoman. “My roots don’t touch any state besides this one,” he said. “Like most Oklahomans, I grew up steeped in this state’s sense of being both an underdog and a pioneer.” These days, Kanady is channeling that pioneeringRead more
By Scott Meacham Oklahoma lost a great one recently with the passing of Steve Prescott after a lengthy battle with cancer. About everyone who has ever picked up the newspaper or been active in Oklahoma City business and social circles knows Steve as the long-time leader of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) and aRead more
By Scott Meacham Oklahoma’s path of innovation is built upon the hereditary DNA of past entrepreneurs. Of the nearly 3 billion base pairs in the human genome, about 99 percent of them are the same in every human being — however, it is the sequence of these DNA pairs that makes each of us whoRead more
By Scott Meacham In building a startup pipeline, keep it simple. Occam’s razor (also known as the law of parsimony) is a principle attributed to William of Ockham, a Franciscan friar and philosopher born around 1288. William did not originate the problem-solving model named for him; however, he practiced it relentlessly. Plus he was aRead more
By Scott Meacham In entrepreneurship and venture investing, “what if” is the cornerstone of our industry. Entrepreneurship is built on promise and possibility—the willingness to imagine the unimaginable and take the risks to make it real. We all engage in the “what if” game. Oklahoma bought into “what if” in the late 1980s with theRead more
By Scott Meacham Since its creation in the late 1990s, i2E has had an exponential impact upon the state’s startup economy. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? This philosophical trope has been used from ancient times on down as a frame to debate cause and effect. In high tech entrepreneurship and venture capital,Read more
By Scott Meacham “Patient” capital is critical to success of Oklahoma startups. One of the most challenging aspects of entrepreneurship and venture investing is that it can take a long time to know for certain that something works. Getting people outside the industry to understand and endure the timeline has always been a challenge, neverRead more
By Scott Meacham Oklahoma-founded Alkami Technology proves that financial unicorns are not a myth. i2E and Oklahoma scored another first in innovation and entrepreneurship in April when Alkami Technology, our state’s and our firm’s first “unicorn” debuted on the Nasdaq (ALKT). In venture capital parlance, “unicorn” describes a privately held startup company with a companyRead more
By Scott Meacham The Oklahoma entrepreneurial spirit is inspiring and contagious, no matter when or how it appears. The Love’s Entrepreneur’s Cup continues to be a uniquely Oklahoma source of entrepreneurial inspiration. One of the best aspects of Love’s Cup is that the buzz carries on. Students who participate tell their friends. That’s how twoRead more
By Scott Meacham Entrepreneurs are wired in a special way If there had been a collegiate business plan competition in Oklahoma back when OSU graduate Ed Rogers was inventing the Altair 8800 or when Wiley Post was creating the pressurized flight suit, it is a good bet that they would have been two loud voicesRead more
By Scott Meacham Oklahoma’s Love’s Cup teams are making history that future generations will read about. I am a history buff. I really enjoy reading about the events of our state and our country from years ago. While it is highly unlikely that I would ever sign up for a civilian trip to the moon,Read more
By Scott Meacham Entrepreneurs and inventors welcome big challenges. Oklahoma City was voted the official state capital on June 11, 1910. That same year the stockyards and meat packing plants opened, and the Cattlemen’s Cafe, Oklahoma’s oldest continually operated restaurant (now Cattlemen’s Steakhouse), started serving great cups of coffee and hefty meals to many ofRead more
By Scott Meacham A big idea creates ripples that can be felt decades later. Entrepreneurship is like tossing a rock into a pond. The rock gives the water energy to create ever-widening rippling circles. As the rock sinks, the surface water flows back to fill the space the rock left behind. Eventually, the pond willRead more
By Scott Meacham There is no single path to entrepreneurial success. U.S. Patent No. 4,371,752 is just one of the more than thirty-three patents issued to Tulsa born and raised inventor and entrepreneur Gordon Matthews (1936 – 2002). But it is arguably the most of impactful of his portfolio of innovation, as No. 4,371,752 isRead more
By Scott Meacham The inventor of the Nautilus exercise machines created a source of wealth and jobs. Arthur A Jones, the inventor of Nautilus exercise machines, grew up in Seminole, OK. His father practiced medicine. His mother graduated from medical school, reportedly the family had a dozen more members in the medical profession. But medicineRead more
By Scott Meacham Charles Machine Works is a case study in entrepreneurship and innovation. To succeed in entrepreneurship, solve a problem that lots of businesses have. You can be even more successful, if the business you are solving that big problem for is in an industry that is about to take off. That’s the OklahomaRead more
By Scott Meacham Oklahoma State University alumni Ed Roberts is a real life success story with the invention of the Altair 8800 personal computer. About a third of i2E’s clients are in software/IT businesses. We provide services and investment to Oklahoma entrepreneurs who are building high growth companies, so given the low capital asset requirementsRead more
By Scott Meacham In a list of mid-century inventions, I put the traffic yield sign near the top. When you think about it, the yield sign is pure genius. It is all about keeping things moving until the precise moment they need to stop. It’s a textbook example of innovation. The story of how theRead more
