Innovation is hard
February 2015
By Eric Johnson
Contributing Editor, UNC@Work
A few weeks ago, at Research Triangle Park’s recently opened innovation hub, a group of UNC students and faculty gathered for a workshop on bringing new discoveries to market. A cardboard cut-out out Teddy Roosevelt stood in the corner, bedecked in full Rough Rider gear, offering a life-size symbol of boldness and conquest.
The Research-to-Revenue seminar organized by Carolina Kickstart was meant to instill that sort of entrepreneurial spirit in campus researchers. The two-day course in founding and growing a company is part of an ongoing push by North Carolina’s public universities to turn research dollars into economic impact.
“Part of the University’s mission is to solve big problems, have an impact on society, translate knowledge to have an impact on the public good,” said Don Rose, Director of Carolina Kickstart. “This is another avenue for the University to fulfill that mission.”
It’s also a critical part of the state’s strategy for encouraging economic growth. RTP’s startup incubator, called The Frontier, has all the design touches you’d expect of a bustling idea hub — concrete floors, power outlets dangling above sprawling worktables, plenty of wide open space designed for teamwork. But it’s housed on the first floor of a dark, looming office complex that has stood largely empty for years. As larger companies have closed down or moved on, North Carolina is looking to new, growing industries to fill the gap.
“We as a state, in our universities, must convert more research into products and services in the marketplace,” said Governor Pat McCrory, speaking earlier this month at N.C. State’s Emerging Issues Forum. “We must have our education system embrace the innovation economy.”
On this cold weekday morning, that embrace meant giving faculty and students a chance to hear directly from experienced start-up executives. Over coffee and bagels, a half-dozen future entrepreneurs listened intently as Perry Genova and John Taylor talked about the challenges of turning academic research into a commercial enterprise.
“You have to find the right niche,” said Genova, CEO of Durham-based Oncoscope. “You have to look at the business side of things, look at the market, and that helps set your direction.”
At Oncoscope, which markets an optical biopsy device for early cancer detection, that meant finding specialized corners of the oncology market where the firm’s diagnostic technique could have the greatest impact. “Focus in on areas where the market isn’t saturated,” Genova told the UNC researchers. “Get specific.”
Finding overlap between market needs and academic research can be tricky, since so much university research is focused on early-stage science. The federal funding that supports campus labs and discoveries is heavily geared toward testing fundamental hypotheses — valuable for long-term science, but a hard sell for near-term investors.
That’s why UNC campuses aren’t just doing more to educate faculty and students about entrepreneurial opportunities. They’re also offering seed capital and logistical support. N.C. State hosts a technology incubator on Centennial Campus with more than a dozen start-up tenants, and UNC Chapel Hill recently launched a $5 million venture fund to help early stage spinoff companies.
“Traditional financing for these things has come from venture capital, but those funds have gotten more conservative over time,” said Don Rose, of Carolina Kickstart. “Those gaps are starting to get filled, but it’s still a struggle.”
That echoes Governor McCory’s concerns about the availability of venture capital for new ideas, and highlights the growing importance of universities as a seedbed for commercial innovation.
UNC’s funnel of basic research is wide, Rose said. But finding economic winners will require some patience.
"Carolina Kickstart has been around for five years, and we're just now starting to see the fruits of our labors," he said. "It takes time."
Eric Johnson is a writer in Chapel Hill. He works for the University of North Carolina, and is a contributing editor to UNC@Work.