• Experimenting: “Innovative entrepreneurs actively try out new ideas by creating prototypes and launching pilots.”
• Networking: “Unlike most executives – who network to access resources, to sell themselves or their companies, or to boost their careers – innovative entrepreneurs go out of their way to meet people with different kinds of ideas and perspectives to extend their own knowledge domains.”
A POSITION ON THE EXTENDED STARTUP TEAM
John Lingeman came into DIVE while working as a senior R&D engineer for Boston Scientific. Both he and the EMBA student he teamed up with in DIVE had asked Saxton for an opportunity in the medical industry. “We both had entrepreneurial interest and both wanted to work with a startup in the medical field,” Lingeman says. Lingeman and the Pfizer pharmaceutical sales rep were assigned to FAST Diagnostics (now FAST BioMedical), which was developing a diagnostic device.
The company owner developed the device to measure kidney function. Lingeman and his EMBA partner were asked to research some other possible uses for the device, which led to a pivot: the device could also measure plasma flow, broadening the company’s market. “The original core research hadn’t focused in that area,” Lingeman says.
Working with the business and “kind of getting to experience a little bit of the journey” allowed Lingeman, who has a BS in materials engineering from Purdue University, to lose some of the fear of the unknown that can accompany entrepreneurial initiatives, he says. “We got to basically come on board and be . . . extended members of the startup team,” Lingeman says. The work also involved addressing an issue investors were raising: what outcome-based studies might be required to support market adoption of the product.
MATCHMAKING FOR ENTREPRENEURIAL SUCCESS
Lingeman, 31, has also participated in DIVE from the other side, as an employer. After working in the program as a student and getting his EMBA last year, Lingeman spoke with Saxton, who recommended Lingeman pitch an idea he had for a medical device development company. Lingeman ended up with three DIVE students: an MBA candidate who worked in the university’s emerging technology center, a student working in marketing at a large medical device firm, and a project manager for a clinical research group. “We were looking for people in life science,” Lingeman says. “We were fortunate. They did a good job.”
That job, however, reflected the business’s fledgling status. “I feel guilty about how little direction they got,” Lingeman says. “Maybe there’s a certain level of unorganized behavior initially in startups. We were probably worse. We gave open-ended suggestions without a lot of guidance.”
The student DIVE team focused on exploring markets – startups and technology-transfer companies – beyond Lingeman’s conceptual target of major established firms. “They came up with some submarkets but really it made sense to them and ultimately to us to focus on the big companies, the Fortune 500 companies. That’s what we ended up doing.”
Lingeman’s DIVE work as a student helped him create his own firm, he says. “The relationships created during DIVE are authentic. Three years removed from my experience as a DIVE student, I’m still in contact with Joe, the CEO of FAST. His feedback has been immensely helpful when it came to creating and growing our business,” Lingeman says. Lingeman & Smith Medical now brings in about $500,000 in annual revenue, Lingeman says.
‘THE QUANTITY OF WORK THAT BREAKS UP FAMILIES’
For EMBA Amanda Cross, participating in DIVE as a student changed her view of the entrepreneurial life. Saxton had drawn her into the program because he was looking to match a company with someone experienced in technical communications. Cross, who had spent five years as a documentation manager for ExactTarget (now Salesforce Marketing Cloud) and has a BA in professional writing from Purdue, ended up working solo with a brand new startup developing an iPhone app to give on-call doctors instant access to patients’ medical records when a call came in. “It was the sort of thing that improved medical outcomes significantly,” says Cross, 37.
Kelley’s DIVE program helped Amanda Cross get out from under “the man.”
Cross came into the project with a preconceived idea about startup life: fast-paced, capital-intensive from the get-go, risky, and requiring “the quantity of work that breaks up families.” But the entrepreneur she was working with was married with children. He worked more than a 40-hour week, “but that was just kind of because it was his passion. He was wanting to see quick progress on it.”
After working in DIVE, and then setting out on her own after her 2011 EMBA graduation to start a one-woman content strategy consultancy, Cross has discovered that although aiming for startup stardom may leave room for virtually nothing else in life, it’s perfectly possible to create a successful business without sacrificing all else.
“Anyone who has something to offer can go out and make their living, have their career on their own terms, by starting up their own business,” Cross says. “You don’t have to be the person who’s putting in 120-hour weeks and breaking up their family. You might not be huge if you don’t do those things. For me, I’d rather put in the same amount of work as I would in a full-time job.”
On top of her education, while working for the entrepreneur, she gained a future client: the entrepreneur.
RISING REVENUES, CONTROL OVER FATE
Now, revenue for her company Crosswise Consulting, is “trending upward” with an 11% gain in 2014 over 2013. “I expect greater growth in 2015,” Cross says. She’s hired three full-time employees, one of them her husband, plus a part-time intern, and five part-time contractors. “At this time last year, I was the only one fully dedicated to XWC, with my husband and three others contributing occasional part-time work.
“Household income is less than when we were both working for big companies, but our costs are also way down, and, most importantly, we determine our own fate. It would take something outrageously exceptional to get me to go back to working for ‘the man’ now.”
Lingeman, having participated in DIVE from both ends, found the program an expression of entrepreneurial reality. “There’s a lot of self-assessment and internal regulation that’s required,” he says. “That’s a good thing. It’s kind of customizable. You get out of it what you put in.”
From a business school administration perspective, DIVE provides an additional benefit beyond allowing Kelley to attract students and deliver entrepreneurship education. DIVE supports Indiana companies, notes Kelley dean Idie Kesner. “They serve businesses that are in the state, and that helps build strong loyalty at critical places in your state: the corporations that we serve, the political environment.”
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