ESO Capacity Building for Sustainable Impact

Excellent. Welcome everyone. It's so great to see our panel. And for those attendees, we're thrilled to have you. Today's panel discussion is going to be focused on ESO capacity building for sustainable impact. So, one, we are excited. Two, whether you are a new ESO or or an established ESO with just some new questions, this is going to be the place to be for the next 45 minutes or so. So during this session, we'll hear from federally funded orgs such as Larta Institute, Venture well Score. With this premise that our goal is to leave you with tips, tricks, ideas, ways to increase your funding, scale your support services and grow your orgs. A few quick points on the general flow. We'll go through a quick round of introductions. We will do panel questions and then conclude with Q and A. So please keep track of your questions throughout. Share them in the comments section. We'll do our best to get through them all. By way of introduction, my name is Ross Bush. I'm the Partnerships Associate at Village Capital. I'm also lucky to be your moderator today. So a quick note on vlcap, we are laser focused on supporting entrepreneurs who are building solutions to emergent economic, social and environmental challenges. And we know that the esos in this room are critical to the efforts of building vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystems across the country. You are the ESOs working to support Founders day in and day out, building communities. And you're critical to this approach. Importantly, you're an integral part of the effort to connect underserved founders with the resources to succeed and scale their new ventures as well. So we're thrilled to have you. Next, I'll invite Bridget Weston of Score, Tricia Compass Markman of VentureWell, and Rohit Shukla of the Larta Institute to share their introductions. So, Bridget, do you mind taking it away?

Yeah. Thank you so much, Ross. And it is a pleasure to be here with all of you. I'm so excited to share some of the tips and tricks that have been worked for other organizations including score. SCORE is a federally funded organization, tax exempt organization that helps small business owners start, grow and succeed through mentoring and education. We have a nationwide network of over 10,000 volunteers who give their time, their experience, their expertise to help others like you, the esos to grow, succeed and achieve your dreams. So happy to be here with this incredible panel and I look forward to the next 45 minutes.

Thanks, Bridget. Ross. Rohit. I'm Tricia Compass Markman. I'm the director of our National Venture Programs at Venture well. Venture well is a nonprofit. We've been operating for almost 30 years now, doing a number of different things, but really focused on helping and supporting inventors. Innovators and entrepreneurs realize their impact and we do that in a number of different ways. But the programs that I work on focus on the national we have a national accelerator working with student university innovators, science and technology innovators all the way to early stage startups, supporting on customer discovery value chains all the way to investment readiness. And we know that what we do takes a lot of partners. So we partner with a lot of VSOs and we've grown over time and been very fortunate in that and continue to grow and continue to look for partnerships. So really excited to be part of of the conversation today. And one other thing I'll mention is I used to be an entrepreneur and was one of the Inventorial's programming about 15 years ago and so really approached this from an entrepreneurial lens as well.

Thank you Trish. I'm so honored to be in the company of such amazing people. All of you have been remarkable inspirations. Anyway, I founded Laude Institute 30 years ago. We celebrated our 30th year last month and we just finished our Eco Festival that cuts across all of the areas that we work with. We are a mission based organization focused on promoting innovation for a sustainable planet and our sustainability focus is across energy, food, healthcare and marine and oceans. It happens to also coincide with our work with the federal agencies for for whom we are a commercialization partner, much like VentureWell on a very specific basis with the SBIR community in particular. But we've gone well beyond that now. Again, like you folks, we have to be very engaged with partners, with coalitions of partners with specific focus on impact and with the ability to be able to also deliver to the entrepreneurs that we work with a fulfilling and complete experience that takes them from an idea all the way through to sustainable enterprise. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you so much again for having us here sba. And thank you Ross. You've been great. Appreciate it.

Wonderful. Bridget, Tricia, Rohit, let's start this off then. Really eager to dig into your experiences. When I think about your organizations, when I think about Venture well, Larta and score, you each bring a long history as well as deep experience in terms of attracting government funding as well as other funding. But for the sake of this panel and topic in particular, I'm really curious from your perspective, what role has government funding specifically played in in the growth of your respective esos? And Tricia would love if you would like to start with this question?

Sure. No, great. Great question. Yeah, it's played a significant role. Again, VentureWell was founded 30 years ago with our anchor funder, the Lemelson foundation out of Portland, Oregon. So a philanthropic foundation that's been with us throughout the whole thing, but has also really encouraged us to explore and diversify our funding streams. And so we've been very fortunate to look at different agencies. NSF with I Corps, we support the delivery of that program. Have been doing that for over 12 years and recently looking at the National Institute of Health, the Department of Energy, nrel. But we've always, you know, initially started new and exploring that, and so we took little steps to do that. And then opportunities, you know, came forth and we partnered with that. So it's been quite a significant opportunity for us. I started with Venture Oil about three years ago, and Venture Oil has grown almost doubled in size with the different revenue opportunities and different partnerships. But we continue to try to diversify, knowing, you know, that it does take. It takes a team and partners to be able to do that. So really excited about those opportunities.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Tricia and Bridget. I'd love to hear from you.

Sure.

I mean, our story, score, story follows similarly to Tricia's. Score was founded almost six, 60 years ago, actually, by a group of retired DuPont executives who then brought the idea to the SBA. And that's how the. That's how score was formed. And we've been fortunate enough to receive funding from the federal government for that time. One of the things we've learned is how important it is to share your story back to your funders to make sure that they keep investing in you and see reasons to, you know, consider giving you more money and to make sure that they're seeing how their investment is working to achieve their goals. So for score, for example, we would talk about how many businesses we have helped to start or grow or frankly, help to not fail. Right. And so when we can tell that story to the funders and help to show how our work and the dollars that they're investing are going towards achieving our common goals, it really helps. In score, for example, in the past several years, because of the story I'm able to bring to Congress, because of the work our volunteers do, we. We have been able to see an increase in funding despite whatever else is going on in the world.

Thank you. And Rohit, I know you mentioned SBIR STTR funding in your intro as well. So curious to hear from you.

Yeah. So we were born. I mean, I love the saying, crisis is a terrible thing to waste. We were born out of crisis. When California went through an extraordinary decline in defense, which was a major pillar of the economic base of the state and of the region that I am in, which is the Southern California region. And so the state, in conjunction with a few of us, decided, well, let's put a program together. We don't have a lot of money. Let's start with a small kind of focus on entrepreneurs emerging from the ashes of the defense industry. And that's how we got started. So for 10 years, we were the state's go to partner for not just commercialization, but for a matching grants, matching funds program that funded entrepreneurs that received grants from the federal government. After 10 years and the program sunsetted, as we intended it to do in legislation, we went to the feds and said, look, you've got this extraordinary program that has a tremendous capacity for increasing the viability of research into usable products for the American taxpayer. Let's start this kind of commercialization focus, because that's what it's about, about. Ultimately, you can't just have these things hidden away as research gems, and you've got to be able to do through the minds and spirits of entrepreneurs who have a motivation to do this. So clearly, federal funding starting in 2004 played an extremely important central role in growing the organization. I wish I could say that it was, you know, entirely strategic. It was very often opportunistic as well as any entrepreneur would be, in fact, familiar with. The opportunities come up and you grab them. And that's what we did. The main thing that I think we focused on ultimately was the fact that we made it a kind of mass customization program. So it's not curricular, it's not specific to go through every single step for every single person. We meet them where they are. That's the way it should be for any commercialization venture. You've got to be able to meet these folks where they are and then provide them with the kind of discipline that goes with it. But federal funding without would have been impossible to be able to operate this kind of a scale of program similar to what Tricia does and what Bridget does. Impossible. So very grateful to federal support.

That's a fantastic point. And clearly the three of you are excellent storytellers. Each of you weaved different elements into your responses. So building off that, how do you incorporate effective storytelling when it comes to sharing your impact with federal stakeholders? Or state governments can also play a role in funding as well, but because it's the SBA today talking about federal. So, Bridget, you mentioned specifically sharing stories with Congress, et cetera. So could you share a few tips, tricks or ideas of how you communicate your impact? That'd be wonderful.

Sure. So I think storytelling is such a critical part in any organization that's looking to grow and to have funding. Right. Whether you are a private organization, whatever it is, because you have to be able to get your story out to get partners, funding, clients, etc. And for us, what I've learned is that a combination of data that proves your story is real and impactful with putting a face and a name and pulling at the heartstrings a little bit can really help and is the most powerful. So when, you know, I'm talking to our fund, whether we're looking for a corporate sponsorship or, you know, talking to Congress and federal funders, we will start with, here's how the data is going to make a difference. You know, score helped to start over 30,000 new businesses. And let me tell you about one of those in your hometown. You know, there was this brewery that, during the pandemic, you know, didn't get clients. And so here's what happened. They started to create sanitizer instead and use their, you know, their equipment to be able to keep their doors open. And so we have thousands of stories like that and being able to put a face to the name and then share the impact that our organization had on that person. So a quote from the business owner that says, I would not have my doors open without score. And it's not me telling it. It's the person who actually benefited from our services. To me, that has really helped. I always thought, you know, the numbers spoke for itself. But I'll tell you, I can't. I can't even tell you the amount of times I've been sitting across from, you know, a person in Congress or a staffer, and I am telling the numbers, and I tell the story of the person, they go, oh, I know that person. Or that really makes a difference to me. So making it personal, I think, is really, really key.

And I'll just jump in, too, just to. It's, yeah, that's 100%, you know, the way we approach it as well. And I think kind of from an entrepreneurial point of view or in a program where the lead instructor said, you're not pitching, you're storytelling, and you're constantly storytelling. So whether that's through a large proposal that takes multiple partners or multiple internal people, or you're just in A conversation, to Bridget's point, is being able to have those stories just off the top of your head and to really bring to light. And so I think that's something that, whether you're an entrepreneur, early stage, you know, right out the gate organization, or one that's been around for 30 years is constantly reminding, like, why do we do what we do? And I know, Rohit, you constantly push us on that. What's the impact? And to be able to bring those numbers to life. So it's really a great opportunity to be able to share those stories and to be like little piece of somebody's journey, whether they're an entrepreneur or another ecosystem partner.

You folks are really remarkable. I mean, you've got the same kinds of kind of focus on data, focus on people, focus on stories, focus on stitching together the entire kind of piece. And of course, the one thing you have to do when you're before a funder or before an audience of any kind is to understand what their real issues are. Where can you actually be able to tell the story more effectively based on what they are looking for? And I know, Bridget, you do that with Congress. I know you do that, Tricia, with the agencies and so on, because they're all about, you know, look, I'm interested in this, this and this, right? And yes, the human story is extremely important, but it has to go alongside the kind of data impact that you have. So one of the things we do, and we started to do this more in the last few years, we have an annual report, we all do, I think, have annual reports. What we do is also have an impact report every year, right? So where we tell the stories of remarkable entrepreneurs and the things that they're doing for environment, climate, food, health care, etcetera, with a kind of fairly lengthy but very specific story attached to it. And then the impact we have is sort of at the bottom of that to say this is what we did for them, which kind of, you know, coincides with the story they're telling. It's a very, very big piece of what we end up doing. And I think any eso, this is the kind of thing you really need to focus on. It's not just the process and the product that you have as an organization, it's also the people that you represent and whose stories you can tell.

I think Rohit just hit that on the head. And so I think it's worth reiterating finding out the what's in it for me, the wifm, from the person you're sitting across From I could be a great storyteller, but if no one cares about the small businesses I'm talking about, it is not going to land. So knowing what the person cares about and weaving that in, I mean, great point, Raheem. Awesome.

I think we do have also, by the way, all three of us, we have. And I think you as well, Ross, at VillageCap. I think we all have very specific examples that transcend a lot of the kind of concerns. Right. I give you one of them. For example, it's a company that we worked with very early on, like 2004 or 5, and they ended up becoming such a human story. It's a story of an engineer in his garage in the Valley, the Silicon Valley, and he started this company to be able to look at the spoon as a principal implement. Right. And the spoon enables people who have delirious tremors. Delirium. Tremors or tremors. Delirium or Parkinson's. To be able to actually function because the spoon cancels out the tremors. Now, if I were to tell that story, technically, it would be like, can I just follow this closely? But when you show them that this is the kind of thing that enables people to do things that they otherwise could not do because of the disability that transcends everything, I can't tell you how many hundreds of times I've told that story. And it has the same reaction, regardless of the audience. So I think it's also, you know, those kinds of things, those stories that transcend any audience, regardless.

Right.

Yeah, I think that's an excellent point. And when we think about the stories that you're sharing, the spoon, the communicating about the brewery or those businesses that would not have stayed open without federal support. Tricia. And for the rest of the panel as well, when we're talking about people, we're talking about the entrepreneurs that we're serving day in and day out, how are you identifying what exactly it is, the support services that they need? So then you can go tell those fantastic stories as well.

Yeah, no, that's a great. I think there's multiple approaches to that. We've had the pleasure of being able to run multiple programs and test and reiterate and okay, did that land and understand. But really our base accelerator on the venture side is based off the Lean Startup methodology and, you know, test fail quickly, get out, you know, and move. So we have that, those basic principles and teachings, but we have to listen to the innovators in the room and talk to my team right before this panel to understand what are Those needs. And we work both globally and nationally across our larger team. And it is like funding, of course is one thing, but it's the resources behind that. Do they have, if they're a university innovator, are they connected into their tech transfer office? Do they understand the intellectual property pathways? You know, oh, it's another early stage entrepreneur innovator that what's customer discovery? How do I do that? Sometimes they need a mentor to help them do that or an advisor. So we're trying to pay attention. So we, you know, where we don't just teach and leave, but it's really that engagement to understand. And as they scale and grow in different levels, you know, they may become an intrapreneur, but they've taken those tools and been able to apply it. Not everybody's meant to start their own business and grow in that way and that's okay, but can we provide the right resources to them? So that connectedness, community, putting the human face to it, listening, and there's a lot of other things too. It can be a lonely journey to be an entrepreneur. So how do we support them and be that community for that? As we listen to that, we identify those gaps. That helps us when we partner with others and look for funding. Oh, we identified a gap. We did that recently with the Department of Energy's Epic Prize. We identified a gap, introduced a new program, had some great partners, but that's only because we're paying attention, listening. And it does take some time to do that.

And I totally agree, Tricia. Listening is so critical. And I found, and I don't know about you all, but through trial and error, I really think from a practical tip perspective, it's important to have a system of how you're actually capturing what you're listening to. I mean, I don't care if it's a Google sheet, right? Like date person you talk to, what they said, but something to be able to track and look at the data and see what you're seeing and then get back to the people if you need to. You know, I know people have a ton of post it notes, places or notes on their phone. Like whatever it is, you need to have a system in order to be able to track and capture that and whatever works for you. There isn't one answer, but a system certainly helps.

But I will say, Bridget Trish, it, it is really dependent on the people as well. Right? So this is a human centered experience. I mean each one of us, we, we can have all the tools and the systems in the world. But unless you are intuitive, you are empathetic, you are able to recognize yourself in entrepreneurs that you're working with and imbue with them, qualities that we've all attained over a long period of time, it doesn't work, you know, no matter what is right. So I think that's the great thing about all three of us, I believe, if I can say that, call it great, is the fact that we are able to work with people. Right? And that's what drives this entire kind of process is the human centered issue at the heart of it all.

Turning that back then? Rohit, a question for you. For the ESOs who are here in their first 12 months, first one to one to three years or so of development, what from your perspective are specific recommendations or areas that you think those younger esos, it would be great to build capacity in these specific areas, these skills. I'm really kind of, I'm keen to hear from your perspective on that.

So the first thing is don't be impatient, right? This is a long journey. It's a long and winding road. It's going to be winding more than anything else. So first of all, understand what you have have, and don't be afraid of acknowledging what you don't have. Don't believe that you can simply get it by virtue of who you are. There's a lot of work involved in getting those kinds of skills and those gaps addressed. So understand your gaps, understand what you don't have as much as what you have. Then recognize who else can probably can possibly fill or address those gaps. And regardless of where it is, it may be in your region, it may not. You know, for example, West Virginia, right? West Virginia has a tremendous richness of federally funded programs in manufacturing and so on, but they don't have all of the areas of involvement and engagement that would be needed for an ecosystem. So they have to reach out beyond the boundaries of West Virginia to be able to bring that in, the expertise in. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Look beyond yourselves. And then the last thing I will simply say is when it comes to being able to secure or deliver or I mean develop funding streams, make sure that you, again, like Bridget and Trisha have spoken about as well, make sure that you have the funders needs in mind, you know, don't push on them what it is that you think you can do without recognizing what their need might be to be able to fund things that you could do. So I mean, it's a long, long process. And I know there's a lot more behind that than I can possibly convey in the time that we have. And I'd love to hear from Bridget and Tricia as well. But that's those are some very basic tips that you can use when you're building your coalition of with other people in your own community. You know, again, make sure that you have a North Star that's guiding you and outcomes related kind of view of where things might be. Paint that picture even if it takes you forever to get there. Or you may have to change way of orienting yourself to that future. But you've got to be able to have that kind of thing in mind initially as an esl.

And I'll just, you know, make maybe think. I think you're right. It takes a long time and there's a lot of trust that has to be built too as within these communities and ecosystems. And we were fortunate part of the SBA and the GHAFC opportunity. We launched our equity ecosystem partner network and one thing we did, we're a national organization partnering with other national as well as regional organizations is we thought about what are those different level of engagements. So keeping in mind that we are an organization that's been around for a while when we partner with somebody new. Rohit, to your point, it's a new process, it's a new relationship. So sometimes it's just we kind of broke it into five different stages. One is just can we share? You know, hey, we're recruiting for a program. What are you doing? Or you're working with this founder. Can we help and support so just kind of information sharing. And then another one is helping specifically with recruitment and then another is actually bringing in those potential partners as a reviewer, as an instructor so they get to know what we're doing and you know, vice versa as well. And then we could build from that and actually partner and then on specific programs as well as on new funding opportunities. But it takes a while. And so we try to with something that's maybe a little bit easier that we both can do with sometimes limited capacity and resources, but that makes sense mutually and then build and actually partner and deploy new programs together. Takes time but we try to break it down and kind of segment it so we can achieve kind of step by step.

Yeah.

And I think like what both of you are saying is so critical and I think part of that is what we're also saying is that you can't be all things to all people to know that sometimes no is not only okay, but the actual right choice and it might be best to find someone else to fill that gap, like the partners we're talking about. But I know we can all see, oh, there's a potential funding opportunity. I need to go get it. And that might not be the right answer for you. So really, having the right partners, mentors, advisors, whatever that is in your inner circle to help you figure out what is the right thing to pursue with and without partners, and what might be something that, that you're frankly not ready for, would waste more resources than it's worth and aren't worth the return on investment.

I love that point, Bridget. The fact that you're not ready for something, you know, for example. I'll give you an example. You know, you think you've got the ingredients for a particular funding opportunity.

Okay.

You've put everything in place. You've got partners, you've got a coalition, you've got a central thesis. You're going to take on the world. In doing so, you're going to have a human centered design to it. And then you don't get it, and, you know, it becomes disheartening. And also it. You know, it. But the point is, if you take away from that there are things that we could have done ourselves, it's kind of an introspective thing. Regardless, the feedback you get, every time you lose a federal award, you will get feedback. And it's generally, I would say, not particularly deep. Right. It's kind of surface because they can't possibly give everything to you. But I think you can take from that just little things and that you have to be really attentive and you have to be really kind of focused on your own strengths and weaknesses and being introspective about that. I think that's the biggest thing I think I've learned is, you know, humility is about being introspective. Right. And recognizing what you cannot possibly have done at a particular period of time.

Yep.

And to do it another day, you know, to live to do another day.

Yeah, I think it's. It's really relevant as we're discussing these different federal opportunities. So Tricia mentioned the SBA's Growth Accelerator Fund Competition, GC. We also mentioned SBIR STTR funding. We mentioned the epic competition from a. I guess from an effort to give specifics to those of the audience who may be interested in applying federal funding in the future. Would be really interested to hear more about other programs or other initiatives that you monitor regularly for funding opportunities, whether those are the regional innovation clusters, et cetera, or I won't name drop too many because the acronyms will start to get overwhelming. But I'd be really curious to hear. So maybe. Bridget, I also know that you may have a different federal funding stream as well that might be relevant to share. So I'd be curious to hear from your perspective.

Sure. Well, from scores perspective, what we do is try to monitor all of the various funding opportunities out there because different opportunities make the most sense for different entrepreneurs, whether what stage they're in, what industry they're in, you know, what their credit history is, you know, all of those things. So there isn't necessarily one that I can say. I know you're asking for one. I mean, I, what I would say is speak with a mentor who can help you identify what the right one is because there is a lot of noise and information out there and many of them are incredible programs and some of them might not be right for you. So I know Tricia and Rohit and probably you too, Ross, like have specific examples. I won't name one, but I'll tell you, we'll help you vet one and find the right one for you.

I would say from our side, I mean, I'm always monitoring what EDA is doing and the Tech Hubs program is an example of that. And I'll tell you why that's a good one to monitor and to keep in mind for ESOS is it is really a coalition that you've got to build for programs like that. It's a very good testing ground for you to be able to work with other partners in creating a kind of future state for your region. So EDA is very good, obviously for the, because of the RIC issue. We're an RIC ourselves for the underserved communities of Southern California in Los Angeles. In healthcare, obviously, that's a great, great program and the tremendous resource base and great best practices that you can learn from other folks doing this across the country. The other ones in the, in the, in the broader ecosystem are things like, you know, Tricia mentioned epic. It's a great, great opportunity as it's being built here in the energy space for the purpose of increasing sustainability in new ways and energy. Right. So it just depends on your, on, on your flavor, on what you're specifically focused on. But there's a ton of new kinds of support structures in place at the state level, by the way, as well that you can tap into for the purpose of building that kind of federal support pipeline. You know, examples of states that are doing it very well. Kentucky, would you believe It. Yeah. Very, very good. Because they do some early support, early intervention, and then they go off to federal funding because they're ready at that point.

That's excellent. Thank you. And I think, Tricia, I know we've shared a variety of opportunities, so I don't know if there's anything left, but.

Maybe I'll just as a kind of to pull back, not a specific organization, but to look at, like, do you do your research? We talk about customer discovery, investor discovery, you know, do your discovery around this, look at other ESOs that have been awarded the opportunities and, you know, do some diligence on that to see. And then that might help. To Bridget's point of like, is this the right fit? And maybe if you have an opportunity to try to talk to some of those esos, to some of the program managers, sometimes that helps so that you're really kind of keeping on the critical path because it can be tough to try to chase everything. But then once you get, maybe get the first one, it helps you build and tell that story to get to the next one. So we try to do a lot, look at newsletters, look at other organizations is usually really helpful.

Fantastic. Thank you. I'll ask one more question before we dive right into Q and A. And this is another actionable item. So when considering networking opportunities, conferences, professional development groups, or other events that you found particularly helpful for growing your coalition as an eso, I think that would be really helpful as well for some of the audience. So I'll pass it over to Rohit, if you'd like to take this one, and then we'll go through the rest of the panel and then move into Q and A.

So one that we go to often enough. And I think SBA has a pretty strong kind of connection to it. They've got a great presence. There's TechConnect, which happens twice a year in the spring and the fall in Washington, D.C. it's a good event because it has a collection of both entrepreneurs, ESOs, federal agencies, who have kind of programmatic interests in being able to reach out to this community. And obviously SBA is there as well. So that's one. There are several. I mean, they come up all the time. And you've just got to be really careful about why you're doing this. Right. What are the things that they are talking about that could benefit you? Not just at some future state 10 years from now, but you have to be very disciplined. What is it going to give me in the next couple of years? You know, because you Think these events will always be there so you don't have to be thinking 10 years ahead when you're absolutely not even ready to start discussing what they are discussing. Some of the impact events I personally and we really focus on. The economist puts on a very good one. It's a great trend setter so it'll help you set trends that are going on in the specific industries you're addressing. But yeah, those are the ones I would look at frankly.

And I'll just quickly jump in. I was at Rohit, you took the TechConnect one. That was another one I was thinking but I think also like thinking about the sector. So I'll bring back. You know how we were informed about EPIC was we got involved with the American Made network and we do have a sector focus, many sectors but we do have a interest in the energy and climate side. That's been a great community because there's a connector community. And so not only can you help the entrepreneurs and innovators but you can connect with others and then build those resources and see and they've brought together those connectors recently at an event and that's been able to really help and develop those relationships. I think to your point Rohit of finding what, what works, it'll always be there. But then seeing what's. What's the most, you know, within the next calendar year, what are the significant you want to be present at.

Yeah, we're part of the AMC thing. So thank you Trish for the work that you guys do there. Appreciate it.

I think those are great examples and I think we could list dozens of you know, conferences or networking groups to go to. I mean even as large as south by Southwest is now one that people can go to to WeBank and even local conferences. I will put a difference spin on it that what I found for me because sometimes I can go to those and I mean listen, we're all getting used to being back in society so it can be overwhelming being at some of those things. So I actually have found like reaching out to someone one on one and saying like hey can we grab coffee? I'd really like to pick your brain and see how this is working or you know, I just want to learn about, you know, your experience with this customer or this industry. It's actually really worked for me. And you'll be surprised at how many people say yes and what you have to bring to the table too. Like your experience matters and you can bring something and be a contributor to that. So just don't Discount the one on one either.

Yeah.

Excellent. Thank you everyone. And we do have a number of questions flowing in, so in the interest of time and answering those, I'll start to divide them up. This for the entire panel, it's pretty interesting. One, could ESOS be a for profit company and still be committed to contributing to entrepreneurial success?

I would say yes. I mean, we're a nonprofit, but we have a for profit arm that does work with entrepreneurs directly at the federal agency level. Partly again, opportunistic because the feds required that there be a for profit company working with entrepreneurs. And so we set up a for profit company that's wholly owned, subsidiary.

So.

Absolutely. And I think to some, to some extent, I think it's also probably advantageous to be able to have that kind of format when you're working towards entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial success in general.

Well, and I think I actually heard this from someone else, David Ghosh, who's a lawyer and works with associations. But I love it in the sense that, I mean, we are a 501C3 score is and that makes us a tax exempt organization. But what we've actually been talking about is it's not that we aren't looking to make a profit, so to speak. Like we want to generate revenue from our funding sources and bring in more, you know, whether it's federal funding or grants or sponsorships or whatever, it's that the money goes back into our program. Right. So even if you are a nonprofit, you want to be able to continue that funding to come in the doors so you can put it to your mission. So I agree with what you said. I think ESOS can be a for profit. But even if you are a nonprofit, I wouldn't think of yourself that you don't want to make a profit. Right.

No, exactly.

So just wanted to add that in.

Yeah. And I'll just quickly add. Yeah, agree with both in that, you know, really thinking about your mission and vision and I think that entrepreneurs appreciate all of those supports. So we see other accelerator programs that are for profit and I think if they deliver a service that's so valuable for the entrepreneurs and the innovators out there that I think that's there's room for both. Yeah.

Excellent. Thank you. It's a really interesting question, so I appreciate that. Shanti, next question. This gets back to how organizations find opportunities for funding. So are there any ongoing databases of federal or state opportunities that could be helpful with finding funding for esos? Anything that you would suggest attendees monitor? It's a heavy question.

There's grants.gov which is like there's grants.gov? yes, the answer is yes, but there isn't, I think one necessarily go to other than grants.gov and your search words have to be really good. You have to be on it. You have to be ready to respond. I mean, so definitely grants.gov@ the top. And I would say it takes commitment to continue to monitor that on a regular basis.

So if you're a GSA contract, of course GSA has ebuys, which is ebuy, which is a major database of opportunities that come up periodically that they will actually give you a synopsis of and you can keep track of them that way. Every agency, by the way, issues its own kind of database of grantees. That's a great way to find out where their efforts are going. Right. What are they really committing to in terms of federal funding? What sorts of programs might they be interested in? So it's a kind of a varied landscape of potential information sources. And then of course there are the, the ones that you, you know, that sometimes I get very irritated with after I've gone to a conference and I get these emails about, you know, let me give you a list of all the people who were there and you know, and so on. I mean I never go for those obviously, but I'm just saying this is a, this is a. Anyway, enough said. Trish, I'm not sure what you're.

I'll just give. It's another sector focused one. But maybe as an example there. I know there's others out there is the Clean Energy Business Network has a database of. And in those may be more specific to the entrepreneurs and innovators, but it does pull and it. So I think there's others out there. So again, if you do kind of do a little bit of the desk research and then get into what Rohit and Bridget like, find out who else is getting awarded, what are those. But it does take time and we try to have people within our organization share. Doesn't matter where, what department they're in. If they see an opportunity, they share it. And then others may say, yeah, let's, that's aligned, let's pursue, let's look at it. So we try to have as many people looking at it as possible.

And I know this is kind of a chaotic thing, but you know, just monitor LinkedIn. I mean people have become much more engaged in LinkedIn the last couple of years than they have been in years past. So. And I think that was partly because of the pandemic as well. But it's a great place to be able to understand where things are going.

Right, excellent. This next question is specifically I think for Venture well, however it may apply for Rohit as well and maybe for score. But the, the question is, does Venture well only work with universities? So I think this is more Rohit and Trisha, but in terms of tech transfer etc, I think is where this is leading. So I'll, I'll leave that to you, Tricia.

Sure. No, we don't specifically only work with universities. We definitely do. We have a whole higher ed faculty programs that we deliver with US universities, we work internationally with international universities as well as obviously students. But no, we're not exclusively toward that. We have just within our base accelerator program on the US side we have early stage programming for founders that are 100% dedicated in. And it's not related to the university, but we do see a lot that come out of the university. So not exclusive, but it's definitely kind of how we were built and is a big, a big foundational piece of what Venture well does.

I think we just have to pay attention to them because they're a source of so much of the entrepreneurial zeal that comes out of them. There's a tremendous amount to be said about tech transfer and how spotty it is and how, how it has evolved over time and again because of the grantees that we work with, many of them have license arrangements with the universities for the innovations that they bring to the table. And so that represents a whole series of opportunities and challenges that we have to go through. So universities clearly are an important part of this piece. And they're often looking, the more progressive ones, I would say are looking actively for how they might engage more outside the university than others might be. Right. So others tend to be very insular. They think that they're very self contained and complete in and of themselves and they don't need anyone. The world is different. And I think that for the, for the world, for the world of universities, thinking about how they engage with the outside communities in particular ESOS is a big deal and some of them do it well and some of them just ignore them. So, you know, that's just the way of the world, I would say.

Yeah. Excellent. We are approaching time and before we all scramble for the exit, do want to give all the panelists a chance, maybe 15 to 20 seconds each to share? If folks would like to connect with you after the panel, where would be the best place to do that? And Then we'll thank the SBA and we'll all have a wonderful rest of the day and holidays. So, Bridget, if folks want to get in touch with you, where would. Where's the best place to do that?

Sure. I mean, I think Rohit mentioned it, but check me out on LinkedIn. Bridget Weston with Score Mentors. I would love to connect with all of you. And thanks for your time.

Same here. Echo that. Yep, LinkedIn is probably the best. Tricia Compass Markman Venture. Well, and yeah, really appreciate the opportunity. And for the fellow panelists, this was a lot of fun. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Rohit Shukla at LinkedIn as well. And I would ask if you would wouldn't mind just a shameless plug here. Do go on lardo.org impact to check out our impact report in particular for 2022. It might give you some tips as well on how you might consider thinking about starting storytelling, which Bridget and Trisha have also talked about. So thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Fantastic. And thank you to the SBA for the wonderful program and for all the resources that you are channeling to the esos doing this great work. So thank you all. Happy holidays, and we'll see you out there in the ecosystem.

Thank you, guys. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it.

Bye, everybody.

Thanks, everyone.