Congratulations are in order to two friends who’ve recently lived through one of the sweetest moments in the life of an entrepreneur – a successful exit.

I first met Howard less than a year ago for dinner in Toronto. The conversation circled around the power of a decentralized community, social media, and… stocks. Howard had a nice post on the dinner that he ended with: “I plan to capitalize on Networking 2.0 with ideas discussed tonight with young Fraser.”

A month or so later, on a humid summer night, I got a call from Howard. Pacing around my apartment I listened to a frenzied Howard walk me through a vision for an internet video show covering stocks from a pop-culture perspective and leveraging all of the tools available for building community. I remember saying to Howard that he was either brilliant. Or insane.

Well, 9 months after Wallstrip launched on October 16th 2006, Howard was shown to be brilliant when CBS purchased Wallstrip.

VC Ratings has a nice post articulating the value that I believe CBS saw in the site/show/knowledge. I especially agree with:

1) How to get the show on every video service quickly and easily.
6) How to make a web site that communicates what the show is quickly and easily.
7) How to do advertising in a way that doesn’t get in the way of the viewer.

I do think one significant point was left out of the list: the ability to produce an engaging internet show on the cheap.

What a moment for the entire Wallstrip team! Congratulations everyone. Howard, I did a search of my emails – I’ve sent a “congratulations” email to you 6 times in the past 9 months… which raises the question: what are you going to do next?

Another friend, Eric Olson, has recently lived through the experience of Google acquiring Feedburner, the company he works for. It’s a deal that just makes so much sense that it was bound to happen. While Eric’s fantasy baseball team may not be performing like he’d like, I’m sure he’ll cope The only sour part of this deal was the timing… the closing kept Eric from meeting up at the Sox game last Friday when I was in Chicago.

Congratulations guys, enjoy the moment and the lasting memory. Now, Eric – when are you up for a jays game? And, Howard – when do we launch VCStrip?

The Council on Competitiveness has released a report on US Entrepreneurship titled Where America Stands: Entrepreneurship [pdf].

An interesting and short read.

Fill in the blank:

Given the low cost/low time required to start a business in Canada, Canada’s level of entrepreneurship is especially ______________.

[via MaRS Blog]

Iain Klugman, Communitech’s President, spoke at the last GHVF meeting on March 21st on lessons learned from the Waterloo Region and what it will take to build a successful tech industry in the Golden Horseshoe.

The real gem, the uncensored piece of advice, came in the Q&A period. In response to a question of what the Golden Horseshoe region could do to create and catalyze a culture of innovation and commerce Klugman simply responded: drown some puppies.

He went on to explain that the Golden Horseshoe region has too many fragmented networks (“2 for every individual”), each with its own mandate and focus, consuming similar resources, duplicating services, etc.

Klugman stated that sometimes you have to be brave enough to drown a few puppies to make a stronger litter. If the Golden Horseshoe region drowned some puppies they’d be able to create a stronger organization supporting innovation within the region – by trimming fat and duplicate expenses, by clarifying confusing overlap between groups, and by being able to hire a strong director that can grow the organization.

I couldn’t have agreed more with Klugman and in informal conversations since the event it has become apparent that many people within the region share a similar view.

During a time of change it’s critical to manage all stakeholders through every step:

Know
Understand
Believe
Act

It deconstructs nicely – individuals can’t act until they believe. They won’t believe until they understand. And they can’t understand until they know.

So where to start? By communicating (repeatedly).

I believe attribution for this eventually works its way back to the former editor of the Hamilton Spectator. It’s wonderfully simple, yet has resonated with everyone I’ve told it to.

The Forethought section of March’s Harvard Business Review has a piece titled Meet the Innovation Capitalists.

“Innovation capitalists are firms… that seek out and evaluate ideas and technologies from the inventor community and other external sources. They develop and refine those ideas to the point where their market potential is validated, and they pitch them to large client firms. An innovation capitalist reduces a client company’s acquisition costs and early-stage risks.”

This is another piece in the specialization company thesis that sees companys/investment firms specialize along business stage / process pathways and leverage a technology through their network, one business stage at a time, until it scales and comes to market.

Innovation Capitalists “add value not through capital investing, as venture capitalists do, but through a unique combination of market expertise, networking skills, and early-stage innovation management acumen.”

Generally firms looking to acquire newly developed technology had two options, each introducing a forced tradeoff; however, Innovation Capitalists help fill the middle of the spectrum offering a solution free from the two tradeoffs.

One traditional option has been to seek out and acquire technology that’s still far from market-ready. In this situation costs are reduced but risks are elevated. The second traditional option has been to buy innovation that’s ready for market. This situation brings low risks but high costs.

Innovation Capitalists fill the middle of the spectrum – using their particular industry expertise to seek out and identify emerging technologies, develop and refine the ideas to validate market potential and mitigate risks, and then push them forward to different organizations that can advance them further or bring them to market.