Entrepreneurs can settle in for a soft landing

In the future, the success rate for spin-off companies, developed from talent coming from outside and inside the university, is about to increase, thinks Professor Aard Groen, 49, the scientific director of the NIKOS Institute and leader in the region’s key innovation plans. VentureLab Twente trains entrepreneurs, providing a ‘soft landing incubator’ for anyone in the world keen to begin a new company.

‘Since the early 1980s,’ says Groen, ‘we have been stimulating entrepreneurship with around 800 spin-off companies coming from Twente University. I think you could easily say 10 percent of the participants in the VentureLab Twente program are international people coming from inside the region, but also now able to join us from outside the region. We are encouraging our entrepreneurs to “go global” and expanding our international network.’

In 2009, The National Business Incubation Association awarded the NBIA Soft Landings International Incubator designation to VentureLab Twente, making it the first location to offer this program in the Netherlands. Ideally, the soft landing incubator will allow non-domestic companies and entrepreneurs to enter the incubator’s domestic market, gaining local support to introduce them to networks, explain regulations and provide a place to easily build up a company.

Groen’s own experiences have led him to the conclusion that often scientists who want to start a company turn a blind eye to developing business skills. ‘If I say it bluntly, they encounter the problem of their own incompetence and work only on the scientific and technological aspects of their product which are important factors, but too often, they don’t pay attention to business aspects. We really want to help entrepreneurs define their business and talk to them about how far they want to bring their products into the value chain.’

The ambition has been shifting over the past years at the university to develop an ‘entrepreneurial ecosystem’ with dynamic teams that combine expertise in technical and business skills. ‘We are making programs specializing in ‘technology venturing’ to teach how marketing and innovation work in a technology-based company,’ says Groen with enthusiasm.

He indicates one of the next steps is to create segments within ‘venture technology’, providing the resources and environment to conduct evidence-based product development research to show the superiority of a product. ‘The Mesa+ Institute is one of the forerunners. Based on a technological platform such as the lab-on-a-chip, many firms start to work in several markets and this is necessary for success.’

‘We will have to take risk to grow,’ Groen reflects on the near future. ‘We’ve had over 100 people participate in the VentureLab Twente program and there will be hundreds more. Our early projections were ambitious, and as far as I can see, we have been reaching these goals, but really you need five years to evaluate the growth.’

Aard Groen: ‘In an international context, we plan tobe part of a well-developed “soft-landing incubator” program. We help people from inside and outside the university get in touch with the Dutch and European markets and networks. Our entrepreneurs will be able to gain access to a whole global network.”

Marloes Tuck (seated in middle) and her team show off their new innovative product designed to protect undersea energy cables.

‘No sea is too high’ for one Dutch entrepreneur

This is the driving motto of Marloes Tuk, 27, a young entrepreneur who was born in Rotterdam and started her own technology-based company, Cable Protection Nederland (CP/NL), in September 2009. Tomorrow she will be honored as the 100^th participant in the VentureLab Twente business development program. Tuk believes, ‘no sea is too high!’, taking time to regularly step onboard cable installation ships to better understand the needs of her future customers and refine her product.

‘Good listening and creative solutions win the trust in the market for our products and services,’ says the new business owner and ambitious entrepreneur, who plans to quickly finish her studies to earn a master’s degree in Communications at the Twente University, allowing for her to dedicate her energies to selling the system to companies in the data, telecom and offshore energy markets.

Her clever product provides an easily mountable and sustainable protection system which through an automated process provides a cheaper solution to install cables under the sea, hopefully providing a better product than what is currently available in the existing market. Livewire Nederland awarded the spin-off the honor as one of the top 20 innovative companies in 2010. Learn more about VentureLab Twente’s celebration on their new English-language website, go to www.venturelabtwente.com