I read with interest a whole set of blog posts about the age of successful entrepreneurs in the US (one of the better ones was by Marc Andreessen, you can find it here  Age and the entrepreneur, part 1: Some data). In my opinion it was a debate over whether youth and enthusiasism trumped age and experience in the high-tech startup world. One thing that immediately jumps up at you is that most of the high-tech entrepreneurial super stars were young (e.g. Bill Gates, Larry Page, Sergey Brin).

I was wondering whether anyone had done any real studies on how things worked in Israel.  Even though the Israeli VC and start-up model is based on the US model, the culture, environment and people are different than in the US.  Thigs work diffefrently here (and I think the Israeli VCs will need to change in order to adopt - but I’ll write more on that in a separate post). For example, most Israeli entrepreneurs go through maniditory army service - for three years or more (and many Israeli high tech companies started are based on teams that worked together during their Army service). I guess that is why Israeli work better in teams than Americans - and the list of differences go on and on (probably write a post on that too:)

That leads me to an article I read yesterday in the Marker (an Israeli business daily) that quotes a study by Dr. Eli Gimon (sp?). I would have put up a link but I couldn’t find the article on the web - and both the article and summary I found was only in hebrew….

I thought it was telling to see what he actually measured - whether a company that started in a high-tech incubator was around for at least seven years. That was his definition of success. I am not sure any VC would agree with that definition - but it does make sense in an Israeli context. While most US VCs (and Israeli too) are looking for the elusive “home-run” - Israeli produces very few of those. It mostly produces companies with innovative, solid technology - which is why so many Israeli companies are snapped up by overseas companies - they provide technology innovation, depth and skills. These companies get acquired for anywhere between $10M-$200M - where over $100M is rare and high-end. Very different than the US model…

Bottom line - what Dr. Gimon (sp?) found was that the most important ingredient to success for an Israeli start-up is management skill and experience - not age, sex, schooling or national origin of the founder. Also whether they built the company based on their own technology made a difference.

I imagine these findings are probably very different than in the US…

I was just looking at the new version of Israel’s “Chief Scientist’s Law” (the new version - updated June 2005) Encouragement of Industrial Research and Development Law 5744-1984. For those of you unfamiliar with this government program - it is essentailly a loan program to startups (and other manufacturing\technology companies) that is repayable as royalties or as a settlement on sale of the company. Companies submit proposals to the Office of the Chief Scientist, which decides on the merits whether to provide funding. The law itself is relevant for both manufacturing and IP based companies - but for most start-ups, the rules regarding IP are the the more interesting.

So is it worth it? Seems like easy money - right? Fill in a few forms, talk to a few people and get some serious funding. So whats the catch?

In general the law tries to be fair - if there is a sale of the company the government gets a percentage of the sale value relative to the amount invested, plus interest. More or less like any VC - except the calculation seems to be as if the investment is the relative part of 100% of the company ((government_grants/all_investments_in_company)*sales_price) - so what about the founders and employees? Is that supposed to be only out of the other investors share? Well, for that there is clause 19B.j.1 “The Ministers may affixx rules for calculating the Sale Price in a manner that will take account of the shares that have been issued to entrepreneurs and employees otherwise than for cash ” - besides the weird english (well, it isn’t an official translation) - it seems to say that the government doesn’t have to actually leave anything for the founders and employees from thier part of the proceeds, but they may decide to…

However, the biggest problem is with uncertainty that the law creates with the transfer of IP outside of Israel in the event of an acquisition. They allow for the transfer based on the decision of a committee (described in text of the law) - which according to the wording doesn’t have to allow the transfer of IP (though in most cases it probably will). Not being able to transfer IP abroad could kill an acquisition - or make it less valuable to the acquirng company. Many international corporations (e.g. IBM) require that all of their IP belong to corporate - so if the IP can’t be transferred, the IP remaining in Israel could be an issue - and will at least be a price negotiation point.

So if you are facing a choice between closing the company (or not getting off the ground) and taking Chief Scientist money - take the money - but make sure you know what you are getting into. Like with any transaction - caveat emptor…

Related reading: Export of Technology Developed With Chief Scientist

Patents aren’t cheap, but they are important. Besides the time and effort, it will cost you somewhere between $5K-$15K per patent. As a startup you ‘ll need to worry about a patent portfolio that provides you with real value besides the obvious one - responding to a VC’s query about the IP protection you have, barriers to entry etc. So how do you go about creating a patent portfolio? Here are some of the considerations you should take into account when deciding what to patent:

• Freedom of action - what is key to making sure that you can build the products you need to be successful, without anyone being able to stop you.

• Leverage for partnering - allows you to provide unqiue partnership value that (hoepfully) people are willing to pay for. And it is cool to say “patent pending technology”.

• Block competition - keep others from doing the same thing. But don’t really count on this, since this is usually relatively hard. Given that there is usually more than one way to do things - how do you tell if a competitor is actually using your IP without a costly trial.

• Due diligence and M&A - worst comes to worst, you can sell your IP portfolio. However, this is really a last resort since patents without skills are usually not considered all that valuable as an acquisition. However some key patents can  increase your value in an acquisition.
• Generate revenue (and especially profit) - this actually a possible, but very difficult, business model to implement (e.g. Qualcomm as an example). Be honest with yourself - what are the chances that someone will pay big bucks for access to your patent portfolio….

The basic steps in creating your patent are:

• Invention - Discovering something that is unique and valuable and then deciding which parts are worthy of the time and effort of a patent.

• Competitive Analysis - Should be done by the inventor, rather than attorney, since the inventors understand the domain better than anyone. You can find helpful resources at http://www.uspto.gov/ and http://www.google.com/patents.

• Provisional Patent -doesn’t really provide protection, buty does allow you to set a date of inventtion. For the few hundred bucks it costs, it is usually worth it. In your provisional patent you should document as much as you can about the invention. Don’t forget you only have a year to submit the actual patent - don’t wait until the last minute.

• Write patent  - Expect to spend significant time writing, explaining and reviewing.

• Submit and wait - and decide where you would like to submit.

• Modifications - the patent office will probably come back with questions and issues (though not quickily, it can take a couple of years for a patent to be reviewed)..