ACE 2007 ...
Friday, January 19, 2007
Last night, Dave and I attended ACE at the Washtenaw CommunityCollege. It was a great experience both on an intellectual level, as
well as on a practical level in terms of business executions.
We arrived on time to grab some food before the program officially
began in the auditorium. The first order of business was their keynote
presentation, Hybra-Drive Systems, by CEO Rick Goldstein. This is a
company that is working on a hydraulic hybrid vehicle. It was an
interesting talk that walked the audience through the entire journey
of the company from the concept stage all the way to its current
position of having a working prototype.
Next, the elevator pitch competition graced the stage with 6 Metro
Detroit companies hoping to earn their respective companies some
venture funding and exposure. The companies participating were
Advanced Technologies of Michigan, Blaze Medical Devices, Creative
Byline, Elkins Innovations, Razor Threat and TECAT Engineering. In the
end, Razor Threat CEO Greg Guidice impressed the judges to win the
competition.
After a short break following the elevator pitch competition, we were
treated to a breakout session on 'How to build a successful company in
a difficult market ?'. This is a video presentation of Geoffrey
Moore's Panel Discussion under the MIT Enterprise Forum/Stanford
Venture Lab program. The panel of CEOs include Dean Drako of Barracuda
Networks, Quentin Gallivan of Postini and Gary Steele of Proofpoint.
The entire event was very enlightening and encouraging. It showed
evidence that good products/services can become very well received and
good companies can become very successful.
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posted by Jeff
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