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Commercializing innovation is one of my biggest passions.  It is what gets me up in the morning and I am glad I get to do it for a living as a VC and, previous to that, as an operator in a startup.  That said, I have to admit that what surprised me a little when I moved to the VC side and started working with a lot more professors and graduate students was that some of these folks didn’t seem that interested in pursuing commercialization of their innovations (to be clear there are also a lot of them that do think a lot about commercialization).

I totally understand where they are coming from.  They aren’t in it for the money.  They simply want to make the world a better place.  I am 100% with them on that.  I don’t do what I do for the money either.  I doubt someone can be very happy for very long doing something only for the money.  A higher mission is usually what drives people to new heights.

However, it seems that these folks don’t realize that working to commercialize their innovations can actually help get their innovations out into the world and helping people, which was the reason they spent their time and effort developing the innovation in the first place.

In fact, I heard from a professor today that another professor mentioned that, in his view, his work, in the form of an academic paper, may take 20 years to have any effect on society but when commercialized it could probably reach people in a meaningful way in a couple of years.

While businesses and corporations can be evil there is no reason they have to be.  In fact, if done right, businesses are really great vehicles for disseminating innovations to the public and doing it in a sustainable way (since they make money – and profits – and can use those to continue the business).  Not only that but they also lead to even more economic good for a region in terms of new, and generally higher paying, jobs among other benefits.

I view part of my role as a VC as spreading the message of commercialization and helping scientists to get to the point where their innovations can become a sustainable business and subsequently start improving peoples lives.  Sure, sometimes the innovations are years away from being commercialization ready but so what?  Working with these guys and seeing their innovations progress over time is a big part of the fun of being a VC (in my view at least).  Plus, it lets me put my inner scientist/engineer to work (let’s face it – I think most business side startup guys and VCs are really wannabe engineers and scientists are heart).

Commercializing innovation takes a lot of work but it is worth it. I look forward to my continued work with some of the brightest and most resourceful innovators around and I think we’re going to build some groundbreaking companies together in the years to come.