Craig Silvernagel (left) is the entrepreneurship director for the College of Business and Public Administration. Richard Schultz, associate professor of electrical engineering, is also associate project director for North Dakota EPSCoR (Experimental Project to Stimulate Competitive Research). (Photo: Chuck Kimmerle/University Relations)

Getting ideas to market: Researchers and educators tackle the promise and pitfalls of commercialization

One of UND’s most research-minded professors in the School of Engineering and Mines and the savvy new head of the entrepreneurship program in the College of Business and Public Administration joined forces this summer, thanks to a summer research grant co-sponsored by the Small Business Administration.

Their joint project demonstrates that UND’s commitment to research and scholarship is not limited to the traditional, according to Vice President for Research Peter Alfonso. In this case, he says, the goal is to provide useful information to the residents of the state, and to learn something new in doing so.

Craig Silvernagel, entrepreneurship director for the College and a former business owner, and Richard Schultz, associate professor of electrical engineering, are developing a guide to product marketability tailored to individual North Dakotans who have ideas for a business or a product but aren’t sure how to seek assistance from the North Dakota University System.

“You don’t want to be like the developer of the DOS operating system for computers who sold his idea to Bill Gates for $50,000,” Schultz said. “The developer no doubt thought he’d gotten a lot of value for his idea, but Gates developed a multibillion-dollar product line with it. How could the developer have known?”

The guide Silvernagel and Schultz are developing will help North Dakotans with marketable ideas. Starting a business to market a new product or service, although often the first impulse, isn’t always the best route. It might, in fact, be better to license the idea or to sell it outright.

Their work was supported by one of four faculty grants funded this year by the North Dakota Small Business Development Center (SBDC), sponsored by the Small Business Administration, in cooperation with the business college. The primary goal of the summer program is to assist North Dakota entrepreneurs, said SBDC State Director Christine Martin-Goldsmith.

Schultz became interested in commercialization in 1999 when a company expressed interest in his own research. That project failed partly because UND lacked a technology transfer office, Schultz said. (See Page 5 to learn about UND’s new technology transfer officer.)

“Math, engineering, science, and technology departments within our state’s university system do a great job of teaching technical skills,” Schulz said. “These academic departments can certainly help determine the technical feasibility of a product or service concept, but even more importantly, the ‘go/no-go’ decision of starting a business or licensing a patent must be made with the potential target market niche in mind.”

That’s where Silvernagel fits in. He co-founded and operated Ad Monkeys, a Grand Forks advertising agency, for about eight years. He knows the questions to ask: Once technical feasibility is established, is the idea commercially feasible? Are adequate financial resources available? Does it have value as intellectual property? Are there partners who might be interested?

Cross-departmental partnerships within the University as well as collaborations with businesses offer huge rewards to all, Silvernagel and Schultz agree. Universities are great at high-risk, high-payoff research, which is often funded by the federal government or through industry/university collaborations. Universities bring their core education and research expertise to the table, while businesses have product development expertise and knowledge of the appropriate market channels for selling a new product or service. In fact, federal policy encourages the rapid transfer to the private sector of new knowledge discovered with federal funds.

“I had this suspicion there were a lot of resources — not just at UND but in the whole university system — that could be tapped and disseminated,” Martin-Goldsmith said. “My job is capturing these professors’ ideas and sending them out in practical language to benefit North Dakota entrepreneurs.”

With $20,000 in federal funds to link her operation with universities, Martin-Goldsmith convinced Business Dean Dennis Elbert to contribute $10,000 toward the project. The Small Business Development Corporation office located on campus is one of 10 in the state.
Other UND recipients of SBDC faculty research grants this year were:

Timothy O’Keefe, associate professor of information systems and business education, who tracked sales activities of new businesses using e-commerce sites to learn what kinds of North Dakota enterprises might profit from this approach.

Bruce Byars, assistant professor of business law and accountancy, and Christine Martin-Goldsmith herself, who are studying business bankruptcy trends to identify high-risk factors for existing businesses.

James Walker, instructor of management, who is surveying businesses that have used consultants for various purposes, with the goal of identifying what makes this kind of relationship succeed or fail.

Last year’s topics included investigations into disaster recovery planning, customer loyalty for companies with Web sites, perceptions of tourism, and start-up strategies for new cutting-edge businesses.