KISS today: What do you guys think of the Idealab model?
…on either side of the table
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Idealab is a little different than most people think. We’re actually an operating company, and not a venture firm or investment firm. We have our own internal development team – marketing, engineering, design, business development, etc. In particular, I am leading a lot of research on low cost solar energy, and other projects. When we find success in one of our prototyping efforts, and we find market acceptance, then we spin that out into a separate company, so that we can recruit additional employees with significant equity stakes, etc. It’s definitely an unusual model, and it’s very hard to execute well, but it works very well for us. Now that we have been in business for nearly 12 years, we have learned a lot of the pitfalls, and hopefully we can have a higher success rate on each new venture. That’s of course what we try to do! If you’re ever in Southern CA and you can visit, I think you would get a much better sense of how we work.
Bill