Venture Island

The bottom line: A venturesome spirit is growing

Our view: The Venture Island contest didn’t draw huge crowds but did reveal an enterprising spirit worth cultivating.

How do you get ahead in business? Keep trying, even after setbacks. Treat failure as a chance to learn from your mistakes. Do better next time.

We hope the organizers of Venture Island, a “Survivor”-style competition for start-up businesses that wrapped up Thursday night, follow that advice and keep hunting for ways to cultivate the entrepreneurial spirit in the north state.

Venture Island was a bust when it comes to buzz. Ticket sales were slow, and the tiny audiences looked even smaller in the 1,000-seat Cascade Theatre. Even for those who were curious, it was hard to know what to make of the unusual mix: hard-nosed parsing of business plans along with comedy, Gypsy dancers and a luau theme.

The entertainment kept things light, but Venture Island was as serious as the bottom line. Twenty entrepreneurs started in early September and were whittled down to Thursday’s three finalists. Over that time, they honed their pitches and business plans. Some even developed products that were only sketches when the contest began.

These upstarts’ business ideas ranged from the inventions of job-site tinkerers to slick Web applications. And they were all doing it in rural Northern California.

The winner of the $25,000 prize? Elements, a small but growing company based in Shasta Lake that supplies laboratory materials and equipment. The biggest surprise? A start-up developing new methods for growing the optical crystals used in lasers - whose Ph.D. founders are based in Anderson. (Shasta Crystals took second place.)

Ambitious minds are at work around the region, but good ideas don’t get far without solid legal, financial and planning advice. Venture Island, dreamed up by the Golden State Capital Network and organized by the Smart Business Resource Center in Redding, aimed in part to create the networks that turn brainstorms into business models.

Can you create those networks from scratch? Not on the first try. But it’s worth the effort to keep venturing.

Our view: The Venture Island contest didn’t draw huge crowds but did reveal an enterprising spirit worth cultivating.

Record Searchlight

Mogensen wins Venture Island

Eric Mogensen, president of Elements in Shasta Lake, was crowned the Big Kahuna and took home $25,000 in cash and prizes as the winner of Venture Island North State.

Elements manufactures calibration standards for laboratory testing.

Mogensen was one of three finalists at Thursday’s event. Gisele Maxwell of Shasta Crystals in Anderson and James Phillips of Inovius in Redding were the other two.

The combined votes from the audience and judges put Mogensen over the top.

Venture Island was a three-month competition that gave 38 contestants access to key professionals and executive coaching and opportunities to network with industry experts, venture capitalists and angel investors.

Food for Thought, A News Café
By Kelly Brewer, November 7th, 2008

And the $25,000 Venture Island Grand Prize Goes To…

Who: Eric Mogensen, 39, president of Elements in Shasta Lake.

What: Mogensen’s firm, Elements Standards Inc., makes high purity elements for quality assurance testing. Elements provided the pure arsenic that was used recently to test arsenic levels in the city of Redding’s water supply. The products are used by semiconductor, environmental protection, forensic, aeronautic, water quality and petrochemical industries. “My customers range from Intel to U.S. Homeland Security and the Federal (Food and) Drug Administration,” Mogensen said.

Background: Mogensen moved from the San Francisco Bay area to Millville in 2003. Elements opened in the Shasta Gateway Industrial Park in November 2006. Originally from Palo Alto, Mogensen attended Chico State University before he was recruited by an investment corporation to grow sales for a similar business. Mogensen finished one semester short of his degree. Elements has seven employees.

What would you do with the $25,000?: Use it for marketing.

Read all about the entrepreneurial Venture Island adventures here.

Record Searchlight
Sunday, November 2, 2008

It’s down to three. Three entrepreneurs will vie for $25,000 at Thursday’s Venture Island North State finals at the Cascade Theatre in downtown Redding. Tickets are still available and can be purchased at the theater, 1731 Market St., by calling the box office at 243-8877, or going to www.cascadetheatre.org. The finals start at 6:30 p.m. Billed by organizers as “Survivor” meets “The Apprentice” meets “American Idol,” Venture Island is a showcase of ideas that started in September with 20 contestants. The 20 were whittled from 39 original applicants. The finalists - Gisele Maxwell, Eric Mogensen and James Phillips - will have six minutes to present their ideas. After the presentations, a panel of judges will ask questions. Ultimately, the judges and audience will decide the winner. The finals, called “The Pina Colada,” are the culmination of four rounds. Venture Island is made possible through a grant received by the Smart Resource Center in Redding. The money helped develop and market the event with the help of Golden Capital Network in Chico.

 Venture Island North State finalists

Who: Gisele Maxwell, 41, CEO of Shasta Crystals in Anderson. What: Maxwell’s company, founded in 2006, makes crystals that are used in minature projectors embedded in laptop computers and cell phones. The laser crystals go into the projector’s light engine, giving off a higher quality beam than a light-emitting diode (LED) or regular lamp, according to Maxwell. Shasta Crystals’ customers include Epson and Texas Instruments.l Background: Maxwell grew up in France and came to the United States in 1997 where she did her post doctorate work at Stanford University. She has a degree in chemical engineering, a master’s in material science and doctorate in physics. Maxwell met her husband in Palo Alto before coming to Shasta County to start Shasta Crystals, which has four full- and part-time employees. What would you do with the $25,000?: Buy testing equipment so Shasta Crystals wouldn’t have to outsource its testing to Texas.

Who: Eric Mogensen, 39, president of Elements in Shasta Lake. What: Mogensen’s firm, Elements Standards Inc., makes high purity elements for quality assurance testing. Elements provided the pure arsenic that was used recently to test arsenic levels in the city of Redding’s water supply. The products are used by semiconductor, environmental protection, forensic, aeronautic, water quality and petrochemical industries. “My customers range from Intel to U.S. Homeland Security and the Federal (Food and) Drug Administration,” Mogensen said. Background: Mogensen moved from the San Francisco Bay area to Millville in 2003. Elements opened in the Shasta Gateway Industrial Park in November 2006. Originally from Palo Alto, Mogensen attended Chico State University before he was recruited by an investment corporation to grow sales for a similar business. Mogensen finished one semester short of his degree. Elements has seven employees. What would you do with the $25,000?: Use it for marketing.

Who: James Phillips, 44, president of Inovius Inc. in Redding.  What: Inovius is an offshoot of Phillips’ firm, Veritas Health Systems, which was established in 2002 to market consumer-directed health plans to employers. Inovius has created an interactive way for health care payers, providers, financiers and consumers to make decisions. Its main customers are insurance companies and banks. The interactive tools are primarily used for high-deductible health savings account plans. Phillips says Inovius takes static information and puts it into an interactive template, so people aren’t looking at a piece of paper to compare health plans. Blue Cross and Bank of America are two of Inovius’ customers. Background: Phillips dropped out of school after the eighth grade and calls himself “self educated.” For years, Phillips worked as a large group health plan consultant for employers like Catholic Healthcare West and Shasta County. His goal always has been to take the fear out of the equation when it comes to health insurance. Veritas has seven employees; Inovius has four employees. What would you do with $25,000?: Use it for development and marketing.

Silas Lyons, Editor
October 30, 2008

John Lennon’s first smart move

At Venture Island North State’s “Meet the Entrepreneurs” event tonight, Beatles expert, author and speaker Bill Stainton claimed that the entire phenomenon that is the Beatles began with a single decision by John Lennon: To let someone who sang better, played guitar better and had a cuter face join his little band in Liverpool.

Stainton’s point — ego will kill you. If you’re willing to hire or partner with people you know are better than you, you’ll succeed. Witness what Paul McCartney did for The Quarrymen.

Stainton’s gig is all about connecting the Beatles to business. The other four things to which he attributes the band’s legendary success: A single shared vision; playing to their strengths; shaking it up; and working hard (”carry that weight”). Just that simple. Oh, they were also remarkably talented.

It’s a great thing they’re doing with Venture Island. Only one entrepreneur will wind up winning $25,000, but they’re all getting a lot of good exposure and I know at least some of them have already wound up talking with potential investors. If you haven’t already seen a round of competition, there’s one more chance. The finals are on Nov. 6 at 6:30 p.m. at the Cascade Theatre. Check it out.