Kitchen Cabinet mentors help entrepreneurs
Four out of five life science start-ups will fail within
the first five years without access to the business assistance
and mentoring typically available in a biosciences incubator,
national statistics suggest. To improve the odds for its clients,
the Virginia Biosciences Development Center has created a
Kitchen Cabinet Mentoring Board program designed to assist
with strategic and other business issues.
A kitchen cabinet is comprised of eight to 10 local industry
executives and subject matter experts who volunteer their
time to help company founders identify and address strategic
issues facing their business. Typically, cabinet members will
include a lawyer, accountant and marketing/public relations
specialist in addition to experts in regulatory affairs, reimbursement,
broadband, other technologies, venture capital and investment
banking, depending on the specific needs of the company.
A kitchen cabinet commits to meet with the company founders
and management six to eight times per year to review the business
plan and target business assistance and guidance. The estimated
value of this work to the typical start-up company: $16,000
per year, assuming a conservative $125 per hour value for
kitchen cabinet member time.
-
One kitchen cabinet helped a cardiovascular surgeon
negotiate $1 million in venture capital funding for his
start-up company while retaining 52 percent controlling
ownership vs. the 25 percent initially proposed by the
venture capitalist.
-
A kitchen cabinet assisted a diagnostic testing company
in determining how to use reimbursement codes (CPT codes)
for its DNA assays, eliminating a cash flow problem and
increasing revenue.
-
Another kitchen cabinet helped a telemedicine start-up
determine the appropriate revenue model for delivering
telemedicine services in developing or war-torn countries
where the services seem to offer great benefits.
|
