small business innovation: INITIATIVE IN MINNESOTA

Abstract

Ideas come easier for some than others, however it is not the idea but the action to advance the idea to commercialization that separates the entrepreneurs from the rest. The decision to start a new technology enterprise starts with the recognition of an opportunity and mobilization of both financial and human resources. And this is key: technical innovations and business start-ups are not shaped by creativity alone, but by the "presence of knowledge, financial, and other complementary assets that ate available in a region." The following article outlines how the University of Minnesota Duluth's Natural Resources Research Institute (NRRI) organized around decades of accumulated infrastructure (physical assets, regional connections, intellectual capacity) to support product development without giving the client a grant to use on their own. The Small Business Innovation Initiative builds on NRRI's niche of supporting entrepreneurs in manufacturing, product development, lean processes, equipment purchasing, and strategic decision-making.