TiE Institute organized its first lecture/seminar titled ‘How to separate good ideas from businesses opportunities’ at Babson College, Wellesley on April 6th. Nearly 100 people attended the seminar which was presented by Dr. Julian Lange. Dr. Lange is Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies, Babson College. He is also President of Chatham Associates, which is a management consulting firm that assists businesses in building competitive advantage.

Dr. Lange outlined the basic skills that an entrepreneur and an entrepreneurial-team (e-team) must possess to build a successful business. "An entrepreneur should possess creativity and innovative skills – like inventors, and managerial abd business know-how skills - like managers and administrators, " said Dr. Langer. He presented the 'Timmons Model' of entrepreneurial process. He used a business case to exemplify the concepts discussed in his presentation.

The case presented was of an entrepreneur in clothing industry who starts a small business by stitching and selling bags and grows her business to franchise 38 stores. Various stages of the business, problems encountered and the way they were handled were presented. The case was interesting and required very little know-how of any complex technology or formal business management. The audience was split into groups of 8 to 10 to analyze the case. The groups were asked to evaluate the opportunity and the strengths and weakness of the entrepreneur in the case.

Is success in business just a matter of luck?. "A formal study maximizes the luck by preparing you to identify opportunities and make best use of them," said Dr. Lange.

In conclusion, Dr. Lange explained the criteria for evaluating venture opportunities. He presented a list of criteria in the following areas: industry and market, economics, harvest issues, competitive advantage issues, management team, fatal-flow issue and strategic differentiation that have high and low potential for success in business. Venture opportunities that change the way people live and work have highest potential for success, while those which show incremental improvement have lowest potential for success. Complete list of these criteria with their attractiveness for business can be found in the book titled 'New Venture Creation' by Jeffery A. Timmons.

"The event was over sold and the attendance was much more then we had anticipated," said Geetha Ramamurty, Director of Operations, TiE–Boston. This event was a great start for the TiE Institute in Boston. “The goal is to help members acquire the know-how and skills needed to get ahead in a business career, whether as an entrepreneur or as an employee,” said Ashok Bogani, co-chair of TiE Institute. The aim of TiE Institute is to provide education and training to TiE members. A series of short courses will be taught by highly experienced faculty member through the year. The next seminar will be at Babson college on 27th April by Venkat Srinivasan, former Associate Professor of Finance, Northeastern University and the topic is 'Market Analysis and Pricing'.

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