dornfeld management group

Start Up Missouri Connecting Entrepreneurs Across the State

dornfeldc — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 04:24:14 +0000

Start Up Missouri is an effort being organized by a group of entrepreneurs and organizations supporting entrepreneurs from across the State. The project leverages the infrastructure and resources of the Start Up America Partnership, a national effort to connect entrepreneurs to valuable resources, each other and create regional start-up ecosystems around the country.

The kick-off event will be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Jan. 31 at 611 Olive St. in downtown St. Louis and interested entrepreneurs can sign up at the Eventbrite page. The agenda will focus on connecting entrepreneurs, sharing ideas how we can support entrepreneurs and developing goals for Start Up Missouri.

The event’s hosts include Barbara Brinkman of Innovate St. Louis; Jay DeLong of St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association; Chris Dornfeld of Dornfeld Management Group; Trey Goede of Affinity Wind; Greg Kratofil of Polsinelli Shughart, PC; Brian Matthews of River City Internet Group and Judy Sindecuse of Capital Innovators.

Should be a great event and I hope you can join!

Plan to Turn Around the Economy from the Kauffman Foundation

dornfeldc — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:29:24 +0000

Thanks to our friends and the Kauffman Foundation for posting a great summary of the importance of entrepreneurs to the recovery of our economy and overall future of our country.

Link to this and other videos from the Kauffman Foundation

Entrepreneurs Create Jobs, Not the Wealthy

dornfeldc — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:51:42 +0000

Guest blogger today for Patch:

Driving home today I was listening to the radio and yet another discussion of the politics of the debt ceiling and financial challenges facing our country. On more than one occasion I heard the comment “wealthy people create jobs” as an argument to against increasing taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

The tax policy debate aside, the statement is just wrong. Entrepreneurs create jobs, not the wealthy.

Read the entire post here.

83% of Startups Hiring in 2011

dornfeldc — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 20:49:27 +0000

Silicon Valley Bank recently published “Startup Outlook 2011” with results from 375 interviews of private and VC backed hardware, software and clean-tech companies. Across the board the startup companies are reporting better results than in the past with increases in expected hiring, economic perception, profitability and overall growth.

Startup Outlook on Business Conditions from SVB

A few of the key findings from the report:

83% of Startups interviewed plan to hire in 2011, up from 73% in 2010.
Nearly one in four companies (23%) exceeded their 2010 revenue targets up significantly from 2009 (15%)
Two in three executives say the business conditions in 2010 are better than they were in 2009, and three in four expect they will get even better in the next 12 months.
More than 8 in 10 life science companies say that the government could help their company’s growth by improving the FDA approval process.

The report goes into detail on a number of factors impacting the performance of start-up companies by each of the four sectors targeted in the survey; life sciences, hardware, software and clean-tech.

Golden Triangle of Search

dornfeldc — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 19:03:01 +0000

One of my favorite graphics is the result of a study done by Enquiro Research that tracks the eyeball movement of people as they used an Internet browser. Clearly shows the impact of the top three search results and the obscurity of not showing up in the top five results.

Image showing density of eye tracking as users search through a typical search page on Google.

US Broadband and the Death of the Land Line Internet Connection?

dornfeldc — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 19:05:28 +0000

According to research from the OECD, the US continues to see growth in broadband connections and is the largest in terms of total accounts at around 81 million connections at the end of 2009. But when the same data is reviewed based on connections as a percentage of population the US drops to 15th. One article published on Gigaom.com looks raises some concerns about the type of connections and pace of growth.

Graph comparing US broadband penetration to rest of OECD countries

Specifically the increase of fiber connections to the home (FTTH).

But better broadband is hard to see in the OECD numbers. In June 2008 just 3 percent of U.S. broadband connections were fiber to the home, and by of the end of 2009, only 5 percent were (consisting of 1.3 FTTH connections per 100 inhabitants). This number still lags broadband powerhouses like Japan (13.5 connections per 100 inhabitants and about 54 percent of connections) and Korea (16.4 FTTH connections per 100 inhabitants and about 49 percent of connections), plus we could see it slip further given how Verizon has put a halt to future FTTH deployments. More important, 18 months ago just 45 percent of Japan’s connections were fiber while 39 percent of Korea’s were, so they’re still adding FTTH at a much faster rate than the U.S.

Is this a problem for the US? Maybe. Because of the market size the US continues to be the primary source of innovation taking advantage of broadband connections. Even though speeds might be possible at a higher density of population having access to a much larger market, when your business is in bits and bytes is ultimately much more valuable.

Wireless broadband should also be taken into consideration as the introduction of tablet PCs (primarily the IPAD) is changing dramatically the usage patterns and Internet access. Looking through data for a DMG client’s web site, mobile visitors now account for almost 5% of all traffic, up from less than 1% a year ago. Half of that traffic is from just IPhone and IPad users and IPad users accounted for no traffic a year ago.

With that kind of growth and the fact that Ipad’s could account for as much as 12% of the US PC and tablet market by the end of 2012 (Goldman Sachs), land-line broadband will most likely start to go the way of land-line phones. According to recent survey results:

In the last 6 months of 2009, one of every four households (24.5%) did not have a landline telephone but did have at least one Wireless telephone. Approximately 22.9% of all adults (approximately 52 million adults) lived in households with only wireless telephones; 25.9% of all children (more than 19 million children) lived in households with only wireless telephones.

I would not be surprised if in 2011-2012 we started to see a reduction in land-lines to the home and observed an increase in wireless only Internet households as well, especially in urban areas with prevalent Wi-Fi coverage.

Learning from Gaming

dornfeldc — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:32:47 +0000

There is an interesting article published yesterday in the Harvard Business Review that takes a look at the idea of increasing the use of games in the classroom. This is not surprising given the continue growth in the game industry and as a larger percentage of the population has grown up with technology, the percentage of people playing games is impressive. So how many people are actually playing games? Can games be an effective education resource? How can games be used most effectively in education?

Lets start with the audience. According to a survey of 36,000 people conducted by the gamesindustry.com and tns, an astounding 83% of the US Population plays games. Some on a personal computer, some on a mobile device and some via a game consul. This would explain why the game industry is expected to generate $70b in annual revenue by 2015 and eclipsed the movie industry and music industry around 2008.

According to a recent survey, 83% of people in the US play games and the number is even higher in younger age groups.

In younger age groups the number is even higher. According to the survey, 90% of boys and 81% of girls between the ages of 8 and 12 play games.

And not only are people playing games the amount of time spent playing games is remarkable. Game playing is now the number one pastime of boys ages 8-12, spending 13 hours a week on average playing games, compared to 10.2 for TV and 9.1 on the Internet. For the population as a whole, the time gaming is about 10 hours a week on average, compared to about 11.1 hours in the Internet and 10.9 hours watching TV.

As a delivery platform gaming has the potential to be the single most important delivery platform for information, and it is clear as a platform it is already well adapted by the majority of the population.

Are Games and Effective Learning Resource?

Doing a little research here the data does not appear to be as conclusive but does suggest it can be. According to a research summary written by Scott Robertson, a graduate student in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.

In pilot testing of Phoenix Quest, use of the game by itself produced only moderate learning gains. However, when students used the game in conjunction with supporting classroom activities (e.g. writing, paper and pencil activities, and discussions) the researchers observed highly substantial learning gains.

So fear not educators, games are not here to replace you but are here to help you more effectively teach complex subjects and augment other learning opportunities and interactions.

Having longer periods to interact with games also appears to have a stronger impact on learning, In another study by D. Lieberman, published in the Journal of Ambulatory Care Management, a game was used to help educate children about their own health management. According to the results of the study, children who took the games home and used them for one week to six months improved their ability to manage the effects of their asthma or diabetes, increased their resolve not to smoke, and reduced their emergency care visits by up to 77 percent.

More research is clearly needed, but educational games that are integrated into a broader educational program can be a very effective tool for educators. It is not clear that games as a stand alone platform (without integration into broader educational programs) can be as effective as more traditional methods. And with so many people already playing games, an educational game that is also entertaining could be a blockbuster in terms of dollars and societal value.

Don’t Lose Your Good Ideas

dornfeldc — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 18:02:24 +0000

I met with a good friend this week over a glass of wine who is thinking about starting a new company. The idea she has is pretty compelling, takes advantage of some larger macro trends and could really be big. It was clear from our discussion that she had dozens of cool ideas that tied into the big idea. I suggested she write down those other ideas on a piece of paper and pin them up on the wall someplace. And the next day I received the following snapshot:

Creating an idea board (I just have a bunch of stuff on a wall with tape) or a place to keep those great big ideas is important for three reasons.

Don’t lose that great idea. For a while I tried keeping them a notebook, along with all of my meeting notes, but they end up buried someplace and only every once in a while would I go back and pull them out. Same problem of keeping ideas in a file folder.
Keeping them visible on a daily basis is a great way to keep up motivation to keep working on a great idea.
Prioritization. As you have a bunch of ideas, and most entrepreneurs do, it is less about having a great idea and more about focusing energy to make a great idea a success.

Any other ideas on keeping your great ideas?

A great concept card from thisisindexed.com

America’s Competitive Advantage

dornfeldc — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 20:00:32 +0000

As an advocate for entrepreneurship, in late 2005 I was asked by a friend to write an article about my thoughts on entrepreneurship and immigration policy. Researching that article I cam across some very interesting statistics on the productivity of foreign-born entrepreneurs, the United States dependence on foreign minds and the most surprising, that during the dot.com 1990s, more than 50% of start-up companies in silicon valley were started by foreign-born nationals. In a nutshell, America’s competitive advantage is its ability to attract foreign entrepreneurs and innovators.

Last week NBC picked up on some new research highlighting the negative impact of entrepreneurs leaving the United States because of H1B visa expiration – even though they want to stay in the US, they are well-educated and they are creating jobs in the United States.

What is most surprising is that although there is now so much data, much of it supported by the Kauffman Foundation, there has been so little change in economic policy. The facts speak for themselves.

It is estimated that between 67% and 100% of job creation occurs at the start-up and small business level.
Immigrants to US are more entrepreneurial that native born citizens. (Kauffman)
50% of start-up companies in silicon valley started by foreign born citizens.

with the recession and now weak job creation maybe the environment is finally ripe for the economic development policies to begin to shift back towards innovation, job creation and wealth creation vs. protecting old industries and wealth preservation.

Additional resources on the topic:

Robert W. Fairlie (Associate Professor of Economics and Director of the Master’s Program in Applied Economics and Finance at the University of California, Santa Cruz) “Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity”, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, October 2005.
“Fatal Flows – Doctors on the Move”, Lincoln C. Chen, M.D., and Jo Ivey Boufford, M.D. New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 353:1850-1852, October 27 th , 2005 , Number 17.
Council on Graduate Medical Education. Physician workforce policy guidelines for the United States, 2000-2020. (Accessed October 6, 2005 , at

Perceptions of Economic Inequality

dornfeldc — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 17:21:47 +0000

There is a very interesting graph representing the perception of people in the US on the topic of perceived wealth distribution. The contrast between what is the “actual” wealth distribution and what is the “perceived” and “preferred” wealth distribution is remarkable.

A Harvard business prof and a behavioral economist recently asked more than 5,000 Americans how they thought wealth is distributed in the United States. Most thought that it’s more balanced than it actually is. Asked to choose their ideal distribution of wealth, 92% picked one that was even more equitable.

There are more graphs and information on the topic of income inequality that are as equally interesting here.

One of the other telling graphs relates to the income tax rate over time. Specifically the periods perceived as decades of high growth also have significantly higher tax rates.