Did your Legos Spill?

If you’re an entrepreneur with a glimmer in your eye and an idea worth millions, we have some advice for you, “Don’t let them out of the office or else your Legos will spill.” Funny, that’s exactly the same advice CEO of Starbuck’s Howard Schultz gave at his recent lecture at Harvard Business School, but in his case it was coffee beans. Focus is everything. Revolution Energy and NextChoice were our guests at last month’s Entrepreneur Forum and they are all about focusing on growth.

Revolution Energy provides energy infastructure to reduce the carbon footprint with an unique twist – they own the equipment at your site and either sell it back to you or to the grid. You get energy credits and/or have the option of using your own sustainable energy at a reduced cost. Why? Because you don’t have to pay for the equipment. Clay Mitchell, co-founder of Revolution Energy explained that municipalities, non-profits, and businesses alike are seeking clean, sustainabile energy, but have found it cost prohibitive. Revolutionary? Americans take notice. China has 95% solar array’s atop every building and is now is the planet’s leader in renewable energy technology (537 Billion kWh per year 2008 vs. 393 for the United States.) One solar array is architecturally arranged to look like a giant dragon defending it’s skyscraper. We need to get creative and clearly, Revolutionay Energy has.

Our distinguished panel consisted of Tony Grappone, Partner, Novogradac & Company, John Harper, Founder, Birch Tree Capital, and Curtis Whittaker, Shareholder, Rath, Young, Pignateli. The question on the table was how can Revolution raise the $ 4.2 million it needs to grow the business.

Our expert panel made several key recommendations. First to simply the structure for customers so that it’s akin to home financing – the forms are filled in, just check the appropriate boxes, sign, and off you go. Second was to tap into local investors who have a stake in New Hampshire and want to see our state lead renewable energy initiatives for New England. Local investors equal local benefit. Third was to re-structure the financials vis-à-vis sources of debt, and tax credit programs, and lower interest rates generating a triple bottom line yield for investors. Now Revolution Energy just needs to focus on which dragon to sleigh fist.

Our second entrepreneur, Dick Andersen, President of NextChoice is delivering self-service technology to retailers. How much do you like to wait at the deli line on a busy Saturday morning? NextChoice’s Intelligent Self-service System (NISS) provides world-class interaction between the shopper and the enterprise-class computing power of national retail chains. What’s more, this technology is scalable so if you’re shopping experience is on an iPhone, kiosk, or drive though – you can place the order and pay lickety-split. The Wall Street Journal’s recent article entitled, “Check out the future of shopping” by Ann Zimmerman details all the gizmo’s we’ll be using as we zoom through the grocery store paying speed-pass style as we head for the door, bags and kids in-tow saving 20 minutes per store visit. According to the Journal, further automating the shopping experience creates the urge to spend 10% more. Would you like fries with that?

NextChoice integrates with retail point-of-sale systems and inventory management platforms so that when you order a ham and cheese sandwich, it can calculate the fluctuating price of pork bellies according to the commodities market. The have found a market entry niche today in supermarket delis. This gets their foot in the door for floral, bakery, seafood, or other counter-type venues where you have to take a number and wait, something we’re not very good at anymore.

Our expert panel consisted of Eduarto Alvarez, Founder and President, Vigix, Randy Dow, Co-founder, BDP Technology, and Tim Sweeney, Business Development Manager, Telequip Corporation. What impressed the panel the most was the ability for NextChoice to gather market intelligence about our shopping habits – something retailers want to know. By tracking our buying habits down to the deli counter, or the flower department – they can suggest items, offer incentive programs, and target consumer habits for overall marketing.

The panel was overwhelmingly supportive of the technology given that ROI is easily measurable for “productive vs. non-productive labor time”. If you can walk up, punch in your super bowl week-end deli order at a standing kiosk, finish your shopping, and grab your bar-coded deli order as you head for check-out, you’ve created a lean, efficient, and more profitable deli counter.

Furthermore, with airlines, grocery stores, and other consumer-centric self-service systems in place, the learning curve is almost flat. We are smarter shoppers and generally prefer to get-in and get-out. NextChoice’s challenge will be convincing the enterprise CIO to spring for a pilot. Dick Andersen and the NextChoice team might need to leap-frog to the iPhone app and leap onto the coattails of Scan It and others who are proving that point, scan, and bag is here to stay and that retailers are laughing all the way to the bank, affinity marketing data and loyalty card in hand.

Sounds like both Revolution Energy and NextChoice should heed our panelist’s advice about keeping “them” (engineers) in the office so the Legos don’t spill. This way we can sit back proudly and say, “Yep, I heard that started in New Hampshire”.




Catherine Blake, President
Sales Protocol International
cblake@salesprotoocol.com
www.salesprotocol.com