Who Knew How Big it Would Become

January 17, 2010 - Author: Joe Hadzima - Founding judge of the MIT $100K and former Chairman of the MIT Enterprise Forum

The Birth and Growth of the MIT $100K Competition.

It started out as all big things start – small.

Act 1; Scene 1. It is 1987. Setting; First Meeting of the MIT Entrepreneurs Club founded by Peter Mui (Class of ‘83, Course 6). Action: MIT engineer and science students hacking around ideas that they have about new products and cool things. (Note: the E-Club still meets every Tuesday evening and is still led by Richard Shyduroff, who’s attended since its inception). The discussion is technical but eventually turns to how to launch these ideas.

Act 1; Scene 2. Same time. Setting: MIT Sloan New Ventures Club. Action: Sloan management students talking about new business formation and financing. Where do ideas come from?

Act 1; Scene 3. Same year. I am not sure exactly how this happened but the Entrepreneurs Club and the New Ventures Club members start hacking together about new things and new companies.

Act 1; Scene 4. Same year. How about a competition to find the best new business idea at MIT? Note: Initially this was mostly about the next big technology thing. Meeting called by students at the Technology Licensing Office (TLO) with a few invited people, including me. Did a competition make sense? Would you guys be the judges? What should the prize be? $1K is suggested by the students. John Preston, then head of the TLO, suggests $10K which would be enough for a winner and some runners up to at least get a patent filing on record. Result: The $10K is launched as another student activity. Who knew how big it would become……

Act 1; Scene 5. First Year of the Competition. About a dozen entries. They all read like research grant proposals. You could tell what lab they came from based on the printer font. Winner has a technology to clean the surface of silicon wafers using a laser. Later it turns out that IBM has a patent application pending on a very similar technology.

Next Time: Act 2: The $10K Starts to Grow – Funding Provided by David Morgenthaler, founder of Morgenthaler Ventures.

Joe Hadzima is a Managing Director of Main Street Partners, a venture development and technology commercialization firm. He is also President of Main Street Partners’ portfolio company IPVision, Inc., which provides systems and services for the analysis and management of intellectual property. Joe is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, was a founding judge of the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition and was formerly Chairman of the MIT Enterprise Forum. He has been involved with over 130 new ventures over the last 30 years as a venture capitalist, entrepreneur, lawyer and board member.