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June 25, 2002--Allan Ferguson, ‘65 EG, returned to UD May 21, to offer students some career advice from his perspective as an internationally recognized venture capitalist, and to hear their presentations in the class “Entrepreneurship and Risk: Meeting the Challenges of a Start-up Enterprise,” a multidisciplinary course that has both MBA and engineering students.
The course, which featured a series of lectures by legal, scientific and business professionals, examined the critical issues that each of these fields poses to entrepreneurs planning to launch new business ventures.
Ferguson’s topic, “The Components of a Successful Venture Presentation,” addressed many of these issues and the challenges faced by emerging entrepreneurs in today’s highly competitive and rapidly changing marketplace.
“During the 1990s, Fortune 500 companies reduced their workforce by about 1 million employees,” Ferguson said. “In this same period, businesses started by venture capitalists helped create more than 12 million new jobs.”
Venture capitalists are described by Ferguson as people or corporations who invest in companies that have the potential to develop into significant contributors to the economy, but often find it difficult to obtain start-up funding from the more traditional lending institutions.
“We look for entrepreneurs with scientific vision,” Ferguson said. “We come on as members of a new company’s board of directors, build a management team and provide the start-up capital.”
As managing director of 3i, an international venture capital company with national offices in Menlo Park, Ca., and Waltham, Maine, Ferguson draws from more than 15 years of experience that includes being a managing partner of Aspen Ventures and a general partner of Atlas Ventures, investing in life science and information technology companies.
He also has held senior operating positions at Johnson & Johnson, Ortho Diagnostics Systems Inc. and Damon Biotech, where he served as managing director and senior vice president responsible for European operations.
Ferguson, who earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at UD, has attended the Harvard Executive Management program. Recently, he was named to the board of directors of the National Venture Capital Association, a group representing 475 venture capital and private equity organizations.
Ferguson told the class of about 35 students that many changes have taken place in the business world, especially in terms of career options and investment opportunities.
“You are very fortunate today, because it took us 20 years just to learn what venture capitalism is,” Ferguson said. “When I was in school, students were trained to go to work for a company where you were expected to stay for your entire career.”
Today, Ferguson oversees a company that has invested $440 million in venture technology firms during the last six months and has total assets of more than $10 billion.
While class participants were concerned with seeking more modest sums for their start-up enterprises, they addressed many of the same issues mentioned by Ferguson during his presentation.
During their eight-minute presentations, students talked about items and issues such as product definition, competitors in the field and the need to clearly demonstrate to potential customers the special advantages of the proposed product or service.
Gonzalo R. Arce, chairperson of electrical and computing engineering and one of four faculty members involved with the class, said the course adds a new dimension to the education his department provides to engineering students.
“The students extracted all the important points and recommendations they received from the various entrepreneurs who lectured in class, and they structured their presentations on these principles,” Arce said. “The presentations were really well done.”
Scott Jones, professor of accounting and management information systems and a co-instructor in the course, said that working with other instructors broadens the faculty perspective on issues facing colleagues and students in other disciplines, while demonstrating to students the need for cooperation between the business and scientific community.
“If you look at where technology is going, interdisciplinary collaboration is the key to success,” Jones said. “Just look at the Center for Composite Materials and the Delaware Biotechnology Institute and you will see that to play in the scientific research game today, you clearly have to have these collaborations.”
John Rabolt, chairperson of materials sciences, said that the course also emphasizes that good science and engineering and good economics are not necessarily related, and that large and small companies often decide not to pursue a certain engineering project because although sound scientifically, the venture may not be economically feasible.
“The final lesson students learn from the founders of small companies is never to run out of cash,” Rabolt said. “No matter how good your idea or business model, if you cannot m meet your payroll, you are out of business.”
For Ferguson, who has served on Chemical Engineering Advisory Board and the development campaign for the College of Engineering, returning to his alma mater to share his career experiences with students just seemed a natural extension of his continuing involvement with the UD engineering community.
“I am interested in trying to help students because of all the help I received here as an undergraduate in the 1960s,” Ferguson said.
“By giving me the analytical skills that I need in my business, UD has contributed greatly to my success.”
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