June 21st, 2006
Speaker - Mark Blanchard, Vermont Small Business Development Center (SBDC)
Topic - From Contractor to Product Company, Planning Your Transition
Software contractors garner inside knowledge of firms and industries for which they create functionality. This presents opportunities to know what needs customers may have and how widespread those needs are. This awareness in turn can be the basis for software product or product/service offerings. The software developer's expertise regarding customer business, however, is double-edged and presents certain challenges.
In this session we will touch on "Work for Hire" contracts as opposed to being hired to work. Developers face all the usual hurdles of launching new products plus some special cautions regarding "whose intellectual property is it, anyway?"
Speaker Bio: Mark is the Technology & Commercialization Advisor for VT SBDC. This statewide position was created in 2003 to focus on technology companies. Mark has significant experience in the private sector including success with the federal SBIR Program. He has a broad business management background ranging from the multinational corporation, to the small-to midsize technology business to the very small start-up. This gives him down-to-earth appreciation of the issues, problems and opportunities facing innovators as they grow their enterprises. Mark earned an MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth. He serves the entire state operating from the White River Junction office of the SBDC.