The Value in Venture Forth

Jonas recently blogged about the fiscal benefits of Tech Ranch's Venture Forth (formerly knownas "Employee to Entrepreneur" and affectionately shortened to E2E) program. Factoring in access to space, tools and expertise, brings the estimate up to about $100,000 in support for a new venture. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Personally, though, I think there is far more value to be had out of Venture Forth than that.

My husband and I recently celebrated our first year in Austin. When we came to town last year, the plan was to find a J-O-B just like we'd had in New York. Of course, timing is everything and the economy elected not to cooperate with our plans, so much as I tried to resist it, a very reluctant business was born.

For months we struggled, shifted focus, took project work and generally ran around in circles trying to figure out how to make a consulting practice work. On June 24th we happened across the announcement for the Tech Ranch Cedar Park Town Hall that night, and decided to check it out. Before we even made it home that night, my husband and I decided that we both needed to take the Venture Forth class.

Without a doubt, it was the best choice we made since moving to Austin.

The real issue that my husband and I were struggling with became crystal clear within the first week of class: we were working at cross-purposes. We were not working on something we were both passionate about. We were expecting us each to do things well out of the area of our strengths. We were unfocused and struggling with our message. And we were neglecting much of the social and interactive stimuli that helped provide some accountability to what we were trying to accomplish.

After spending months of trying to half-heartedly trying to work on my venture, by the second week of class, my husband had started crystallizing his vision for his own venture -- something that he could be truly passionate about -- and then he was off to the races. Aside from getting guidance on some of the key steps for planning, simply having the opportunity to be connected with other people working on similar types of ventures has proven invaluable to my husband's excitement and confidence in his venture's potential.

Ironically, the single biggest benefit I personally got out of Venture Forth was a surprise on that I didn't expect at the time: I took a J-O-B on a temporary basis. It was the type of job that was highly appealing on paper, right up my alley and a great chance to really get my stride back. And after months of waiting, looking, networking and generally doing everything I knew how to do, within a week of walking in the front door, I knew it was too late. With the help of Tech Ranch, I had finally figured out that working for someone else wasn't for me, anymore, and that it was time to focus on what I cared about.

So while Jonas' math sounds really great, in the end, I think it barely scratches the surface. For people who have a startup, Venture Forth is a great starting point. But for people who aren't sure yet, and who want to test the waters, Venture Forth could be the turning point. And how do you put a price tag on that?