Description
Our innovation economy is broken. But there's good news: The ideas that will solve our problems are hiding in plain sight.
While big companies in the American economy have never been more successful, entrepreneurial activity is near a 30-year low. More businesses are dying than starting every day. Investors continue to dump billions of dollars into photo-sharing apps and food-delivery services, solving problems for only a wealthy sliver of the world's population, while challenges in health, food security, and education grow more serious.
In The Innovation Blind Spot, entrepreneur and venture capitalist Ross Baird argues that the innovations that truly matter don't see the light of day-for reasons entirely of our own making. A handful of people in a handful of cities are deciding, behind closed doors, which entrepreneurs get a shot to succeed. And most investors are what Baird calls "two-pocket thinkers"-artificially separating their charitable work from their day job of making a profit.
The resulting system creates rising income inequality, stifled entrepreneurial ambition, social distrust, and political uncertainty. Our innovation problem makes all our other problems harder to solve. In this book, Baird demonstrates how and where to find better ideas by lifting up people, places, and industries that are often overlooked. What's more, Baird ultimately outlines how to create long-term success through "one-pocket thinking"-eliminating the blind spot that separates "what we do for a living" and "what we really care about."
Book tour-Village Capital has partners in 35 US cities and 6 international cities with speaking engagements in each over the year following the book's release
Village Capital is considered the best startup investment firm in the world focused on businesses seeking a positive impact
Outreach through Village Capital's email list (20K) and events (~50 in 6 months)
Ross leads the development of an organization that has supported over 600 enterprises on six continents
Ross was recently named one of Washington's top 40 under 40 professionals by the Washington Business Journal
Ross's work has been featured in MIT Innovations, TechCrunch, NextBillion, Forbes, the Huffington Post, and more
Ross is an active speaker
Media partnerships: Donna Byrd, publisher of The Root and VP at Univision is on Village Captial's board of directors, Tyler Brule of Monocle, Tom Foster of Inc. Magazine, editorial team at Medium.com-work to create curated "conversations" around the themes of the book
Organization/affinity partnerships: Marshall Scholarship, Truman Scholarship, University of Virginia, Phillips Exeter Academy, and the Young Entrepreneurs' Collaborative
most of their events are September/October and March/April/May
Ross has 20K Twitter followers between his personal and work accounts
Local markets in Alexandria, VA and Washington, DC
Of foreign interest: Venture Capital has offices in Mexico City; Nairobi, Kenya; London, and Mumbai/Bangalore, India
About the Author
Ross Baird is an entrepreneur and investor who is best known for finding, developing, and investing in entrepreneurs in places and industries where most people aren't looking. He founded Village Capital in 2009 and has worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs in over fifty countries since then. He has visited over a hundred cities worldwide by train, plane, and bus in an effort to find new entrepreneurs and help people supporting them, and he and Village Capital have partnered with over twenty Fortune 500 companies to help large institutions uncover new innovations. Before joining Village Capital, Ross worked for a venture capital firm and was on the founding team of four different startups.
Ross and his work have been featured by more than fifty media outlets including the New York Times, Bloomberg Business Week, Inc., and FastCompany. He has also lectured in entrepreneurship at the University of Virginia since 2012. He has a MPhil from the University of Oxford, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and a BA from the University of Virginia, where he was a Truman Scholar and a Jefferson Scholar.
Reviews
"A pioneering fusion of venture capital and crowd intelligence."
-Matt Bishop, editor for the Economist and author of Philanthrocapitalism
"Baird's motivation for writing the book comes from an insider's knowledge that the system isn't allocating resources to the best and the brightest, just to the best connected and most visible."
-Fast Company
"Every entrepreneur with a great idea should have a fundamental right to start a business. But today, far too many barriers in society prevent the best people from competing. In this book, Baird outlines compelling strategies to find the best innovations-no matter where they are."
-Wendy Guillies, president and CEO, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
"In this time of seismic shifts, our businesses, our governments, and our communities need to work together for our society to succeed-and we need new ideas to get there. Baird identifies the outliers that no one's betting on and compellingly outlines how we can bring them into the mainstream."
-Governor Deval L. Patrick, managing director, Bain Capital Double Impact
"Every single city and community has the power to change the world. But to realize that power, we have to find the ideas and entrepreneurs that people aren't paying attention to. In The Innovation Blind Spot, Baird shows us how to do just that."
-Brad Feld, cofounder, Foundry Group
Book Information
ISBN 9781946885555
Author Ross Baird
Format Paperback
Page Count 240
Imprint BenBella Books
Publisher BenBella Books
Weight(grams) 237g
Dimensions(mm) 210mm * 131mm * 18mm
While big companies in the American economy have never been more successful, entrepreneurial activity is near a 30-year low. More businesses are dying than starting every day. Investors continue to dump billions of dollars into photo-sharing apps and food-delivery services, solving problems for only a wealthy sliver of the world's population, while challenges in health, food security, and education grow more serious.
In The Innovation Blind Spot, entrepreneur and venture capitalist Ross Baird argues that the innovations that truly matter don't see the light of day-for reasons entirely of our own making. A handful of people in a handful of cities are deciding, behind closed doors, which entrepreneurs get a shot to succeed. And most investors are what Baird calls "two-pocket thinkers"-artificially separating their charitable work from their day job of making a profit.
The resulting system creates rising income inequality, stifled entrepreneurial ambition, social distrust, and political uncertainty. Our innovation problem makes all our other problems harder to solve. In this book, Baird demonstrates how and where to find better ideas by lifting up people, places, and industries that are often overlooked. What's more, Baird ultimately outlines how to create long-term success through "one-pocket thinking"-eliminating the blind spot that separates "what we do for a living" and "what we really care about."
About the Author
Ross Baird is an entrepreneur and investor who is best known for finding, developing, and investing in entrepreneurs in places and industries where most people aren't looking. He founded Village Capital in 2009 and has worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs in over fifty countries since then. He has visited over a hundred cities worldwide by train, plane, and bus in an effort to find new entrepreneurs and help people supporting them, and he and Village Capital have partnered with over twenty Fortune 500 companies to help large institutions uncover new innovations. Before joining Village Capital, Ross worked for a venture capital firm and was on the founding team of four different startups.
Ross and his work have been featured by more than fifty media outlets including the New York Times, Bloomberg Business Week, Inc., and FastCompany. He has also lectured in entrepreneurship at the University of Virginia since 2012. He has a MPhil from the University of Oxford, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and a BA from the University of Virginia, where he was a Truman Scholar and a Jefferson Scholar.
Reviews
"A pioneering fusion of venture capital and crowd intelligence."
-Matt Bishop, editor for the Economist and author of Philanthrocapitalism
"Baird's motivation for writing the book comes from an insider's knowledge that the system isn't allocating resources to the best and the brightest, just to the best connected and most visible."
-Fast Company
"Every entrepreneur with a great idea should have a fundamental right to start a business. But today, far too many barriers in society prevent the best people from competing. In this book, Baird outlines compelling strategies to find the best innovations-no matter where they are."
-Wendy Guillies, president and CEO, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
"In this time of seismic shifts, our businesses, our governments, and our communities need to work together for our society to succeed-and we need new ideas to get there. Baird identifies the outliers that no one's betting on and compellingly outlines how we can bring them into the mainstream."
-Governor Deval L. Patrick, managing director, Bain Capital Double Impact
"Every single city and community has the power to change the world. But to realize that power, we have to find the ideas and entrepreneurs that people aren't paying attention to. In The Innovation Blind Spot, Baird shows us how to do just that."
-Brad Feld, cofounder, Foundry Group
Book Information
ISBN 9781946885555
Author Ross Baird
Format Paperback
Page Count 240
Imprint BenBella Books
Publisher BenBella Books
Weight(grams) 237g
Dimensions(mm) 210mm * 131mm * 18mm
