Adam Torres and Chip F. Parker discuss Octane’s Medical Innovation Forum.
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Show Notes:
Listen to Octane’s Medical Innovation Forum coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Chip F. Parker, President and CEO at LabX Ventures. Explore LabX Ventures and Octane’s Medical Innovation Forum.
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About Chip F. Parker
Specializes in developing lead platform paradigm-shift opportunities, as well as new category design and implementation. Chip’s greatest interest is to lead new strategies and work on new ideas and platforms that do not yet exist in the market but will soon take their place as emerging technologies and present new investment opportunities.
Chip is also the leader and chief architect of the category and discipline of venture capital called, “Venture Science”. Venture Science is a breakthrough multi-disciplinary field that uses validated scientific methodologies to make objective, and unbiased analysis of business practices and outcomes.
Starting and funding one of Southern California’s first Internet service providers (ISP) in 1993. In 1996 Chip formed the Tech Coast name and brand with the objective of attracting capital and talent, creating visibility, and forming a united tech community initiative that spanned from Santa Barbara to San Diego. The Tech Coast, and the Tech Coast Initiative was born, elevating the region from “not ranked” 1 to 50 in the US to ranked #3, for total venture capital dollars deployed by region in just 4 years.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, today I’m at the Medical Innovation Forum powered by Octane, and my guest is Chip Parker.
Chip, welcome to the show. Well, thank you. I appreciate that, Adam. And yeah, here we are. Octane is setting the bar again. Yeah, so just, just love being here. Now you, Chip, I mean, you predate even Octane and some of the other things with one of the initiatives that you founded. Maybe, can you, can you talk a little bit about that?
Yeah, sure. Thank you. It’s well, it started off by being a kind of a frustrated serial entrepreneur and, We can’t relate to that at home right now. Yeah, well, when you’re, when the challenge is, is when you’re a visionary founder, you obviously have some vision, something that you see, something that you.
Believe that, you know, that, that other people don’t know. And commonly the problem is, is that your vision is just farther than what the capital can see. They’re, they’re just used to looking at what they’re looking at in the moment, at least in the old days, that was the case. So in my case, I was early in the internet business pre web browser.
And I was looking for the community. Now, if I had been up in Silicon Valley, clearly they have a community and they’re associated with Stanford. And it’s a very Tight nitched area in there, but down here in Orange County in Southern California there really wasn’t that community to be able to to to click into to start so I mean for me it was kind of a funny story I’m going to start in the internet business and i’m looking around I was looking for the octopus Yeah.
And it didn’t exist. And, and there was a, an organization called the Orange County Business Council. And I went over to the Orange County Business Council. I said, Oh, I’m an entrepreneur. I want to start this tech company and, and this is going to be a great area to do it. What year was this, roughly? Oh, this was in 1990, 91, 92, 93.
Okay. That’s awesome. Web browser was 95. Yep. I’m just trying to get the text. Yeah, I mean there was buildings around, but there just wasn’t the ecosystem. I understand. And so I, I met with the business council and, and, and they’re awesome and they’re great and they’re still a big leader in the community, but they said, well, but we’re all real estate.
You know, we’re, we’re founded by real estate guys and our initiatives are real estate and legislation issues, but you know, real estate, we, we don’t, we, we, we don’t have something like that. I said, well, okay, well, where is it? Who is it? And they’re like, yeah. It we it’s not here. It doesn’t exist. We have one guy in the back that talks like you go talk to him It was that kind of story and that was just the early days of being in the internet business and And going through that.
I went through the pain point of not having the community to be able to plug into So as I exited that I came up with the idea Branding the region under the name tech coast like a silicon valley from santa barbara to san diego and create an ecosystem So I went up to the valley went up to to silica valley and I talked to those guys and I said Hey, this is what i’m thinking about doing down here but I don’t want to do it without your blessing and because you guys are the king of it and you know, can we have our brand and you have your brand?
Can we work together? And they loved it. And they said, Hey, we need to come together. And they, they just, they opened their books, opened their records, told me how they did it, how they rolled it out, what the, what the plan would be. So that, that was the beginning of creating that. And it was funny because.
At the time, there was a Newsweek article cover, Newsweek, and it was one of those directional aerial things that said 50 top high tech areas in Southern California, or in the United States, and here was Silicon Valley, and Boston, and Austin, but there was, there was nothing for Southern California. It didn’t rank.
Yeah. And I told everybody, I said, this is the problem. That is the problem. Startup entrepreneurs. What are you going to do? Where’s the community? And, and, you know, I grew up down here in Balboa Island and I really didn’t want to move to the Bay area. So that was the beginning of that and putting it together and, and tying it back to Octane, which is just phenomenal because I remember when we first started this whole thing.
It was very difficult to get anybody on stage and the last octane event Here I saw the business council and uci and bill carpool With octane i’m like that is the secret sauce. This is how you’re doing You’re, you know coming together with that collaborative environment in the community. So here we are.
It’s 20 years later And octane did it. I mean they they are They’re they’re kind of the lightning rod In the region for pulling people together with, you know, signature events and membership and connecting and all the things that Bill and Janelle and, and Mike are doing over there, that is the secret sauce that I had been talking about all along.
And it’s just, it’s just amazing. And I’ve done a number of deals along the way. So I’ve been kind of busy as an entrepreneur, but just to see it come together and, you know, The impact yeah, and then the consistent because many other people have tried it for sure. They have been in tried and true And and I think the the best is yet to come.
I think it’s just you know, I know next year they’re announcing the the neuro conference, you know that will be what they’re doing So I remember it started with one signature event now, it seems like there’s one about every other month so hats off to octane and what they did and You I look back and I say, Hey, it, it, it is coming together.
And, you know, I knew it was going to be a multi decade, you know, initiative, but it’s all part of that. And so here we are. And now the entrepreneurs have a place to go, a place to feed into the acquisition guys are there, the universities are there, but I’m telling you 20 years ago, well, Octane’s been around 20 years, 25 years ago, it literally did not exist and it was a shame.
Because we had industry clusters here. We had 180 institutions, higher learning. We had 16 industry clusters, deep water ports, rail system, airports, the entire it’s a microcosm of the global economy is here, is in Southern California. So there’s, there’s really no reason that it can’t you know, rank right at the top.
And now you look at the numbers and you’ve got. Bay area and boston and southern california and san diego or that’s one two and three now, so yeah Anyways, so we are the from the I want you to answer this from two different points of view So the investor or the acquirer and then also from the from the the entrepreneur The person with a company looking for capital.
Why should both of those groups be here? Well, there there’s really three questions in there. You’ve got the investor and you have to look at the buckets of investors the the thing that most people don’t understand is that Less than one percent of all deals are quote venture capital backed So what do you do with the other 99 that are out there now often?
They are entrepreneurs that are just misunderstood or they’re an engineer that’s really good at their craft But they’re not a good salesperson and they and they just can’t quite communicate it. So so so you you have that gap there of of Venture capital deals versus 99 percent of the rest of the community So where do those type of investors and and entrepreneurs look or mainly the entrepreneurs, right?
They’re looking for You Non venture capital non institutional money. So and i’ve done it and i’ve done it several times and you it’s hard you bootstrap it You get, you know, your friends and family and angels now, luckily We have angel groups now. When I started there were no angel groups and now You got a number of different angel groups and individual angels like in there, but that’s still not enough, you know You’ve got to be able to take that You know What I say to entrepreneurs is do everything you can to get to revenue as fast as you can You know, you’ve got to get to if you can get to revenue within a year.
Yeah you know that that’s going to bring bring people back and but you know, that’s that’s kind of happy talk You know, everybody says that yeah and in many times you’ve got a lot of r and d that’s in there. So You You need to have CEOs that have enough of a personality And and a good product to be able to continue.
There’s no I tell on all entrepreneurs. I say Rule number one if you’re raising money never turn your phone off I remember one time my phone rang. It was five in the morning on a sunday and i’m like Okay, this has got to be a crank call what’s going on here and sure enough It was an investor back east that said oh, I just wanted to let you know we’re in and we need your wiring instructions.
We’re going to wire on monday morning. Wow And and so who would have thought I would not have not at five in the morning. They were back east It doesn’t matter those guys. Hey, they don’t have time to bleed right? They they just the He’s like Hey, I thought you’d wanna know. Well, yeah, I wanted to know and that was an important call, but so you, you, you gotta take it.
That was a good Sunday afternoon, wasn’t it? Got you. Got you. Gotta show up. So so you got the investor side, which is your VCs and then everybody else in there. Mm-Hmm. And of course your strategic corporates that, you know, fit within the, the realm too. Yeah. Entrepreneurs. It’s tough. I mean, it is it’s hand-to-hand combat.
Yep. You just gotta stay with it. And I just tell all entrepreneurs Hey, if you really believe in, you know, in your marrow right there in your bones, that you have something, then you just have to be a hundred percent and you have to stay in because, you know, if the other guy is 99%, you know, you’re, you’re going to win and you’re going to stay with it, but.
At the same time, you also have to know that you do have something that, because a lot of folks are very passionate about their idea, their innovation, but they may not know, is there really a market there? But that’s the beauty of what’s going on at Octane out here on the floor. Yeah. You’ve got so many different people and, and, you know, advisors and helper.
I mean, shoot, Octane throws the house at you and they don’t even charging anything for it. I mean, for the most part, yeah, membership fees and things like that. But yeah. But they’re not a, you know, big pay to play type of organization and that, that’s, that’s, you know, part of the commitment to you know, to the ecosystem.
So, I don’t know you, there were three questions in there. So when you give me RAM. No, that was the question. Cause my, one of my goals is I want, why, why I’m doing this coverage is because I’ve, Seeing what a great service to doing to the entrepreneurial community. Like I see it. I, I see people leaning in. I see the value people are getting, like deals are getting done.
People are making real connections. And I traveled the country and part of the world, not all the world, but but doing conferences like this. And there’s different energies. There’s different environments. There’s different conversations happening in at the lunches and things like that. And there’s, you know, people looking at their clock when they’re ready to go home.
And then there’s people that are like. Leaning in and they’re like, wow, the day is gone. How did that happen? This is one of the places where you blink and the day is gone because it’s a for good reasons Nobody’s looking at their clock. Like everybody’s trying to maximize their minutes. They’re maximizing their opportunities and there’s just different energy So that’s one of the things that keeps me coming back This is my second conference covering and i’m sure we’re going to be doing some more.
Yeah They definitely do the best job in town by far. Yeah, I mean over You for decades now, I’ve seen a lot of people try but Octane has, has, has really, you know, made that mark. But I’ll tell you a funny story. You talk about the end of the day. And I still do, but I can’t today. But I, I always say to myself absolutely stay to the end, stay to the end.
And I’ve just made that my rule, you know, get there on time and stay to the end because you never know who you’re going to meet. And for some reason, it always happens to me. That I’ll be walking out and the very last person I meet was the best contact, you know, of the meeting. And I remember one time I was at an Octavia event and it’s a two day event and by four o’clock, I was pretty fatigued and I found myself walking to the car and I got halfway to the car and I’m like, I can’t do this.
I can’t do this. It’s another hour. I got to go back. I turn around and I go back, I, I probably just need a little walk or something. Yeah, of course. Got that little charge. Yeah. Went back and sure enough, you know, there was stayed to the end and the very last person that I met as we were walking out together was the best contact of the day.
Amazing. So it happens to me all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I those are just kind of, you know, the battle stories. That’s awesome. It’s serial entrepreneur. Well, well last question. Yeah. If somebody wants. To follow you on social media Connect, check out a website. Boy, anything else? Like how do they do that?
Yeah, I’m not really a big of Are you stealth mode ? No, no. I, I, well, I, I’m just, I, I’m a little, I’m a little bit stealth mode, but not, not really. I mean, I’m, I’m, I’m a visible and I, I take all my calls and my company is called Lab X Ventures. Mm-Hmm. . And you know, I’m on LinkedIn and, you know, awesome. Kind of the, the normal channels that you would find out there just under my name.
But, yeah, you get heads down, start, you know, it’s funny, you’re heads down working on R& D or then all of a sudden you’re out in the field, you know, trying to sell it. And and that’s what happened to me in the internet business, although I had some good partners that did the techie and the R& D stuff.
We each took a discipline. And and just worked it one brick at a time. And you just, you, you just have to wake up with that attitude that you just, you think, you know, what a day is going to be like, or you’re up against those big challenges, you just stay with it, just stay with it, stay with it. And then.
Some break will come in there, some person that comes in there and you can have days that you wake up and you think, Oh God, it’s going to be the hardest day of my life. And by the end of the day, it was one of your best days. And that, that, that’s one of the, it’s, it’s just the juice that is in this industry, but I can’t say enough about Octane and Bill and Janelle and Mike and the rest of the crew, what they’re doing there.
They are just superstars in the market and everybody should. The place to be awesome. And that’s a great way to end it. And for everybody watching, just so you know We’ll put the links to the website and linkedin and all that other good stuff in the show notes so you can just click on them and head right on over and Speaking of the audience if this is your first time with mission matters and you haven’t done it yet Hit that subscribe or follow button.
This is a daily show each and every day. We’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration. That’s going to help you along the way on your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And again, thank you so much for coming out. I really appreciate it. I’ll see you, Adam.
I’ll see you, Adam. Very well.