The Knoxville Chamber, The Development Corporation of Knox County, Tech 20/20 and Rodefer Moss & Company host this annual event to spur the launch and growth of new businesses. The Big Ideas were chosen based on growth potential, innovation and/or technical feasibility, newness of the concept or plan, and viability of a sustainable, competitive advantage.

The UT finalists are:

• CampusLife, Chad Tate:  College-centered social media site focused on facilitating real world connections
• Neural Energy Games, Charles Chin (a former Vol Court winner!):  Educational video games company targeting college freshmen level courses
• PTlink, Trevor Grieco and Collin Howser:  Interactive mobile application that improves recovery by connecting clinicians and patients
• Survature Inc., Jian Huang:  Online survey tool evaluating respondent’s answers and behavior

Contestants will now attend several seminars to prepare and deliver a five-minute pitch on May 7 during Team Selection Night. Inspired by the hit television show The Voice, Team Selection Night engages successful, local entrepreneurs as coaches. After hearing all 15 pitches, coaches Parker Frost, founder of Gigmark Interactive; John Tolsma, owner of Knowledge Launch; and Jimmy Rodefer, CEO of Rodefer Moss & Company, PLLC, will each select three contestants to be part of their team. The three coaches, who all have been recipients of the Knoxville Chamber’s Pinnacle Young Entrepreneur Award, will have one month to mentor their team members before contestants face-off in the Knock Out Competitions.

On June 3, the nine semifinalists will pitch their idea to an independent panel of judges in three separate Knock Out Competitions. Judges will select a winner from each Knock Out Competition, each of who will advance to the “What’s the Big Idea?!” finale on June 20 at Relix Variety Theater.

I am in the middle of starting up a new company.  We came up with a creative name, and I checked the domains before we decided to incorporate, and the domain was free and clear.  The price was less than $15.  All is great, right?

Well, we incorporated the company on March 29 (filed for a C corp in Delaware and Tennessee).  Because of personal reasons, I was delayed in getting the domain reserved.  But a week later, I go into GoDaddy to reserve my domain, and guess what?  They tell me (and I quote):  “Congratulations!  Your domain is available at GoDaddy Auctions for $750!”  Start-ups cannot afford that kind of pricing! 

Needless to say, I was livid. Stupid me for not reserving it when I checked it.  I can’t prove it, but my hypothesis is that GoDaddy monitors incorporation filings and then snaps up the domain. That is just plain sneaky and crosses the ethics line, as far as I am concerned.  I’m sure pure capitalists would say that is smart business.

The end result was that I tacked “tn” on the end of my domain name and got the domain for less than $15 (I didn’t want to reserve through them but my IT resource said they have the best customer service).  They had a survey at the end of the domain registration process.  Needless to say, I rated them the absolute lowest on  trustworthiness and a being a business partner.

In the fall, we revamped the program to reflect the concepts emerging from Silicon Valley, specifically the customer discovery and validation model implemented in the Lean LaunchPad program at Stanford.  When we did that, our fall series grew in size.  This semester, we retained more participants over time and imiproved the quality of the output.  Additionally, we had a record number of competitors — for the first time ever, we had to narrow the field to make the competition manageable for judging.

This spring, 77 people participated, and here is the breakout:

• 62% were students
• 21% from the general public
• 12% did not identify themselves
• 9% were faculty/staff

When we started the program in the fall of 2010, the vast majority were from the College of Business, so outreach across campuses is succeeding!  Of the students:

• 48% were business students
• 29% were science/technology students
• 22% were from other disciplines (law, arts, etc.) 

Even better, one of our repeat judges told us it was clear to him that the quality and polish of the presentations were the best that he has seen so far – he believed that the students are much better prepared for starting their businesses. 

Vol Court is open to anyone, inside or outside of UT, who wants to learn the fundamentals for starting a business.  Join us again in the fall!

“Everything we try to pursue is based on a need already identified in surgery,” he adds in describing the self-funded, three-year old start-up that is located in the University of Tennessee’s (UT) business incubator.

We recently sat down with Doody and William Milam, the company’s Vice President of Engineering, to learn more about SensorMed, its origins, its plans and the manner in which the two joined forces.

Doody is a Knoxville native who earned his undergraduate degree in Family Business and Entrepreneurship at Auburn University and his Master’s in Business Administration from UT’s Knoxville campus.

“I wanted to stay in Knoxville,” he explained, adding that his father, Dr. Michael Doody, a local surgeon, “would create devices that would help him in surgery.” One of those was a technology platform, patented in 2003 but not pursued until the younger Doody matched his desire to remain in Knoxville with the opportunity to commercialize his father’s invention.

Milam is a South Carolina native who came to Knoxville with Philips Electronics in 1995 and later joined Vig Sherrill at ASIC International, which was acquired later by Flextronics, before founding Telesensors.

“We (Telesensors) got walloped by the great recession in 2008,” Milam said, but not before Doody served an internship with the company.

A look around SensorMed’s office clearly underscores the duo’s respective roles. Doody had a relative clean desk, indicating his focus on the business and marketing roles. Milam, the engineer, had parts all around his desk.

As far as SensorMed’s focus, Doody talked about fire safety in operating rooms and the fact that surgical light cables, such as those attached to laparoscopic devices, are one of the main identified burn and fire hazards. When unattached to the scopes, he said that the cables can generate 450° of heat from the end closest to the patient and cause a fire or inflict third-degree skin burns in less than 10 seconds.

SensorMed is using Dr. Doody’s platform technology to sell both disposable and reusable “caps” that can be placed on the end of the surgical light cable to diffuse the heat. The product is called “CableCap.”

For the surgeon and hospital or surgery center, it is a welcome device. “When a surgeon needs light, he needs it right then,” Doody says, adding that “CableCap” can be removed or installed very quickly.

“CableCap” is the first of several products that the SensorMed team plans to bring along. Another addresses an issue that Doody says is “the greatest threat to a patient and most dangerous part of laparoscopy – access to the abdominal cavity.” He explained that more than 50 percent of the complications from this type of surgery occur during the “entry” or “access” phase of the procedure, which requires a physician to insert Veress needles and/trocars into the peritoneal space.

Doody explains that this is a process that relies on the surgeon using their instrument to “feel” their way through the various layers of the abdomen. Using SensorMed’s Veress needle guidance device, the surgeon receives a series of auditory and visual cues, signaling the Veress needle tip’s precise entry into the patient’s peritoneal cavity.

“The Veress guide will effectively eliminate the guess work,” Milam said and showed how it works using a grapefruit. “We are adding sight and sound to what has been the surgeon’s feel in the past.”

For SensorMed, it appears that generating ideas to commercialize is not a challenge, particularly with a surgeon who is also an inventor. Instead, it’s the “difficulty of taking it (a medical device technology) all the way when you’re a company of our size,” Doody says. “We can take a product idea from concept stage to commercially viable, but then we need to partner with others to bring it to market.”

Doody sees two options in the future for SensorMed – establish partnerships or a pursue significant funding to ramp-up of R & D, clinical work and the start-up’s team. “We are actively soliciting partnerships and have multiple possibilities,” he says. “The decision on what is best for us is under review now.”

REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM PERSHING YOAKLEY & ASSOCIATES, 2012